hold out your hand

I'm doing the early S8 rewatch for 'research' (cue derisive laughter) purposes. AND HOLY SHIT, SHOULDN'T IT GET . . . NOT SO GOOD AT SOME POINT?

I can't even deal with how good Kiefer and Annie are. Sure, all the subplots suck and President Pompadour's hair is ten miles high and his entire family have different accents even though they're all supposed to be from Fakestan BUT I DON'T CARE.

Jack can't even TALK on the comm at the end of 8x05, because he's so spazzed that Renee wants Vlad to shoot her. GUH.

In other news, I am 100% thinking about buying 50 Shades of Grey just so I can speak about it with authority.

In other other news, I really should watch The Avengers, if only to pretend I'm one of the cool kids.

In other other other news, I'm still compiling a fic playlist and always open for recs:)

Happy Mother's Day!

After the insane drama of het_bigbang last year, I had decided, 100% and without a doubt, that I would not, under any circumstances, be participating this year.

And then the mod pops up this post, which says that there will be a 10k mini-bang option.

I just. GAH!!! In any case, this is also a PSA for anybody and everybody who might want to participate in this. Despite the angst and all that crap, I had so much fun, and the people in that comm are some of the best people on LJ. /PSA

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

fandom: 24
title: all of these lines
word count: 486
warnings: Spoilers for the series, mentions of torture and general PTSD
a/n: This is for adrenalin211, who prompted with something totally different but than said she'd rather read this. Totally unbetaed, so chyeah. We'll see if you think so once you're done, A:P The complete list of prompts is here.

Title and cut text are from Brandi Carlile's "The Story."

( no they don't know who I really am, and they don't know what I've been through like you do )

HOW is it six days until Christmas? I just don't understand. Yikes. Also, do you guys have snow? We have no snow. Nor any snow in the foreseeable future. I would really like to special order some at the moment. How is everybody (well, everybody who celebrates) dealing with the final rush of holiday madness? As a parent, I found this comic strip wildly appropriate. They're all pretty funny, especially if you scroll back a few to the plastic surgery one:)

( Really. Just fangirling. )

The awesome of adrenalin211's last fic for me has officially broken my brain, so I'm not sure what Christmas fic will or will not be appearing. But I'm trying. And trying is half the battle. Or something?

It snowed a little:) Given this weather, I will take what I can get. Happy Thursday! What's going on with you guys?

Holy Tim Olyphant's stomach muscles, I wrote something in which Renee doesn't even have a line of dialogue. Anyway, more lalalalala, me attempting to shake out the massive brain cobwebs. This is for xbedhead. Blame her and kcountess, who wrote fic that got me all Jack/Kim nutty. Blame the squash on the fact that I'm a mom.

( Five Times Jack Held Kim's Hand and One Time He Couldn't )

OMG, it's snowing. I can't even cope with my flaily joy.

Title: What If You Catch Me, Where Would We Land
Author: leigh57
Pairing: Jack Bauer/Renee Walker
Word Count: Approximately 34,000 total – a little under 3000 for this chapter
Rating/Warnings: R; sex, violence, language, references to physical and sexual abuse, spoilers for the entire series
Summary: But every once in a while when the guards were down, he’d click off the filters and let himself have her back, only for a minute. Light of her smile, smell of the skin on her neck, brush of her hand on his chest, checking for wounds. Rich stereo soundtrack of her voice.
Author's notes: With Chapter One

Final note on putting up this chapter: It’s weird, is what it is, being more or less done with this giant thing. I’m sure I’ll mess with it as time goes on, because I’m always fussing with stuff. But for now, a huge ‘thank you’ to anybody who made it through the entire thing, and one final giant shout-out to adrenalin211 and dealan311, without whom this story never would have happened. Oh! And I should also give credit to alwaysashipper, because the entire idea started with one of her prompts.

( I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you )

Title: What If You Catch Me, Where Would We Land
Author: leigh57
Pairing: Jack Bauer/Renee Walker
Word Count: 33,600 total – approximately 9000 for this chapter
Rating/Warnings: R; sex, violence, language, references to physical and sexual abuse, spoilers for the entire series
Summary: But every once in a while when the guards were down, he’d click off the filters and let himself have her back, only for a minute. Light of her smile, smell of the skin on her neck, brush of her hand on his chest, checking for wounds. Rich stereo soundtrack of her voice.
Author's notes: With Chapter One

( If my heart was a house (you’d be home) )

Title: What If You Catch Me, Where Would We Land
Author: leigh57
Pairing: Jack Bauer/Renee Walker
Word Count: 33,600 total – approximately 5000 for this chapter (I’ll put one up every couple days so as not to spam the comm.)
Rating/Warnings: R; sex, violence, language, references to physical and sexual abuse, spoilers for the entire series
Summary: But every once in a while when the guards were down, he’d click off the filters and let himself have her back, only for a minute. Light of her smile, smell of the skin on her neck, brush of her hand on his chest, checking for wounds. Rich stereo soundtrack of her voice.
Author's notes: With Chapter One

( I lie awake and try to recall how your body felt beside me )

Spammy McSpamerson today, but I can't help posting this, and this special part I'm not even going to cut, because it gave me such an explosion of YES YES YES that I can't even cope. Full text of this amazing article is here. Thanks to surreallis for the link.

HERE IS MY OWN SPECIAL FAVORITE PART, FOR REASONS EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER READ A WORD OF MY JOURNAL WILL ALREADY KNOW;)

"How To Defend Manpain:

Of course, because shows and movies so often set things up in this way – "the woman has to die so that the man can have a story" – manpain becomes easy to defend, in fannish circles, via a sort of fatalistic Watsonian attitude. "Why did they fridge that lady," folks will say, and other folks will come in to helpfully explain to you that hey, if they hadn't killed the lady, how would the plot have possibly gone on? They needed that lady to die in order for the dude to have an emotional arc! There is no other possible writing decision that can create plot! Also often writers don't seem to exist, or producers, or directors – the show will seem to just spring organically from the ground, rather than being made by people who made choices. Check out, for example, this amazing page on the internet: Renee Walker's Death Scene. This is a page about a character's ridiculous and sudden death on 24, and it's on a website that's devoted to the actress who plays her, so everyone there is pretty sad or pissed off about her death – they loved that character and that actress! But I think the whole comments section really shows how manpain works, and how it gets propped up and defended, all that talk about what "has to happen," about "what's necessary to trigger the plot," about how this isn't a "shock value" death, but an "important" one – and when they say "important," they mean "important to Jack Bauer, the dude with the manpain."

What really amazes me, speaking of shock value deaths, is the degree to which these manpain-inducing moments, especially the ones where ladies die, are defended as "edgy" storytelling in some way, as "shocking" – when in fact they're anything but. They're blase, boring, predictable, and so repetitious that . . . well, that I could make this vid. No one is shocked when the hero's girlfriend dies, and it's as far from edgy as could be; edgy storytelling would look very different. Manpain isn't used as a narrative technique because it's creative or surprising – it's used because it's easy, lazy, and follows on well-tread paths that are familiarly and comfortably sexist, racist, and heterosexist."

Thank you, yes, that is all, the end, kthnxbai. *cheers*

Title: Catch This Tide Back Home
Author: leigh57
Characters: Jack, Renee, little Teri
Summary: He’d always assumed that on the off chance he ever made it back to this place, he’d be alone.
Warnings: S8 AU, hurt/comfort, language
Disclaimer: They’re not mine, but it’s super fun to borrow them.
A/N: Under the cut.

(Catch This Tide Back Home)