Title: The Tear in the Sky
Author: zubeneschamali
Artist: illiminal
Rating: PG
Word count: 4703
Summary: How Season Nine should have started. Sam's recovering from the damage the Trials have wreaked on his body when he notices that something's not quite right—not with him, but with Dean.

A/N: spn_reversebang does it to me again: shows me an intriguing piece of art that makes me want to know what's going on so badly that I have to sit down and write it. I wish RL hadn't made writing such a struggle this year, so I owe illiminal a lot for putting up with me. I hope I did your art justice. Thanks also to morganoconner for being my proxy during claims and beta reading at the last minute.

Small versions of the art are embedded in the fic, including the title, but please look at the full versions here and tell illiminal how awesome it is. I'm so pleased to have been able to work on this!

The full version with art can be found on AO3 here.

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If you follow me here or on Twitter, you know how much of a Cubs fan I am. I've talked before about how important the Cubs were to my childhood, or at least their failures. >.< But that's something you have to understand about why them winning the World Series (THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES!) is such a big deal. It's not just that they hadn't won a championship since 1908, the longest any U.S. sports team has gone without by a good forty years. It's not just that my grandfather went his entire life without seeing them win, and my dad has gone 75 years without seeing them win (like the tons of other people being spontaneously honored on the bricks outside Wrigley Field), and that watching and listening to the Cubs with them was such an important part of my childhood. It's not just that there are sweet stories like David Ross, the oldest player ever to be in the World Series, hitting a home run last night, or the rookie Carl Edwards, Jr., starting to pitch in the crucial bottom of the tenth inning, or that the emininetly shippable Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo (known as Bryzzo because they're best buds and bat one after the other) collaborated for the last out.

It's that after decades, even a century, of Cub fans going for years without even a shot at the playoffs and then having their hearts broken by ALMOST getting there but not quite, we've learned to protect ourselves. Like late-series SPN fans, we don't get our hopes up that we're going to get what we want. We have low expectations and are happy when we beat them. We see things start to go downhill, just start to decline, and we loudly proclaim, "Told you so! That's why we can't have nice things!" and give up hope. If we actually fall behind, we just want it to be over quickly so we don't have to watch.

And yet.

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This is kind of ironic given the comment I left in the post, but you should all go check out dugindeep's discussion of feedback and fandom and what's happening to both: http://dugindeep.livejournal.com/438044.html. I know LJ isn't completely dead; I still have multiple posts on personal and fic topics per day on my screen. So what can we do to make it more lively and ensure artists and authors keep producing?

Wow, it's been a long time. Short version: I had a very busy semester, I'm writing a book that's due at the end of the summer, and my state is at the front of the pack in the race to destroy public higher education in the U.S. I'm back at running (one more half marathon under my belt), and I just got back from a wonderful two weeks in Colorado. I'm really struggling with fic writer's block right now, but that's a story for another time. I've shown up for the first time in months to ask for your help with another quilt!

Last year I made this one based on the patterns people were able to get for me from across the country. The Row by Row experience is back, this time with over 3000 quilt shops across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Each store came up with their own 9"x36" pattern based on the theme of "Home Sweet Home." The patterns are free -- but you have to go to the store to get them. Most shops also have kits, but I'm just looking for patterns. Can you help me out? Before September 5th?

( List of places with really cool patterns... )

If you live in any of these places, or will be traveling through, or know someone who does, I'd love to hear from you! As always, I totally understand if you can't get to a store or aren't willing. No worries. But if you can help, I'll send you a little something quilty as a thank you. :)

I was in fifth grade. It was the end of the school day, and the principal made the announcement over the intercom while I was sitting in Miss Beezley's classroom. The Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded, and all of the astronauts were lost.

I remember riding the bus home thinking it had to be a mistake, or an awful joke of some kind. Things like that didn't happen. There was a teacher on board, for goodness' sake, not just astronauts. Why would the principal say something like that when it couldn't possibly be true?

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Title: The Life I Left Behind Me is a Cold Room
Author: zubeneschamali
Rating: PG
Pairing: pre-Rey/Finn/Poe
Word count: 988
Spoilers: Um, yeah. Set some indeterminate time after SW:TFA, spoilers galore.
Summary: It's not like Rey isn't used to the cold, but she really wishes the sun would shine on this planet once in a while.

A/N: When you don't intend to start writing in a new fandom, but you get a new trope_bingo card that includes "huddle for warmth," and you realize that Rey would probably be cold on any planet that's not a desert, and...yeah. Thanks to morganoconner for the beta reading and squeeing. ;) Title from Sarah McLachlan.

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I gave my final exam today, and despite it being held at 8 AM when class normally meets at 10, I think everyone showed up. Eventually. Now I get to grade 6 short answer questions 107 times ha ha ha FML and its dedication to good pedagogical assessment.

Nevertheless, I'm in a good mood because Mr. Z is coming home tomorrow. :D

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Hi! Thanks so much to everyone who has offered to visit their local quilt shop (or send a friend to do so) and get a Row by Row pattern for me. I really appreciate it, and a little something is forthcoming to show that appreciation. :)

I looked through the Facebook pages associated with the hundreds of stores participating in this event, and I found a few that I really must have. Some of them for tentacle reasons, some because they're just gorgeous, some because I want them on the wall of my office. I'm sure I won't actually get them all, but if anyone lives in or near these places or will be passing through before September 8, would you be willing to pick up a free pattern for me?

( List below the cut... )

Bonus: If I get one of the tentacle patterns (marked with ~~), I'll make it as a donation for the Wincon auction. (If not in time for this year, then next year.)

Well, the good news is, I correctly self-diagnosed why my foot's been hurting when I run. Thanks, Internet!

( Posterior tibial tendinitis )