Everlark Comedy! Be Forewarned

Self just made her first batch of oatmeal/chocolate chip/raisin cookies ever and they are really BAD.

Good thing she got an alert for a new installment of the Detective Mellark series (Dear readers, indeed yes: There is a detective series written with Peeta Mellark as the head of a Detective Agency and Katniss Everdeen as one of his gumshoes)

In this installment of the Detective Mellark series, Katniss and Peeta decide to compete in a TV game show called “The Marriage Game” (Why? Who knows? Because detective agencies run short of funds and the quickest way to raise them is by competing in a television game show?)

Anyhoo, Katniss and Peeta are one of four couples left standing for the final round. The other three couples are:

• Primrose Everdeen/ Rory Hawthorne
• Gale Hawthorne/ Madge Undersee
• Annie Cresta/ Finnick Odair

One of the questions is: “What is your partner’s favorite thing to nibble on at the movies?”

The interviewer is, of course, none other than Caesar Flickerman.

Over to you, Gale and Madge!

Gale: Um. That’s a hard one. I’ll go with Twizzlers.

(Madge frowns and turns over her card. It says: HIS FINGERNAILS)

Gale: My fingernails! Why would you say that?

Madge: Oh my God, Gale! Look at these things! (Grabs Gale’s hands and holds them up. Camera zooms in for a close-up) LOOK! LOOK! I should dip your fingertips in gasoline to keep you from biting them.

Caesar: Oh, Madge. They are stubby. You should have Octavia work on them.

Madge: That’s a good idea. (To Gale) First thing tomorrow, you’re getting a mani-pedi.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Everlark Fan Fiction of the Day: Game of Thrones/Hunger Games Mash-Up

So excited because self started writing a sequel to First Life, which was published in Juked last July. The way that story ended, Dragon’s grip on reality seemed disturbingly fragile. Especially after what happened to BFF Her. Self’s new story starts the day after First Life ended, in the same classroom with the same teacher, Fire Lizard.

In between writing the sequel, she’s also teaching her on-line class in Essential Beginnings. For breaks, she reads fan fiction.

She just found a really interesting one last week: a Game of Thrones/ Hunger Games mash-up.

Here are the ships:

• Arya/Gendry (Self mourned the separation of these two in an earlier season of Game of Thrones)
• Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
• Jon Snow/ Ygritte

Elves and Wolves are partners in the war against Humans.

Humans enslave elves and torture them (We are soooo bloodthirsty, we humans)

At this point (since this fan fic is just getting started), self has no idea who is who, but these are the characters (Not all are elves; self thinks it’s safe to say Shaggywolf is — ehem — a wolf!)

Crow * Wildwind * Flame * Snowbird * Highbranch * Longheat * Crow * Shaggywolf

Flame’s father and oldest brother have died, so she is next in line to lead her tribe, “but she’d rather leave that mantle to her brooding cousin who loves to sit and watch and think about everything. Sitting on a thornbush seems like more fun than leading a tribe.”

Hmmm, Flame sounds a bit like Katniss? She could also be Arya.

As the story opens, the humans have captured an elf. They start drumming, which means the process of torture has begun.

Ugh.

Self will read on. If she can watch The Revenant, she can read about elf torture.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Love in the 21st Century

Everlark fan fiction, be warned.

(The words are from a story self stumbled on this afternoon. Pretty clever stuff!)

Prof. Katniss Everdeen and Prof. Peeta Mellark are rivals for the same big, fat national research grant (Like the MacArthur? Only big and fat? And not for “geniuses”?)

They send each other “challenge” messages.

TO:  Everdeen, K.

A newcomer like you to the field of Panem History has no hope of winning it. I’m only sending you this note to save you time and potential future humiliation.

TO: Mellark, P.

If I were you, I would worry less about any potential humiliation I might face and more about covering your own ass.

P.S. I’m not a Miss. I’m a professor, with a doctorate in the history of Appalachia.

TO: Everdeen, K.

They still talk about my dissertation at Harvard.

TO: Mellark, P.

If you need tutoring help I’m available Tuesdays between 3 and 5 p.m.

TO: Everdeen, K.

Friendly advice: coming out of the gate too strong is a bad idea in teaching. You’ll tire yourself out before fall break is even here.

P.S. I wrestled in college, just so you know.

TO: Mellark, P.

Your observation RE: tiring myself out is timely, given that I’m running the Chicago marathon this weekend. My bib # is 1213.

TO: Everdeen, K.

I watched part of the Chicago Marathon on television this weekend but I didn’t see you because I don’t know what you look like. You have a ridiculously small online footprint, Professor. You know this is the 21st century, right?

P.S. We totally kicked your asses in football last Saturday.

Stay tuned.

 

Sentences of the Last Friday of January 2016

He looks so immeasurably worried and tragic.

(Referring to Peeta, of course)

I’ll take physical pain over emotional any day.

I don’t have time for your disingenuous bullshit.

#BadAss!Peeta, #HijackedPeeta, #Tattooed!Peeta, #Assassin!Peeta, #kindofcyberpunkifyousquint

— Fan Fiction writer heathenpesticide

Self decided to drive home for the weekend. This is what she found:

A front yard taken over by oxalys. Fungal flowers rotting in a vase of slimy water. Left-over Halloween candy on the piano.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

The State of the Everlark Fan-dom

First of all, that was not cool, replacing J-Hutch with Theo James in the Ben Kingsley movie Backstabbing for Beginners, just when it was about to start filming (Was that a publicity stunt? Because that movie title is so, so — premonitory!)

Next, ever since Mockingjay Part 2 dropped last November, Hunger Games fan sites began shutting down one by one and there was a very dolorous feeling in the air.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, self got some kind of mighty wind because she started writing a new fan fic in December, her first in over a year, and it now stands at over 60,000 words. Wrote it in six weeks. Still going strong. Over 500 comments. That’s a lot of comments.

And there have been fabulous Everlark fan fics dropping every day. Like this one self is totally ga-ga over, which has Katniss and Peeta living in North Carolina when the Apocalypse happens. Everyone turns into a zombie (except them, of course. And Haymitch). Peeta is missing an entire leg and a wheelchair, and moreover there are no more pharmacies open to dispense his prescription painkillers, and all the druggies have made off with the world’s available supply of Oxycontin, and Peeta has to suffer the most acute withdrawal pangs while collapsed in the back of Haymitch’s car as they leave North Carolina and head for Atlanta (with self thinking — no, screaming — what the hell are you doing leaving North Carolina because that’s where Katniss is! How the heck is this going to end up Everlark if Peeta is in Atlanta and Katniss is in North Carolina?)

So fabulous, suspense galore.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Peeta and Johanna Mind-Swap (Fan Fic Of Course)

Do not read if you are squeamish at the thought of a Peeta/Katniss reunion, only with Peeta in Johanna’s body. Hey, if self can buy a tranny Peeta (who borrows Katniss’s clothes; it’s super-fine with Katniss), there can be a Peeta-in-Johanna’s body thing.

So, if you can, just imagine the whole “star-crossed lovers” plot with a body switch, then you will empathize with the below complications:

• Johanna insists on taking her D-13 shower with the men.
• Peeta can’t get used to having such small feet (They’re Johanna’s) and keeps stumbling.
• Peeta to Katniss: “Having boobs is pretty weird.”
• Katniss doesn’t feel comfortable kissing Peeta because he’s in Johanna’s body.
• When Peeta is rescued, Katniss goes straight for him and hugs him fervently, not knowing that Peeta is now in Johnna and it’s now Johanna in Peeta. Katniss gets very confused when Peeta (who is actually Johanna now) just stands there without returning her embrace.
• Gale doesn’t get jealous of all the time Katniss spends hanging out with Johanna, because he doesn’t know that it’s really Peeta inside Johanna’s body.
• Plutarch asks Peeta to appear in a propo, Peeta just stands there looking bored (Of course Plutarch has no clue that Johanna is inside Peeta, and so forth. Self doesn’t know if she quite buys the Johanna-looking-bored-while-filming-a-propo thing. In self’s mind, a propo would be a perfect opportunity for Johanna to show off her antic nature)

Well, self could just go on and on and on and on and on, but she won’t.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Big Peeta Imagines Little Peeta (Does Self Still Have to Say: “Fan Fic”)

Peeta always imagined that he would have a little one to bring to the office one day. A child that would walk around in a matching suit and who would sit next to Peeta at meetings, coloring pictures of himself in his office which, of course, would be right next to Peeta’s. On downtime or while he was on calls, his kid would pretend to stamp contracts and drink chocolate milk from a Mellark Corporation coffee mug.

(In this fan fic, Peeta is the CEO of the Mellark Corporation)

Mendocino Again! Still Writing About Cheating Peeta

Self took her leisurely time, leaving the Bay Area a little past 9, going slow in heavy rain through the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin, Cloverdale, Route 128, Highway 1, Yorkville, Albion, Little River. She saw all the usual stuff: sheep, redwoods, wineries. She didn’t stop until she got to Booneville, where she dropped another chapter of her Cheating Peeta fan fic (It is so much FUN to write about Cheating Peeta! The most fun she remembers having in aaaaages! The readers are vested to the max in her characters. They even offer tips about what they think should happen next. For instance, one reader suggests that Katniss and Cheating Peeta, to repair their dysfunctional marriage, go on a vacation “to a white sand beach, preferably right away, preferably without telling anyone.” Now, why didn’t self think of that before? Who wouldn’t love a getaway to a white sand beach? Or, how about this comment: “Oh, I do hope there is a fistfight!” LOL LOL LOL)

Since the internet can be quite poky here in the far northern California coast, she took the opportunity to stop at the Mosswood Café in Booneville where, while munching on delicious chorizo & goat cheese empanadas, she hurriedly dropped a new chapter — QED because her chapters are short, only about four pages long — and then watched with excitement and satisfaction as the # of hits climbed and climbed and climbed, with every passing second!

The only drawbacks so far since she installed herself in her unit at the Mendocino Art Center are: (1) It is cold; (2) At night, there are no lights; (3) She forgot to bring a flashlight; and (4) She discovered she left behind her copy of Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan’s The Strain, which she was meaning to read when she got through with Philipp Meyer’s American Rust.

The Strain is a horror story involving one or both of these elements: (1) vampires; (2) zombies. She knows she can always pick up a copy from Gallery Bookstore (one of her faaaave hangouts in Mendocino!) tomorrow, but perhaps she should re-think reading horror while in Mendocino. At least, until the days start getting longer. Because when she poked her head out of her unit about two hours ago, there was a stiff wind, it was mighty cold, and she couldn’t see her car because the night darkness was so total. And The Strain sounds genuinely scary. And maybe, just maybe, she doesn’t really need to add that kind of tension to her life right now?

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Despite the Pouring Rain

When self left New York City, it was just beginning to get cold. The week before she left, she was still able to walk around Central Park in T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers!

She arrived in San Francisco to rain. Rain and rain and rain. And cold. Rain and cold. And now — storm coming! GAAAAAH!

Nevertheless —

Self dropped a new Everlark fan fic about Cheating Peeta/Stalker Delly in December. Over the past few weeks, it’s generated tremendous amount of discussion on the boards!

Gotten more comments than any fic that dropped in December!

The bare story is this: Peeta cheats on Katniss with Delly. Katniss files for divorce and decides to take time off from teaching to travel around Southeast Asia. And she cheats on Peeta. (The divorce takes a long time because, you know, California lawyers! It might be years!) The two meet in Siem Reap, Cambodia and — Kaboom! — Primal connection fireworks!

Who knew self would be getting comments like this!

• When I get the new chapter alert in my office, I have to sneak to the comfort room so I can read. I’m very inefficient at work these days.
• I’m addicted to Fallout 4, but yesterday when I got your story alert, I immediately dropped my controller and reached for my tablet.
• Every chapter, I cry angry tears, it’s like you’re pounding a nail into my coffin.

Readers list possible ways to deal with the problem of Cheating Peeta:

• Punch him in the face, Katniss!
• Shoot him in the nuts with your bow and arrow!
• Make Peeta grovel!
• Find yourself some hot, sexy man!

Everlark is self’s be-all and end-all.

Stay tuned.

 

Cheating Peeta Update

Modern Everlark AU, dropped Chapter One Dec. 7.

46 chapters and 33K words later, Everlark’s first kiss.

Readers go crazy, 201 comments.

Haaaaaa!