Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

Hey new friends! Welcome!

Mental health update: My new LGBT-friendly unicorn of a GP has put my desvenlafaxine up to 150mg, because, as she says, when you're used to a low bar of mental health, you forget that there's a possibility for mood to be good. I've been at that dose for nearly a month now, and at first I was like, meh, it's not going to make a difference at this point. And then a few weeks in, I was like, ehh maybe it's better? And today I actually felt... good? In control? Is this what good mental health is? That last question is probably 50% sarcasm. Probably. It's getting dark and I'm crashing out again, in a low-key, I-know-what-this-is way, but I want to remember that there were some good moments.



The friending meme is ticking along very nicely, yay! I cruise around keeping an eye out for any hiccups, and I love seeing people making connections and having conversations. It's very heartening. We are a good bunch, fandom. Especially fandom on Dreamwidth.

Friending meme is here, for people who missed the link:



Reccing Thursday Sunday
I promised some Harold/John recs for nerakrose because yay new POI friend!!

astolat is great for Harold/John (and she wrote a really good and plotty Harold/Shaw/John fic too, if that's at all your jam.) I've picked a fave to link here:
Technical Support (Rated Explicit)
It's an AU where Harold is still working at IFT, and John takes a job as a security guard. I love an AU where circumstances change but the characters are still fundamentally themselves. There's an excellent cameo by Detective Carter, too: the way she diverts John from homelessness to a steady job really works for the set-up we saw in the pilot.

the_ragnarok is my go-to author for POI kinkfic - they write the kind of thought-driven, negotiated kink scenarios that focus on mental conversations and sensory descriptions. They're very good with AUs, especially AUs with otherworldy Finch, who occasionally has tentacles. (This is a good thing!) The fic I've linked isn't a kink fic, or a tentacle fic, but it is a vampire AU and it's excellent:
a creature more of night than day (Rated Explicit, Vampire AU)

talkingtothesky is a multishipper - I mean, if there's a rare pairing out there, Sky will have had a go at it. She is fearless! But I think Harold/John is one of the pairings of her heart. (Stop me if I'm wrong, here, Sky.) The one I've linked is set at the end of Identity Crisis, when Harold is off his nut on ecstasy. It's very tender:
Every Time I Fall You Catch Me (Rated Teen, implied drug use, missing scene)

canadianwheatpirates mostly writes (excellent) femslash, but there's also this short and hot Harold/John strip club AU:
For Your Entertainment, (Rated Explicit)

livenudebigfoot has done stellar work this year converting me to the emotionally-messed up yet tender lovefest that is John/Fusco, and I'd love to rec you all of their fic so you too can take that amazing journey, but since these are Harold/John recs, here's a very good, very wrought story set immediately after 2.16 Dead Reckoning:
Time Enough at Last (Rated Explicit)

I lean towards the supernatural in terms of what I prefer in an AU, and this one is fantastic: all ferocious magic and angelic language and fantastic mythology:
Irregular by manic_intent (Rated Mature, Dragon/Angel AU)

This last one is a crossover with something called the Lord Darcy Series, which is something I keep meaning to investigate, because based on this fic, it has a lot of tropes I like. Like, hand kissing. And swearing fealty. And mid-twentieth century spycraft merged with magic. Mix these things with Harold/John, and it's just about the most perfect feast of tropey goodness you can imagine.
For King and Country by killalla (Rated Teen, AU-fantasy)


As for upcoming fanworks in POI fandom, I'm hopeful there'll be a Person of Interest Big Bang this year, and possibly a Reverse Big Bang, which is where you write fic for a piece of art. Possibly the POI exchange. And I'm trying to get myself together early this time so I can run the POI advent.

livenudebigfoot and I are trying to get a Person of Interest bookclub kind of thing together where we all read a fic - we're planning on starting with the last Big Bang. I'm not sure where we're hosting it yet - we're wavering between DW, Discord or giving Pillowfort a try.

Things are a bit garbage at the moment: there are triggery upcoming medical things, and my anxiety is off the rails as we wait for appointments and further investigations. I'm trying to find myself a sympathetic LGBTQI-aware GP (I know, right? My own unicorn hunt) and I think I've found a possibility but my appointment isn't for a couple of weeks. I really need to be back on meds, but I want a better option than seeing the doctors I work with. (They're perfectly cromulent doctors, though clueless on the queer front, plus it's hard to discuss stuff like self-harm with someone you work with.)

Have a meme, via mergatrude:
Do you live your life with too many tabs open? All this stuff you want to read, all this stuff at your fingertips, all the heartbreak when your browser crashes. List your open tabs, or a handful of them, just to share, or to motivate you.

In my tabs on my work laptop:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
https://st-aurafina.dreamwidth.org/read
https://www.dreamwidth.org/entry/new
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/379344.html
https://ask.metafilter.com/324977/Please-rec-me-your-fabulous-fanfiction
https://play2048.co/
https://www.facebook.com/
https://tagcrowd.com/
https://archiveofourown.org/collections/multifandomdrabble2019_2/tags/Dracula%20-%20Bram%20Stoker/works
https://campnanowrimo.org/cabins/current
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/search#craft=crochet&weight=bulky&availability=free&pc=cowl&sort=projects&view=captioned_thumbs&page=2
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/coraline-in-morocco-cowl
https://simplycollectiblecrochet.com/2014/11/coraline-morocco-one-skein-cowl-crochet-pattern/

I got the metafilter link from mergatrude's meme post, though I've had it open before. It's a good collection of recs.

2048 is my writing game. It's perfect for writing - not too diverting. It lets me zone out enough that my plot brain can spin a few wheels and churn out some ideas but then I get frustrated/bored quickly enough that I'm back to writing again in no time.

I'm still reading through multifandom drabble - there are so many good things there!!

And crochet. It helps keep me sane. I've just finished the cowl that's in my tabs - it needs blocking, but it came out nice! Very stretchy and light, but will protect my neck from dread breezes.
( Cowl under here )

Meanwhile, I'm concentrating on keeping up with Camp NaNo and my weekly podcastjoy post. And not chickening out on posting chapters of my very long fic.

I'm making a post.

Things are okay. Just okay, though, and I've been doing a lot of mental health crochet to keep my head above water. I don't know if escitalopram is the one for me - I am externally very level but internally very weird - but at the same time, changing takes so much energy that I don't have right now.

Work has been hectic. I think all the warranties expired simultaneously on every piece of technology, and it's been thing after thing after thing and cost after cost after cost. And there have been staff issues to sort out, with people resigning and unresigning. We had to have a staff meeting about the issues. I'm not the most socially deft, so when people are asking ME what they should do in uncomfortable social situations it gives me the willies. I think things are settling down now? *looks nervously over shoulder*

On the other hand, I made seventy six little baby hats for the Itty Bitty Giant Hat Drive in September:
( many tiny hats under here )

I really liked that lyrics title meme that was going around a while back, so in lieu of actual content, I thought I'd do that. At the very least, it should make an interesting playlist of sorts.

( youtube embeds under here... )

Yuletide sign-ups are open. I don't know how to process that information. The year has gone so quickly.

Happy birthday to thisbluespirit and lurkingcat, and a belated happy birthday to my nearly twin, muccamukk. And happy birthday to me. I had a quiet day: transplanted some lettuce seedlings into the greenhouse, did some crochet, watched the Eurovision final on delay via Youtube. I got an almond milk hot chocolate when we went out for our daily pokestop visit. I made myself a Black Tapes icon:


It was nice. And less stressful than many other birthdays I have shared.

Hey, people, friending meme here:

Interested in icon-making friends? Join our friending meme!


I've sent my snippets away to wipbigbang for the Person of Interest Sentinel/Guide fic. I wrote a summary and chose a title. I've got a W13 fic in second beta right now, so hopefully I can post that next week. I'm nearly caught up on getting my fandom_stocking fics posted here. I got something in for iconthat's current challenge. I'm doing stuff. It's a good feeling.

And I think I'm ready to close comments at my LJ.

I'm still trying to catch up on posting fic to my Dreamwidth. As I go, I'm trying to post to a comm or two as well, because that's where DW falls down a bit, I think - there aren't as many active comms as there were on LJ. Some really, really active ones! But not as many.

Speaking of which, is there a place I could post my Black Tapes genfic? A general fandom genfic comm? I couldn't find a specific Black Tapes comm, but in searching, I did find that there's an option for DW to add that topic to your interests. (Which is awesome.) And then through that, I found addme_fandom, which is like addme, but fannish.



Meme with me? (as seen everywhere, probably because it's a good meme!)
Ask me:
1. the character I least understand
2. interactions I enjoyed the most
3. the character who scares me the most
4. the character who is mostly like me
5. hottest looks character
6. one thing I dislike about my fave character
7. one thing I like about my hated character
8. a quote or scene that haunts me
9. a character I wish died but didn’t
10. my ship that never sailed



Also, from yohijideranged, a music meme!

1. A song you like with a colour in the title.
I have three, because how do you choose these things?
( Under this cut: Birdy, Lorde, David Bowie )

Youtube, why do you do that massive gap thing with your embeds? Why?

( The rest of the topics )

Yay, fandom_stocking got another extension. I am glad, even if it's a bother for the organisers, because I can stuff a few more stockings. *wipes brow*

There's a volunteer post, if you have the time and energy to help out with stocking stuffing: Volunteer post.


State of me:
( Cutting for medical details that are mostly not interesting to anyone except me. Some talk of injections. Sweet taste. Some monsterism. )

Fic Round-Up
I wrote and posted 18 fics last year, wow.

For last year's fandom_stocking:
Eat Your Vegetables (Harry Potter, Remus/Sirius, 900 words, G)
Sorry, I Don't Pray That Way (Constantine/Angel, John Constantine/Lorne, 1000 words, PG)
Brown Paper Packages (MCU, Clint/Laura/Natasha, 500 words, G)
Gimme That Can't Sleep Love (MCU, Steve/Bucky/Sam, 800 words, Teen)
Pack Up Your Troubles (Agent Carter, Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, 800 words, G)
All Is Full of Love (Stigmata, Andrew Kiernan/Frankie Paige, 1200 words, G)

For halfamoon
You're the Heat that I Know (POI, Root/Shaw, 1800 words, Mature)

For ssrconfidential
Not Your Fairy-Tale Princess (Agent Carter, Peggy/Dottie, 3000 words, Teen)

For 100words over on Imzy:
Sleepless (POI, Root/Shaw, 100 words, G)

For fandomgiftbox
Battlelines (Captive Prince, Auguste and Damen, 800 words, Teen)
Housewarming (Dance Academy, Tara and Abigail, 1200 words, G)

For the multifandom drabblefest over on Imzy:
Five Captive Prince drabbles (500 words, mixed ratings)

For femslashex (reminder to self - you haven't posted this in your journal)
Coming Up on your Radar (Agents of SHIELD/MCU, Melinda May/Natasha Romanov, 5K, Teen)

For yuletide (another one you need to post to your journal, woman)
A Child's Path to Clarity (The Black Tapes, Alex and Richard, 5K, Teen)

A wip I finally got posted:
Children's Moon (Harry Potter/Doctor Who, Sirius Black/Jack Harkness, 16K words, Teen)

And for no reason other than I wanted to write them:
Someone to Watch Over Me (The Black Tapes, Alex and Richard, 1400 words, G)
Over-Indulgence (Captive Prince, Auguste and Laurent, 500 words, G)
No Fear of Falling: Lights Will Guide You Home
(Supergirl/Agents of SHIELD, Kara Danvers/Daisy Johnson, 2000 words, Teen)


The Questions
( I cut out the questions that don't work for me )

Whew. That was intense.

New year, new President (in the US), new server sites for Livejournal. The future is little bit scary right now, and scary is better faced with friends. Meet new people, reconnect with old friends, and expand your reading circle.

To play, cut and paste this text into a comment, fill out the details and tell us about yourself. Then go find new people to add.

<strong>DW username</strong>: <strong>Preferred pronouns:</strong> <strong>Other platforms (please specify)</strong>: <strong>Active/primary interests or fandoms</strong>: (keep this fairly short, so people will read it!) <strong>If you've seen me around, it's probably because</strong>: (how might people have seen you online / in fandom?) <strong>I post about</strong>: (fandom, real life, combination - do for each platform, if you want) <strong>I post/check my feed</strong>: (daily, weekly, twice a year, etc) <strong>I want to find people that post about</strong>: (specific fandoms, fandom in general, books, RL, SJ, etc) <strong>I am most interested in interacting with people on:</strong> (DW, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) <strong>My blog is</strong>: (public, selectively public, friends-only) <strong>Anything else you need to know about me:</strong> (A good place to talk about your fandom shipping preferences, characters, type of fic/art/etc you like. Or link to your intro post. Or put a cute photo of your cat.)

If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, you can sign up for one here.
If you're new to Dreamwidth and you've left OpenID comments on DW before, you can link your IDs here: How can I claim my OpenID account with my Dreamwidth account?

Play nice.

And feel free to promote wherever you like with this handy box of linkage:

<a href="http://st-aurafina.dreamwidth.org/241564.html"><img src="http://i65.tinypic.com/24fzc6r.png" border="0"></a>

Things happening right now:

- X-Files friending meme
(Hi to the new peeps!)

- femslashex is open for sign-ups!



That what have you been up to meme:

So what have you been up to?
Um, work, random medical stuff that seems to take an age but never really gets done. I still have a cold. This is the cold that never ends, it goes on and on and on, my friends. It's not even that bad, it's just that every time I think I've kicked it, something stressful happens and it stops in the doorway, turns around, and gets comfy again.


Major life changes? Same old same old?
My grandfather passed away last week. It was sort of expected - he was 94, he had dementia and was quite frail - but it was also kind of a shock. I am weirdly sad, though I wouldn't say we were close, and I'd definitely say we had some conflicts. I don't know, mortality and all that, I guess, and I was sad for my dad who has cared for him. And nobody wants to see their tiny Nonna crying broken heartedly at the door of the hearse. (But she told me she was glad that Dad got him a really fancy coffin with brass bits and so on. I'm glad that made her happy.)

It was deeply weird to be around family members from whom I am estranged. Need to unpack that later with the therapist. But I got to meet my little sister's boyfriend, which was nice. He's from a very conservative background which has been a source of conflict between them - I think we were the first gay people he's ever met - but I think it was really gutsy of him to go to the funeral, and if he's willing to do that to support Nat, then I'm giving him some Brownie points.


What fandom are you in/do you spend most of your time in?
- MCU fandom, still working on the Captain America fic. Currently embedded with Howard in WWII.

- Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter, smashing out my marvel_bang. I thought I'd missed the deadline but because I'm doing my own art, I get more time, which is supposed to be for actually doing the art, but I'm still finishing the writing, oops. Currently hanging with Peggy Carter in 1946.

- GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF omg, but mostly on Tumblr. I love Bake-Off time, yay!

- Sense8 - I've finished, and I really want to write some fic. But I have to Mavel Bang first. And omg, NaNo is looming.

Where do you hang out online?
st_aurafina
st_aurafina
st_aurafina
st_aurafina.
Oh, and dansnark, if you want to see a million pins of art journals and crochet scarfs.


What are you reading?
I am having such a crappy time reading right now. My concentration has been busted for months. I read fic, and I'm having iddish fun reading through ckingsbridge's novels. She's got the kink and the cuddling, it's all beautiful.

What are you watching?
Hannibal, for the last time. My non-spoilery finale reaction: Omg, Hannibal, you're the worst. No, Hannibal, stop! Stop! What am I watching? Is this fic? THIS IS FIC, ISN'T IT? THIS ONLY HAPPENS IN FIC!!

Killjoys:
This show is awesome and almost everything I wanted Firefly to be. Four episodes in, still think it needs moar actual queer. But otherwise so far, I love it. Love Dutch, love her team, love the brotherly relationship, love the zingy UST, love the world building. Love the ship.

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Because we've got access to it via Stan, and the ridiculous luxury of being able to dial up any episode any time is heady. I'm mostly cherry-picking favourite episodes. We just watched Time's Arrow, and I love Guinan.

What are you making?
I'm still crocheting the epic blanket, but I keep taking detours to make other small projects. I'm working up an infinity scarf for me. FOR ME. (I mostly give everything I make away.)

What are you squeeing about today?
Hannibal, but it's a slightly nervous, somewhat confused squee. That scene from the credits, wtf, we will be debating that for years.

If you could rope old fandom friends into a new fandom, it would be...
I don't rope people into things! But there's a lot of new stuff out there. Hey, is anyone watching X Company? It has some damn pretty people, but I don't normally do real life war fandoms. (Only, you know, Winter Soldier, and that one amazing episode of Sanctuary.) Is it really sad? Or just regular sad?

I should really watch/read/dive into _______ and then come talk to you about it!
Come and tell me about anything! I'm nearly all caught up on TV now, I'm going to need more stuff.

Today was the first real scorcher of summer: 41 degrees C and an extreme fire risk. There was a nasty, scary fire in the north of the state, and a closer but smaller and better controlled one at Framlingham, but they're both coming under control as the evening rolls in. Our visitors went home yesterday, which was a wise choice. I wouldn't want to be on the roads today through the Otways, with the fire risk this high.

I don't really know how the new house behaves in the heat, but so far, with the shades down and the lights off, it seems to be holding at a nice temperature. The ceiling fans really help, too.



Fic for 2014:

I didn't write as much as I wanted to, but I did post two big bangs, both of which I'm really proud of.

( 64K words, but only 8 fics )




WIPs:

I've got 50K of Winter Soldier fic just waiting to be jossed by Agent Carter in a week or so. *le sigh* It's worth it for more Peggy canon.


OMG, I just found a file in my WIP folder, entitled "Warehouse 13 a/b/o plan". Um.

( I honestly cannot remember this chat happening so I'm really glad I c&p'd it into a doc: )


This closet is full of awesome crap!! This was for... something Warehousey:


( snippet: Five Times the Warehouse Called on the Sanctuary )

There's 3K of this, with pirates. Later, Helena murders someone with a vole.




TV and Movies:

Winter Soldier! Oh, man, I mean, I'd read the comics, and I liked the story, but the movie punched me in the feels big time.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Surprisingly did not get fannish about this. I mean, I liked it. I loved it. But I did not write for it.

Person of Interest: We have inhaled two seasons, and are launching into the third. Love it! It took me a while to get into, and I still find Mr Reese deeply odd. I haven't investigated the fic department of this fandom, but do people write him as, like, the embodiment of the Machine? I find him easier to deal with if I can tell myself that somehow Finch built a walking, talking, empathy-impaired android. (Now I'm ear-wormed with a creepy Cliff Richard song.) Although we've just had the episode where Root identifies the Machine as female. But anyway, I strongly suspect I'm going to be all about Shaw/Root. Also I love Carter. Also I know what happens.

- Battlestar Galactica: I mainlined this while we were moving. I had to do it alone, because it's hellishly handheld and vertigo inducing, plus lilacsigil doesn't do apocalyptic fandoms. (Although I'll argue it becomes less apocalyptic in later seasons, though not less handheld.) One of the benefits of watching a show long after it has finished is being able to google for the really bad episodes and skip over them.

Oh, my love for the ladies of this show. Oh, my incredible crush on Katee Sackhoff's shoulders.


- Longmire: I'm midway through season 2. I started this for Katee Sackhoff (omg, she needs to be in it more, what a waste!) but I'm staying for Lou Diamond Philips. I did not honestly expect to enjoy it as much as I am. But it needs more ladies, lots more ladies. I can ship Walt/Henry with no difficulty, but I really need some lady ships.

- Sleepy Hollow. I would not have picked you as my DNF show this year. Seriously, what a freaking disaster you turned into. I am so sad for your clever, media-savvy actors who know the ship is going down.

- Doctor Who, you lost me when Twelve told Clara she was fat. What the actual fuck was that. Not that I won't keep coming back - I am always going to come back, it's a lifelong thing.

Ugh, that finished up depressing. I will cheer myself up by looking to the future. I am looking forward to Agent Carter. So very much. Please don't suck, please don't be gross and weird. I have The Librarians ready to watch as soon as my schedule settles down a little. Person of Interest Season Three is fun so far. *hugs self gently* It's okay, bb.



Comics

I was so glad to come back to comics this year! Not that I think the stupidity and grossness of the industry has lessened, but my volcanic rage at the stupidity and grossness has simmered down enough that I can now enjoy the good things.

Ms Marvel! So adorable, and so full of ridiculousness and glorious heroism.

Hawkeye. So unexpectedly droll, so unexpectedly leading me into using a smush name for a ship. America wasn't even in it, and yet I am team Amerikate.

Young Avengers. For the Amerikate!!

Loki: Agent of Asgard. I'm only six issues in, but it's awesome. (I am apparently supposed to read Journey into Mystery, but I remember when lilacsigil read the last issue and something SO AWFUL happened that she walked around the house randomly bursting into tears. So I'm never going to read that, because I don't do sad endings.)

Thor! I'm only two issues in, but I love lady!Thor! Also Malekith is walking around with dude!Thor's arm wrapped around his neck like a stole, and it's hilarious and camp. I feel like he'd be great on Project Runway.

I also did a re-read of the Winter Soldier arc in Captain America, because of my many feels about the movie.




Fic Read

I read and recced a lot this year, for me. *proud* Two standouts:

This, You Protect (64326 words) by owlet
Chapters: 33/33
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Pepper Potts, Clint Barton
Additional Tags: Humor, I hope humor anyway, cursing, Protection, Strong feelings about coffee, slightly off-canon, Steve is sassy, sam is sassy, Bucky is sassy, Everyone has their sassy pants on, just accept that grilled cheese is the perfect food, old people are Team Bucky
Summary:

The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

Ugh, it's over. *gross crying* Where am I going to get my pick-me-up now? A new chapter seemed to come just when I was feeling miserable or cranky. And now it's over. Which is great. But sad.


Life of Crime (35399 words) by neveralarch
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Marvel 616, Hawkeye (Comics)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Clint Barton/Carol Danvers, Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Kate Bishop/America Chavez, Barney Barton & Clint Barton
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes, Carol Danvers, Kate Bishop, Barney Barton, Maya Lopez, Steve Rogers, Tracksuit Mafia, Lester | Bullseye
Additional Tags: Deaf Clint Barton, Edgeplay, Consensual Kink, Polyamory, Supervillain AU, also lots of other characters and implied pairings but these tags were starting to get out of hand
Summary:

As a supervillain supercriminal contract worker with a morality deficit, Clint Barton leads a glamorous life. You know, stolen cars, dangerous women, a really confusing relationship with a meddling do-gooder, the works. It's pretty awesome. Except for, uh, medical bills, the mob, and being on the run all the time. That part isn't all that awesome.

(A supervillain AU where Clint shoots arrows at people and gets beat up a lot. So, not really that much of an AU.)

This is the one that brought me back to comics, so I really have to nominate it as the best fic I read this year. It's why I had to read Young Avengers and Hawkeye. I think I'm going to go re-read it now.



Yay, it's cooler here now, finally! And I have coffee jelly and vanilla ice-cream. And tomorrow is going to be slightly less scorching than predicted! 2015, you're not so bad, so far.

Talk to us about how amazing it would be if Alec Hardison was stuck in Sleepy Hollow where he would join forces with Abbie as they had to save the world together (Requested by lyssie.)


It would be so amazing.

It would be so not amazing. Because even though there's Abbie (hot! smart! tough! It's like the universe knows Hardison has a type!) and a walking time capsule with this weird, honest humanity that makes you feel like your twenty-first century life is basically built of cynicism and synthetic food, there's also a dead guy living in the sewers who really wants to help but he's tied into this literal contract with the devil, and oh, yeah HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE. Hardison is guiltily relieved that the Horseman has a weird boner for Ichabod, because he knows that if the axemen cometh for Hardison, Hardison's gonna trip over his feet and wind up getting a little more off the top than he asked for. Ichabod seems to roll natural twenties every time he has to face the Horseman down, and Hardison doesn't know why, but he's not going to argue.

On the other hand, Hardison can see a place for him in this team. Jenny (is this the most awesome spook squad family ever, or what?) has got the historical stuff down - she's been all over the world tracking down myths and artifacts. Ichabod was there, way back when, so he's got first hand knowledge you can't find in library archives, even if some of the things he says about Jefferson and Paul Revere blow Hardison's mind. You get used to that, though. And then there's Abbie, with beautiful, clean, legal access to so many things, better than Hardison can fake. But Hardison? He's the one who can pull it all together - chemistry and history and logic and heart. It was all about pattern recognition. Honestly, he's kind of relieved that even in the realm of the supernatural, (The realm of the supernatural? Does he have the coolest job or what?) there are predictable models of behaviour. Demons want stuff, the way greedy humans want stuff. Just, bigger. And with more brimstone. (Speaking of which, how weird is it that sulfur looks like blood when it melts? Freakish.)

So, on the whole, fighting the undead is pretty damn awesome, when you have a team like this. Hardison could do worse than Sleepy Hollow, and maybe he'll be the difference between peace on Earth or a big sucky apocalypse.