Learning how to fly..

Title: Et Tu 10b/?

Author: laguera25

Fandom(s): CSI:NY/Numb3rs

Pairing: Flack/OFC

Rating: FRM

SPOILERS: CSI:NY S1-S403; HP to Book 6; Numb3rs S1-S3.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, and events herein are property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and Alliance-Atlantis. No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made. For entertainment only.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part Xa



( Et Tu, Part X; Part B/B )

Title: Et Tu 10a/?

Author: laguera25

Fandom(s): CSI:NY/Numb3rs

Pairing: Flack/OFC

Rating: FRM

SPOILERS: CSI:NY S1-S403; HP to Book 6; Numb3rs S1-S3.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, and events herein are property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and Alliance-Atlantis. No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made. For entertainment only.

A/N: Flack visits his sister's grave. This chapter is too long for one entry, so I've split it into two parts. The second half will be posted immediately after this one.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX


( Et Tu, Part X; Part A/B )

Continue to Part B

Until now, I didn't realize there was such a sharp demarcation between fandom pre-livejournal and now.

I'm having a moment, and it's very weird, and I'm not sure I can explain it without sounding like I'm having a close and personal experience with some sort of hallucinogen. It's not fanon or tone or even style, except it's all of those things, and it's the underlying set of base assumptions that feel like I'm reading in a foreign language.

One hundred fifty something stories and it's--okay, five million years ago in SV, I was talking to this chick who had been writing since the beginning of time and there was this fic and a flamewar going on, which normally I'd go into but not relevant except for the fact I might not have ever gotten on the subject except flamewar, so we were talking about anything else, and I asked about this fic.

I have no idea how to explain how off-balance I am. But trying.

It was a Smallville fic, and it felt wrong to me, and by that I do not mean bad. I mean, I walked out of a perfectly good fic feeling like this: we were watching the same show. Exactly. And we were in the same fandom! Except in completely parallel universes that were exactly the same except her color blue was my azure, does that make sense? I could not connect with it at all, and that was the year 2002 where I met this fic so you see I remember very vividly that strange sense of disorientation, because at that point I had read everything that was posted to SSA so it's not like I didn't know my fandom. Yes, I even read the really bad stuff. I was a glutton for punishment. I'd read things that I still try too block from my memory, and for that matter, have, but I'd never read a fic in my fandom, in my pairing, that was good, that had nothing wrong with it, that I did not understand.

So far in Due South, proportionally speaking, I'm hitting ten percent where I'm not disoriented, and this is after I reduced my sampling size to authors I've read in at least two fandoms and at least once wanted to marry. It is not helping.

To return to my charming anecdote (the SV fic of strangeness, you don't have to scroll back up now), the person I spoke to gave me this long explanation that I don't even remember all that well (would that I did), but I came out of it with the vague idea it was Some Kind of Convention of Slash That I Did Not Know, Not Being a Slasher of the Old School You Poor First Slash Fandom Person or something, which is in retrospect kind of patronizing, but I could be misremembering that, since you know, 2002.

However, recent experience suggests she was kind of right, at least in the fact that the disassociated feeling is actually not a fluke and not the result of reading in a different fandom after SGA monogamy.

It's very, very disconcerting.

ETA: People, if I knew what this feeling was called, I would be explaining without analogies. I'd reduce it to a sentence.

So, I've listened to my new Rammstein acquisitions. And now, a few thoughts:

Herzeleid: Oh, wow. Look, I know most of the songs on this record are good because they were outstanding on Live Aus Berlin. "Laichzeit" and "Ihr Wollt Das Bett Im Flammen Sehen" are standouts live, as is "Du Riechst So Gut"(and the spellchecker on my LJ client is having a psychotic break with all this German). But if Herzeleid had been the first album I had heard, I would never have become a hopeless, jonesing Rammstein fiend.

The production is awful. The vocals sound like Till Lindemann stuck his head inside a metal bucket, beat it with a hammer, and then read a script with all the verve and panache of a first-day drama student. He sounds like he's singing from the murky bottom of a Coke can. And the keyboards...

Well. They keyboards sound like the cheapest model available, one you might find at Big Lots. The display model that's fallen off the shelf eight times and been glued together with spit and baby poop. And it sounds like Flake has dragged this model deep into the cavernous bowels of a German butcher's fleshy rectum. Now just imagine the butcher's flabby butt cheeks flapping in time to "Seeman" or "Laichzeit". Go on, I dare you to conjure that mental image. Now imagine Flake's bewildered eyeball peeping warily from his beefy bumhole. There. You're welcome.

Mutter: Mutter is a much more polished album, but it's also lost a measure of its grinding guitar-driven angst. There are still thundering metal tunes that inspire the burning need to throw up the devil horns and dislocate cervical vertebrae; "Links 2 3 4", "Feuer Frei!" and "Rein Raus" are dirty, nasty riffs that make my harelipped kitty happy happy, but they're balanced by "Mutter" and "Spieluhr", which have a slick, techno flavor. I was mildly disappointed on the first listen, fearing that age had mellowed the roar of the German lion, but now I love it. Sehnsucht is still my favorite, but Mutter is a close second.


I also watched the DVD version of Volkerball and am in love with "Los"; God, what a nastyfine groove on that baby, bluesy and grungy and down by the balls. "Ohne Dich" isn't bad, either, so I suppose I'll be plunking down the cash for Reise, Reise soon. Who am I kidding? I've got Rammstein fever so bad that I'm going to buy Reise, Reise and Rosenrot the next time I leave the house. Thus, my Rammstein catalogue will be complete until the release of their new album later this year.

If any of this has piqued your curiosity, Google "Feuer Frei!", "Los", or "Sehnsucht". You won't be sorry.


( Fear Itself 105: Eater--SPOILERS )

I never did update y'all about how the visit to the kittens went!

These were taken when they were ten weeks and change old. They had grown so much!


Viktor looks fabulously handsome here, no?


Emelia is quite the little princess.

( Aww, kittens! )


Of course they remembered me.

I spent a lot of time just holding them and telling them how much I loved and missed them. They are very, very happy, getting into trouble, and having a great time being kittens.

I have heard from Jack's people several times. He's apparently doing really well, and still acting like Jack. They love him dearly.

Yes, I miss them all, but I am very, very happy knowing that they are being well cared-for.

Happy Fourth of July to all y'all Americans, and happy Friday to the rest of you.

In this universe, Xander challenged Angel right up front--called him a pedophile to his face. And from there, everything's changed.

Previous parts:
Part one: Bumbling to a Save
Part two: Family Ties
Part three: Devil in the Details
Part Four: Bad Karma
Part Five: Rust Upon Iron
Part Six: Mending Fences... or tearing them down
Part Seven: Quiet Waters Mirroring Undistorted
Part Eight: Bait, Swindle and Self-destruct
Part Nine: Deaf, Dumb, and Destiny-blind


On their road trip to get rid of Acathla, Angel and Xander discover something disturbing about Angel's future and the curse that gave him a soul.

The Road Not Taken



.

So. This thing.

Actually, it's not a thing, but a weirdness, and for the life of me, I cannot work out why they are acting this way.

(Note: I seriously doubt it is any of you who read here. If it were, I'd obviously flock and filter. A lot.)

Right.

Have you ever been reading along in a comm with all these people you know, and thought you have known for five billion years, and then they say something so batshit with such earnestness you kind of get why Jeffrey Dahmer's neighbors had no idea?

(Note: this is not about friends becoming serial killers. Unless you are one. In which case, please don't tell me, because I cannot take this many shocks in one day.)

It's *weird*. If this were a novel, no one would believe this characterization twist.

In far less interesting news (which is saying something), I got a sudden sharp pain in my arm and shoulder and wondered if I were having a stroke*, then ate a granola bar. I feel it brings me closer to everyone to share this.

*(Note: As it turns out, it's from using my left arm to hold up my head while sitting at my desk for six hours a day. My logic sometimes isn't earth logic. Also, I'm lazy. Surprise, surprise.)

Project Valkyrie
TIME: 25 min.
DISTANCE: 3.0 mi.
TOTAL: 6.0 mi.
NOTES: Got up to 8 mph, but couldn't sustain it. 7 mph is pretty much where I stick.
SHIRE-RECKONING: We have crossed The Water.

---

So while I row to Mordor, I'm listening to Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature's Most Fantastic Works--or perhaps I should say kibbitzing. (Repeat after me: "Fiction with scientific principles in it is not Science Fiction." NOTHING YOU DO TO IT can make "The Pit and the Pendulum" science fiction, no matter how beautifully the idea slots into your argument.) Professor Rabkin earned my wrath very early on by asserting that Hamlet's meeting with the Ghost is in the first scene of Hamlet (Act I, scene v, thank you very much), and, well, honestly, I'm a pedant. I nitpick. If you're going to quote "The Walrus and the Carpenter," or "Jabberwocky," you should be able to quote it correctly. If you're going to make a foray into biography and talk about Lewis Carroll's intense fondness for small children, get your details right. Because it's not all small children. Carroll did not like little boys and said so in his letters. His adoration was given to little girls. Which maybe matters and maybe doesn't (that's why this is a nitpick), but if you can dig up the details about his nude photographs of children and why he destroyed them, you could surely find this. Also the great Victorian photographer is Julia Margaret Cameron, not Margaret Julia Cameron.

The devil is in the details.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who's offered their condolences on the loss of my grandfather. I'll be sending private replies over the next few days, but I wanted to publicly express my gratitude for your well wishes and support.

Yesterday was a day of highs and lows. Since I'm tired of sloshing about in the bracken waters of Woe Bog, I'll start with the highs. The monthly stipend from my father's estate arrived against all expectations, so Roomie and I went out to pay bills and pick up a few goodies.

I went a trifle Rammstein crazy and bought DVD copies of Volkerball and Live Aus Berlin. I also bought CD copies of Mutter and Herzleid. I've not listened to the new CDs yet, but I did watch Live Aus Berlin.

I was impressed with the scope of their live show. They're not as big in the U.S., so I wrongly assumed they performed in small, grungy rock clubs. Apparently not in Germany, they don't. They had an enormous stadium show, with fire and more fire and lights and more fire. And then there was blood and codpiece trousers painted a space-age, metallic silver lame that would've made anyone but Till Lindemann look heroically, magnificently gay. And self-flagellation. And more fire.

The fire was compelling, I'll grant you, but it was also dimly alarming, especially when flaming arrows made an appearance. Suppose one of the archers gets an attack of nerves or decides to indulge in a spot of tipple before the show? Any fan in the first ten rows risks immolation by a tipsy Wilhelm Tell. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing a Rammstein show.

Also? Till, here is my vagina. Please to be plundering it with your Teutonic vigor.

You know what? Writing this post made me feel so good that I'm not going to bring it down by relating that sorry tale of my anxiety attack and the agonizing back and chest spasms that had me spewing convulsively on the sidewalk in front of my apartment complex like a wasted sorority waif wobbling home from her first hayride and consensual gangbang. Nope. I'm just going to bask in my new music and be glad that the weather promises to be great writing weather until Saturday, and that Roomie will be back in forty-five minutes with lunch and dinner and a bottle of cream soda.

Then, I'm going to make ficcing hay while the ficcing is good and wait for tonight's episode of Fear Itself.

It's going to be a relaxing, lazy summer day. God knows I need it.

So.

Have you ever went back and read something you wrote the night before (all fifteen pages of it), and you can actually chart the decline of your sanity by paragraph?

I went from "probably doesn't need medication" to "we build special, special rooms for this" in like, ten paragraphs. That's pretty damn impressive.

Anyone up for a beta?

I suggest you keep your expectations low. The above is not a hypothetical. And is also not SGA.

In other news, Child hates Kowalski. "He's making Fraser sad," Child says, staring at me resentfully. "Vecchio was better."

The worst part is, I had to wait until he took the summer of his discontent to his room to laugh. Ribs hurt. Ow.

If I say it, I'll do it: I'm going to start calling around about voice lessons.

I'm sick of having a great voice but not always being able to sing on key, and I think part of my ennui is because I'm fucking bored. I'm not learning anything new. I meant to get on this months and months ago, and stalled out because I'm deeply concerned about finding a teacher that I can stand. Most teachers around here have a very strong churchy background, and as unflattering as this probably is to my character, that makes me about as uncomfortable as a Christian would be taking lessons from a Satanist. There's really no way to avoid it, though. I figure if I can suck it up and adhere to a strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy, I can probably deal.

I'd love to go back to dancing, but I'm not ready yet. I did the performing thing, and I got burnt out because there was too much pressure. With private lessons, there wouldn't be that sort of pressure to perform, and I could just do my own thing. I just want to be able to sing at holidays when my friends bring out the guitars and the mandolins. I want to be able to sing to my cats without being terrified that someone will hear me yowling atonally and be struck dead on the spot.

Huh.

It just occurred to me that howling would probably be a pretty good voice warmup.

(There was no Project Valkyrie today, as the weather was just too fucking gross.)

---

What I haven't been posting about, obviously, is the revisions for Corambis that are due at the end of the month. I haven't been posting about them mostly because this is the part of the process that is difficult to articulate in a way that makes it interesting to people who haven't read the book yet. You know, when your writer-friend tells you, "I moved the chunk where Gilbert finds the pruning shears in the abandoned mental asylum from Chapter Four to Chapter Two, and OMG it makes the bit with Tabitha and the two ormolu swans in Chapter Three look like I meant to put it there all along!" And you smile and nod and metaphorically pat your writer-friend on the head and try to insert something that looks like a conversation into the conversation.

You know how it goes.

And maybe later, when the book is published and you read the bit with Tabitha and the two ormolu swans in Chapter Three and realize that, yes, of course the chunk with Gilbert and the pruning shears had to go in Chapter Two, maybe you call your friend up and go "OMG the pruning shears! You were so right!" and the two of you shriek and giggle like hyenas who have just found the most sumptuous elephant carcase of their lives.

Maybe.

But my point is, this kind of revising is neither particularly intelligible nor particularly interesting from the outside, and of course the sentence-level stuff even less so. So I'm not posting about it. Just trying to get it done.

I'm also not posting about this head cold, and believe you me, you're grateful for it.

When I was first getting into the wild and wondeful world of linux and open source software, I ran across a short story called Printcrime. It was memorable enough that a year later I still recalled the concluding words and was able to locate the original from an approximate quote.

"Lanie, I'm going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone. That's worth going to jail for. That's worth anything." Printcrime by Cory Doctorow

The story told of the effect that an invention of a 3D object printer had on law and society. It was fiction. But a few weeks ago I saw glimpses of that fiction in reality. The RepRap printer designs are still primitive, but just imagine the possibilities. 3D art printed as sculptures of wax or plastic, machinery and spare parts made from downloadable designs right on your desktop, computer hardware copied as easily as a digital file... and and and the printer would be able to clone itself! Isn't it awesome?

Yeah, OK, I'm a nerd. But things like these make me realize: I love technology as much as I love to draw.

You know, I have mostly had a lot of respect for the Canadian military. Yes, like any large group of people with guns it has its potential to do great harm, but mostly we seem to try not to. And now I am very pleased and proud to see that gay soldiers here are not only enouraged to come out, but that the gay community is actively being recruited.

link via wonderbadger

Title: Five Stories Sam Won't Write And One He Did By Accident
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who, and SGA
Rating: PG-13, I suppose. I'm not sure how to rate implicit sex with frondy aliens.
Summary: Extended summaries of five fanfics I'm never going to write, and one fanfic that I wrote accidentally while trying to write a summary for it.
Spoilers: Through the end of S2 for Torchwood and SGA, S4 for Doctor Who

( 1. Typing, Telephones, Light Filing - Torchwood/Who, Donna/Jack/Ianto )

( 2. The One On The Right Is On The Left - SGA, hints of McKay/Sheppard )

( 3. Please, Don't Ask - SGA, Sheppard/Other, Sheppard/McKay )

( 4. Employee Assessment - Torchwood, Gen )

( 5. Talking is Overrated - Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Gwen )

( 6. Stupid Human Tricks -- Torchwood/Who crossover, Jack/Ianto, Jack/OAC ( )

It's our anniversary today. Thirteen years married.

On the twenty-seventh of this month, I'll have known Sargon for . . . seventeen years. Do I have any seventeen-year-old readers? How old do I have to feel, here?

Anyway. I'm surprised we made it this far. Not because of any drama -- even at our worst, we were still solid, and I really do think we've seen the worst already -- but because life is stupid and shit doesn't always work out.

I am surprised because I feel lucky to have this. It will always feel just a little like something I don't deserve, and so I think it's always going to surprise me.

Love you, sweetie!

Voting for the June 2008 Forever Wraeththu Fanfic Challenge is now OPEN!

Links to the entries, along with info on voting and a link to the ballot here:

Forever Wraeththu Monthly Challenge

Have fun!

- Wendy

You all know that I'm not a movie snob, right? So when I say that 10,000 BC really, really sucked, I mean it really, really sucked.

On a scale of one to ten, where ten is terrible but hilarious like, say, Flash Gordon or Krull, and a one is something nauseatingly unwatchable like Blood Waters of Dr. Z, this movie was about a three and a half. One point for Steven Strait, one for scenery, one for prehistoric mammals, and a half-point for the MST3k-style wisecracking it provokes.

Folks, this puts it behind Undiscovered for bad Steven Strait movies. He is shirtless in both, but he spends an awful lot of time in 10,000 BC looking like he rolled in mud the day before, so it fails (comparatively) at showcasing his prettiness.

I'm not sorry I watched it, it was enjoyable enough to hold my attention, but it was really bad. The dialogue was horrible, the fake accents were horrible, the plot was horrible, the characterization was horrible, and it was completely predictable. At one point, Sargon said "Hey! This is right about when guys on horses should come riding in to kill everyone. With torches and a battle standard!" Which is what happened.

"Oh, look!" I said. "It's the annoying comic relief sidekick! You can tell by the hair!"

And, later: "So, he's going to rescue this saber-toothed cat, and later it's going to save his life. Right?"

"Yeah! Then they'll call him 'the Boy Who Speaks To Pixels!'"

It was the kind of movie where you go: "That guy has a big ol' cloud of doom, that guy's going to sacrifice himself nobly, that guy's going to die by impalement. . . ."

It's quite beautiful to look at, so it's not an hour and a half of my life I want back, but I recommend watching it with both the sound and your brain turned off.