xtricks

I decided to do the WIP meme thing … because maybe that will encourage me to write some of them. Any of them! And I decided I'd do … well, almost all. Which is quite a lot, as you can see. Some of these I know will never get written, some might.

*Now with explanations removed!

( This is only half…Collapse )

One of the pleasures of my medication is the ability to dream – and remember my dreams – with the added benefit that few of them are nightmares (this is very different from my usual sleep pattern, which is dreamless, except when I have nightmares about animals dying).
 
On celexa, I have dreams that aren't nightmares.  Often fairly complicated ones.  Last night I had another and it was unusual for me.
 
Most unusual, I think, was the fact that the majority of the people in my dream were not white.  It was also interesting because it was a Steampunk-ish setting dream and the combination is intriguing.
 
Like most white people, I imagine, PoC don’t often populate my dreamscape – I live in a very white state, and most of my media is fairly white as well.  In this dream, there were only a few white people, most everyone else was psudo-South American/Mexican.  A few were black, a couple of people where white – I think I was.  In fact, I think I was Jude Law's Watson … I should be so lucky.
 
( Dream here …Collapse )
It also reminded me that I wrote a story for 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' that touched on historical homosexuality and the vanity laws. I quite liked that story. (http://community.livejournal.com/skycaptainslash/19537.html) You can see how my style and skills have changed over the ... almost six years since I wrote this.

I have no idea why everyone was PoC in this dream, possibly because the majority of my childhood friends were black, but I was sort of pleased by that.  I like the idea that my subconscious has some ethnic diversity, though women seem to be far and few between.

So I'd been wanting to read this book for years and finally got a chance to do so. It's a really wonderful book in a lot of ways. Chabon does a great job of building a world skewed from our own without ever making you feel like you're being infodumped on. The language is wonderfully idiosyncratic and by using the slang he does, it creates another layer of realism for the alternate present he's brought the reader into. I'd strongly reccomend this book for worldbuilding and language and how to use it.

The use of Sika as a location and the way Chabon builds the world is deftly handled, very beleivable and beautifully constructed. Atmosphere and local mesh pretty perfectly with the story and themes.

I love the idea of the post-ww2 Jewish exodus from Europe ending up in Alaska (something that had been an option at the time) and his familiarity with Jewish culture and religion means he's able to deftly use those tropes in a way that doesn't feel exoticized. One of the things I thought was really well done was showing how religion and religious traditions – filtered through human flaws – can be used for pretty terrible ends. He does it in a very beleivable manner. With the way things are now, that's an excellent point to remember.

I think there were a few writerly flaws: he has the same fascination I've seen before when people are re-imagining genre fiction – in this case noir and detective work. He emphasizes the grotesquerie of life; bad teeth and pimples, gross obesity and the infirmities of age, cowardice, despair, and cynism. I'm not quite sure how to describe it but I've seen it before in other stories that are playing with genre tropes – the impulse to dirty it up to make it more 'real' than the stylized versions of the genres have become. I found several of the minor characters more interesting than the protagonist, which might have been intentional. Our POV character, Meyer Landsman, wasn't terribly likeable – more for his almost total apathy than anything else (he's very emotionally flat to me) – but that also may have been intentional ala: grotesquerie.

There was also a problem with POV shifts in the book that suggested to me he wrote himself into a corner a couple of times – he needed to get us information that he couldn't from his main POV character so switched up on us, a little unexpected since it only happens twice in a fairly long novel and the information isn't plot critical (nor surprising).

( The last point totally gives away the 'surprises' in the book so I'll cut (also spoilers!)Collapse )

Okay -

About 1 week 'till go-live (all my fingers and toes are crossed), and I'm about ready to lose my mind. I think it's been ... eight months since the first post about the VS concept. Oh, god.

So, I'm chewing my nails about something or other and Greenday's '21 Guns' comes on the radio and, god, I'd forgotten how perfect that would be for a Jack POV, CoE compliant vid. Does anyone know if it's been done? Or, more accuratly, done well?

Copperbadge's review of White Collar has made me much more interested in watching it. I can't imagine why ;)

And crue's rec of one of 'Not For Use' got me started looking over some of my percolating porn stories. I'd hoped to write today but it looks like my weekend is taken up with socializing and VS. Ah ... soon, though. I'm getting antsy to work on my own stuff.

And after all my bitching and moaning about finding a simple web design program, I finally clicked on the little icon that says 'iweb' in my computer. D'oh. Pretty much point and click, which was exactly what I was looking for. I have no spoons for designing a web-page from scratch. The question remains ... do I still have the password and login for my website?

Well. http://www.thrfeed.com/2010/01/fox-readying-us-version-of-torchwood-.html

This is a fairly strong rumor and if so it's about as nightmarish a scenario as I can imagine. Fox – of Fox News – picking up a show that (used) to have a welcome and strong queer content. A show that, in its previous season had characters on the show spew mocking and homophobic messages and then fridged the (supposed) queer. And then the produce and creator of the show hared off to Los Angeles for his career.

Offhand, I can't think of a situation that plays more strongly into the worst interpretation of the events surrounding CoE than this.

*When CoE first aired, there were theories that the death of Ianto Jones was partly due to the desire to 'mainstream' the show.
*That the increased heteronormative message in the show (Gwen's ... uh, 'desire' to have her baby, the death of the child of a single parent, the punishing of characters with different lifestyle choices) as another mainstreaming attempt.
*There were theories that RTD was breaking the toys in Britain to shore up his career in the US.
*That they'd create a brand-new Torchwood by burning down the old.

Gee. It looks less hysterical now.

Whether or not RTD intended it, the picking up of the show (if true) by a conservative US station, after the events in CoE really, *really* look like pandering to homophobic mainstreaming demands. It makes pattern and style of Ianto's death, Steven's death (child of a single mother, remember), Jack's suffering (the queer hero always ends up broken by his own desires), so very much a piece with the worst crap spewed by mainstream US media.

US TV is by almost anyone's definition, more regressive and stereotyped than most any other European TV show. Torchwood drew a contingent of watchers who liked the show because it *wasn't* regressive and (I was going to say stereotyped but then … Toshiko), but still the show allowed for a wider range of stories and story elements than US TV generally does. Plus, Fox – not only the most conservative of the US stations, it is traditionally the place where good shows go to die.

I sincerely hope this rumor isn't true but it sounds sickeningly likely.

While my holiday in RL has gone ... rather badly, I did receive some really wonderful bits and pieces from fannish friends.

For one, I discovered that Jack and Ianto, Gwen and Rhys know me! They sent me a holiday card! It was care of curriejean, and was lovely. Thank you curriejean! I even got two lollies - I couldn't decide whether to have the one in the tie or the one in the suspenders first ... so I had them both! It was a quite a mouthful ;)

I also participated in the twsecretsanta exchange (miraculously enough I even got mine in time, if unbeta'd) and received an extraordinary, great story from amand_r. I loved it, I miss Tosh and adore explorations into what she was like beyond the camera's eye. And, the idea of Jack/Tosh with her as the dominant partner gets me going in all sorts of ways. Anyway, here it is: hotaru no hikari (the light of fireflies)

Amand_r is a wonderful writer and this is a beautiful story.

In a RL note, I'm going through a bad bout of depression and that means, alas, I'm not keeping up on various responsibilities - both RL and fannish. Apologies in advance for the various balls that I'm dropping and all that.

PS - someone offered to beta my twsecretsanta story and I have cleverly lost both the email and the pm that originated the offer. If whomever that was is still interested in helping out, I'd appreciate that - I don't mind unbeta'd work for my ownself but I would like to clean up my present for 51stcenturyfox.

Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to figure out ‘what I’m doing’, particularly in regards to my internet presence. On a most basic level, I’m having fun; a great deal of my social and entertainment life take place on the internet, whether it’s reading fanfic, or meta, socializing (as much as I’ve ever been interested in that), grazing the knowledge base or sharing my pearls of wisdom with the unsuspecting populace. In a slightly deeper sense, I get pleasure out of the idea that my opinions and ideas are heard and maybe even listened to occasionally. Beyond that, the internet has allowed me to both practice certain skills (writing, arranging my thoughts, social skills and so on) and given me room to develop my thoughts and philosophies based on what I see and how people react. Yes, the internet is my first step to ruling the world, next, win the lottery.

( This is very tl;dr and possibly multi-part but this one involves sex so I’m sure you’ll want to read it …Collapse )
I do this because I want to be part of the solution, however small, not part of the problem. Yes, I will save the world by writing spanking porn.

Two or more years ago, I sent in a very nice little erotic story for potential publication in a well reputed small press. Then sent back a fairly quick reply saying I had not won the contest but my story was still in consideration for publication. Due to the nature of small presses (among other things, they nearly went out of business not too long after the submission call closed) and I pretty much forgot about the whole thing. About a year later, they sent another letter saying my story was still in consideration for their much reduced publishing plans (e-book instead of print). I said yay and pretty much forgot about it.

So, this week I get a letter from them saying I'm *still* in consideration - on their short list no less - and could I please send them an e-version of the story?

Only problem is ... I've gone through at least one, possibly, two computers since then and I *have no idea where there story is*. I don't even have a physical copy I could re-type.

Groan. This weekend, I'm going to have to comb through all my various saved disks/old computers and see if I can turn up a copy.

OTOH - supposedly, a writing job I did also about two years ago, the company finally published and is going to pay me. *golf clap*

Hah! I got cultured! Sort of ...

Plan 9 From Outer Space was the entertainment event of the evening; complete with a live string quartet and voice actors to handle the lines. Our local cool movie house, appropriately named the Hollywood Theater, put on a showing with musicians, voice actors and an incredible woman who handled the foley and sound effects.

The poster has essentially nothing to do with the actual move. In fact, the movie has little to do with the movie. Zombies, aliens, nuclear war and solarbonite come together with Bella Lugosi and Ed Wood to create one of the most famous - and famously horrible - movies ever made.

Plan 9 is absolutely horrible, no doubt about it but the live music - a chance to hear that classic 'thriller' music live isn't something to pass up - and live voice actors (including a vocal mimicry of Arnold Schartzenneger at his most Austrian), made the entire event worth every penny and more.

Vampira and Bella Lugosi (in his final role) took their turns - without any speaking lines - staggering across the screen and the Swedish Angel had the honor of carrying Schwartzenegger's voice (perfectly done).

It was great fun and, best of all, the organizers of this movie are doing another one next week. The poster involves a woman in a space suit and a giant tentacle. I can't wait.

Hopefully, none of this will give me ideas for fic or gaming.

I have one of those infamous invisible illnesses; chronic, crippling migraines. I’ve had them all my life and, as I’ve gotten older, they’ve gotten less frequent but much, much worse. Despite the half-dozen pill bottles in my kitchen and the best efforts from everyone from my friends to physicians to therapists, I still end up in the hospital about four times a year.
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