Second Silk the Third

Non-meme update

2008-09-02T14:49:39Z

I was going to do another in lieu of update meme, but it just made me annoyed, and I don't do things that annoy me anymore. Also, no one needs to hear my thoughts on the US political climate. So I thought an actual update might be in order, as I have time and internet.

I am at greenspine's house. We just saw her daughter off on the bus for the day of grade one. Eee!

I have gotten to go to the Art Museum and play ladder golf and eat caramel apples, and so far everything is awesome. I expect it will continue so for the rest of the week. greenspine is most awesome herself. As is thistlerose who came with us to eat caramel apples and watch some Buffy.

I have also gotten to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog and the first two parts (of three) of Tin Man. I am now obsessively reading Tin Man fic, as I did with House/Wilson when I had stayed home from the Queenscliff Music festival to write my final Uni essays. I keep noticing Dr Horrible icons on comments to the fics. I suppose this is coincidence.

There are not many ways to start sentences in blog posts except with "I", but the perpendicular pronoun is not my preferred sentence opening. Or, indeed, clause opening. That's what I was going to do:

Ask me questions or tell me random things! I reserve the right not to answer personal questions (or at least, not answer them truthfully), but anything is fair game to ask or share.

San Diego

2008-07-17T00:21:33Z

I am now in San Diego. This is a very lounging around kind of hostel. And it seems to be a pretty lounging around kind of place, although I have been for two walks around the city so far and will go for another soon.

I had lunch with pre_raphaelite1 yesterday. She is awesome! She picked me up from the greyhound station and took me to lunch and we discussed fandom things and politics and the weather and how the internet can hardly be considered to be making us antisocial. Then she drove me to San Diego, and the hostel even let her carry my backpack to my room!

So, the first fandom meet up of the adventure was a complete success!

We decided that we really do have to write those fics that have been sitting on our hard drives being occasionally poked. Of course, mine currently only on a CD on my desk in Melbourne, and no longer on this computer.

I'm catching the overnight bus to San Francisco on Friday.

d minus 10 and counting

2008-07-02T00:31:08Z

Okay, so there'll be no fic for a while now. The chance of finishing any of the fics that I actually kept on my computer and posting them in the next ten days is even more slim than my usual chance of finishing fic. So I thought I'd ask, because I haven't in a while:

Are there any of my fics you'd like to see a commentary of?
Let me know and I will write one. It's always a fun thing to do, and I have some time in the evenings for computery stuff.

I'm waiting for a call back from the master printer at the Australian Print Workshop about printing the bloody great bit of art I'm making. Chances of my still being here when they've go availability: also slim. But so long as it's all cut and I've discussed printing options with them, then P can take the lino there. I'm going back to the studio now to do more work on it, because he hasn't called in the hour since I called them and I have to do more work and I get to watch Spooks while I'm working. I'm rewatching series two.

I have to wash and then not wear all the clothes I'm taking with me. And cut my fingernails.

d minus 16 and counting

2008-06-26T04:43:15Z

I have now seen Spooks episode 5 of series 5, called "The Message".

Whaa!

That's pretty much my whole reaction, summed up.

I was spoiled for two things: that Ruth leaves after taking the flack for a murder and that she and Harry finally, finally kiss. I was most annoyed about the second spoiler, but it was from the photo in the first paragraph of the wikipedia article on Ruth, which I looked up only to get to Nicola Walker's imdb page.

How and why she leaves was too bad a spoiler in terms of watching it, because it's Spooks and they do it so well. There was much more to the why than any spoiler could hope to encompass, so I was very pleased watching it play out. Although Whaa!

I am intrigued and I am pleased (because I was uncertain where they were going with it) that the fight Harry's been having with the Oliver and other intelligence people is now explicit. Ruth wasn't just protecting Harry and his position, but the integrity he fights for. He's the only one who can fight them, as he was quite clearly aware of when he threatened Oliver with appearing to go rogue. When Harry's friend died and Harry never even knew he was sick and they were all fighting over the tell-all book he wrote - just the idea of which was enough to make people made - the guy left it to Harry.

I love the tension and tentativeness and unresolution between Ruth and Harry. It's one of my favouritist flavours of fictional relationship, so it has made me very happy for a couple of seasons, now. And it was resolved very well, I thought. At least, I got to be squeeful about it. Also Whaa!

I ♥ Ruth so much. She's gorgeous and smart and her confidence and her approach to the spying stuff, and she's complete awesome. (Oh, can we have Ruth/Donna Noble now please? Or Ruth/Toshiko? Or Ruth/Giles?(This last idea come from remembering ffutures's The Man Who Looked Liked Peter Salter))

In almost completely unrelated fannishness, I think that I am much more a Doctor/Donna 'shipper than a Doctor/Anyone else 'shipper because I fancy Catherine Tate much more than I fancy the other actors/characters. At least she's not (quite) old enough to be my mother. Unlike Sela Ward, who is, in fact, older than my mother.

d minus 18 and counting

2008-06-24T12:59:51Z

I have now seen "Turn Left".

Several short comments, in handy bullet point form (now with actual bullet points).

• Daleks? More Daleks? What the hell? Why? Haven't they destroyed all of the last Daleks in the universe three or four times already in New Who? (Dalek, The Parting of the Way, Doomsday, Evolution of the Daleks.)

• I, ah, kind of liked it when Donna was ordinary. She was more ordinary that Martha and Rose because she wasn't at the beginning of making a life for herself. Rose was just at that stage, and Martha had taken the first step in choosing medicine.

• Given the trippiness of time travel is it "super temp confident" Donna who goes into HC Clements before meeting the Doctor or is it "resigned, there only because the future her stepped in front of a bus" Donna who goes?

• I'm sure she got her super-temp confidence back pretty quickly. Donna is BRILLIANT.

• Please to be writing Rose/Donna now please?

• Please, please, please to be writing Martha and Sarah-Jane try to save the hospital from the Judoon? (I still have to write my The Doctor takes Martha to have tea with Sarah-Jane after "Family of Blood" fic.)

• If the stars goes out all at once, this means that they went at all different times over the last several thousand years. If the sun goes out, it went out eight and a half minutes ago. If Sirius goes out it went out 8.6 years ago. The stars of Orion's belt are 900, 1300 and 800 light years away. So, very trippy time stuff going on, that they all go out at once.

• Donna's mum mentioning the lack of bees in the AU world is an awesome bit of continuity.

• Bad Wolf even moreso.

• Why couldn't the UNIT guy calling in the Doctor's death have been Ross from the Sontaran episodes?

d minus 22 and counting

2008-06-20T11:33:42Z

It was officially my last day at First-job yesterday, but I have to back for a few hours of the next couple of weeks because they haven't found a replacement yet. The VP and Boss and new Boss all think I'm brilliant, which I think is completely ridiculous, but it's nice. The building had morning tea on Tuesday, with cream buns.

I have to resign from Phone job before Tuesday to get in my two weeks notice. I meant to do it two weeks ago.

Fannish things:

This is the only Hermione icon have left in my reduced icon arsenal. I used to have four or five, I think. I like this because everyone needs a giggle icon, and it's one of the few where Emma Watson actually looks like my idea of Hermione. Made by iconseeyou, from a collection of movie shots for a mood theme.

This is from Serentity, from the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial. In Joss Whedon's words "can we make it weirder, more bizarre?". There's also an strawberry saying "yay yay!", also by erin_icons. I prefer oranges now, although strawberries used to be my favourite fruit. Applauding fruit, what's more hooray than that.

I have spent more than a reasonable amount of the last couple of weeks reading TV Tropes, so I'm giving everyone the link to the page on SeriousBusiness. Don't say I didn't warn you. I want to put links to TV Tropes in normal conversation. Also, check out the entry on Cricket, although this is probably funnier if you actually know something about the game.

Saints are up! It's almost ten minutes into the second quarter and we're more than twice Freemantle's score. It's not going to last, of course, but it's certainly exciting.

Fic: Time Again

2008-06-20T10:23:24Z

Time Again
A Torchwood/Doctor Who fic by Rose Williams.
Owned by Russel T Davis and the BBC et al

918 words
PG for themes, I suppose. Also, warnings for second person point of view and presence tense.
Jack, Algy, Estelle, Original Jack
With thanks to karaokegal for betaing. Anything confusing or wrong I added after she'd read it.

Jack in 1941, and again, and again.

*

This time the cover-story is far more important than the first impression on the mark. Whoever tracks you down will be as out of their time as you are out of yours, but before then you will have to spend up to several months in London without being executed for treason or impersonating an officer or whatever other reason they might find to do away with you.

He is sadly easy to find; a bright young American volunteer lost in action. Three days later, after the dispatch to his mother, you arrive in his uniform, with his name and papers. No one questions the orders, and no one is unhappy to have another officer around.

You’ve been here less than two weeks when your ship tells you that they have finally found you, whoever ‘they’ will turn out to be. You are at the club (as you’ve come to call it), and had planned to spend the start of the night gently teasing Algy.

When the bombs start to fall, you are at the window with your omnioculars. A young woman in post-war clothing is hanging from a barrage balloon and you know that the countdown has started. It’s only just in time, too. You’ve managed this bit well, you can even tell them when the bomb would drop, play the crook, and they still won’t have time to find it for themselves.

You’ve left a couple of threads hanging if you ever need to return. If it comes to that, you’ll be pleased to see Algy again. You know that you will miss him and the enticing combination of his daring and his fear, but the next turn in the plot is already forming in your mind. Its call is stronger. Rescue the girl, sell the junk and avoid the bomb. Then it will be over and you can return to a civilised time and place with the cash to build a persona you might genuinely enjoy.

*

The plan, when there had still been a plan, did not include spending 1941 in London. You are working your way up through the ranks and will go where they tell you, with little manipulation on your own part. Even Torchwood has agreed that the Germans are a greater threat than aliens. But you feel, despite a new name and new rank, that there is too great a risk of meeting yourself or revealing how much you know about wartime London. You’re planning to receive special orders before the end of December.

Then you see Estelle. You have lived for more than a hundred years, but the shock of falling in love can still take your breath away. And it does; the way she smiles, the way she walks, the way she turns toward you when you approach her.

New Year’s Eve is sedate in the aftermath of the Second Great Fire. You see in 1941 in a quiet corner of a salon. Estelle tells you about the fairies, like it is a great confession. You cannot pretend to be sceptical. She laughs and kisses you, too pleased that you believe her to listen properly to your stories. She teases you about the war confusing your idea of good and bad.

“Perhaps one person’s good is another’s bad,” you say.

She smiles, not pretending that it makes sense.

“Will you promise me,” she begins, then pauses to gather herself. “Can you promise that we’ll be together?”

You do not hesitate to say, “Until we die,” because you would mean it if you could.

The orders you arrange ship you out on the sixth of January. Then you simply disappear, walk out of her life like she was a mark. You think you’ll try to find her again, when you can.

*

The dance hall is long abandoned, but it can still evoke memories of its era. The 1940s on Earth is as familiar and comfortable for you as any other time or place you’ve ever discovered. The time shift feels like the resetting of a dislocated joint.

You really would have loved to return. When it turns out you have to, you revel in it. You spent years training for this sort of infiltration, and months studying and living in this time period. You are more pleased to be stuck here than you can ever let Toshiko know.

You forget that you have stepped out of the twenty-first century. 1941 is home, and you are surprised, embarrassed to realise that you do not have the correct money. It’s a reminder that you are not supposed to be here, but not so stark a one as coming face-to-face with the man whose life you stole.

Jack is better looking than you imagined. But also older, more weary. You certainly never expected him to look at you more than twice. His hand is warm. If you did not know that he is If you did not know that he is not going to live to see tomorrow evening, you might not have accepted the invitation to dance. He will have to face consequences of this, and you will not.

You never stay with anyone long enough to face consequences for anything. Except for Rose and the Doctor. It’s for the Doctor that you return to the time you came from.

It’s only after the gate closes that it occurs to you that Jack may have known his coming fate as well, to have approached you as he did. You don’t think you’ll be able to go back to 1941 again.

~*~

D minus 30 and counting

2008-06-12T00:22:02Z

So, the HP prequel thing is alive and out in the world. I'm so far behind fandom I'd forgotten that it was even in the works.

Waterstones - for the original, chose "read out authors' stories." I liked Neil Gaiman's, didn't get Nick Hornby's, and loved Tom Stoppard's.

For the HP story, there's a transcript here by mmichelle, because JRK has very messy handwriting.

Um, I'm sure there was something else I was supposed to post about. Ooo, yes.

* The Poodle has the flu, which means her recent decline has been a treatable cold and not arthritis or general old age. P took her to the vet yesterday and she tablets to take and her bark back.

* Today is my forth last day at First-job, ever. We all had morning tea yesterday because Boss (who's no longer actually my boss) is going overseas on Sunday. One of the others asked if I was taking a leave of absence from here. Not at all. It never even crossed my mind. I have resigned!

* I have seen all of this season of Doctor Who so far. And, from the what I've picked up from my friendslist, I think I am glad not to be an active part of Who fandom. But I have also just written a Mickey/Jake story that I need to work out whether it works or not. I think it's still at the "not yet" stage.

* P and L are talking about possibly selling the house before I get back from overseas. This is v. exciting. But it also means I have to do a more thorough inventory and audit of my stuff before I leave. Goodness I have a lot of stuff.

* Also, I currently have the_fibber's The Vicar of Dibley DVDs.

fandom things

2008-05-05T13:39:14Z

There was, I think, some leap in the debate about reviewing and the fandom economy a little while ago. I don't really know because I don't follow fandom discussion or meta stuff. Reviewing is neither a gift nor payment. It's a conversational gambit, as is fic. Sometimes the people you're talking to pick it up and run with it and sometimes the they simply don't. Maybe they didn't hear you or didn't understand. Maybe the music was loud or they were thinking about what drink they wanted to order. To really push the conversational metaphor. Fandom also gives us a shared space and a shared experience. Simply a place to be, shaped by fics we haven't read as well as fics we've read.

And it got me thinking about all the ways of participating in fandom that I don't do. Because I review and I write a bit of fic and every now and then I'll rec something. But I don't rarely episode reviews, let alone comment on them. I rarely read fannish meta discussion, and even more rarely comment, and even more rarely write my own.

My not!cousin was asking about fandom and LJ yesterday, and whether people wrote about their daily lives like on blogs. And, well, yes. But it's not like reading random people's diary entries as much as it like calling you friend up after school and discussing all the things that happened at school that day. Except that you weren't there when it happened, so it's more interesting. Also, people are mostly aware of the fannishness of their flists and their online existence. People talk about their fannish dreams and crack fic ideas and the way the person behind them in the coffee queue sounded like Remus Lupin and what their sibling said about Hugh Laurie, because they know that it relates to everyone else's fannish experiences, that we like to know we're not along. But also because it is a safe space to do that in. And part of what makes it a safe space is other people having had crackier ideas and actually written them.

If being in fandom pleases you, if reading thoughts about your favourite tv show or shippy fic or roleplaying or arguing about the deeper meaning of characters' costumes or discussing the possible endings of this season or the relative worth of character, or laughing at the people who do those things is a way that you choose to spend your time, then it doesn't really matter how often you comment or review or write or link or de-lurk. We know you're there, because we're there too, every time we don't review or comment or read or write that story we thought of. And I think everyone feels better knowing there's someone else there who, even if they're not as weirder than one, they are as weird as one.

It was really slow at work a couple of weeks ago, when the computer system was down for a week, so I decided to write one sentence fics. I finally remembered to bring the scrap of paper home so I could type it up.

The first is the opening of my Simon Tam/James Wilson fic, but it changes the point of the fic (which was originally porn), so now it's about Simon and River and strangely supernatural for Firefly.

When they reached the end of the world, Simon turned right, towards the past and Earth was, although he knew that River, had they given her the opportunity, would have turned into the known and unknowable future, aware from him.

Doctor Who: Doctor/Jack, kind of.

The sense of Jack, the fact of his presence and the impossibility of his existence, sat in the back of the Doctor's mind like a stone in his show: it itched, and the only relief the Doctor had found was in worrying at it—imagining meeting Jack again, planning what he'd say, fantasising what Jack had fantasised about him—it pass the time.

House: House/Brenda, because there needs to be more Brenda fic.

They spent the evenings together sometimes, side by side on Brenda's couch arguing about general Hospital or in House's bed making out and laughing or in the clinic trading insulting comments about the patients: House was happiest the days after the making out, Brenda the days after nights in the clinic.

Angel: Wesley/Illyria, my favourite pairing ever, possibly.

It did not feel like the end of the world (she had seen that once before); like someone had extinguished the sun (she could feel the earth's spin and knew it would face its starr again), it did not feel as thought anything had stopped (she still breathed, the blood circulated through the shell, she could still hear the insect hum of the traffic), but it felt , and that was worth fighting for.

1. Reply to this post [and ask specifically to take part in the meme], and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

Tosh! Looking happy. I added it after the end of the series when I realised that I didn't have a Tosh icon. It was originally tagged "delighted" because I used it to replace my other Martha icon. But then I also needed a not-happy tag for it, too.

I had it in my old icons, and I keep forgetting that I added with this batch. It's Toby and Sam arguing about writing, which is always fun.

I love Nathan. He's my favourite Hero. And I love the wonder in his discovery of what he can do.

Jack/Ianto from the end of series one, holding onto each other in the face of Abaddon. This is my Jack/Ianto icon, but I named it in a phase of naming icons by moody phrases.

This is an icon by active_apathy. Fabulous cracky icons are her speciality. I don't get to use it often, because I haven't really worked out what it's for. But I love it.

Does this icon need explaining? It's Javert, from the original engraving illustrations for Les Miserables.
It's the scene where Javert walks in on the criminals arguing about whether they have to draw lots on who will get to climb out the window first. The twelve men Javert brought as back-up refused to go into the room.

This is Kevin from SeaChange in the church where his father's funeral is. I needed a faith and pensive icon, and Kevin is the most awesome daggy character ever, so I was pleased to have icon of him.

Stephen Fry is awesome, and in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, really young. I love their literary discussions, and the ridiculous turns of phrase. I wanted one for my very own.

This is my Hufflepuff pride icon, because I am a Hufflepuff. I loved the whole series of epilogue addenda icons and comments, and I am not overly fond of JK Rowling giving extra info outside the books, so I like the apparently ridiculousness of the idea. I will write Al/Scorpius are Hufflepuff fic.

Remix

2008-04-20T12:07:32Z

There will be a real post about remix tomorrow morning (along with all those comments I haven't answered yet), along with some recs. But for the moment:

I love my remixer and I love what they've done with my fic.

It's Still A Secret (For All Time Remix)

They've taken a tiny kind of cobbled together as a prompt response and made a story around it. It is so cool! And it's all about Brenda Previn. House fandom needs more Nurse Brenda fic.

Also, my remixee likes the fic I wrote (and other do too) so I'm set to enjoy the good mood I've been in for days now for a little while longer. Hopefully through my UK Visa interview, which is tomorrow.

I'm using this icon as my travelling icon.

secondsilk @ 2008-04-18T22:31:00

2008-04-18T13:24:59Z

Actual exchange at work today:

CT: [Something about another agent]
TL: He's not in tomorrow. There's a Jewish holiday. Which holiday?
Me: [to self: duh! you know this one] Passover!

So, all the observers of Jewish holy days on my f'list, thanks for making somewhat aware of the rest of the world.
I mean that very sincerely. And all the best for the festival.

In completely unrelated news, my Fuck You, She's Awesome list:

I was going to explain this, but I think it's pretty a) widespread and b) self-explanatory
I have limited myself to one woman per fandom. These lists are not in any particular order (there not even in the order I thought of them in); they should be considered exhaustive and the women named herein are not necessarily the women I think most awesome in their fandom/field.

Fictional:

Amy Gardiner (West Wing)
Toshiko Sato (Torchwood)
Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Winifred Burkle (Angel)
Kennedy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Meredith Monahan (SeaChange)
Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
Lucy Kenwright (Studio 60)
Ellen Harvelle (Supernatural)
Serafina Pekkala (His Dark Materials)

Non-Fictional:

Heloise, abbess
Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette
Kaz Cooke, writer
Catherine Deveney, columnist and ranter
Elizabeth Bear, writer
Isobelle Carmody, writer
Sarah Monette, writer
JK Rowling, writer
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, courtier

I think is perhaps troubling, or, at least, indicative, how many women on that list are writers, and how many are writers of fiction. Also, I obviously need to study more history. I'm currently reading The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, which I bought when it was a set text for my first year history subject. This is how slow I do my uni reading, it's been almost five years since I bought the book.

Now I do intend to eat some strawberry icecream and answer comments from the last two weeks.

Torchwood: Fragments

2008-04-18T00:56:00Z

I still don't have anything really coherent about the last two episodes of Torchwood. But here's some things I've thought about "Fragments".

This episode was so cool. I loved each and all elements of the backstories. It worked really well because it didn't even try to have a plot. I was only disappointed that we needed an episode like this to give us this backstory - that there were so many surprises in it. More of it should have been implied or given clues for in earlier episodes. That having been said, it is going to be so much fun to go back and rewatch the earlier episodes looking for the clues and the with this understanding of the character dynamics.

I've rewritten my Ianto comes back to Wales fic to take into account/explain how Jack came to accept him.

Jack only wanted Ianto in after Ianto decided that it wasn't worth it, that he could no longer pursue the position. So their relationship - the dynamic of their interactions - is predicated on a strange sort of one-up-man-ship. I like this for them. I like their not really liking each other in the beginning. I imagine that Jack might assume that Ianto's reaction to their falling on each other after trapping Myfanwy is denial, basically, and so he keeps him around to try to unsettle him again. Ianto confounds that with his equanimity. See his reaction to Gwen when Jack says he looks good in a suit in "Everything Changes". For Ianto, the knowledge that the scene in the shed is intimate and that Jack might really have looked at him twice, is possibly the first time he's been hit with the idea that his future might not be Lisa, or need not be Lisa. I think Jack naturally does that to people - astounds them and makes them think big picture and long term. Like, really long term.

There's about three months between "Doomsday" and "Everything Changes", which isn't very long, really. I think there could be so much to be done in stringing the series together with more explicit understanding of where the two of them are in their relationship. I think the development of whatever is between them could have more clues, there could more of it and more complications in it.

How awesome is Tosh? Could she be more awesome? I love that it was her mother. Especially as we saw her mother in "End of Days". I think that it ads a brilliant tint to Jack's protectiveness of Tosh in "Captain Jack Harkness", and also his disappointment in "Greeks Bearing Gifts". I like to think now that his bit on "acting out of character" was not on Tosh's secrecy and the fact that she was able to hear people's thoughts. It was clear that she had found some artefact and Jack was simply pushing her, waiting for her to come to terms with it and tell him. What made him more suspicious - the acting out of character - was her rifling through his thoughts. Her following him and working for him was partly penance and partly rescue in the manner of conversion - a new way of looking at the world. So, in a way, her following him, her working for Torchwood was based on faith.

Her five years was up at the end of the series. Jack said that he would take from prison if she worked for him for five years. So part of the not questioning him was the knowledge that would, possibly, breach the contract she has with him. Jack is much, much harder and colder than he initially seems to us - but he is that cold at the time Tosh first meets him. That how she can trust him. Wow, Tosh, how far she's come, personally, from where she was. She's out in the world and living most of a full life (and when she has Mary, a full life).

The importance of Tosh's mother, and the fact that Jack knows what she did and what she was capable of doing and the others don't, really could have had more expression through out the series. Also the fact that she has such restricted contact with her parents. Couldn't she have once been shown writing a postcard? Also, she was going to a family birthday party in "Captain Jack Harkness". Did she have special permission to go? was her mother not going to be there?

I was so thankful that Owen had a greater and more dramatic trauma in his life than his mother. I liked the backstory with his mother because, "I love you, that doesn't mean I have to like you," is such a great line, and it's more complicated than parental neglect as it is usually portrayed. That he had a long term committed relationship in the past makes me much happier with both his blasé approach to relationships for the rest of the series and also his relationship with Diane. As much as I love "Out of Time", the apparent suddenness of Owen giving up his lecherous ways always struck me as too much too soon. It forces through the character development to set up the season arc and Owen's motives in "End of Days". But if it is that he sees something in Diane that he recognises from his fiancee, then it makes sense, I buy it. And I also much more easily buy his reaction to the thought of getting her back, and of her leaving him in the first place. Also, perhaps, his pursuit of Gwen, because Owen doesn't want to be at Torchwood.

There really should be more of a clue of that in earlier episodes. Not just in "Out of Time" but also "Adam". I would not want the memories that define Owen to be anything other than they are. But perhaps an acknowledgement from him that bad memories are not necessarily ones you want to get rid of - that he wants the bad memories back as well as the good ones because there still memories that are his. Or something. I did really like "Adam" so I don't want to change it to incorporate that. I am just fascinated by the idea of remembering having remembered things differently. Adam could have played that card with Jack, Owen not remembering what had happened to his fiancee, and Jack saying that even the sad memories of those we love are memories of those we love.

I like Jack's history with Torchwood. Especially them finding him like that and his obsession with finding the Doctor. It makes a lot of sense in answering how he survives those years. Also, it finally makes sense of why Torchwood, a supposedly secret organisation, is so well known in Cardiff. It's part of Jack's unconventional approach to actually preparing the human race of 21st century Earth for whatever else the minds at BBC Wales can throw at them.

Okay, so I think that's everything for this episode. I do have further comments on the last episode, of course. But I still need to craft them into something cogent.

In completely unrelated news, I ♥ Paul Bettany.

One of those sorts of updates

2008-04-08T03:08:59Z

So, obviously: posting Australian poems in April = not happening.
Also: writing remix = not happening.
Watching last episode of Torchwood = not happening.
Reading f'list therefore = not happening.
But reading back log of "to-read" fic = happening. I now have fewer that 530 fics bookmarked!
Also, watching Spooks = happening. I love Ruth. Please, f'list to be writing Ruth/Zoe?

I do have to avoid reading LJ until I've seen Exit Wounds, which I hope to do this afternoon instead of going to the gym.

In the meantime a meme on language use stolen from karaokegal

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks. - Creek.
2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called. - (Shopping) Trolley
3. A metal container to carry a meal in. - Lunchbox, although they're usually plastic. Maybe lunchtin.
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in. - Frying pan
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people. - Couch, or sometimes sofa.
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof. - Gutters, being the metal half-pipe that the water flows through.
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening. - Front of house - veranda, probably, and especially if it's made of wood. Porches are usually raised off street level. Back of house - Porch or pagola.
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages. - Soft drinks
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup. - Pancakes, usually. Also, sometimes hotcakes if they rise to distinguish them from crepe-like pancakes.
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself. - A sandwich.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach. - How vague is this question? Actually swimming clothes are either board shorts or speedos. Men also wear, you know, hats, and Zoot tops (for sun protection) and sometimes shirts or a sarong.
12. Shoes worn for sports. - Runners.
13. Putting a room in order. - Tidying.
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark. - Glow worm
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball. - Those little insects that curl up into a ball. Butcher beetles, maybe.
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down. - See-Saw
17. How do you eat your pizza? - Point first. Then, when I've eaten about half of the topping bit, I'll eat the crust. Then the rest.
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff? - Garage sale
19. What's the evening meal? - Dinner, usually. Sometimes tea.
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are? - Basement, usually. But we rarely have them in Australia. If it's used to store wine, then it's a cellar.
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places? - Water tap, or drink tap. Sometimes bubbler, especially at school.

Also, I thought I'd take this opportunity to complain about the "What slanguage do you speak?" meme, on the grounds that there are a whole lot of questions where I don't get to tick a box:

2. A Cougar is a brand of alcohol.
5. If I order a regular coffee I expect to be asked what kind of coffee I want. "Regular" is a size, but I usually order small, because that is actually the proper size for a coffee.en
6. A tea leaf is literally a tea leaf. I have never come across the phrase as a slang for anything.
9. I have never heard the word timbit before, either.
11. Likewise goober.
12. A tonic is a glass of a particular sort of soft drink - tonic water, commonly mixed with gin but also consumed neat, as it were.
13. A blue bottle is a Portuguese Man-of-War.
21. A billy is a metal tin for boiling water in when you're camping. We have a billy that has a spout, and it's still a billy.

Three days of posts in one

2008-04-03T10:02:58Z

I wrote most of the following over the past two days. But then never posted it, because it's long and rambley and possibly not very good. I'm posting it now because I want to have said it more than the typing itself takes care of.

I am sick. This is both good and bad. I dislike being sick, but I am actually sick - low grade Flu-like thing - so I have a medical certificate getting me off work for three days. Woohoo! I need the money, but I'm really not up to being pleasant and approachable and competent for four hours in an air-conditioned office to people who have waited weeks to reschedule a technical appointment that's being held up be our computer system.

That's phone-job, where I need a medical certificate to have not shown up.

I don't need a medical certificate for First-job. I just need to sound poorly when I talk to Boss. This is not an act. I did go in on Wednesday because she called me when I was watching Heist on Tuesday. I got my pay cheque signed (for all the time I worked between the second pay in December and the last pay in February, so it was worth it).

I also wanted to say that I am very sorry about anjenue. I thought I did not know her at all, but I do remember the name rosesanguina. I've read nimori's posts and will pass on the link to we_love_you_anj.

In my series of strange fannish dreams the night before last, which were possibly feverish, I dreamed a read a post on my f'list - someone announcing the death of a mutual LJ-friend, who succumbed to a long-term illness I had not been aware of. I was surprised, because I had not realised that the friend making the announcement and the friend who had died were so close. I'm not saying who it was. It's bad luck, and it's still too freaky to think about. To learn that there had actually been a death in fandom spun me out a little.

It always make me think of Malli, a person I did not know at all, except that she lived in northern North America and attended swimming training. She was killed in an accident. I don't remember how long ago. I don't remember if I had ever review her story. It was a strange HP/Buffy crossover with time stretch-ness and I wanted to steal the premise because it was Buffy/Sirius and I was intrigued. Now I'm not sure I ever can.

Her family removed, as best they could, her presence from the internet. All that is left is the edited profile on the ff.net page. It is clearly written by someone who does not - did not - understand fandom. Someone who was not then able to appreciate that we, Malli's readers, might also want something of her to keep. I discovered Malli's death several weeks after it happened. I had gotten used to weekly updates of the story, and when none had arrived for a while I thought maybe the comment notifications had stopped working and went to her profile. The next time I heard of a death in fandom, I tracked down the profile again and added her to my favourite author's lists. And it's why I'll never delete my ff.net profile. I explained to my parents what had happened - that someone I didn't know had died and they made murmuring sympathetic noises, which was all there was to do.

I am happy to see the community we_love_you_anj and that people who felt connected to her can share their appreciation of her impact on their lives with her family. I understand that thamiris did not want her real and fannish lives to be connected, but her journal is still extant and the community tham_preserved are doing their thing (very well). Although these people have died, their internet presence is still there. Strangely stopped - itself a memorial.

Everyone now and then one comes across memorials to internet-people. These are not internet pages dedicated to a particular person for their RL achievements, they are not online cemeteries, but notes and markers of a person's involvement in online activities. The one that struck me most was the note to _redpanda_ (who I never knew at all, either) on the profile for metaquotes. Like the "in memory of" after the closing credits of films or TV shows. There are paused web-pages and journals and sites. Whereas most of what we have done and were in flesh-space is written over after our deaths, cyber-space is infinite. And in strange ways also permanent, for password protected, free-hosted webpages.

Thinky thoughts.
Now I have to try to get my head into a space for writing remix.

Also it was April Fool's Day recently. I'm not sure exactly when because it happened on the internet the day after it happened here. Nothing happened to me at all in flesh-space. But the best online thing was Questionable Content, xkcd and Dinosaur Comics pointing to each other.

In a last note before I return to writing the remix and making sure I have all the paperwork for my US Visa application interview which is tomorrow:

The Hugo Award nominees list is out.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form nominees are:
Battlestar Galactica "Razor"
Doctor Who "Blink"
Doctor Who "Human Nature" / "Family of Blood"
Star Trek New Voyages "World Enough and Time"
Torchwood "Captain Jack Harkness"

Now I don't watch Battlestar Galactica or anything Star Trek, but how do I choose between the rest?

Well, in the end it will be Stephen Moffat's "Blink", because it's Stephen Moffat. But woohoo! for Paul Cornell and Catherine Tregenna and Ashley Way and Charles Palmer. Go Who-verse! I'm really pleased to see those three episodes are there, because they really are the best of the whole lot. This shows good critical awareness on the part of the nominators. Not that I was expecting anything else.

Also congratulations for Elizabeth Bear matoquicala for her Short Story nomination and Shaun Tan for his Related Book and Professional Artist nominations. And John Scalzi for his Novel and Fan Writer nominations. And Scott Lynch for his John W Campbell Award nomination.
I had not heard of the Hugo Awards this time last year, it's amazing how quickly one can pick up a little of something. :-)

Instead of actually writing anything

2008-03-20T06:56:59Z

Fic that needs to be written:

1. Hermione for ninebillion from the prompt: "While wizards don't believe in gods, they know for a fact that gods believe in gods."

This is about Christmases, I think, and all the trappings of Christmas at Hogwarts without any mention of what it's all about. The only difficulty is remembering what happens in Anglican Christmas services.

2. Original Jack for lgbqfest for the prompt: He was listed as dying when his plane went down, but he was really imprisoned because of the situation the night before. He decides to let the world think he did die then and make a new life for himself. Including being as open as he can about who he is. He finds someone who makes it a little easier to be himself. Extra bonus points if the man is Algy from the Doctor Who episodes The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances but that's just a wish, an OC is good too.

I have wanted to write this story since before I ever saw Torchwood, as it's a story that could be written for Foyle's War. And if the prompt hadn't asked for Algie, which is really cool, than I might have saved Rex Talbot. But it's difficult to find the right tone. It's also difficult not to dive straight into exploring the historical situation.

3. Sirius for lgbtfest for the prompt: Sirius Black/James Potter (unrequited). A look at the heartache involved in being in love with your best friend, especially when he's just gotten engaged.

This one will not be difficult to write. But I'm a little bit daunted by the prospect of writing this particular story. Also, I'm afraid that it, like the others, will become a rambly thousand word character study rather than an actual story with plot. (Have I ever written one of those?)

4. Remix!

I'm saying nothing about this one other than reiterating the fear of plot-less-ness. Although much less risk here because the original story has plot.

Fic: Cloth of White

2008-03-15T00:24:25Z

Cloth of White
A Firefly Fic by Rose Williams
Owned by Joss Whedon et al.

Zoe, Mal, Wash/Zoe, ensemble
PG for violence and mature themes.
1213 words.

Written for youngest_one @ LJ for the ninebillion @ LJ Ficathon.
Request: Firefly: Mal and Zoe. Grieving, memories, and a funeral that shouldn't have happened.
Superlative thanks to thistlerose @ LJ and karaokegal @ LJ for betaing.

*

The sun beat down on them. It was a contrast to the rain and mud and cold of the makeshift funerals they had held during the war. Zoe was pleased to think that Wash would have been comfortable here in one of his Hawaiian shirts. She clenched her fists, forcing her nails into her palms and swallowed down the threat of tears; she had cried already.

*

The first death had shocked them all. They were fighting a bloody war, against an alliance of better resourced planets with better trained soldiers. But it was not until a blast sounded, they all dropped, and Davey didn’t get up afterwards that they began to understand. The only one not simply staring in horror was Malcolm. While their sergeant flapped his arms to get them moving over the next rise, Malcolm hoisted Davey over his shoulder and set off.

The rise protected them from the wind and from the sights of the Alliance laser darts.

“Who’s digging?” Malcolm asked.

“You should have left him,” Sergeant Peterson said.

“We’re better than them as shot him. Who’s digging?”

A couple of men dropped their packs and put together their shovels. It started to rain.

Malcolm stood to say the rites, but before he had done more than clear his throat, Martyn called for him to stop. Martyn rummaged around in his pack and came up with a hand wide strip of white cloth, clean and neatly pressed.

“You at least have to wear it,” Martyn said, holding it out to Malcolm.

Their sergeant snorted. Zoe wondered if he had been overcome by the shock and would recover, or whether he was simply a dickhead whose father knew someone.

Malcolm accept Martyn’s offering, shaking the strip out and draping it over his shoulders. He pulled the chain from his neck and held the cross between his palms.

“We are gathered here to lay to rest our comrade Davey Jecenski.”

Zoe added her own prayer to protect Malcolm in the battles to come.

*

Inara had to lend her something white, and tailor it to fit. They no longer expected funerals; Zoe no longer owned anything white herself. She had stood still while Inara pinned the sleeve and the hem, even though her body seemed to itch all over and all she wanted to do was sprint across the sand outside.

The dress, when it was made, was lovely, and the part of Zoe that still noticed such things was worried that it would get dirty. Mal spoke the funeral rites, as he had done over countless comrades. Zoe let the words pass over her; she knew them well. The familiar rhythm of Mal’s voice kept her steady.

*

Wash had insisted that they go. Zoe had been sceptical, but Mal had decided to humour their new pilot and probably enjoyed seeing Zoe uncomfortable. So they were in a crowd of local workers watching some strange performance. It was not their kind of bar.

“More alcohol, sir? Drown your sorrows?”

“Please,” Mal said, holding his glass up for Zoe to take to the counter.

“Wash?”

Wash waved the question away, concentrating on the jugglers’ passes. When Zoe deposited the new drinks on the table and dropped into her seat beside him, Wash turned to her and grinned.

“Aren’t they great?” he said.

There were three jugglers passing clubs and Zoe had to admit that they were well skilled. Wash’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Zoe found herself forgiving him his shirts and his jokes. Although not the moustache.

*

Mal sat beside Zoe on his bunk, drinking sake out of tiny glasses. Each burning mouthful unwound something in Zoe that she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t miss later. Mal was simply staring into his glass.

“Thought it’d be anyone but him,” Mal said.

“Yes.”

There was pause while Zoe refilled her glass and Mal took a sip from his.

“I don’t have white.”

They both used to carry white in their packs, after that first month in the front lines. But the relative ease of their lives meant they no longer even carried packs.

“You don’t need it,” Mal said. Zoe didn’t know how he had meant it, so she said nothing. “It wouldn’t have mattered to Wash,” Mal went on. “He wasn’t a soldier.”

“It won’t matter to Wash because he’s dead,” Zoe said, knowing she sounded flat and heavy. With anyone else she might have wasted the little energy she could spare from sitting upright to animate her voice. “I was a soldier. It matters to me.”

Mal nodded and drained the rest of his glass.

“I never.” Zoe stopped and tried again. “I never gave up on God the way you did. I always thought ‘We’re alive, we’re still flying’. And then when Wash—then I had Wash and life was good.”

“And now?”

Zoe tried to consider the question, but the hole where Wash had been and the shape she had considered God’s were too large to see this closely. She had the rest of her life to answer that. Whether she was a widow or a soldier, she was certain of just one thing. “I want to wear something white.”

*

Once they had found Kaylee and the ship was flightworthy, they did often end up in dingy bars out on the rim. And while Mal tracked down business and Kaylee scrounged for parts, Wash would have a beer and Zoe would keep an eye on the room.

Zoe hadn’t liked the way Wash asked questions, too specific and too casual.

“Have you been on Oceanania in the winter?” he asked once.

Zoe remembered bitter rain and someone explaining the funeral rites on their home world. They had asked why Zoe wore white to mark death and she hadn’t been able to answer.

Wash didn’t wait for answer from her, though. He ignored the sudden blankness of her expression and told her about the sorts of fruit that grew there. Zoe wondered what it was going to be like when not everything reminded her of the war.

“And, then, of course, the guy says he can do that, but we’d have to pay ten bits each for it!”

Zoe laughed despite herself. Wash grinned back at her.

A minute later, he nodded across the room at a woman standing beside the bar.

“Do you think I’ve got a chance?”

“Not with that moustache.”

Wash frowned and ran his hand over his top lip. And he had looked at her with a glint in his eyes that had made her smile.

*

River taped the last piece of paper to the rocket. Zoe felt like she was floating in the black, weightless and nowhere. The hem of the dress fluttered around her ankles, but the taper lit easily. It was her role now to send their memories of Wash up, to float over the world, to be part of the ’verse forever, because she hadn’t taken the bullet for him.

Perhaps it really was unfair that Wash’s bullet had found him before she had found hers. But she wasn’t certain she would have him live without her, if she had the choice. So she bent carefully to light the rocket fuse and thanked God, perhaps bitterly, for the little time they had had together.

~*~

23 years, three days, ten hours and 51 minutes

2008-02-22T00:27:20Z

That's how old I am!
(or was when I opened this page)
(sorry I did not post this when I posted the one my LJ. I will get better about remembering that.)

It was my birthday on Tuesday. From my parents I got a travel pack for my travelling, Goodbye Lenin and the soundtack to Juno. I now have Loose Lips stuck on loop in my head. Also, thelastgoodname has asked for cello music. So I will be uploading some tomorrow, in between sorting out my fic in order to sign up for remixredux08

Inspired by karaokegal's memes this year, I am resurrecting this one:

Leave a list of fictional characters in your journal that you would love to get a message from. It is your friend-list's mission, should they choose to accept it, to write you an in-character "letter" from a character on that list. Then they post their own list in their journal and the process continues!

CJ Cregg
Josh Lyman
Toshiko Sato
Jack Harkness
Martha Jones
Lily Evans
Lisa Cuddy

I have spent too much of the last few nights watching Torchwood.

New Year Kisslets

2008-02-03T09:24:59Z

I really thought I had posted these here before. But I hadn't, which was very bad of me.

Remus/Sirius
Harry Potter, owned by JKR
Book five. Rated G.
Quietly among the noise and haste

Fred and George had claimed responsibility for the decorations for New Year’s Eve, so when midnight came the dining room exploded into flashing lights and sparkling creatures. The Weasleys were there with Harry and Hermione, trying to see each other through the haze of colour or catch the luminescent butterflies.

Remus had spent the last portion of the evening with Arthur more cursing than discussing Dolores Umbridge. But, as the New Year approached, he inched closer and closer to Sirius to steal him from Harry’s company.

Hidden by the confusion of changing colour and shadows, Remus wrapped his arm around Sirius’s shoulder and carefully pressed his lips to the corner of Sirius’s mouth.

“Happy New Year,” he said.

Sirius’s grin was lit by a red dragonfly. “I think it will be,” he said.

House/Wilson
House M.D, owned by David Shore et al.
Not sure of the timeline. Rated PG.
Any other night

Wilson stirred against House’s side, thankfully without disturbing the covers and letting in the cold. House tried to burrow away in the bed, but Wilson’s arm was resting over House’s shoulder and he held on. House chose not to mind, just this once.

“House!”

Wilson’s voice was just the pitch of insistence to wake House, who rolled onto his back and twisted his neck to glare at Wilson. Wilson pounced, pressing his lips to House’s. House kissed back, not sure what he had done to earn it, but for once not caring about Wilson’s motives.

“Happy New Year,” Wilson said.

If House listened carefully he could hear cheers from a party a block away. He narrowed his eyes and Wilson’s half lit face. Wilson was smiling at him.

When House woke at 4am the bed was cold and the apartment was still. The new year had come, completely uneventful but for a couple of strange and vivid dreams.

Hermione/Lily Evans
Harry Potter, owned by JKR
Set during 'eighth year'. Rated PG.
Dangerous times

Most students returned to school for a repeat of seventh year, given how little they’d learnt under Snape’s Headmaster-ship. It began to feel, sometimes, like the previous year had been an uncomfortably vivid dream.
Lavender and Parvati had both gone home for Christmas, leaving Hermione alone in the dormitory come New Year’s Eve. She retired early, planning to sleep through Ginny’s planned fireworks and start the new year rested.

But she woke from a strange dream to find the dormitory uncomfortably hot and light. It took her a moment to even see that there was another figure in the room, let alone make out the red hair and old-fashioned Hogwarts robes. Hermione sprang from her bed, wand ready even though she knew it would be no use against whatever kind of spirit Lily Potter had returned as.

Lily spoke first, rushing forward to take Hermione’s hands.

“Oh, there’s someone here, thank goodness.”

Hermione did not resist Lily’s touch, too surprised that Lily could touch her to react.

“What year is it?” Lily demanded.

“Nineteen ninety-nine, or almost.”

Lily frowned. “New year’s eve,” she murmured. “Maybe that’s why it worked.”

She still hadn’t released Hermione’s hands. This close, in the odd light, Hermione could see that Lily couldn’t be much older than her, probably younger, actually, if she was still at Hogwarts. Perhaps a memory, Hermione thought, or some sort of Balfour’s projection. But Hermione knew the risks of time travel.

“Does it work out?” Lily asked, squashing Hermione’s fingers.

Hermione did not answer immediately because she could not work out what the answer would be. Lily relaxed, just slightly, with her disappointment.

“Of course you can’t tell me,” she said.

Hermione shook her head. She would have answered with something, said anything, but she was interrupted by the fireworks and cheers to bring in the New Year.

Lily grinned, her eyes lighting up with cheekiness so familiar to Hermione from years following Harry. Lily leaned forward, pulling Hermione closer, and kissed Hermione full on the mouth. She released Hermione’s hands only to thread her fingers into Hermione’s air and press even closer. Hermione kissed back, as gently as Lily’s determination would allow.

It seemed only polite.

Before the shouts from the common room faded into indistinct noise, Lily’s grip slacked and she began to fade.

“Time’s up,” she said, shrugged. “Thanks anyway.”

“It’s works out,” Hermione blurted, to be rewarded by Lily’s delighted, relieved grin, which did not fade when Hermione had to add, “eventually.”

Jack/Martha
Doctor Who, owned by the BBC et al.
Set after series three, whatever year that was. Rated PG.
Old Earth Traditions

They stood at the back of the crowd in Cardiff, safe from scrutiny, but not from the anticipation, excitement, and un-remembered fear of New Year’s under the Master. Martha and Jack were sharing three glasses of champagne between them which the Doctor ranted at the meaninglessness of marking time off with lines and calendars.

He barely paused when the countdown began, but Jack and Martha shared a look caught between human excitement and the bemusement of independent observers. They remembered this year when it was last year. Martha drank some more champagne.

The fireworks went off and everyone cheered.

Jack raised his glass to Martha and the Doctor and downed it. The people around them starting congratulating each other and the Doctor asked what had happened to his champagne. Martha swallowed the last it.

“Start the year as you mean to go on,” Jack said.

“Right,” the Doctor replied, accepting the empty glass Martha thrust at him.

Martha didn’t care whether he took it or not. She was far to distracted by just how in her personal space Jack could get without actually touching. Then he did touch her and shouldn’t remember question.

“Happy New Year,” he said.

“Happy New Year.”

He kissed her, gently cupping her cheek and drawing her closer, pushing his tongue into her mouth, carefully catching her bottom lip on his teeth. Then they were kissing, standing in the crowd in Cardiff with the Doctor making disbelieving noises beside them. But there was only the taste and heat and texture of lips and tongues.

Then finally let each other go and smiled, lit by the flashes and red and white in the air.

“What is this?” the Doctor asked.

Martha was the first to bother to answer him. “A much better start to 2009 than the last one,” she said.

Simon/Kaylee
Firefly, owned by Joss Whedon et al.
Set after the Big Damn Movie. Rated G.
Resolutions

They were somewhere between Whitefall and Blackrock, so it was about seven pm ship-time. But the clock was going to click over so Kaylee had prepared a celebratory meal.

River helped, chopping vegetables and counting down the last two hours of the official year. But no one else was much in the mood. Inara and Mal had fought just that morning and Zoe had spent most of the week beside River in the cockpit, still mourning Wash.

“I don’t see what’s special about today,” Jayne announced, strolling through the kitchen for an afternoon snack. He didn’t wait for River’s explanation.

They all ate the food, though, and made appreciative noises. When the new year started, Simon stood to give a toast.

“May this year be better than last. And may we always remember the friends we’ve lost.”

Everyone, even Jayne, raised their glasses and murmured replies.

Then Simon leant down and kissed Kaylee soundly, right in front of everyone.

Cameron/Foreman
House M.D, owned by David Shore et al.
Set some parallel series one or two, I think. Rated PG.
Means and Ends

They were all drunk, which was the first excuse. Cameron wanted to do something that House would notice, that would draw his attention to her. Kissing him was not an option, but hazy logic suggested that kissing someone else was.

Chase would get the wrong the idea. And kissing Wilson would give House the wrong the idea, which left only one person in House’s impromptu, ‘mourn the death of the previous year’ party.

Cameron had to grab Foreman’s tie and drag him down to kiss him. He was too surprised to pull back for the first few seconds. When she finally let him go, he was gaping at her. She grinned, alcohol making it lopsided.

“Happy New Year,” she said.

House/Brenda
House M.D, owned by David Shore et al.
Set any year that is not the above year. Rated PG.
Rewards

Many things could hidden from House because he cared so little for most of the daily running of the hospital. But Brenda was still thankful, and a little surprised, that the nurse’s dare competition had so far escaped his notice. It was widely agreed that House would abuse it to his own ends.

Top of the list, ahead of replacing Cuddy’s office flowers with ones she was allergic to (which had happened twice) and eating the ‘Caesar salad’ in the cafeteria (which had happened once, but she’d had to spend two days at home sick) was kissing House. No one had attempted it because he’d be sure to figure that there was a reward of some kind, even if he didn’t know what or how.

When House showed up to the New Year’s celebration in the clinic, Brenda decided to risk it. They were only drinking half-glasses of low alcohol champagne, but spirits were high. When Beckley counted down to midnight and the radio had started playing Auld Lang Syne, Dr Cameron kissed Dr Chase, Peterson kissed Dr Cuddy, and Brenda approached House.

He watched her coming, suspicious, but uncertain enough not to back away. She almost balked when she got close enough to see the colours in his eyes. But there was little he could do her that he not already do, and which would not be worth the reward. So she put her hands on his shoulders and leant up to kiss him straight on the mouth.

She made it back to the other side of the room before he recovered himself enough to speak.

secondsilk @ 2008-01-31T11:35:00

2008-01-31T00:45:20Z

I am still here, I just haven't been cross posting LJ posts to IJ. Which is kind of hypocritical of me, because for most of my f'list who does, I read them here.

And so I would like to ask, do you read posts from LJ? Either by checking in there, or usually being there (as I am) or syndication. And would it be better/fairer/nicer etc if I did start cross posting again. I only stopped because I have to do it manually and I've been posting kind of random off the cuff stuff. Except for the New Year ficlets, which are on LJ but not here.

How are you managing the LJ split after all this time?
Is there a way of automatically mirroring posts?
How are you?
Did you know that I will be landing in California in the middle of July?

Art, well, a drawing.

2007-12-29T10:18:23Z

This is a piece I drew for midnitemaraud_r earlier this year. I forgot to repost it in a more public place, but going through my archives now I remembered it and thought that it deserved to be posted. I've forgotten how to be blasé about stuff like this.

It's squid art. Or, to be accurate, porn. It is very not work safe.

Sirius/Squid
NC-17

Fic: This is not a love story

2007-12-05T22:10:41Z

This is not a love story
A Torchwood fic
Owned by Russell T Davies et al.

874 words.
Rated PG for adult themes and character death.
Set during and after 1.10 "Out of Time", vague spoilers for all of series one.
Jack/John, (Jack/Estelle, Jack/Ianto)

With thanks for deepfishy and such_heights for betaing.
Written for karaokegal, whose comments inspired the story.

Jack Harkness falls in love. Which is to say that he has been known to fall in love. Which is to say that there have been people whom he’s loved. There was a girl he might have married before he started training with the Time Authority, and a boy he almost married before he left. It’s harder now, out of his own time, after the Doctor, after dying.

He liked Greece but he hated most of the twentieth Century. He’s in Cardiff now, it’s 2004, and he’s waiting for a storm; a big, metaphoric, rip-the-world-open storm. But it will happen after the time he came here with Rose and met Mickey.

He has stopped measuring events by any sort of chronology.

Estelle passes him on the street and his heart stops. He thinks this might be how he goes: he can’t be killed and he doesn’t get sick, but something extraordinary, impossible in anyone else, lovesickness, one heart given to too many people. His heart beats again. He walks slowly back to headquarters, types her details into Tosh’s computer and begins to think of explanations for what happened to the Yankee soldier she saw off to war forty years ago.

He should not have recognised her, with all her sixty years written on her face. She should have recognised him, unchanged. But that is one of the mysteries of love; it sees what it should not be able to, and ignores the things it must. He suspects she knows, anyway. There is something in the way she looks at him sometimes, passes him the milk, mentions the war, like an accusation, a demand for an explanation she does not want and he will not give.

When she dies, he feels a piece of himself pulled back into the blackness. Not enough to make him wish for more, not enough to let him think he might soon be free of life. Enough to hurt. Enough to remember.

Each day is a whole new day. To wake, dress, eat, look twice at Ianto, wonder at Owen’s demons, count down the days until Gwen tells Rhys, until the Doctor returns. He will tell John it’s just bearable, and that is not quite a lie. But here, sitting with a man who saw World War Two and likewise slipped through time, matching water to beer, Jack’s stopped thinking about his own time, however he might measure it. He’s simply watching John, and life is good.

The others, the girls, will cope better. Emma is young; she was setting out with the rest of her life ahead of her. Dianne has a naturally adventuring spirit. Jack could see her delight at the prospect of discovering a whole new world. No one before has flown a plane between times, and even her disappearing again is a moving forward. But John is his past and he has been taken too far away from it. He’s falling. Jack knows it already. He doesn’t want John to find out.

Jack remembers too much history. He sees his own ghosts in every street and everyday. A part of him would envy Alan’s mind, and the way it has tangled itself inside, no longer recognising or being recognised by the outside world. But all of him and his mind is with John, trying as desperately as he knows how—which is less, now, than it used to be - to keep John on this plane.

Time was, Jack would have fought to keep John. He can feel the potential for that connection in the way he holds John now, their bodies pressed together, his hand in John’s hair and John’s tears dipping onto his collar. It’s like a memory of a taste from a time before.

It could be easy to cup John’s face and kiss him, to make him see that he still had a life to lead, even if it is not the life he imagined for himself. But it would be just as easy to destroy him here and now by taking from him the very last sense of himself, the only thing left that keeps him upright and alert as he agrees to come with Jack back to the base. Jack did not particularly enjoy the 1950s.

The base is cold and quiet when they return. Ianto is doing what he does when he isn’t silently following orders, silently anticipating Jack’s needs or silently undermining the security of Torchwood and the safety of the human race. Jack cannot spare any of the attention he has focussed on John, so he does not even know whether Ianto notices them, or whether he himself is upset by that. He can only save one person at a time.

It is Ianto who tells him John has gone, and Ianto who, silently, hands him his coat as he leaves.

It is just bearable for Jack. He knows that this is only true because he has people he loves and something he is waiting for, and because he has no choice. He envies the simplicity of John’s existence; all his questions answered and his breath now stopped in his chest, the darkness welcomed. Jack sits, breathes poisoned air, still waiting for a storm or a resolution.

~*~

secondsilk @ 2007-11-30T19:21:00

2007-11-30T08:24:30Z

Is any up for betaing 823 words of Torchwood fic for me? It is set in an around "Out of Time", is mostly about Jack and contains no dialogue. I was going to post it un-betaed for about a minute, but then I thought that wasn't fair. Since August I've posted seven drabbles, and they were on Tuesday, so I can wait a few days to post the next fic.

In other news channel Seven is advertising the "season finale" of Heroes. Just as they advertised the "season finale" of House. We won't get new episodes until February or after the end of the strike, which ever is later, is my guess. But Tim Kring has apologised for the first episodes of season two of Heroes and promises to do better once they get to come back to writing. I've seen the first six episodes of House and am enjoying season four very much so far. I would have watched episode seven, but I ran out of memory on my computer and had to download episode six twice.

I cleaned up my tags a little and rearranged my fic folder. I think I've written 63 fics, not including the one that needs betaing and the rewritings of my old fics. Oh, I know what this post needs, a poll!

The poll is on the other end of this link

Drabbles

2007-11-27T10:47:57Z

I said there would be fic, and lo! here is fic. Seven drabbles, to be precise. When I first opened this window to post, it was only three.

This is mostly because I watched "Five By Five" last week. Also, Wesley is my favourite character.
Pride
Angel. Wesley, Faith. Violence.

When Wesley dreams of Faith, she does not have a face. She’s a blur of strength, dark hair and pain. He was so proud to have a Slayer that he was not proud of her until there was nothing left in her to be proud of.

When Wesley is forced to remember the torture, he remembers only Faith’s voice. The bravado, even through the hazy memory of pain, almost breaks his heart. He owes Angel her life as well as his own.

Wesley is more proud of her dedication to her cause, than of his ability to merely withstand it.

Giles is my second favourite character. And my summer_of_giles fic got picked up by Blood and Beers
Epitaph
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Giles.

They lose a lot when they lose Sunnydale. It takes them days to begin to replace what they can: clothes, furniture, cooking utensils.

Giles tries to write. He buys a good pen and hardbound notebook; the same things he has written with since he was ten. All the diaries since then are catalogued at home in London, except the last, which he sent to Wesley. He has not asked for it.

He dates the page, hopeful. After three hours all he has is a list of names and epitaph: “These friends we lost, in the fight to change the world.”

This drabble is really a point of view on the Martha v. Rose debate. Something of a retcon, I suppose.
Loss
Doctor Who. Doctor Who, Companions

He loves Rose no more than he loves Susan, Sarah-Jane, Jamie, Romana, Peri. Her loss is not greater than theirs, although he meant only to put right the damage from the war and be done with the universe. Let it save itself. No more friends.

He is grieving. The regret and uncertainty are unfamiliar. Rose reminded him what it is to notice the everyday, the minute in grand events. At first it scared him, now it reminds him of pain.

He pretends it’s all for Rose. And he can almost remember the Gallifrey he fled without the taint of loss.

If it weren't for fleshdress, this would just be Remus/Sirius. And if it weren't for pre_raphaelite1, it would not have Peter. I'm not sorry, but be warned.
Restraint
Harry Potter. Sirius/James, Remus, Peter. Sex.

Sirius was easily convinced.

Cord from his curtains hold James’s limbs to the posts of his bed, Sirius’s scarf covering his eyes. Sirius is lying on his side slowly stroking the growing bulge of James’s penis through his jeans. It would easier at school, in robes.

Peter is standing in the corner flushed and licking his lips. It was his idea. Remus has said nothing at all, but is watching avidly.
James groans, pulling Sirius’s attention back to the sweat beading on his skin and heat in his body. Sirius will be nice to Peter as thanks for the excuse.

Les Miserables was my first fandom, and finally I have fic! There's not a lot I could put in a hundred words, of course, the book's 1,200 pages. But still.
Dreams
Les Miserables. Grantaire/Enjolras. Violence.

Grantaire dreamt the revolution. The sounds of pistol fire and echoes of the battle in the street below filtered through his subconscious, and in the haze of the lingering drink became ogres, massive beasts of war. He saw Combeferre lead a team to take the canon and turn it on the Guard. He heard Courfeyrac rally those who remained to hold their fort as Enjolras lead a team into the streets, the people running to join him.

He waited to join the triumphant procession. But he was waken by silence, in time to die before Enjolras. He would dream again.

I wasn't going to write a House fic. But then I remembered how much I liked Wilson is 97 Seconds. This might be the first time I've named a Wilson brother. Everyone has their own list. Mine is Carey, James, Spencer.
Anniversary
House. Wilson, his mother.

James rings his mother on the third of March every year. They have the same conversation.

“Hi, it’s just me. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You sound tired.”

“Stop worrying, Jimmy. I’m your mother, I should worry. Are you eating?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

James smiles.

“Your father says, ‘work hard.’”

“I will.”

“And Greg is still alive?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Everything always is—”

“—if you want it to be. I know that, mom.”

“Will we see you for Passover?”

“I’ll try.”

Neither of them mentions another year since they last saw Spencer.

I'm on a West Wing kick at the moment, because there's nothing on TV, so P and I are re-watching them all.
Instinct
West Wing. Sam/fiancee.

It was probably instinct that Sam had turned the television on to that channel at that time. He was struck dumb, the fire already igniting in his blood. No one could have prepared Santos to give that speech. That was the man himself.

Carla found him staring blankly at the program when it resumed.

“You’re not really watching that,” she said. The amused lilt in her voice made him smile.

Sam looked up her, reminding himself how happy he was here with her.

“What would you think about moving to Washington?”

She laughed. But Sam knew she’d think about it.

New Things

2007-11-07T09:15:26Z

1. I got that job I applied for. It's in an inbound call centre. I've almost finished training. It is good.

2. I'm doing NaNo, writing the story I've been trying to write since I was nine. It's going well.

3. My Yuletide assingment is great. Unless I decide to pick up a new fandom to make it new and great.

4. I saw a very intersting production of King Lear.

5. I fear that saying I'm back online will automatically mean once again avoiding online, but I miss my f'list.

6. I have a tidy room and clean clothes and other people to cook me dinner.

7. The water storages are back over 40%

8. Dumbledore is gay (okay, this isn't new now), but I do not understand people who are unhappy about either the announcement itself or the wording of the announcement.

9. I really want to have written some fic.

pursue that flighty temptress, adventure

2007-10-16T03:08:20Z

I think I'm probably going to be all right.
This is a marvelous and unfamiliar feeling, helped muchly by having been allowed to cancel the would-have-been-disastrous work event, going out with friends, and my brother coming home (in a good mood) and returning my copy of Deathly Hallows.

I'm really getting in HP again. (At a time when it seems my f'list seems to be moving further away.) I joined HP fandom after the release of Order of the Phoenix, so my reading of Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows was probably too much about learning enough to keep up with fic and fandom. And I'd not reread either of them. I remembered that Blaise was black, but not that Harry always refers to him as Zabini and that they met in Slughorn's compartment on the train. I remember that Aragog got a burial and Sirius did not (and that this was a gross injustice), but I did not remember that Aragog's burial was incidental to Harry getting Slughorn's memory, and that Harry did remember not having a funeral for Sirius. I remembered Luna's Quidditch commentary, but I did not remember Zacharias Smith's.

Rereading Order of the Phoenix was difficult. I liked being able to read for Remus/Tonks as well as Remus/Sirius, and I was looking forward to the twins' departure, but it is full of necessary but not sufficient mistakes from everyone to cause Sirius's death and therefore allow the resolution of the series. Seeing Snape (and his worst memory) and Dumbledore in Order of the Phoenix after what we learn in Deathly Hallows is brilliant. This series works extremely well in continually broadening and deepening the world and the characters, making you review what you though you knew.

Dumbledore on the tower in Half-Blood Prince is so cool. Probably even cooler than Javert because he's dying and Snape is far more complex person than Thenadier.

Also, I got this from lyras

Three books that have marked your childhood...
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Watership Down by Richard Adams

...and your teenagerhood:
The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce
The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobel Carmody
Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Your three favourite books (only three, even if it's hard!):
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Green Monkey Dreams by Isobel Carmody
The Factory by Paddy O'Reilly

Three books you could read again and again without wearying of them:
Melusine and The Virtu by Sarah Monette (because I'm not reading either without the other again)
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillop

Three books you've read recently or are reading:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

Three books that you'll read soon:
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
This is Modern Art by Matthew Collings
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

And one special, fetish book that you'd keep with yourself at all times:
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo or, given how big that is, possibly Khalil Gibran's The Prophet