My last two months:
Mostly right now I just want to rave about Star Wars: Rebels. Maybe I will. Every 10 years or so the Star Wars Feels resurface and I feel the desire to impose my Deep Star Wars Thoughts on my friends.
- Dad died
- Needed to buy a new car pronto speedy quick
- Biopsy (thankfully a false alarm)
- Still dealing with Dad's estate
Mostly right now I just want to rave about Star Wars: Rebels. Maybe I will. Every 10 years or so the Star Wars Feels resurface and I feel the desire to impose my Deep Star Wars Thoughts on my friends.
Man... Fandoms come and go, and you get used to that. But the saddest part about a fandom's fall from its golden age is looking back and missing all those wild-eyed talents that made it so great.
I hope you guys are still out there, somewhere. Here's to you!
I hope you guys are still out there, somewhere. Here's to you!
If you're on Tumblr and curious about this, follow the link over to see this post on Livejournal. (LJ does not automatically crosspost to Tumblr; I used a web app called IFTTT to do that.)
Feel free to say hi to me in the comments on this post! You don't even need to have an account. ^_^ But you could leave your name in your post so that I know who you are. (Sometimes, even people with LJ accounts are too lazy to log in and just do it this way.)
Livejournal has the capability to do a 'read more,' although on LJ it's called an 'LJ cut.' I'm not sure if this translates to Tumblr, but I'm testing it right below.
( Read more...Collapse )
Finally, LJ has the ability to do spoiler text! [Spoiler (click to open)]This is a bit of text that is collapsed unless you click the thing to read it.I imagine spoiler text probably does not translate to Tumblr, so you can probably see that there. But on my LJ, you'll see what it looks like collapsed.
Edit: Like it or not, LJ is a site run by a for-profit company. It's doing pretty well, these days, but that can always change. If you prefer open source, or just a site that may have a bit less functionality but you can trust more not to change, check out Dreamwidth. It's an LJ clone, run on the same software so it works the same, but it was created specifically to give people an alternative place to go.
LJ and Dreamwidth work so well together that you can move between them and share information between them pretty easily. It's not perfect, but if you're on one, then you can mostly use the other.
Feel free to say hi to me in the comments on this post! You don't even need to have an account. ^_^ But you could leave your name in your post so that I know who you are. (Sometimes, even people with LJ accounts are too lazy to log in and just do it this way.)
Livejournal has the capability to do a 'read more,' although on LJ it's called an 'LJ cut.' I'm not sure if this translates to Tumblr, but I'm testing it right below.
( Read more...Collapse )
Finally, LJ has the ability to do spoiler text! [Spoiler (click to open)]This is a bit of text that is collapsed unless you click the thing to read it.I imagine spoiler text probably does not translate to Tumblr, so you can probably see that there. But on my LJ, you'll see what it looks like collapsed.
Edit: Like it or not, LJ is a site run by a for-profit company. It's doing pretty well, these days, but that can always change. If you prefer open source, or just a site that may have a bit less functionality but you can trust more not to change, check out Dreamwidth. It's an LJ clone, run on the same software so it works the same, but it was created specifically to give people an alternative place to go.
LJ and Dreamwidth work so well together that you can move between them and share information between them pretty easily. It's not perfect, but if you're on one, then you can mostly use the other.
I'm here, I'M HERE. I swear it's like I can't keep track of two websites at once these days.
So. Netflix's Daredevil. Who's watched it? LET US DISCUSS.
So. Netflix's Daredevil. Who's watched it? LET US DISCUSS.
Originally posted by 
otw_staff at International Fanworks Day Drabble Challenge
Ready for a challenge? The Organization for Transformative Works is issuing one for short-form fanworks to celebrate International Fanworks Day! It's the first-ever IFD Drabble Challenge!
The OTW wants to pay homage to fandoms with our very own day of recognition. ^_^
otw_staff at International Fanworks Day Drabble ChallengeReady for a challenge? The Organization for Transformative Works is issuing one for short-form fanworks to celebrate International Fanworks Day! It's the first-ever IFD Drabble Challenge!
The OTW wants to pay homage to fandoms with our very own day of recognition. ^_^
Originally posted by me at arbitrary_fic
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, OCs
Rating: Mature/R
Tags & Warnings: Vampire John, Angel Sherlock, Religious Themes, Demons, Vampires, Angels, Fallen Angels, Unhappy Ending, Revenge, Hell, Spiritual Corruption, John's life being all terrible all the time
Notes: A prequel to Graceless by belladonna_q, with her kind permission.
Hell is not a place, but a state.
Once, John can almost remember, the cosmos had been filled with light. He had been filled with music, made of it, his spirit a ringing, chiming note in a great joyous chorus of being.
There is no light here, nor music either. Humans refer to dirt when they speak of ugliness, but they can’t feel the radiance of earth, the brimming life of a swamp or cavern. But the beauty of life is in its meaning, in the love poured into it. That was gouged out of John’s eyes in the long burning fall, torn dripping from his memory. His Creator left him with the memory of a memory of having ever been loved, just enough to know that once, he felt something other than this eternal silent cold.
John learns, with clawing, bloody slowness, how to fend for himself. He learns the capacity to love wasn’t taken from him, or the need for it. He learns what it is to starve. To need things that aren’t given to him.
The humans are here, and he learns to love them in ways he’s fairly sure are new to him. With them near, he isn’t all alone. The bare, small song of their voices is an infinity better than silence. He learns that they can feed him. They’re sacred cattle with a worth and purpose beyond anything his blinded eyes can still see, and he can take it from them, and be warmed for a few minutes by the fire of their souls.
He loves these beautiful brief creatures savagely, helplessly, with a frightened need.
Read More
arbitrary_ficCharacters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, OCs
Rating: Mature/R
Tags & Warnings: Vampire John, Angel Sherlock, Religious Themes, Demons, Vampires, Angels, Fallen Angels, Unhappy Ending, Revenge, Hell, Spiritual Corruption, John's life being all terrible all the time
Notes: A prequel to Graceless by belladonna_q, with her kind permission.
Hell is not a place, but a state.
Once, John can almost remember, the cosmos had been filled with light. He had been filled with music, made of it, his spirit a ringing, chiming note in a great joyous chorus of being.
There is no light here, nor music either. Humans refer to dirt when they speak of ugliness, but they can’t feel the radiance of earth, the brimming life of a swamp or cavern. But the beauty of life is in its meaning, in the love poured into it. That was gouged out of John’s eyes in the long burning fall, torn dripping from his memory. His Creator left him with the memory of a memory of having ever been loved, just enough to know that once, he felt something other than this eternal silent cold.
John learns, with clawing, bloody slowness, how to fend for himself. He learns the capacity to love wasn’t taken from him, or the need for it. He learns what it is to starve. To need things that aren’t given to him.
The humans are here, and he learns to love them in ways he’s fairly sure are new to him. With them near, he isn’t all alone. The bare, small song of their voices is an infinity better than silence. He learns that they can feed him. They’re sacred cattle with a worth and purpose beyond anything his blinded eyes can still see, and he can take it from them, and be warmed for a few minutes by the fire of their souls.
He loves these beautiful brief creatures savagely, helplessly, with a frightened need.
Read More
I feel like Constantine just leapt whatever pitfall it'd been struggling with. Hot damn.
I've been enjoying it, but (barring the episode with Gary Lester) something about it always felt a little awkward, like the actors were still ironing out their roles, or maybe they were still working on the fit between John and Zed. That's all gone now.
There was a moment when Matt Ryan was standing half in shadow and he turned to face the camera, and I caught my breath because every bit of 'this is a TV show and that's an actor' fell away, and it was nothing but John Constantine right there, in the flesh.
If this is a milestone and the rest of the season falls together like this, then they had better renew the show or else I will go down to NBC's offices, refuse to leave, and drink all their coffee until they agree.
I've been enjoying it, but (barring the episode with Gary Lester) something about it always felt a little awkward, like the actors were still ironing out their roles, or maybe they were still working on the fit between John and Zed. That's all gone now.
There was a moment when Matt Ryan was standing half in shadow and he turned to face the camera, and I caught my breath because every bit of 'this is a TV show and that's an actor' fell away, and it was nothing but John Constantine right there, in the flesh.
If this is a milestone and the rest of the season falls together like this, then they had better renew the show or else I will go down to NBC's offices, refuse to leave, and drink all their coffee until they agree.
It occurred to me that my international fellow Grimm peeps might not realize that Grimm being set in Portland is an in-joke. Or a cultural commentary. Kind of a bit of both.
Portland, Oregon is known as one of the great hipster enclaves of the US. One of the city slogans is "Keep Portland weird." (Originally meant as a campaign to support Portland's idiosyncratic locally-owned businesses, but...well, it was embraced.) It's brimming over with counter-culture liberal hippies, weird artists and master artisans who practice the finer points of now-obscure trades everybody else in the US long ago gave over to mass manufacturing. Here is a brief story about Portland, a place where a singing taco on roller skates doesn't really surprise people.
In particular, Monroe: a flannel-wearing, gourmet-coffee-swilling, environmentally-concerned clockmaking werewolf with a passion for quirky family history and Old World memorabilia, who manages his 'inner wolf' via a vaguely New Age regimen of pilates and vegetarianism... Honestly, if you take out the word 'werewolf' he's a quintessential Portlandian. He's basically your typical Portlandian who also just happens to be a werewolf (hey, Portlandians don't judge; everybody's got their thing).
(There's a love of flannel that will not die in the Pacific Northwest. It's such a perfect antidote to the damp, chilly winters they get up there.)
And there's a reason Rosalee and her alternative medicine spice shop with its trade in non-illegal mind-altering drugs doesn't turn heads. It's far from the only one of those to be found in the city.
Also, the coffee. You might have noticed everybody on the show is coffee-crazed (I mean, aside from the fact that half of them are either cops or medical professionals). Portland is one of the lynchpin cities in a belt of connoisseur coffee obsession that runs along the coast of the Pacific Northwest from northern California up into Canada. Same goes for craft beers and microbrews. Perhaps this is the reason Portland seems to attract so many specifically central European monster types; a migrating people can live without a lot of things, but good beer is hard to leave behind.
So really, if there's any city in the US that seems likely to play host to ethnic monster enclaves grappling to meld tradition with a monster version of the modern American dream, it's probably Portland.
Portland, Oregon is known as one of the great hipster enclaves of the US. One of the city slogans is "Keep Portland weird." (Originally meant as a campaign to support Portland's idiosyncratic locally-owned businesses, but...well, it was embraced.) It's brimming over with counter-culture liberal hippies, weird artists and master artisans who practice the finer points of now-obscure trades everybody else in the US long ago gave over to mass manufacturing. Here is a brief story about Portland, a place where a singing taco on roller skates doesn't really surprise people.
In particular, Monroe: a flannel-wearing, gourmet-coffee-swilling, environmentally-concerned clockmaking werewolf with a passion for quirky family history and Old World memorabilia, who manages his 'inner wolf' via a vaguely New Age regimen of pilates and vegetarianism... Honestly, if you take out the word 'werewolf' he's a quintessential Portlandian. He's basically your typical Portlandian who also just happens to be a werewolf (hey, Portlandians don't judge; everybody's got their thing).
(There's a love of flannel that will not die in the Pacific Northwest. It's such a perfect antidote to the damp, chilly winters they get up there.)
And there's a reason Rosalee and her alternative medicine spice shop with its trade in non-illegal mind-altering drugs doesn't turn heads. It's far from the only one of those to be found in the city.
Also, the coffee. You might have noticed everybody on the show is coffee-crazed (I mean, aside from the fact that half of them are either cops or medical professionals). Portland is one of the lynchpin cities in a belt of connoisseur coffee obsession that runs along the coast of the Pacific Northwest from northern California up into Canada. Same goes for craft beers and microbrews. Perhaps this is the reason Portland seems to attract so many specifically central European monster types; a migrating people can live without a lot of things, but good beer is hard to leave behind.
So really, if there's any city in the US that seems likely to play host to ethnic monster enclaves grappling to meld tradition with a monster version of the modern American dream, it's probably Portland.
I've gone quiet again because I have been hiding from the internet and reconnecting with real life...by which I of course mean paperback books and TV.
What I have been watching:
Grimm - I just spent the past two weeks mainlining the entire run of Grimm so far, and catching up on season 4, and then flailing about it with over in her LJ. Grimm is one of those shows that got off to a slow start. Season 1 was not captivating. But they found their stride about halfway through season 2, and as of season 3 it has taken its rightful place upon the throne of dark fairytale TV. It's one part Buffy, one part Supernatural, and one part something all its own where fairytale monsters have their own ethnic conclaves in modern cities and cops respond to domestic violence calls at the three little pigs' house.
Doctor Who - I watched the first episode of the season, and then the last two. I loved those and have no desire whatsoever to expose myself to any of the episodes in between. BUT THOSE LAST TWO, LET'S TALK ABOUT THEM. *points at comments* Oh god, that's the best Doctor Who I have seen in years. And just possibly the best version of the Master EVER.
Sleepy Hollow - working on catching up on this one now. I'm a few episodes into season 2 (so careful with spoilers!). I enjoy this show but so far this season doesn't grab me like some of the others I'm watching, or the way S1 did. I actually voluntarily stopped watching for the evening, when I could have continued. But, there is John Noble, whom I would pay to watch recite the phone book. I am captivated every time he's on the screen.
Constantine - some of you may remember that I adore Hellblazer of old. The main DC John Constantine is softer than Vertigo's version (after all, kids could potentially encounter him), and the TV series is based on the DC version rather than the Vertigo version. EXCEPT. He's maybe a leeeetle more Vertigo than that after all. Up through episode 3 I was beginning to wonder whether they were really going to manifest the potential here. And then episode 4 happened. Oh. Oh YES.
Also, I cackled at the place where they apparently figured out they could draw the line on John's smoking habit. As long as he doesn't actually puff on camera, apparently he can walk around with it dangling out of his mouth.
What I have been watching:
Grimm - I just spent the past two weeks mainlining the entire run of Grimm so far, and catching up on season 4, and then flailing about it with over in her LJ. Grimm is one of those shows that got off to a slow start. Season 1 was not captivating. But they found their stride about halfway through season 2, and as of season 3 it has taken its rightful place upon the throne of dark fairytale TV. It's one part Buffy, one part Supernatural, and one part something all its own where fairytale monsters have their own ethnic conclaves in modern cities and cops respond to domestic violence calls at the three little pigs' house.
Doctor Who - I watched the first episode of the season, and then the last two. I loved those and have no desire whatsoever to expose myself to any of the episodes in between. BUT THOSE LAST TWO, LET'S TALK ABOUT THEM. *points at comments* Oh god, that's the best Doctor Who I have seen in years. And just possibly the best version of the Master EVER.
Sleepy Hollow - working on catching up on this one now. I'm a few episodes into season 2 (so careful with spoilers!). I enjoy this show but so far this season doesn't grab me like some of the others I'm watching, or the way S1 did. I actually voluntarily stopped watching for the evening, when I could have continued. But, there is John Noble, whom I would pay to watch recite the phone book. I am captivated every time he's on the screen.
Constantine - some of you may remember that I adore Hellblazer of old. The main DC John Constantine is softer than Vertigo's version (after all, kids could potentially encounter him), and the TV series is based on the DC version rather than the Vertigo version. EXCEPT. He's maybe a leeeetle more Vertigo than that after all. Up through episode 3 I was beginning to wonder whether they were really going to manifest the potential here. And then episode 4 happened. Oh. Oh YES.
Also, I cackled at the place where they apparently figured out they could draw the line on John's smoking habit. As long as he doesn't actually puff on camera, apparently he can walk around with it dangling out of his mouth.
Happy Halloween! The day when we dress up as ghosts and goblins so as to confuse and ward away the returning spirits of our ancestors, who may be dead but still remember that they loaned us that power tool the one time and never got it back.
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