Dispatches From Divaburbia

For one brief shining moment

2008-05-15T20:41:05Z

TiVo is a marvelous contraption, for it caught Sunday's Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of the NY Phil's semi-staged Camelot, which I had no idea was happening on account of life-on-spin-cycle. Last night I decided to take an evening to sit down and watch it and decompress rather than try to Get Stuff Done, with the result that I think more Stuff might well Get Done tonight than might otherwise have last night and tonight together. (That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. *nodnodnodnodnod*)

While it was far from an ideal Camelot, it had its moments. Most of them provided by Nathan Gunn, who is, if not the BEST LANCELOT EVER, a ludicriously close second to Richard White. Yes, the opera star with (I'm given to understand) no musical theatre credits? Put everyone but maybe Marin Mazzie to shame. Serious whoa.

Christopher Lloyd as Pellinore = well, of course. Also, I'm reasonably certain there was some ad-libbed color in the description of the Questing Beast, among other things. Stacy Keach was a perfectly serviceable Merlin.

The book was shuffled oddly in a few places ("Before I Gaze" in Act II? Srsly?), and I remain convinced that if you're cutting anything, the entire Morgan LeFay scene should be the first to go (thus rendering the casting of Fran Drescher a moot point). It just doesn't fit. Hateithateithateit. (Probably doesn't help that I imprinted hard on the 1982 revival. But they were right to cut it! And wrong to cut "Fie on Goodness," which this one did too. I don't know if people don't want it to look like Mordred corrupts the knights too easily or what, but dude, that's the point: the Table was ALWAYS fragile. It represents change that's incredibly hard to implement, and incredibly easy to backslide from.) Haven't decided yet what I think of Goth!Mordred -- the whole production is an odd mix of contemporary and pseudo-period design, and there's a way in which it makes sense, but he's perhaps a bit too jarring.

Gabriel Byrne seems like a no-brainer for Arthur in theory (even if he hadn't started his movie career as Uther!), but in practice, errrrmm. Speak-singing still needs to have a bit more relationship to what the orchestra is doing. He plugged along pretty gamely, but he was the one you could really tell was underrehearsed and out of his element.

Which was a pity, because for the bits where the singing was taken out of the equation, there were some solid "oh, yeah, that" moments. Not that my heart doesn't break for any Arthur during Guenevere's aborted execution -- the scene is constructed to be pretty well cast-proof -- but you could see Mordred's lines ("Let her die, your life is over; let her live, your life's a fraud!") hitting him and cutting deep.

And of course I will never not get chills during the "Resolution" speech that closes Act I, and never not cry at the knighting of Tom of Warwick. Do justice to those, and you're allowed to be Arthur. (Even if Byrne did drop "not a man" after "I am a king," which gives me a cramp in my sense of rhetoric.)

I love that speech so very, very much...

Proposition: If I could choose from every woman who breathes on this earth, the face I would most love -- the smile, the touch, the heart, the voice, the laugh, the very soul itself, every detail and feature to the last strand of the hair -- it would all be Jenny.

Proposition: If I could choose from every man who breathes on this earth -- a man for my brother, a man for my son, and a man for my friend, it would all be Lance.

I love them. I love them and they answer me with pain. And torment. Be it sin, or not sin, they have betrayed me in their hearts, and that's far sin enough! I can see it in their eyes. I can feel it when they speak. And they must pay for it and be punished. I shall not be wounded and not return it in kind. I demand a man's vengeance!

Proposition: I am a king, not a man. And a very civilized king. Could it possibly be civilized to destroy the thing I love? Could it possibly be civilized to love myself above all? What about their pain? And their torment? Did they ask for this calamity? Can passion be selected? Is there any doubt of their devotion to me, and to our Table?

By God, I shall be a king! This is the time of King Arthur, when we shall reach for the stars. This is the time of King Arthur, when violence is not strength, and compassion is not weakness. We are civilized!

Resolved: We shall live through this together, Excalibur, they, you, and I. And may God have mercy on us all.

Chills, man. I know a lot of people who really hate the show, and I will never ever understand.

Drive-by

2008-05-14T18:47:51Z

Am alive. Hate the collection industry. Hate migraines. Need to win the lottery. Know that works better if you play.

Hate that too many friends are having a crappy time of it right now. {{{ hugs }}} Mine's not crappy, just busy.

:: vanishes back into spin cycle ::

What shows am I watching?

2008-05-05T17:43:36Z

Seen every-bloody-where, because we're just like that. I did actually think of doing it before I saw everyone else doing it, pretty much immediately upon reading "Your Friends Are Not Watching the Same Show You Are (And That's Okay)", but since I have no doubt that pretty much everyone I know independently did the same thing, it all comes out in the lemmingy wash. ;-)

The Shows What Val Watches (Or Has Watched In The Last Year Or So):

Blood Ties: "Vicki Nelson Is Way Awesomer Than Pretty Much Anyone Ever (Even When She Needs To Be Grabbed And Shaken)," simultaneously with "The PerkyGoth Files." (They alternate between main screen and PiP.)
Stargates: After a decade of "The Sam Carter Show," still getting used to its having been mashed into "Gate Travel To Pegasus Causes Brain Damage"
Doctor Who: "Squee or Headdesk: Toss of a Coin!"
Torchwood: "If You Can't Kill It, Shag It"
Sarah Jane Adventures: "SJS Shows The Kids How It's Done (And We Don't Just Mean Maria, Luke, and Clyde)"
Flash Gordon: "We Can't Decide What Show We're Making, But We're Having Way Too Much Fun Making It," alternating with "Everyone Gets Cooler Plots Than Dale Just To Make Val Pout," with a late-season retooling as "Dale and Baylin Should Totally Take Over Mongo"
Battlestar Galactica: "Why The Frak Am I Supposed To Care About These People Again?" with occasional special episodes of "Number Six Pwns Everybody"
Heroes: "Claire Bennet Is The Sanest Person On The Planet, God Help Us All"
Moonlight: "Isn't It Cute How Edgy We Think We Are?" (Yes, I caved. ~~Blame~~ Credit the sinus infection from hell and two sick days in a row.)
ETA The Sarah Connor Chronicles: "My Scary Robot Is Way Cuter Than You"
ETA2 Slings and Arrows: "This Is Your Life On Crack (But Actually Not Very Much Of It)"

There are way thinkier and/or more creative things I want to post about, but the quick and easy will have to do for now.

Book meme

2008-05-01T15:17:08Z

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish, and (h/t to maisfeeka) bracket the books you own but haven't read yet.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
[Crime and Punishment]
[Catch-22]
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
[Madame Bovary]
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead (And dude, if I were going to start any book and not finish it? This would have been it. Urk.)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (In French.)
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King (Fixed this. Remembered that I did read it when I was 10 or 11, and have been meaning to read it as an adult for years.)
The Grapes of Wrath
1984 (I had a mini-obsession with negative utopias when I was about 15.)
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist (Chuck. Dude. How many times does the kid have to be kidnapped and rescued??)
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (All the way through in English. About half in French. My not caring about five chapters of Marius' father at Waterloo, let me show you it.)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (Took a couple of tries. Have yet to get through any of the rest.)
[The Prince]
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
[A Confederacy of Dunces]
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
[Slaughterhouse-five]
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (French again. Victor again. Slightly less headdesky digression.)
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down (Was obsessed in about sixth grade, but haven't reread.)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island (Again with not-since-I-was-a-kid.)
David Copperfield

I think I'm just glad to have heard of most of them. :-)

Still alive (despite the weather)

2008-04-29T18:19:41Z

Okay, who stole spring? I object. Strenuously.

Acting class continues to be Of The Awesome. Pre-class chitchat revealed an unusually high geek quotient in the room, which I always appreciate. There are never as many fannish types in theatre as you (or at least I) think there should be. Also, I appear to have been permanently dubbed "Red" by our coach, which is fine but amusing. Last week I was Red for the first hour and Victoria a couple of times, then he settled into Valerie for the rest of the evening, so I know he does in fact know my name.

Scenework is proving to be a great push for figurative muscles I haven't been working nearly enough lately. Once my scene partner got hold of the out-of-print play we were assigned a scene from, that is. Some things really aren't just getting in your own way! %-} It's A Cry of Players, which, now that I've read it, I'm kind of amazed I'd never heard of. There are thoughts formulating in my head that I want to blog about in addition to the stuff going directly into the scenework itself, but I'm not sure yet what form that'll take. Except a glancing amusement that I would be given Anne Hathaway Shakespeare as my first assignment, after my recent babble touching on the playing-a-historical-person thing. Scene partner is awesome and open to pushing himself and risking. Not to mention willing to alternate coming out to the burbs on Metra with me going into the city to get together and work.

In the area where Actor Val intersects with Fannish Val, beginnings of an interesting discussion this morning on melancholydanes. (Spoilers galore for all three seasons of Slings and Arrows.) I really need to rewatch that whole series. Y'know, in my copious free time...

I am actress, hear me snore

2008-04-22T15:08:48Z

First class at Chicago Actors Studio last night. Like the coach, like the atmosphere, like the other members, and think it will be just the right kick in my slightly stagnant pants for this moment in time.

It's a good sign that I didn't realize until I was in my car that the ostensibly 7:00 - 10:30 class had run past midnight. Really it is. Getting up this morning, however... *YAAAAAAAWN*

If they continue to have 17 people attending the Monday night class, it's going to be an interesting 10 weeks.

Boom-de-yadda

2008-04-20T17:58:36Z

Link via tzikeh, this Discovery Channel promo is one minute and one second of SHEER UNADULTERATED HAPPY. ~~And Girl Scout campfire flashbacks.~~

Srsly. If you haven't seen it already (or even if you have -- I've had too little tube time lately, so it's new to me), GO.

I say thee verily, shrug

2008-04-20T00:44:40Z

That was... ennnnh. I appreciate the loop back to "gee that was some mighty careless glossing over of that SLAVE RACE in 'The Impossible Planet' and 'The Satan Pit,' wasn't it?" And that was resolved well enough, but overall... I dunno.

A few nice bits (Donna gleeeing about new experiences and the Doctor basking in vicarious gleee), a few anvils plummeting from the sky (slavery=sweatshop=eeevil, although I did love Donna's snark about "So is that why you travel with humans? So you can slag off on us?"), and a dash of WTflyingF (hey, presto, human becomes Ood? Seriously?).

Overall, it feels like kind of a wash.

It's probably not a good sign how many times I was mostly thinking "Man, did Catherine Tate ever win the hair lottery."

Next challenge on the agenda: Making the Sontarans interesting. *beat* Um. Good luck with that.

Fic commentary: "Five Times..."

2008-04-18T17:20:02Z

By request of brightknightie, in response to this meme post.

Commentary for "Five Times Coreen Fennel Didn't Kiss Henry Fitzroy (And One Time She Did)" (6/6)

This is the last chapter of a fic with a rather convoluted genesis. (The full story is archived on my site here.) Vicki will always remain the center of this universe (book or TV), but as the series progressed I was finding myself identifying most with Coreen, and the flurry of fic ideas striking me were almost all for her. And mostly interacting with Henry, which led first to the big plotty fic I was writing all last summer (which has yet to be posted, because it needs a major rewrite to not be rendered obsolete by canon, and I'm currently occupied with other things), and then -- while that was still in progress -- to "Ambient Light." That elicited some very nice feedback, some of it (puzzlingly if not exactly surprisingly) reading the piece as shippy, which was very much not my intent. By this time, the "little sister" paradigm had become the standard reading of their relationship in meta discussions. Which was fine as far as it went, but it was mostly used as a shorthand that left me thinking a lot about what we actually meant by it -- what was really going on, particularly in Henry's head, behind their necessarily limited canon interaction.

"Ambient Light" was part of my answer to that, but I quickly found it wasn't all of it. I thought the first part of "Five Times" -- a cute, very lightweight "what if" with a pre-series Coreen at one of Henry's signings -- was going to be a one-shot. But then I found myself with a whole collection of mental images, several of which I really wanted to do something with, but none of which necessarily warranted developing a full plot around. Then it occurred to me that they might lend themselves well to a Five Things structure, which is common in several of my fandoms, but which I'd never tried before. I ended up doing it a bit differently -- the typical Five Things being a collection of alternate possibilities, where mine evolved into a chronological series of snapshots -- but the way the parts ended up informing each other, and my view of Coreen and Henry's friendship as it continued to develop on the margins of canon, worked out better than I could ever have imagined.

This final part was also going to be a standalone at one point, my "therapeutic" response to the relationship-rocking events of "Wrapped." It's still that, but then it struck me that it would place the right emotional capper on the "Five Times," and also give me three parts from each pov.

~~

6: Eye of the Storm

The only chapter title that isn't really a time. Still bugs me. I toyed with a couple other possibilities (including "Before the Dawn," which unfortunately has no similarly shorthand converse), but this was the only thing I came up with that conveyed the sense I needed, of a moment of respite between the upheaval of "Wrapped" and the consequences to come.

Coreen had been standing at Henry's door for at least five minutes, trying to muster her courage, when it swung open. "It's generally considered more efficient to knock." His tone was completely neutral, giving nothing away.

She couldn't meet his eyes, her focus bouncing between his shoulder and his bare feet as he stepped back from the threshold for her to enter. She walked several paces past him, turning around when she heard the door click shut. Taking a deep breath, she addressed a tumble of words to his shins. "Henry, I know you probably don't want to hear it, and it's not going to fix anything, but I still have to tell you I am really, really sorry. I know you hate me, and I don't blame you, I'd hate me too, but -- "

This is, of course, the completely wrong conclusion for her to jump to, but I don't think any other explanation would occur to her right away.

"Coreen, stop. I don't hate you."

"You wouldn't even look at me!" This was all coming out way more pathetic and melodramatic than she had hoped, but she couldn't help it.

There was so much packed into that line when she said it to Vicki in the ep. (I'm forever grateful that TPTB recognized the treasure they had in Gina and took advantage of it by building more for Coreen than the original design of the show necessarily called for.) I really think she had mostly outgrown her crush on Henry (or, perhaps more accurately, separated him from what he represented) by this time, but his opinion of her always held enormous weight -- if not as much as Vicki's, very nearly so -- and the fear of losing his respect ran underneath all her efforts to get Vicki to reconsider what they were doing. (Hmmm. This is going to end up being almost as much meta on "Wrapped" as on the fic, I think. Not that I didn't already do a hefty chunk of that, but ah, well.)

"Will you look at me?" She dragged her eyes up to his face; it held none of the disappointment or condemnation she had expected, only sadness and worry. "I was betrayed and hurt and, yes, angry." He spoke slowly and clearly, as if he wanted to make sure she absorbed every word. "I was and am afraid, for Vicki and for you. I could not hate you. All right?"

I'm crediting him with a lot of insight to her mental state here, but I think it's warranted. There's no way he's not aware of the value she places on his opinion of her. And he articulates in an earlier part of the story that he knows better than she does how much she needs him to be a "safe harbor." When he singled her out for concern and courtesy no less than twice in the next ep, making a point of separating her from his anger and frustration with Vicki, I was sure I was on the right note with this effort to make sure she understands he's still on her side.

Not trusting her voice to make it past the lump in her throat, she nodded.

"All right, then." He took a closer look at her. "Have you slept at all?"

She must look worse than she thought. But then, there was no fooling his senses, was there? "Sort of. Some." She shrugged, thankful that any sound came out. "I just keep trying to figure out what I could have done, what I could have said different to make her listen."

Until writing this dialogue, I hadn't given much conscious thought to how prone Coreen is to shouldering more blame than she's actually responsible for. Most notably in "Heart of Fire," when she starts freaking about how it'll be her fault if Henry dies, simply because she told Mike where to find them. The pressure she puts on herself to live up to the much more mature and experienced people she works with doesn't get acknowledged much.

Now he looked as close to crying as she felt; she wondered if he could. Before she could think about what she was doing and how crazy it was, she darted forward and kissed him, one hand raking her hair back from her neck.

This must have gone in and out of the story a dozen times. If it wasn't there, I was going to have to change the title and/or pull it back out as a standalone, because this was the only way that "One Time" was going to happen, and even then I wasn't sure about it. Whatever fantasies she might entertain at any given time, I couldn't see her crossing a line that would lose his respect. It had to be completely desperate and irrational -- and, like the offer of her blood in the ep itself, completely not about the curiosity and romantic notions that underlay her flirting with him for most of the season. I leave it to the reader to decide if I was successful; I'm still not entirely sure.

For a second, just one dizzy tingling second, she could have sworn he kissed back.

Okay, I threw a teensy bone to the shippers. There aren't very many of them, but they're nice people and some of them like me. ;-) It's also a callback to part 1, in which she was a perfectly appealing potential neck-of-the-week as a complete stranger. She's still too immature to interest him on any serious level (and, as we saw with Maya, he's likely to continue seeing her that way long after she really grows up), but the notion that she's excluded from the casual menu because she became something more important than that is more interesting -- and rings more true -- to me than a simple Do Not Want.

Then he took hold of her shoulders and pushed her to arm's length, using precisely as much force as the task required. Determinedly blinking back tears, she couldn't quite tell if that disappointment was there in his face now.

Still measuring his strength to the fraction, he turned her and steered her to the couch, shifting his hands to keep them on her shoulders from behind. "Sit."

The lightbulb moment when I realized how specifically he avoids touching her -- which remained consistent throughout the season -- had a huge impact on how I think about their interaction. I don't make exceptions lightly in my own fic, and they invariably jump out at me in others'. It's unlikely to work for me unless it's in line with one of the rare exceptions we saw in canon -- yanking her behind him out of Emmanuel's reach in "Love Hurts" (i.e. protecting her) or pushing her hand away from his dog tags in "D.O.A." (i.e. enforcing the boundary itself). This falls into the second category, obviously. (If anyone's wondering, the only other instances of physical contact in all 22 eps were her whacking him on the arm in "Post Partum" and his knocking her out in "Deep Dark.")

Coreen obediently plopped down, staring at the floor until he knelt in front of her, in her line of sight. He didn't look angry, at least. "Can we pretend I didn't just do that?"

"I sincerely hope so." He didn't sound angry either. Maybe a little frustrated. "Now. It's obvious you're not thinking clearly, but you're thinking something. What is it?"

I think this is when I realized how he had been spending his evening.

"Look, I'm really sorry -- "

"Yes, I got that part."

"It's just... I couldn't stop Vicki from taking your blood and -- " She gulped, unable to finish the sentence. "Giving you mine was all I could think of to fix anything. And you wouldn't take it, even though I don't even know how you made it out the door." She shook her head. "It's still all I have, Henry. I don't know what else to do."

Coreen's core belief in unlimited possibility took a beating in this mess. She still believes every problem has a solution, and not in Vicki's sometimes grim "whatever it takes" way. She takes very seriously that it's her job to come up with those solutions so Vicki can implement them. This time she failed. She couldn't come up with an alternative to the unacceptable solution, and Vicki went ahead with it anyway. The only thing not completely beyond her ability to mend in the aftermath was the physical injury to Henry, and he rejected her help. With no other solutions available to her, it made a cockeyed sort of sense for her to try pressing the offer again, in lieu of doing nothing.

Incidentally, if I could magically conjure one "missing scene" of everything that happened offscreen in the entire season, what happened after Vicki left the condo would be it.

She had no idea what he had expected her to say, but apparently that wasn't it, because he just stared at her. Not surprised, exactly, just... processing.

Finally he stood up and spun on his heel, taking a couple steps away from her before stopping. "Of course you don't understand. How could you?"

"Understand what?"

He sighed. "Part of me knew only that I was in pain, and saw you as part of the cause. And saw you, effectively, offering me your life." Turning back to face her, he finished, "I couldn't afford the risk that I might take it."

It took me ages to distill this down into a simple statement. I have no doubt there's a lot more to it -- I'm a firm believer that nobody ever does anything for only one reason -- but I do believe it mostly boils down to not being sure enough in that moment that he wouldn't hurt her.

"Oh." She couldn't think of anything else to say. She certainly didn't dare ask about the risk to whomever he had fed on instead.

"As for what you have to give... Don't undervalue your trust. I don't." He sat down next to her, continuing, "I'm fasting tonight. [Unplanned breadcrumb droppage. I didn't realize I was giving her pieces until she put them together a little way down.] I haven't been out, and hadn't seen anyone until you arrived. So, will it satisfy your need to help if I tell you it means more to abstain when the temptation is right here?"

It wasn't really funny, but the laugh bubbled up on its own anyway. Everything was just so absurd all of a sudden. After a few seconds, she realized it wasn't laughter anymore.

I have no idea whether this works. If you've experienced that kind of exhausted hysteria, it should be all you need, but I don't know if it conveys it if you haven't.

"This is ridiculous!" she protested through hitching sobs, two days of unshed tears escaping through her relief when misery had held them at bay. "God, I'm sorry, you must think I'm crazy!"

"Occasionally. But not at the moment."

She was too busy trying to catch a decent breath to be suitably surprised when he put his arm around her shoulders and gathered her close, inside the boundary he had so carefully maintained as long as she had known him. He didn't shush her or tell her it would be okay, just let her bury her face in his shoulder and hang on for dear life.

This exception doesn't exactly fit either of the categories mentioned above, but there was no way to do without it. The meltdown is the logical conclusion of showing how frazzled she is. Which she usually doesn't if she can help it -- this is the girl who was bouncing around Vicki's office, buzzing on proof of the reality of the supernatural and wheedling her way into a job Vicki clearly doubted she was qualified for, within a few days of her boyfriend being slaughtered by a demon while she was on the phone with him. She certainly wouldn't come this unglued in front of Vicki if she could help it, and she's not exactly happy to be doing it in front of Henry either. But since she is, I couldn't see Henry just sitting back and offering her nothing. In canon, it's always Vicki who looks out for her post-trauma, but Vicki isn't here. The solution was to acknowledge that it is an exception, and a temporary one.

There was no telling how long she kept on crying, so violently that it seemed like Henry's steady arms were all that kept her from shaking apart. Finally, though, it passed, and she took a deep breath and pulled reluctantly back to her side of the couch. Back outside the boundary.

This would be the day I really, really wished actually explaining the phrase "Spanish Princess Moment" would have fit the scene. :: blows kisses to horsechicks :: Because it's a textbook one.

"Thank you." It sounded surreally inadequate.

"You're welcome," he answered simply. "Feel better?"

"Yeah," she managed around residual sniffles. In spite of aching stomach muscles and hyperventilation lightheadedness, it was true.

I'm prouder of this line than it probably warrants. Paying attention to senses other than vision and hearing should be baseline, not bonus. But hey, crying like that is work!

"Good. Here." He stood and reached into his pocket. "For all the archaic affectations of the culture, I have yet to meet a goth who carries a handkerchief."

This was what a real laugh felt like. She had all but forgotten.

"I'm going to go change my shirt -- no, you've apologized enough for one night," he headed her off as she registered the huge smear of saltwater and eyeshadow on white linen. "If you would hold this for me?"

Coreen held out the hand that wasn't busy making a similar mess of his handkerchief, and he handed her the plain black rosary he customarily wore wrapped around his wrist.

It's since come up in a discussion that Maria's rosary seems to have disappeared after "Heart of Fire;" the person posting the observation said it was broken in the course of Mendoza taunting Henry with it. I had made a mental note to check the detail while I was writing this, but never actually remembered to do it. For the purposes of this fic, I choose to assume it was still around and just not in evidence, because it was such a potent symbol. During a get-together marathoning the first part of the season, iingaartist asked semi-facetiously while he was with Sinéad, "So, does he always have a rosary around his wrist when he has sex?" I limited myself to answering "He pretty much always wears it," and bit my tongue to let her see for herself a few eps down the road that actually, yes, it's probably a deliberate tangible reminder that when his control falters, someone else pays. Given the painful circumstances there, I have tremendous respect for his keeping it it in view.

In using it here, I wasn't drawing a conscious connection between Maria -- the innocent who trusted him -- and Coreen. But if the scene were from his pov, it would probably cross his mind.

She hadn't seen him take it off; had he been holding it loose the whole time? That, and what he'd said about fasting, and the calm patience he had shown from the moment he opened the door... "Did I interrupt something?"

And now she picks up the breadcrumbs I didn't realize I was leaving her.

"Nothing I can't easily resume. I'll be right back."

Alone in the room, she tried to just sit quietly and wait, but she had never been very good at it. She looked around at the paintings on the walls, the sketches tacked up around his workspace, the city lights outside the windows. From the portrait of his father, her eye tracked down to the sword on its display stand below, spotless and shining. Leaving the handkerchief on the coffee table, she walked over toward it, trying to wrap her mind around the realization that Henry must have had to wipe his own blood off the blade.

That last bit was also my own "holy crap" moment -- something that hadn't occurred to me until I was writing this paragraph. I mean, yikes! P.S. Henry? LOCK THE DAMN THING AWAY plzkthx. Dork.

"It looks clean, doesn't it?" he asked at her shoulder. "You would never know."

Conscious choice here not to have Coreen startled by his sneaking up on her. Partly because I think she's too used to his comings and goings in Vicki's office, and partly as another indicator that she's really, really wiped and not so much with the reflexes just now.

"But you would."

"Yes. I can still smell the blood, feel the taint. On the sword. On the floor beneath our feet."

She hadn't paid attention to exactly where she was standing, and shivered with a sudden chill, though she was still wearing her coat. "On me?"

He hesitated just a beat before answering. "Yes."

"Oh."

"Not as strongly as the other night." That was reassuring, until he added, "It's less obvious as it becomes more a part of you."

The canon dialogue does a lot of tapdancing around what the ritual actually did to Vicki, without coming out and clearly defining it. I did a fair amount of pondering to define it in my own head, but purposely kept the dialogue in the same vein as what we heard on screen. There's a bit of a Lovecraft flavor to it that I didn't want to dispel -- that the three of them, having read it in the grimoire and been present when the power was invoked, were changed by the experience and understand it in a way that maybe can't be clearly and/or safely articulated.

She nodded, wondering why she wasn't terrified by that. His calm seemed to be contagious, or maybe she was just too wrung out by the crying jag. "What about Vicki?"

"That's more complicated." Neither his voice nor his expression gave anything away as he moved in front of her and gave her a glass of water. "Why do you ask?"

"She said you came by, but she wouldn't tell me what you said. She's..." She swallowed. "She's acting like everything's the same. But it's not. Not anything she's doing, exactly, but every time she comes in the room, it's like..." The penny dropped. "Like standing here."

He didn't say anything, just looked sad while she took a sip of water.

"I'm not just imagining that, am I?"

"It could be cause for concern," he answered cautiously.

I experimented a lot with this section before I got it to a satisfactory level of ambiguity. I didn't want to make it too definite that she had gained some sort of sensitivity she didn't have before, because I didn't expect anything like that to come up in canon. But I also wanted his specifically chiding Vicki for putting Coreen "on their radar" to have some significance other than as a red blinky foreshadowing for "Deep Dark." The line makes it clear he believes she didn't dodge the bullet by not following through with her part in the ritual, and he's waiting for the other shoe to drop on her as well as on Vicki. As alert as he is for something to be wrong with either or both of them, he could just as easily be reading too much into things. But she did crack open a door -- which Astaroth will soon take advantage of -- and it's not inconceivable for it to have some effect on her perceptions.

Coreen didn't feel concerned. She didn't feel much of anything, except that strange faint buzzing of nerves and a sneaking suspicion that she wasn't standing quite straight. "I should probably sit back down now, huh?"

"That would be a good idea."

The buzzing faded as she walked back to the couch, acutely aware of Henry close behind her. Was he worried she wouldn't make it? She wasn't that loopy, was she? [I had a good giggle the day Gina used the word "loopy" on her blog. *g*] Tired, sure. Everything just a little bit farther away than it should be. But she wasn't going to keel over on him. See, here was the couch.

"Why don't you give me your coat?"

"I just need to sit for a minute. I should go home."

"I'm not going to send you out to fall asleep on the streetcar." He watched her consider the logistics of removing her coat with a glass of water in one hand and a rosary in the other. "Or possibly in the elevator. Let me."

This is, I admit, something of a personal cliché. Some people get characters drunk when they want them to say things they typically wouldn't, and/or give an independent character license to accept a little coddling. I tend to get them sleep-deprived. Mostly because it lets me draw much more effectively on personal experience. *g*

And despite her apparently nigh-limitless energy, Coreen does run down. Whoever came up with the idea of her conked out on her desk while they waited for the incubus trap to spring deserves a box of chocolates, because it was cute beyond belief.

He took the glass and set it on the coffee table -- she would have thought of that if he'd given her a second -- and helped her off with her coat. "I'll drive you home later," he said, laying it neatly across one of the chairs. "You need a little more than a minute."

There was an "I think" at the beginning of that last sentence for a while, but I realized there were too many of those floating around. More importantly, he's sort of shifted gears into taking care of a kid, so that the sentence should be more of a definite observation than a suggestion. Vicki -- appropriately, as her employer -- deals with her as an adult, but Henry never quite has. He's never hesitated to declare what she should or shouldn't do, in a way Vicki almost never lets him get away with.

"But you were..." She held up the rosary. "Won't it... I don't know, interfere?"

"For one of the people I'm praying for [Because she's not the only one looking for a way to repair what got damaged.] to be present?" he asked, taking it back. "Why do you think it would?"

"I don't know. I never really -- I mean, I'm not, um..." She frowned at his soft chuckle. "What's funny?"

"You've grown up in what is probably the most inclusive society in human history, and you're uncomfortable saying you don't share my religion?"

"It's not that, exactly. You said I'm..." The word he had used dangled out of reach, and she waved vaguely toward the sword and the creepy spot on the floor.

Henry's face fell. "Tainted." [I'm pleased with this misstep on his part, as I am any time I successfully overcome the tendency to have characters always say the right thing and accurately anticipate what's going on with others. It's a little one, because a truly hurtful screwup would be contrary to the purpose of the scene, but there needs to be a little bit of "nobody's perfect."] Crouching and leaning on the arm of the couch beside her, he went on, "Maybe I shouldn't have. You're in no frame of mind to understand."

Shrugging, she reminded him, "I asked."

"Yes, you did. We can always count on that." He gave her that patient, sad smile again. "I didn't turn you away tonight. Surely you don't expect less of God."

A lot of the key thoughts took a lot of trial and error for the words to be right. This one -- probably the most central -- was right there, first try. I keep talking about that big thinky meta I still want to write sometime about Henry's faith, but in a way it's all here.

She didn't quite get that, but nodded anyway.

"Good." He stood and handed her the glass of water again.

After taking a few swallows, she asked, "You're keeping a vigil, right? Like knights did?"

"And your idiosyncratic self-education comes through again." Settling on his knees near the other end of the coffee table, he explained, "I expect your literary image is more than a little romanticized, but essentially the right idea. Now get some rest. I don't mind your being here, but I will ask you to be quiet."

I tried to find a way to fit in the idea that instead of the traditional strength for battle, he's seeking strength to forgive, but it ended up being outside the scope of what I thought he would discuss with Coreen. Especially since she's already told him Vicki wouldn't tell her what he said, which includes the "I wish I could forgive you." So I have a weird sort of sense that he's respecting Vicki's wishes by not going there. Also just the sense that the talking needs to wind down and be simplified at this point. The whole notion was just too thorny to get into, and Coreen's barely following the conversation as it is.

Coreen nodded, taking a last sip of water and setting it on the table. The idea of just curling up for a nap was more appealing by the second, and even seemed possible now that her mind had given up running around in anxious circles. But it didn't seem appropriate, even though it seemed to be what he expected. Instead, she sat back, folding her hands in her lap, watching him curiously while trying not to stare.

Too many seems, but I didn't realize it until it was already posted/archived and marked as complete. After that, if it's not an actual typo or spelling/grammar error, it stays.

It didn't seem to matter if she did. Henry bowed his head over the beads in his hands, eyes closed, heedless of the stray curls falling into his face. Definitely not appropriate to think about how beautiful he was.

I did mention thinking she's mostly outgrown the crush, yes? ;-)

At first she tried to pay attention to the words; the Latin was fairly basic, and not difficult to link to her nodding familiarity with the prayers as she had encountered them in movies and books.

Coreen's religious literacy or lack thereof was another element that I had to define in the back of my head, but kept pretty vague in the story. Had they kept her decidedly Irish surname from the books, I'd have assumed her to be more knowledgeable about Catholic tradition than I eventually settled on. As it is, for all her seemingly superficial "That's so cool!" approach, she's always read to me as having a genuine need for truth -- a seeker, in neopagan parlance. Which means either the tradition she was raised in no longer answers the need for her, or she wasn't raised in one, at least not consistently. I'd like to say I have definable reasons to have chosen the latter, but all I can say is it seems to fit her better. Vicki was understandably skeptical when Lexia theatrically labeled her "the most spiritual of the nightbreed," but I see no reason not to believe it.

That her worldview is all questions and few answers is a good thing at this stage of her life, even if Henry does worry (rightfully) about her pursuing the questions into dangerous territory. He doesn't hesitate to say "don't go there" when it's really called for (all the way back to the second ep and "Why do people always say that?" -- "Because some of them have paid. And some of them are still paying.") but he doesn't want to squash her sense of wonder either. After all, he's managed to hold onto his own (e.g. those "recruiting" speeches to Vicki). Which is where I start wondering how much of a mirror she might be of the kid he was when he fell for Christina. Which in turn underpins a lot of where I have him coming from in dealing with her.

In an early form of this idea, I mentally rehearsed her catching him on his way out and his actually taking her to a church. But the simpler structure -- and input into her learning process that's more digestible to her exhausted brain -- won out, and also allowed for reclaiming his home as a sanctuary.

But sustained focus eluded her, and she found herself instead drawn into the repetitive cadence.

Maybe that made more sense. These prayers had been second nature to him for nearly five hundred years; not even he could possibly concentrate on the words the third or fourth or tenth time through, could he? There was something more in it for him, unlocked by the language but not really about it. Even as she thought that, she wasn't quite sure what she meant. But it was comforting to be near it anyway, to wrap herself in the steady murmur and just be still.

I'm always struck by the reaction of non-Catholics to the Rosary. People don't know it serves as a meditation, and most people in our culture don't really get what meditation is anyway. But I've seen them get very caught up in it. One very emotional and personal instance was very much in my mind while I wrote this.

Coreen, with her mythology background (you know she's devoured Campbell!), might have a clearer sense of what he's including her in than most people, and should probably have considered it in more sophisticated terms than this. But I prefer the childlike clarity of the observation as it stands. She's at the very beginning of the process by which Henry built his mature faith. It affords him a shelter she doesn't have, but he can share it to some extent.

"...Sancta Maria mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Coreen, lie down before you fall."

"Mm?" She wasn't sure when she had closed her eyes, but they didn't want to open, and she was pitching forward and couldn't tell where upright was. Before she could register any alarm at that, though, the forward motion stopped. Cool hands supported her shoulders, guiding her to lean sideways instead. "Whuzzuh?"

"Shh, never mind. Go back to sleep." Henry's soft voice was far away, though he had to be right there to be setting her head down. She didn't know whether she pulled her feet up or he did it for her.

Another necessary exception, and again dealing with her as a kid. Which she still needs to be sometimes. Given that this is the second time I've had her fall asleep on his ~~woefully insufficient~~ couch, that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it. *g*

"Lord, grant Your daughter strength." Something warm and soft settled over her, satin-smooth on her arm, velvet-fuzzy under her chin. With a last sliver of conscious logic, she identified it as her coat. "Guide her steps on the perilous road we walk."

And the most spontaneous utterances get rewritten the most times. I doubt I could ever be wholly satisfied with it, but this will do. Several versions included Vicki, but it's a given that she's going to be uppermost in his mind in general. This needed to be just for Coreen.

His words were just sound now, beyond the heavy curtain of overdue sleep, resuming the rhythm of the age-old formula. And for a little while, two wounded souls knew peace.

The final line bears the responsibility for implying what I opted against exploring in so many words, that they have a common bond as unwilling participants in the ritual. Even when she apologized, Vicki never did get that she was missing the point -- what he couldn't get past wasn't her stabbing him, or even that she worked magic he finds abhorrent, but that she forced him to be part of the harm she inflicted on herself. And while he doesn't know the specifics of the emotional blackmail she employed when Coreen balked, he has more than enough clues -- including the babble at the top of this scene -- to figure out she wasn't exactly on board with the whole thing either.

~~

So there it is. The feedback on this one has definitely been quality vs. quantity! I've actually been surprised as many people have responded to it as have, since I'm fully aware that it's of "niche" appeal, and not even a shippy niche. What did surprise me is how heartfelt some of the feedback has been. I didn't really expect people to find it as moving as they have, and continue to be really blown away by what they've been kind enough to say.

No, you cannot has Puccini. (Not yours)

2008-04-18T02:08:38Z

No Suor Angelica. :-/ For a variety of reasons beyond anyone's control, not least of which is the necessity of Artistic-Director-of-Many-Hats going to Montreal to be with her dying dad.

At least I have my Thursday nights and my first couple weeks of June back. *sigh*

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

2008-04-17T01:19:32Z

Via neonhummingbird, this is officially Very, Very Funny.

Also, Oscar bears a striking resemblance to the late great Diablo. :: points at icon :: He even gets loooong at one point.

Of course, it figures my Very Favoritest Engineer left on his honeymoon today. Must remember to email when he gets back. He and Sister-in-Love (with whom the cats in the household arrived) will definitely get a kick out of it.

"DVD commentary" meme revival

2008-04-16T20:03:02Z

Because apparently my brain gets most bored when it has the most to be getting done. Or something.

Also because my flist has morphed substantially since the last time I did this one, and I'm actually more hoping some of the folks I've started hanging out with since then will do it themselves (ETA: Or that people who've been around all along will give me a crack at their newer stuff!) than that anyone will actually take me up on it. ;-)

I can't actually find the wording of the original meme, but it's pretty simple: Pick a fic, any fic, of all the fic I've written, and I'll repost it with a "DVD commentary."

Where's my Post-It?

2008-04-16T02:26:58Z

Oh, natmerc? This one's mostly for you. Y'know how you said you were mulling the notion of going to Polaris?

Per today's email newsletter, they've booked Ellen Muth as a guest. :: whistles innocently ::

Chemistry, baby!

2008-04-15T02:05:02Z

And I don't just mean the kind that happens onstage. Met with potential costuming assistant for Shrew, who is no longer potential. Got along like a house on fire, and she lives about five minutes away, thus relieving most of the usual logistical headaches of delegating. The fact that she doesn't just have sewing skills, but serious theatre costuming skills, pretty much relieves the rest. \o/

Now I really gotta get some sketches done before next meeting with director next week, as I would like to continue getting along with her like a house on fire...

Fire bad. TARDIS pretty.

2008-04-14T01:22:24Z

And even with some definitely heavy stuff going on, still with the fun.

In no small measure because, as taraljc points out, this ep is very Old Skool in a lot of ways. Specifically in ways that resonate muchly with the 70s, to an extent I don't think has quite happened before. I've certainly had those moments of "Yes! This is the show I fell in love with as a kid... or rather where it makes sense for it to be now... or something." But this one, for whatever reason, just hit a lot of those buttons for me.

(For the record, since I'm not sure whether I've actually stated it here before, said buttons were installed in the fall of 1977, beginning with "Horror of Fang Rock." Which, as you might guess, made very little sense until I finally saw it again around 1981. Sense was, however, immaterial. Not least because it involved people being trapped by a monster advancing ominously up the stairs ~~for about three weeks~~. Yes, my tastes were established early on. *g* Also, picture a seven-year-old me discovering Leela. 'Nuff said.)

It occurs to me that Donna ping-ponging between "This is the coolest thing EVER!!!" and "What the HELL are you thinking?!" should possibly be annoying. But since it's all perfectly reasonable as responses to whatever she's encountering at the moment, I'm just going "Yeah!!"

Even, to some extent, with the never-not-going-to-be-awkward Requisite Companion Moment Of Why We Can't Change History. Because as much as I see and understand the Doctor's position, it's a pretty key part of the companion job description to challenge him on it. And being Donna, she challenges him on it quite bluntly. Which can't possibly surprise him, and clearly doesn't -- his delivery has very much a ring of having prepared his arguments because he knew damn well he'd have to argue it with her. After all, even though this has hit unusually early in her companion tenure, it comes after she was confronted with full-on ultimatum-issuing Oncoming Storm mode the day she met him. The day she looked him in the eye and told him he needed someone to stop him -- but didn't yet believe she was up for being that someone.

Last week, they both acknowledged that yes, she is. This week, she learned how much harder it is to accept when not to stop him. And she still thinks travelling with him sounds like a fine idea. I think we'll keep her. :-D

Perhaps for the very reason that the Doctor was prepared for an argument, the elegance of the explanation this time out impressed me. Not that we don't generally know everything he said, but the fixed point vs. flux thing crystallized it more clearly than we've ever heard outright. Then it segued very nicely indeed into the reminder (or, from Donna's vantage point, explanation for the first time) of the Doctor's perceptions -- that as a Time Lord he's aware of all this stuff, all the time, and also acutely aware that he's the only one left. The construction of the speech places a very clear emphasis on the responsibility of that, which I love. It's not just "aww, poor emo Lonely God," blahblahblah. The trauma is never not going to be with him, but that's not all there is to it, and never has been. It's how much is placed on his shoulders, how completely he cannot afford to screw up. We've seen that by deed, but seldom heard him spell it out so plainly in words.

I'm intrigued by the prophesying, but not in a mode of trying to puzzle out what it will mean. Just looking forward to finding out. Well, okay, "She is coming" is pretty transparent -- if Rose isn't this season's ongoing reference thread (à la Bad Wolf/Torchwood/Saxon), it would mean TPTB have discovered an untapped vein of subtlety that I don't think is terribly likely. *g* The bit about Donna having "something on your back" has me more curious.

I did say there was fun, didn't I?

The "stereotypical middle-class TV family, just dressed up in Beeb Classical togs!" thing was clever enough at first, but got a bit stale. The Latin-being-heard-as-"Celtic" :: pause to beat the linguistics portion of my brain into submission :: gag was more successful. Mostly, I think, because after the first time it went by without further comment by either the Doctor or Donna, and also because the borrowed Latin phrases fit seamlessly into the dialogue without feeling shoehorned. They were so ordinary we didn't even register them as Latin until it was pointed out, and there was no interruption in the flow. (The complete opposite of Rose's increasingly cringeworthy attempts to get Queen Victoria to say she wasn't amused back in "Tooth and Claw.")

The merchant blithely selling the TARDIS by logic that basically amounts to "finders keepers" makes me laugh and laugh. That poor old box has suffered all manner of indignities, but I think being just flat-out sold -- within minutes of arrival, yet! -- is a new one. And the "modern art" line was a fun little callback to "City of Death."

Just the general dynamic between the Doctor and Donna is making me all kinds of happy. I remember laughing and grinning at lots of specific points, but couldn't quote the lines to save my life. It's just, like I said last week, fun.

Home again, home again, no time to jig

2008-04-13T21:50:51Z

BigBabyBrother and Sister-in-Love all hitched up. Much fun was had by all.

Home with much stuff to do, highly unlikely to catch up on flist. If anything earth-shattering has happened to you in the last 49 hours that you think I should know about, holler. :-)

Fandom = Citizenship, Part the Umpteenth

2008-04-10T15:27:17Z

Blood Ties Fans Give Back has hit on the PERFECT fannish charity drive: glasses to the Lions club recycling program.

I love this because (a) it keys on Vicki as the center of the show, and (b) I do love my vampire fandoms when they do blood drives, but pout because I can't donate. Of course, my own cupboards are bare for this one too, because my system has always been "previous pair goes in the glovebox, previous glovebox pair goes in the Lions box" right away. (And yes, by that time I probably would have no business trying to actually drive with the ones I'm taking out of the glovebox, but I'm too cheap to buy spares with every scrip when I mostly live in contacts.)

Although it just occurred to me I still have a bunch of the sample frames a debtor sent Office of Doom once instead of paying Safilo, which for some strange reason didn't want a box of discontinued merchandise back. I've given a bunch of them to various theatres already, but this might be a good time to get rid of the rest. And I think the packrat I married might still have his old ones somewhere?

Please crosspost and distribute!

BLOOD TIES FANS RECYCLE FOR SIGHT

As spring cleaning gets under way, Blood Ties fans are asking people to look through dresser drawers and closets for used eyeglasses and donate them to the Lions Recycle For Sight program.

During the month of May, the Blood Ties Fans Give Back Lions Club Drive will be collecting used prescription eyeglasses and prescription and non-prescription sunglasses as part of a unique recycling program. The collected glasses will be cleaned and prepared for distribution in developing countries where eye care is often unaffordable and inaccessible.

“We need everyone to donate their used eyeglasses,” said Candy Burke, spokesperson for the Blood Ties Drive. “In most developing countries, an eye exam can cost as much as one month’s wages and a single eye doctor may serve a community of hundreds of thousands of people.”

The drive is an International effort with fans participating from all over the world. The donated glasses will be shipped to Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centers where they will be cleaned, categorized by prescription and prepared for distribution by Lions and other groups.

To donate used glasses, including sunglasses and reading glasses, pledge online at http://www.youchoose.net/campaign/blood_ties_fans_give_back_to_save_blood_ties or email SaveBT@gmail.com. For more information you can visit www.btfgb.wordpress.com.

Blood Ties Fans Give Back is a product of the fan base dedicated to the television series Blood Ties. The lead character in the series, Vicki Nelson, suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and inspired the fans to sponsor the drive. The fans have previously held a blood drive, and made a donation in the cast's name to the Best Friends Animal Society. For more information about Blood Ties, please visit www.bloodties.tv , www.bloodties-bloodlines.com and www.savebloodties.org.

Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest service club organization with nearly 1.3 million members in approximately 45,000 clubs in 200 countries and geographical areas around the world. Since 1917, Lions clubs have aided the blind and visually impaired and made a strong commitment to community service and serving youth throughout the world. For more information about Lions Clubs International, visit the Web site at www.lionsclubs.org.

Life on teh intarwebz

2008-04-10T02:48:25Z

Reason #439 to keep your web pages updated...

As I was just telling havocthecat yesterday, Doubt thou the stars are fire... has been in desperate need of updating for years.

I fully expect that most if not all of the links on the site are broken, in addition to there just being a whole raft of new stuff I should add.

I did not expect to get a polite but urgent email from the graphic designer who gave me permission waybackwhen to use one of the contemporary pieces, asking me to please change the link on hers as soon as possible, because one of her friends ran across it, and the link I had -- formerly an artists' archive sort of like Deviantart -- has since become a porn site. *facepalm*

droooooooool

2008-04-09T17:17:09Z

Via ithildyn, this might just be the most dangerous link I've seen in ages.

Period textile books that come with swatches of modern fabrics for reference. ZOMG.

Chipmunk Girl has left the building!

2008-04-08T22:25:44Z

Or mostly, anyway. There's still a little puffiness around my jaw, but I only notice it because I know my face. Also, hooray for being able to open my mouth all the way! Should make it a heckuva lot easier to have a voice lesson tomorrow. Also means I can see where the wisdom teeth came out from, and man was I right about there not being enough room in my jaw! I don't know where the heck four more teeth were anchored! Am both apprehensive and excited about seeing an orthodontist once it's all healed. I've had this traffic jam in my mouth for so long, it's going to be strange not to have them so crowded that I slice through dental floss at least three times before I get them all.

Meanwhile, I have a completely irrational craving for a chili cheese dog. *facepalm*

Curiously, hurting more today than it has the last couple. Mostly stitches pulling, I think. Which makes me very glad the Vicodin doesn't loop me out to speak of, because I have stuff to get done, darnit. Have been itching to sing, and planning to give it a shot for a while tonight. The poor voice is like "Okay, cold and then sinus infection and then wisdom teeth... Are we DONE with all this stuff now? Can we get on with business plzkthx?" I really wanted to be in solid vocal shape before we started Suor Angelica, darnit, but that just wasn't in the cards. Ah, well.

Also need to start sketching for Shrew. And must go over to Chicago Actors Studio and get registered early next week. But those are for after BigBabyBrother's wedding this weekend, which, yay!

Next week. *deep breath * Next week will be NORMAL craziness. ;-D

Missed one!

2008-04-07T02:02:32Z

Probably more than one, having read so many stories in such a blitz yesterday. But I can't believe I forgot this one in my rec list:

"Black for your funeral, green for grassy ground" (Firefly & Serenity) by liviapenn. Lyrical, heartbreaking, and oh-so-rightly hopeful look at the end of Serenity. Centered on Zoe beginning to find her way forward, with each member of the crew giving his or her own brand of strength.

The pizza and burger commercials are taunting me

2008-04-06T22:51:02Z

I am SO over this soft food business.

ETA: Also, trying to write while holding a heating pad to my face? Not so much with the practical. :-P

vworpvworpvworp

2008-04-06T14:52:59Z

Just a few quick thoughts...

Oh, RUSTY.

There. That's out of the way. This one actually made a bit more sense than usual for him, requiring slightly less beating of the rational brain into submission, and there was so much that was Just Plain Fun.

The Adipose-babies were beyond silly for a million reasons that I couldn't help hitting me as the story was happening (I'm really not a nitpicker by nature, and make it a policy to forgive anything that doesn't occur to me until later), but I'm actually okay with that because they were SO DAMN CUTE. Really, what other show could get away with a horde of little Shmoo-like creatures made of sentient fat waving endearingly at you? The crackitude is just off the charts.

Liking Donna so far, which doesn't surprise me a whole lot. I really had no fear that we were going to get a whole season of the full-throttle one-shot version of her from last year's Christmas special. She's still a bit bull-in-a-china-shop, which is fine by me, and still more than willing to give the Doctor an earful when she thinks it's called for, which is more than fine by me. I'm steeling myself for some portion of the fandom to continue to define her by that OTT first impression, which would be annoying but unfortunately in keeping with human nature. (Luke Skywalker = whiny, forever and ever amen, QED.)

I'm weirdly ambivalent about her setting out to find the Doctor. On the one hand, it's something I don't recall them having done before, and I can admire the perseverance and resourcefulness in her going "Okay, I'm going to check out weird happenings because he's bound to turn up at one of them sooner or later." But on the other, I felt a bit like it was saying she had failed in her determination to make her own life more interesting, and couldn't do it without him. Which makes me all kinds of uncomfortable.

But on the other other hand, she was trying to go from zero to Grand Adventure all at once without an instruction manual. Going to Egypt disappointed her because she did it in a touristy way, but it was the only way she knew how. Flying by the seat of your pants isn't as easy to get into as it looks. The Doctor is the one way into that world that she's sure of, so looking for the Doctor is the logical course of action. And I like to think, had she not found him, that all that checking out of weird happenings would eventually have become an end in itself, and she would have gotten the hang of this adventure business on her own.

Love the Doctor catching himself explaining things to the empty console room. Think he's on crack for just tossing that sonic pen in the trash. Love Donna noting that he's in the same suit as when she met him -- "Don't you ever change??" Love him resignedly schlepping her luggage into the TARDIS.

All in all, a fun ride, that hopefully bodes well for more fun to come. They could use some fun for a while.

Icon meme

2008-04-06T13:14:42Z

This is one of those it's fun to do at periodic intervals, as the flist shifts.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick four 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!

Snurched this time from batdina, who inquired about the following:

bounce: I was nicknamed Tigger as a high school cheerleader, and have a modest collection of Tigger items as a result. Every once in a while my mom in particular still buys me a random Tigger item, and I also occasionally pick them up for myself. I hope I'm not as brash or thoughtless as he is, but I still like the attitude. The day I made this, I scoured Google Images for a good picture of him bouncing on his tail, which has always been my favorite -- never failed to make me laugh as a child. It's just an added bonus that he has his arms crossed in that sort of know-it-all mode he gets into while pontificating on a topic he actually knows nothing about. I had my know-it-all streak as a kid too, so it keeps me honest. :-)

Bouncing is, of course, what Tiggers do best. It's also, as those of you from the heyday of FK fandom know, what NatPackers do best. Since I don't have an FK icon at the moment, Tigger here tends to get sprinkled into FK-related discussions for that reason.

dance: The image is the album cover of Kate Bush's The Red Shoes; the text is quoted from the title track. It's also the key to the quest in the short film, The Line, The Cross, and the Curve, which is a sort of long-form video for most of the album. It's a very Jungian concoction springboarding from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and the Moira Shearer film, both of which I love.

It's been years since I set foot in a ballet studio, and I don't even discuss dance as often as I might like, but I use this icon when I do. Also as a reminder of the drive to create and how we have to make sure not to lose our center in it, or it won't be worth doing.

unvarnished: Elizabeth Siddal's self-portrait, one of the catalysts for the one-woman piece I've been attempting to write about her for close to ten years now. I'll never forget turning the page of Jan Marsh's Pre-Raphaelite Women in a bookstore in college, and being hit with a shock almost of recognition at being confronted with this image. That this was the same girl who modeled for Millais' Ophelia (and many other paintings, of course, but that was the one I knew at the time) was tantalizingly dissonant, and I set out to find out who she really was. By the time I encountered this dryly hilarious letter recounting her experience picking up some money she had been mailed while on holiday in France, I was hooked.

I attached the word "unvarnished" to it, both as a sort of pun referencing the fact that Lizzie never submitted work to the Royal Academy (which had a "Varnishing Day" prior to the opening of the annual exhibit, allowing artists to do last minute touchups on work already hung), and to the unflinching forthrightness of the portrait. I had been using it for a couple years before I realized "Hey, that would make a great title." I still think that, so it's the working title I've had in my head for some time even as I continue referring to it simply as the "Lizzie project."

sacredspace: The only one one this list made by someone else, raebird. It was part of a batch of Firefly icons posted for public consumption. I used it originally as the basis of a fall-themed layout, and then kept it on after because it so beautifully expresses the setting aside of a space for a spiritual purpose.

The series always made it clear that Inara viewed her work as not merely "respectable" but sacred, and the tension between that and some others' contempt for Companions and "common" whores alike was one of the more interesting threads woven into that world. But in this moment, the preparation of a tea ceremony to welcome a young man for a rite of passage, there is only peace and reflection.

FemmeFicathon is live!

2008-04-05T22:59:46Z

And has been since last night, actually, but I am chipmunky and low-energy and slow with the posting. Go here for the master list of multi-fandom female-character-focussed goodness.

I had fun writing "Homecoming" (Heroes) for karrenia_rune, who set me the challenge of following Caitlin's adventures in the future timeline.

And was delighted to receive "Rubber Ducky, You're the One!" (Blood Ties) from deire, who gave me my favorite P.I. and goth-girl-Friday and both their moms, all in the same place at the same time. And as if that weren't already worth the price of admission, there's an extra giggle courtesy of His Royal Smugness. (He really does need to be smacked. Often. With great affection, of course.)

Among the sixty-plus offerings, a few of my favorites:

"Three Months Out. Six To Go. (Perfect Time For a Big Sister Freak Out.)" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) by havocthecat. You might think that being nearly thirty and married would let Dawn out of Buffy coming unglued at the news that she's going to be an aunt. You would, of course, be mistaken. Funny and a bit poignant, with fantastic family stuff (counting both Summerses and Scoobies as "family," of course).

"Starwort" (Forever Knight) by brightknightie, who went well above and beyond the ficathon's 1,000-word call with an older and wiser Fleur encountering LaCroix again, seven years after the "Be My Valentine" flashbacks. Fleur often gets a bad rap in fandom, as a victim of that ep's clumsy use of romance tropes, but this story takes the best of that girl we met and grows her into a worthy woman indeed.

"Silkscreen" (Firefly) by llyfrgell is a lovely look, through Zoe's eyes, at Inara's arrival and the beginnings of her becoming part of the family of Serenity's crew.

"All Witches Go to Limbo (The Unbaptized Innocents Refrain)" (BtVS/Charmed crossover) by wisdomeagle. Tara and Prue cross paths in the afterlife. Delicate, poignant, and respectful of both universes' magic systems and relationships.

"Electric Vengeance" (Heroes) by larah33. A creepy and weirdly exhilarating ride into Elle's broken psyche. Gives her credit for more complexity than canon left room for (which most assuredly does not translate as reform or apologia).

"The Verse That Was" (Firefly) by spiletta42 is a nicely crafted caper with a believable key role for Inara, and great glimpses into everyone's character.