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July 3rd, 2009
09:57 am - Public Enemies
Non-spoilery - the art direction and costuming are *phenomenal* and there's something almost preternatural about how good Johnny Depp looks. I think he stopped aging about 10 years ago! But *boy* is he pretty. Christian Bale ain't hard on the eyes either. And I couldn't love the men's clothes from this period more.
( cut for spoilers )
If you can take the violence, it's definitely worth watching.
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July 2nd, 2009
06:54 am - Thursdays are for verse - Slow Children at Play (Cecilia Woloch)
Slow Children at Play
All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home-
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths,
ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers
flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, These are my children,
thinking, Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone?
-- Cecilia Woloch
(Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) daegaer for introducing me to this poem!)
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June 13th, 2009
07:56 am - Meme - Who do you ship me with?
Or, "With whom do you ship me?" if you prefer the strict prescriptivist construction. . .(Ganked from ![[info] - personal](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) alixtii.)
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June 11th, 2009
07:31 am - The mainstream-ification of slash
A few days ago girlpearl posted about how Not a Secret fandom is, which reminded me that I'd forgotten to post about the pre-show entertainment dangerous_fred and I saw prior to my second viewing of the Star Trek reboot.
We saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse, which is a great place to see movies, because a. they serve beer and b. instead of showing 20 minutes of inane commercials, boring trivia about "stars", and dumbass quizzes before the real trailers, they show random clips of old movies, trailers, PSAs, tv shows, etc. that someone on staff thought was relevant to the movie you're about to watch. For Star Trek, they'd assembled an assortment of TOS clips (tribbles!) as well trailers for and clips from various and sundry Science Fiction "classics" (for various meanings of the word).
Mixed in with all of this was a humorous fake trailer for Broke Trek, which remixes clips from TOS and recontextualizes them with the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack to create a trailer for a fictitious Star Trek movie that depicts the romance between Spock and Kirk. And the theatre was filled with knowing laughter - both the concept of remixing pop culture artifacts and the notion of giving that remix a homoerotic spin was obviously familiar to the audience and one that made sense to them in the context of Star Trek history.
I've said for a long time that all sorts of behaviors and interests that used to be perceived as "geeky" are becoming mainstream - I think we can safely add slash to that list. . .
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June 4th, 2009
June 3rd, 2009
06:50 am - Wednesdays Are for Recs
Dr. George Tiller explains in his own words why he was so committed to providing abortions for women and protecting our right to choose
Very useful post from hope on making your html more accessible for people who use screen readers
By now many of you will have seen the "literal video" for the Bonnie Tyler song "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which has been linked all over LJ and DW - if for some reason, you've missed this, go watch it asap! The original video is the most surreal thing I've ever seen and the literal version makes me laugh until I cry every time I watch it.
[Writing]
Good post on writing and structure/organization
From the Happiness Project, 13 Tips for Actually Getting Some Writing Done
[SPN] Hysterical Misha Collins vid by danegen
[House] pwcorgigirl's "And sore must be the storm" (gen, PG13, 2000 words) is a great Cuddy-centric reaction to the events of this season's finale (spoilery, obviously)
[SGA]
"Forever Home" (McKay/Sheppard, PG13?, short) by Kass is a gorgeous story in which John and Rodney get stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy. The running gag girlpearl and I have is that I have a Pavlovian reaction to the words "team," "family" and "home," regardless of the context or fandom, and those three words are this story in a nutshell. There's also an excellent podfic of this story, read by general_jinjur.
More wonderful John/Teyla fic from artaxastra - "Sarabande" (R, short), and "Haven" (NC17, short). "Mercy" (PG?, short) is in the same continuum as the other stories, but more John-centric gen than 'shippy. All of these feature fantastic characterization and beautiful writing.
SGA Slashships is a ridiculously funny new LJ community for SGA screencaps with funny captions. Does anyone know if there's a mirror/feed for this com on DW?
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06:42 am - Dreamwidth Preferences Poll
Housekeeping poll for DW and LJ - please take the poll and let me know your preferences. . .Thanks! [LJ post eta: you can't crosspost polls - please click through to the DW poll and login via open id to record your preferences. . .]
( Dreamwidth Preferences Poll )
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June 2nd, 2009
06:55 am - Star Trek Reboot recs
It's not Wednesday, but I've got *37* things tagged "rec-this" in del.icio.us, so I'm going to do a separate set of Star Trek recs.
Very good meta from separis on the differences between the two universes and the implications of those changes
Very funny gen fic from sparky77, "How to Avoid Kicking Puppies and Other Valuable Lessons in Leadership" (R, short). Kirk has a difficult time playing the authority figure on his new command. “It happens when you don’t establish proper boundaries. Or when things aren’t stable at home. Have you been fighting with Spock again? The children don’t like it when Mommy and Daddy fight.”
Given my predilection for stories in which the characters are Meant to Be Together, despite alternate universes, amnesia, reincarnation, etc., there was no way I wasn't going to love stories in which Kirk remembers his, er, "friendship" with Spock Prime (via the mind meld) and has confusing reactions to "his" Spock. sineala's "Stars Apart, Shine the Same" (Kirk/Spock, NC17, 8000 words) is a great example of this. It is the third mission of his command, and Captain James T. Kirk suspects he is going insane.
"Observe" (Spock/Uhura, Kirk/Spock, NC17, 800 words) by Kate Andrews also plays with the ways in which Spock Prime's memories might be confusing Kirk. This is technically Spock/Uhura, but it's got a strong threesome vibe.
wintercreek's "Not in the Stars, but in Ourselves" (Kirk/Spock/Uhura, NC17, 6000 words) is that classic of the genre, a pon farr fic. Uhura and Kirk join forces to help Spock in his time of need. (Also features Kirk experiencing memories of the other timeline.)
Very funny, and well put-together ensemble vid to "We Go Together" from Grease.
Also very funny, "Four Unintended Consequences of the Unexpected and Unlikely Friendship Between James T. Kirk and Nyota Uhura" (Spock/Uhura, implied Kirk/McCoy). This is mostly just what it says on the tin, and it's a scream.
"The One with the Romulan Ale" by dancinbutterfly (Kirk/McCoy, NC17, 6000 words) is also hysterically funny and crazy sexy to boot. Kirk and McCoy take a break from the studies and head to Vegas. Trouble ensues.
And one more gen piece, this one McCoy-centric - "Chaotic Systems" by eponymous_rose (PG, 2000 words). Post-movie, McCoy has some help making up his mind to take a post on the Enterprise.
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June 1st, 2009
May 29th, 2009
07:13 am - Feedback Friday!
It's Feedback Friday again! Take a few minutes today to offer some feedback to a writer (maybe someone you've never given feedback to before). Writers, feel free to promote this notion in your journals if you'd like to let people know that you're open to constructive criticism and other kinds of comments on your work.
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May 28th, 2009
May 27th, 2009
07:01 am - Wednesdays Are for Recs
Back on schedule for the week, now that I know what day it is. . .
Good post from helens78 on importing comments to Dreamwidth
gabrielleabelle on Why I Bitch About Female Characters All the Time - Given how extensively TV affects our perceptions of the world, what do we make of the fact that women are underrepresented or poorly portrayed? Ditto with racial and ethnic minorities and people of minority sexual orientations.
[Dr Who] I'm mostly a new Who fan, but I adore Sarah Jane. I also love twisty, time travel love stories that take our knowledge of canon and turn it inside out. A great example of this is orbythesea's "Decisions and Revisions" (PG?, Eight/Sarah Jane, short). It's beautiful and a little bittersweet and very well done.
[Merlin] I realize I'm at the point of turning this post into "great examples of all Mel's favorite fic tropes," but I also really love reincarnation stories. the_moonmoth's "True North" (NC17, Merlin/Arthur, 2800 words) is a really lovely story in which Merlin is immortal and Arthur keeps being reincarnated - this story really captures both the joy of recognition and the fear that everything will fall apart again.
[Sherlock Holmes] My love for Sherlock Holmes is endless and without reason. The trailer for the new Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law Holmes movie looks completely cracktastic, but I can't wait!
[Slings & Arrows] Massive picspam from thirdblindmouse
[SGA]
I love crysothemis' John-centric John/Rodney vid Poker Face
Also from crysothemis, "Fix" (NC17, McKay/Sheppard, long) is a very cool story that gives you the option of switching between the characters' points of view at various points along the way. John discovers an Ancient sex device. Trouble ensues.
I'm a sucker for a good "quantum mirror" AU, and 30toseoul's "Brownian Motion (NC17, short, John/Rodney/Teyla/Ronon) is a great example of this genre, with bonus OT4 sex. John falls into a reality in which the team is *really* close.
And SGA has kind of turned me into a fan of that other kind of AU, where the characters are simply dropped into a completely different frame of reference, with no explanation. Maybe it's because John and Rodney are so *themselves* that the dynamic works regardless of the setting? At any rate, I was initially very dubious of a NASCAR AU, but I was completely sucked in by Celli Lane's "Fireball" (NC17, McKay/Sheppard, 27500 words), in which John is the loose cannon new driver for Weir Racing and Rodney's the eccentric genius engineer. I can also recommend the podfic.
smittywing's "Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" (NC17, 16000 words, McKay/Sheppard) is a funny, lighthearted story where John and Rodney are having sex, but Rodney keeps finding increasingly improbable reasons why it doesn't "count." "All I meant to say," he said quickly, head twitching to the side, "was that there's no reason to have the 'we're not doing this again' discussion or even the associated homophobic freakout, because as far as I'm concerned, this didn't count."
Coming soon: Star Trek Reboot recs, and lots of 'em - watch this space!
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May 26th, 2009
08:02 am - To hell with it - anything to get me writing
I just spent ten minutes unsuccessfully scrolling back through my reading list trying to find the meme someone posted last week that I wanted to do for this week's "Mondays are for Memes." And then remembered that it's not even Monday. . . ::facepalm:
At any rate, the meme went something like this: comment with your suggestion for the first line of a story and I'll reply with the next few lines. No guarantees that the results will be finished ficlets, and if I don't recognize the characters or the fandom, the results may be somewhat surreal!
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May 24th, 2009
11:43 pm - Star Trek Reboot
girlpearl saw it last weekend and insisted I see it asap, since she felt it would be relevant to my interests.
Short, nonspoilery version - She was *totally* right. ::grin::
( spoilery and disorganized thoughts behind the cut )
I think I just used up my weekly quota for exclamation points in this post. Recs? Pretty please?
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May 22nd, 2009
08:08 am - Feedback Fridays
So apparently there were some hurt feelings over the recent anonymous feedback meme - which is both unsurprising and also too bad. Unsurprising, because I've rarely seen an anonymous *anything* meme that didn't result in hurt feeling somewhere (even anonymous love memes prompt "why didn't I get as many comments as so-and-so" or "why didn't anyone put in my name" complaints). And too bad, because feedback is valuable to writers and and honest constructive criticism is hard to come by. Unfortunately, every time something like this happens, it (understandably) makes readers more reluctant to offer up anything but glowing praise, for fear of pissing off writers.
So let's start a new tradition! Let's make Fridays feedback day - take 5 minutes today to give some feedback to your favorite writer(s). If you read something interesting this week, but haven't commented, post a comment. Or, even better (since feedback on the writer's style as a whole, rather than on one particular story is *really* hard to come by) you could send an email to one of your favorite writers with some thoughts about her/his writerly quirks and habits - what works, what doesn't, etc. If you're not sure how (negative) constructive criticism will be received, you could start small or even ask, "Are you open to feedback on the areas where I see room for improvement?"
Writers, if you're open to this kind of feedback, feel free to promote this notion in your journal and let your readers know what sort of feedback you're most interested in. . .
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07:31 am - Friday Ficlet - PotC
An older snippet (you can tell because it is innocent of any post-CotBP canon) that I'd still like to do something with - what do you, dear reader, suspect happens next? ::grin::
***
( Jack and Will and James sparring in the forge )
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May 21st, 2009
May 20th, 2009
07:17 am - Wednesdays Are for Recs
A fantastic anti-homophobia, anti-hate video that makes me smile each and every time I watch it. Seriously - this will make your day!
Slate magazines guide to the best wine importers
Change a habit in 30 days
[Dreamwidth]
Good tips from catechism on setting up feeds on LJ and DW
wistfuljane says Don't Panic about people moving to Dreamwidth
[Racism and Thirteenth Child related links]
tablesaw - Part the First: In Which I Discover What Is Already Found - on the Thirteenth Child debates as an issue of conflicting geographies as well as histories
Fabulous video from Jay Smooth, in which he addresses "ironic" hipster use of racist language
Nalo Hopkinson (an author I adore), talks about being a science fiction fan and writer of color
[Star Trek] very funny graphs and flowchart from Cracked - Instruction Manuals for the USS Enterprise
[SPN] Also very funny episode tag to SPN 418 (The Monster at the End of the Book) from with_a_kay - "Happy Ending" (short, gen with hints of Sam/Dean, PG?).
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May 14th, 2009
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