omfg, I'm so exhausted. I woke up at two in the morning, and then again at five and then finally at seven-thirty, I gave up. Oh, I dearly hope this doesn't stay this way for too much longer.

so, last night, I downloaded episode 13 - better known as that finale of that show called Doctor Who - and part of me can't wait to see it, but looking at all the comments people on my flist have made, now I'm not so sure how excited I am anymore. I'll get to it eventually, I'm sure.

had a good time with my friends, but of course, why wouldn't I? came directly home and curled up on the couch with Spencer and listened to music while my parents partied it up next door. just me and my dad for the better part of today because my mom has to go play dungeons and dragons. she texts on her phone more than me, plays dungeons and dragons, and spends more time on LJ than I probably do. She's more of a teenager than I am.

monopoly will probably be played at least once this afternoon, since that's my favorite board game ever EVER. Even though I lost miserably yesterday.

Uhm. I really want this book. And this one. And this one. Oh, yes. And this one too. But I promised not to buy anything for myself until I get to the UK in a couple weeks. But it's oh so tempting.

last night, I dreamt that my friend Sarah told me that The Hoosiers were being sued by a band for stealing lyrics. it freaked me out enough that I had to google it once I woke up the third time. that really is one of my biggest fears with bands that I love - that they'll get sued for something like that and totally ruin the magic for me. the other thing I fear is that they get too big for their britches and fall apart or get too big. I love the bands who are big enough to do well in the charts, but still aren't amazingly popular enough that you can tell people you listen to them and they can be all "who is that?". it makes you cooler somehow.

I was actually surprised Sarah knew who they were. I mentioned this band I really liked and they all asked who and I said (nervously for whatever reason) "The Hoosiers?" and Sarah did her little slouchy, point thing and started to sing "Goodbye Mr A". That cheered me up a little. Despite all the times I pick on her, I really do like her.

Okay, I watched the finale and I'm left feeling a little flat. All of the big questions I wanted answered didn't even seem to be mentioned...

If you haven't seen the Doctor Who finale, read no further because there are spoilers! If you have seen it, please continue and help me like the episode more

( spoilers spoilers spoilers )

Thoughts anyone?

1. Maybe it was the crappy quality on YouTube, or maybe I'm just missing something, but I for one was not so wildly thrilled about Journey's End. Despite some clear attempts at humor, it mostly felt like one plot device after another, quantity over quality. I suppose that with the set-up that The Stolen Earth left them with, it was a question of wrapping up a lot of threads with cheap thread (the type that breaks too hard), or tying off some with the really high-quality polyester stuff. Couldn't afford both, of course. And the Beeb is nothing but economical.

2. See? I am good at procrastination and posting my stuff all at the same time.

Before we begin, though, a quick note about the linkage of this fanmix: Normally, when I make fanmixes, I post links for each individual song, because I know that sometimes, people are just here for the music and couldn't give a damn about my fannish leanings. Then, too, are some who share my fandoms and do care about the music, but don't need another copy of "Wonderwall", or just really, really don't like Portishead. And all of this is perfectly fine, because music is music, and even if it doesn't touch you one way it will, eventually, in another.

This mix, however, is not a collection of separate songs. Like most things, it started out as something else: a Doctor fanmix. But then there was Rose, and just when I'd finished with them, a song would come screaming "Master!". Which got me thinking, really, about the usual limitations of fanmixes, their structure. Unlike fics, they're usually centered around one character, one show, one pairing, and it's good, but not real. People don't fall in love just once, and, at the risk of sounding like a Girl Scout friendship song, love doesn't detract from itself. So I tried to do something different. This mix is a love story, not two.

Which brings me back to my original point: that this mix is meant to be treated as a whole, in the order I put them in, no songs left out. This, to me, is the story of Rose and the Doctor, the Doctor and the Master, the ones he loves but loses. As well as the titles and order of the songs, here is significance, too, in the instruments. Songs for the Doctor are string quartets, or cellos: deep, resonating, layered. Rose I envisioned as the lighter, though no less beautiful, piano (with a bit of Reinette thrown in there as well); the Master, of course, is represented by drums.

...I ramble muchly. SORRY, PEOPLE, SORRY.


( in which there is zoe keating, tori amos, bear mccreary and other fun stuff )

So--I mean, my god, yes, note-perfect, exactly the way it should have gone, really the only way it could have gone, I expected to cry buckets--but I find it sort of kind of really, really bitterly funny that Russell T Davies' last big end of his last big act of Doctor Who was to fanboy one of the most traumatic episodes in the original series.

You've got to give him props for that, at least.

...and, you know, I think I know just the ficlet I need to write to give me my final closure on this. I shall have to do that, then.

oh, i'm just so ready to have you home.

The other one for the Dogged by Muses: Summer Femslash Advent Calendar.

First foray into the gritty, hormone-fueled world of Torchwood characterization, so, should be interesting. (I mean, it's certainly not off-base that Tosh has got kind of a, well, bad lovelife? So this isn't SO farfetched?) It was also my first time writing & drawing an actual comic, as opposed to a strip (which I'm completely bollocks at anyways); it was interesting. Might do it again sometime, but perhaps in a day and age where I can properly draw clothes, and proportional anatomy.

...But it's colorful. Oh yes.



closing credits
tosh / pearl, tosh / mary
torchwood; r for the nekkid and artistic sex. spoilers for 2.9 From Out of the Rain.

( Read more... )

Title: The TARDIS House Rules, Part 2/2
Rating: PG
Summary: Life with the Doctor is both simple and complex, but fortunately Nicholas and Donna have the Whenkipedia to guide them.
Spoilers: Through the finale of season four.

Chapter One Here.

( The TARDIS House Rules, pt. 2 )

Picspam Friday Saturday #21
Week 21 - SanFrancisco!Spam



Past Spams

Man, I suck. The last two spams haven't even been on Fridays! XD Anyway...

I was talking to Astrid (wolftailwagger) one day, and she asked me to take pictures of my new school so she could see what it looked like. So, while I was doing this, I got an idea---why not post a massive picspam every Friday on LJ? And so, here we are.

Blahblahblah you all know the rest. These are pictures from my trip to San Francisco, taken with my shiny new camera. Note that my mom took some of these.

( Cut for San Francisco stuff, wax museums, and lots of blurriness because my new camera doesn't have an image stabilizer. )

Just a few icons for you all - I haven't made icons in a few months, so I figured I'd start off pretty slow. These are only from the first two chapters, though my plan is to work my way through the whole book. Therefore, please comment on the styles you like best, since that's the only way you'll get more like them. Enjoy!

follow the fake cut for seven havemercy icons

~Ari

A bunch of my stuff got nominated at the Heroes Slash Awards! :D Most of it was stuff in categories that I've already won/been nominated in the past, but still, yay! \o/ Thank you to everyone who nominated me, and congrats to all of the other nominees as well! Lotta talented writers are nominated.

( If you're curious about the categories I was nominated in... )

And now, for something completely different, I totally forgot to post Picspam Friday yesterday in between my browsing websites and watching The Graduate and sleeping until noon, so I'm gonna try to get it up later today.

Fandom: Heroes
Title: Symbiosis
Rating: PG
Summary: AU: Mohinder has been playing hard to get with the Company for eighteen months now, but he's finally starting to see some results. Part two.
Characters/Pairing: eventual Sylar/Mohinder, Molly, Angela
Warnings: Spoilers for 2.01 & 2.02, but it veers away from canon after that. Violence. Confusing timeline.
Notes: Some of you may remember this story, though I'm sure most of you don't. It was originally intended to be a two-part fic about Mohinder's involvement in the Company, with some Sylar/Mohinder and eventual Mywalker. I wrote the first part, and all was well. Then I went to write the second part -- at most, I thought, a one-week job -- and somehow more than six months passed. And what I was writing grew substantially more complicated. But as proof that I am still working on it, albeit very slowly, I bring you part two of probably five.
Previous Parts: One

( The laboratory was located in the basement of the Company’s New York headquarters, and two access codes and a keycard to the private elevator were needed to reach it. Sometimes going to work felt like stepping into a science fiction novel – or, worse, a spy thriller. )

Feedback is love. ♥

Next part out in one week. I swear it. It's already written and everything, just in need of a little editing.

Just some random text-only icons that quote parts of the book, 7 icons in total.

Preview:


( The rest under the cut )

Let' s have a feminist reading of Havemercy, shall we? I found I was pretty put off by the role of women in the book. I have no problem with it being about men and the lack of female leads. (And I have no problem with Rook's characterization--obviously his misogyny is part of his character and I am mostly just curious about his background with women and just WHY he is so insistent that he "loves fucking women..." too much protesting, perhaps? And what made him feel like he has no heart, just like Havemercy has none?)

But for an author that wrote a female love interest/side character as well and respectfully as Jaida did Lily in sbp, I was surprised that the little glimpses of women here were negative and shrill (chatelain's wife Marjorie), identified by their hair or their relationship to men (the female magicians), the ubiquitous whores, or places/things instead of women (Miranda/Charlotte/Molly, the dragons).

Clearly, Jaida and Dani have set their story in a world that reeks of patriarchy. (The Esar is the ruler, not his wife, "'Yes' is what she always said," etc.) Cool. This is an interesting canvas to begin with, but I just expected as I read to see some sort of commentary on that by a character or two. This "commentary" I was looking for didn't have to be true words, but the existence of a female character that struggled against this patriarchy or something. A comment here or there about what it would have been like to be a female at the 'Versity. No, it was only assumed that all people looking for entertainment might seek a whore (I'd expect the female margraves/'versity students weren't interested in whores), etc.

I think I was most irritated by the female margraves being very "looks identified," that even with their Talents, the authors chose to mostly identify them by their hair color or their relationship to other male margraves. The men weren't so identified.

So I'D like to see this explored in a sequel. I'd like to see/hear some other points of view on this patriarchal society. Like have Thom encounter a 'versity friend who doesn't get the same treatment as he does and he pauses to notice this.

Oh, shoot. Kids crying. I have to go! Thoughts? Am I off-base? I can't wait to respond to some other threads. This comm. will be fun! I really loved the book and sorry my first post is of a critical nature!

I've been cruising around this site that talks about how modern public schools completely stifle creativity and turn kids into mindless drones who only care about grades and don't care about learning, and it's gotten me thinking about stuff. I'm reading the comments and entries and thinking about the great teachers I've had in the past, and it turns out that the majority of them were male. Most (not all, but most) of my female teachers have pretty much exemplified the "schooly" kind of teaching that the website deplores and criticizes, like all of the "busy work" and not actually teaching us anything and not really engaging us in what we were doing. Most of the teachers I've had who have made a significant impact in my education were men. Most of the ones who challenged me and made learning interesting instead of just stupid were NOT women.

Now, of course I know that not all female teachers everywhere are like I just described; this has just been my personal experience. But it's still gotten me wondering why it turned out that way, especially since I'm just talking about middle and high school. All of my female elementary school teachers were awesome; the ones later on were mostly the ones who sucked. And it's also not to say that I didn't have female teachers in middle/high school who were great and that I never had male teachers who sucked. I just find it odd, is all, that when I think of the typical "drone" teacher that the website describes, I mostly picture my former female teachers, and one of my male teachers who STARTED OUT as awesome but gradually stopped being awesome and started being lazy and giving us busy work instead of actually teaching us.

I dunno. It's midnight and I'm rambling, haha. If I was less lazy tired I might try to make this into a more thoughtful post, but instead I'll just ask you what you guys think and about your own experiences with awesome teachers and crappy teachers.

There, I did it. I marathoned myself to death and I reached The Stolen Earth.

( and here are my many thoughts on it )

And now I'm off to catch up on my flist! :D

The Heroes Slash Awards are back! And, because apparently these count any fics written ever, a lot of my old stuff got nominated. Huh. There's the House crossover for, predictably, Best Crossover; there's the BDPS for Best Epic; there's Living Forever Is Easy With Eyes Closed for...Best Claire Characterization, of all things; and then the ever-popular Training Exercise for Best Peter/Claude G-PG13. Again: huhhhh. Well, hey, go read the other stuff, vote for what you want--I will freely admit that I probably have not read the vast majority of even the stuff I usually would read, here, what with not really having read any Heroes fanfiction since, oh, let's say January. (Or having written any.) So! Read! Vote! It's your civic duty. Or, you know, for fun.

So I'm getting another girl into Doctor Who, and I decided to start with the old stuff this time--not all of it, just the stuff that is 1) significant, 2) fun, and 3) available to me for non-computer purposes. Thus, we started with Terror of the Autons, because I am nothing if not predictable. Halfway through Mind of Evil, the following took place:

HER: So why does the Master want to destroy the Earth so much?
ME: Well, because the Doctor really likes it, and he wants to upset him.
HER: Oh. *pause* Is he in love with the Doctor?

Oh yeah, I'm good. *bows*

it's 10:40 friday night
the fireworks have died down
the dogs are left exhausted
i wish it was sunday
&you were coming home tomorrow
it seems like forever since you left
so much has happened
& i feel older
if not wiser?
definetly more aware



[and you are still my favorite words to write]

Yeah, walking half a mile (parking was THAT bad) to squint through some trees at a fireworks display that ended within three minutes (we couldn't go onto the golf course because they had sprinklers on) wasn't all that great. Particularly when your relations are bickering. *sigh* I was very collected and serene, though. And when we got home we'd all worked through our angst or PMS or whatever the hell that was and lighted off some sparklers and danced around in the yard, so that was nice.

So ends the celebration commemorating the triumph of guerrila warfare over guys in red jackets. *punches the air*
(And yet I'm still such an Anglophile that I own a Welsh flag and say 'bloody' when I'm in a mood ...)