We live for The One, we die for The One

blatant plug: Doctor Who love meme

2007-12-28T03:54:56Z

There's been... a lot of negativity in Doctor Who fandom lately, to say the least. So now's a good opportunity to go here and post about all the things we love about this show.

(Oh, and I've finally remembered to get some new Who icons. This one is particularly apt.)

And now, another meme

2007-12-06T04:43:55Z

Courtesy of billfl:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4-7 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5.Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest (unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy. Then go back to step 1).

He saw it emerge out of the distance on a long downward slant, a tiny glowing spot that grew enormously into a metal ball. The great shining globe hissed by above Coerl, slwoing visibly in quick deceleration. It sped over a black line of hills to the right, hovered almost mostionless for a seciond, then sank down out of sight.

Coeurl exploded from his startled immobility. With tiger speed, he flowed down among the rocks. His round, black eyes burned with the orrible desire that was an agony within him. His ear tendris vibrated a message of id in such enormous quantities that his body fels sick with the pangs of abnormal hunger.

From "Black Destroyer" by AE Van Vogt, in The World Turned Upside Down edited by David Drake, Eric Flint, and Jim Baen.

If I had any photoshop skills at all, I would make a cat macro of the Coeurl saying "I'm in ur shipz eatin ur id."

You have to love fanwank (as opposed to fandom wank)

2007-12-06T04:26:46Z

On the often fascinating and illuminating TV Tropes Wiki</i>, there's some entertaining meta-discussion on a question I've been wondering about for some time:

What's going on with the Time Lords being wiped out? It's implied that they weren't just destroyed yesterday, they were wiped out of history. Does that mean that if you were to go in the past and tiptoe past some scenes you'd now see the Doctor being exiled to Earth by nobody, the Doctor having to leave Sarah Jane on Earth because he had to go and do nothing, the Great Vampires being destroyed by bowships built by nobody, etc.? And how does the Doctor still exist?...

It's all about the Ontological Inertia. Gallifrey wasn't part of normal spacetime to begin with. The Time Lords fail to have ever existed, but in such a way that anywhere they actually interacted with the universe at large, the interaction still occurred -- it's grounded to the universe's continuity. But rather than a time lord having left Gallifrey and shown up somewhere in the normal universe, he's just literally popped into existence out of nowhere. Of course, he doesn't know that, on account of he's popped into existence with a full set of memories. If you believe that history as a whole has some kind of inertia-like property, it shouldn't be too hard to conclude that the necessary force to cause something to cease to have ever existed would be far less than the necessary force to cause it to cease to have ever existed and cause the rest of the universe to change such that its interactions with it did not occur. The arguments against the Time Lords having been yoinked entirely out of existence all hinge on a notion of purely linear causality in which there is a "before" and "after", which, we are told outright in "Blink" is not the case.

And, as a result, I like to think that the reason the Doctor survived is because, thanks to his travels out in the normal universe, he had a substantially greater Ontological Inertia than the rest of his race -- he was just too tightly wedged into history to be excised without smashing the whole universe to bits. Erasing a species from history is like vacuuming them up off the floor. The stuff that's on top gets sucked up easily, the stuff that's ground-in takes a lot more work and leaves some spots behind. The Doctor's a stain on the carpet of time that's soaked in so deep that you'd have to just tear it up and buy laminate.

(I also love the fan nickname for the Reapers--"killer flying time monkeys.")

This reminds me a little bit why I liked much of the Lawrence Miles 8DA version of the Time War and its aftermath even though it ended up being a big anticlimactic mess because other writers concluded both arcs he set up. Thanks to Miles, not only did they actually get into the ramifications of the Time Lords never having existed, but they had killer time monkeys that were actual monkeys.

My initial reaction to Last of the Time Lords

2007-12-05T02:01:27Z

WHAT?

No, I'm not dead

2007-12-04T21:01:07Z

But I am tired, so here are some silly memes in lieu of content:

Which Doctor Who are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

The Eighth Doctor struck a chord with you after only one adventure. Maybe you are a fan of his audio adventures, or you just came to Dr Who quite late. Hope it wasn't just the special effects that impressed you.

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

75%

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)

63%

The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)

63%

The Ninth Doctor (Christoper Eccleston)

63%

The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

50%

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

50%

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

50%

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davidson)

38%

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)

31%

I have to say, I'm quite pleased with this. I love Nine and Ten in their own way, though the latter drives me up the wall sometimes, and objectively I think Four was just about the best Doctor. But Eight, as David Tennant said to Five, was my Doctor.

And here's what would happen if I got to travel with the Doctor:

You know, as awesome as the Doctor is, and as much as I would probably go with him without even having to think about it if he asked, I doubt I could put up with him for 5000 years. Especially Ten.

And finally, here's one of those question memes, courtesy of astrogirl2:

Name a character from one of my fandoms and I'll give you (a) three facts about them from my personal canon/fanon, (b) a reason he/she sucks, (c) a reason she/he is awesomecakes, (d) five things that never happened to that character or (e) five people that character never fell in love with and why. You pick the character. I pick the letter.

Apparently, I've been struck by insanity again

2007-01-06T04:49:25Z

After my past few attempts at writing for a ficathon, I decided I would be better off not trying again. But then I started wondering whether there's any fic where Benny Summerfield meets Captain Jack Harkness, and if not, why not? And then I ran across this. So I signed up. I'm fairly convinced I'll actually be able to finish a story this time if I can keep it at a manageable length...

Disconcerting

2006-11-17T13:07:08Z

I just had a nightmare that is extremely similar to one that a character in one of my stories is having.

A lot of half-baked reflections about writing

2006-11-16T02:39:46Z

Well, I think I'm finally managing to get over my writer's block. I've got several new-Who stories which I've actually gotten partially written, and an original story as well, and I'm hoping I can write some NEQ as well. I haven't written very much in some months, and I'm not totally sure why. Probably part of the reason that I had writer's block is that I didn't do much actual writing. I spent a lot of time finetuning my ideas and not much time writing them down, even though I tend to get my best ideas while I'm actually writing. This means, as you might imagine, that sometimes planning my stories in advance can be a little difficult. I was averse to writing for a while because my story ideas were getting so complicated. However, in the last week or so, I decided that I should just start writing anyway, and that more or less worked.

Another problem is that for a while, I seemed to have lost my confidence that I had anything worth writing. As David Bishop puts it in his blog (Which is excellent--I really should get around to reading one of his books one of these days. I have more Doctor Who books alone than I can probably read in a lifetime, never mind all my other books), "Bottle is such an important yet intangible part of the writer's armour. You've got to beleive you have something to say, a voice with which to say it and a story worth telling - otherwise it's all too easy to give up or find yourself doing hackwork to pay the bills." (Well, the paying the bills part is inappliciable in my case, but you know what I mean.) I'm not sure why I lost my "bottle" for a while. Some of it is factors in my real life that I'd rather not talk about, as well as ones I'm probably not aware of--nothing drastic, but just a lot of little things that add up, as little things tend to do. Another is just tiredness, not in the superficial sense of being overworked but in a deeper, spiritual sense. Part of the reason for that was that I wasn't challenging myself enough. One of the stories I'm writing right now is an enormous challenge for me, and I'm not totally sure I'll pull it off, but trying it has helped me fnd my "bottle" again. (Unfortunately, I can't go into why it's so challenging without getting into major spoiler territory.)

The final problem is that I'm not very good with finishing things. This is why a lot of my work has been for EAS, where I don't have to worry about that. Whether I'll be able to get over that one, I'm not totally sure. But I will make the effort. Anyway, here's hoping this actually works out!

By the way, David Bishop's blog also had a link to this very interesting post, with some good writing advice. I'm particularly intrigued by point seven:

7) This one is evil but fantastic: open a new file and write the thing again, without looking at your current draft, no matter how many times you've rewritten it. Oh, so evil! Because you'll hate it and you'll be so mad and then, oh my goodness, you write something SO GREAT! Because you've been working on that story for so long now, you're so ready to write that thing! You're a pro at writing that thing, but you're not letting yourself write it, only rewrite it.

It's like you've been practicing a piece of Bach. Only you recorded your very first time through, and you've been tweaking that recording all this time. Play it again! Write it again! Let your characters talk. They're sick of having the same conversation over and over. What would they do if they had the chance to live that scene over again?

I feel for some reason that it would fit very well with the aforementioned challenging New Who story and the bizarre emotional drama that's driving it. Once I get to the point where I'm able to rewrite it, I mean. Maybe it's a mistake to have so much invested in a fanfic story, but in a way, that makes sense. Because this story will force me to go out of my comfort zone a bit and stretch my capabilities as a writer, it might end up coming off a bit awkward in some ways. So it's good that I'm doing so in a story which won't be publishable, if that makes sense.

One minor problem: The aforementioned story kind of needs another story to set it up, which I have a much vaguer idea of and am not nearly as interested in. That's part of the reason why I have trouble finishing things, because whenever I come up with a story it always suggests other stories to me, and the temptation is to spend all my time following those rather than writing the story at hand. I'm very confident that I'll finish this one, though. I've gotten very invested in the stories I'm writing by now, perhaps too invested, to the point where it's giving me difficulties with my college work. And I have a paper to write tomorrow. But after a couple years of college I've gotten good at juggling all this stuff, so I'm cautiously hopeful.

Also: limyaael's journal has a lot of great writing advice as well. And this post about recurent themes in American literature is fascinating and weirdly helpful for me.

I'm back... sort of

2006-11-05T02:58:05Z

Sorry I've been away for so long. I've been suffering a bad case of writer's block for a while, but now I'm somewhat better, especially after having watched the first season of New Who. Anyway, here's the inevitable collage thingy for my journal...

What I've been journaling about!

Create your own! By ga_woo using Web Services by Yahoo!

What's the deal with all the naked and half-naked women? I had no idea my journal was this sexy. For that matter, what's with all the sheet music?

A short memepost

2006-04-12T17:23:45Z

Courtesy of rockcandy76

Q1 - What is the last CD you bought?
A recording of A German Requiem, by Brahms, which is a very beautiful piece.

Q2 - What is the next CD you want to buy?
I honestly have no idea. There hasn't been much new music coming along which interests me right now, for some reason. Probably another classical music CD. Or maybe the new T-Bone Burnett collection?

Q3 - What was the last thing you ate?
A surprisingly good chocolate chip cookie from one of the restaurants on Purdue University's campus.

Q4 - What food do you want to eat next?
When I go home in a few hours, I'll be having a snack, probably some Tostitos Hint of Lime chips. The lime flavor is actually really, really strong--if it's a "hint," it's not a very subtle one--but I love them for some reason.

Q5 - What was the last thing that made you laugh?
Superman and a giant Kryptonian gorilla fighting a lost tribe of descendants of ancient Romans armed with Kryptonite spears. It doesn't get much better than that.

Q6 - If you had $500 now what would you buy?
I would buy every Doctor Who DVD. Sad but true.

"The Mighty Saga of the World's Mightiest Man!"

2006-04-12T00:38:08Z

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. My aunt just died today, but she didn't suffer very much, and she died at home with her family around her. I wish I could have gotten to see her one more time before she died, but my mom let her know that I was in her thoughts. I'm more or less at a stage where I'm able to write now. I'm mainly working on non-fanfic stuff, but I do have a Fourth Doctor story which I started ages ago and am trying to complete.

I'm Netflixing a bunch of old-school Who to get in the mood, as I agonize over whether to wait until the US DVD set comes out or shell out 75 American dollars for the Canadian DVD set. I've seen The Aztecs and Tomb of the Cybermen and have strongly enjoyed both. More thoughts on them later.

Several of my local drug stores have bins selling ultra-cheap DVDs of obscure movies that have either fallen into the public domain (like the 40's Sherlock Holmes movies that had Holmes fighting Nazi spies in WWII, which are pretty fun) or are so obscure that the rights for them cost almost nothing. (Like "Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe," starring Jesse Ventura, the less said of which the better.) This week, I ran across a movie that looked very interesting: The 1958 Italian movie "Hercules, starring bodybuilder Steve Reeves and Sylvia Koscina. It was actually apparently quite a hit in its day, spawning a whole genre of pseudo-mythological "sword-and-sandal" movies.

This movie's original tagline (quoted on the IMDB page) makes it sound like it's a classic B-movie: See the seductive Amazons lure men to voluptuous revels and violent deaths! SEE the heroic Hercules rip down the Age of Orgy's lavish palace of lustful pleasure! SEE the Mightiest of Men fight the Mightiest of Beasts, the killer Cretan Bull! SEE Hercules fight off the savage love-starved Amazon women! SEE the seductive Amazons lure men to voluptuous revels and violent deaths! SEE the powerful Hercules crush the savage ape-men who guard the shrine of the Golden Fleece! Did it actually say "See the seductive Amazons lure men to voluptous revels and violent deaths!" twice? I guess that's the kind of thing you want to emphasize.

So far, though, it's kind of a letdown. (I'm 30 minutes in right now.) It's more like "SEE a lot of confusing poorly-telegraphed exposition! SEE Hercules standing around talking with people!" Is this Brian Michael Bendis's Hercules or something? In a movie called Hercules, you expect fight scenes!!! Also, it's impossible to tell what the names of the characters are. And the DVD has the worst pan-and-scan I've ever seen. Still, while it's no Drunken Master or Star Crash, it's quite enjoyable for several reasons (and it's a heck of a lot better than the Disney version):

1. The scenery is gorgeous. This is an Italian B-Movie, so its makers can take advantage of the amazingly beautiful Italian scenery, as well as the authentic Roman landmarks. (Never mind this is supposed to be in ancient Greece...) The set design is pretty nice too.

2. Sylva Koscina, who plays Hercules's designated love interest of the week, is gorgeous. I mean seriously:

3. The bizarre electronic science-fiction-y sound effects. One of the high points of the movie so far is when Hercules throws a discus and it makes a UFO-like electronic humming noise. There's also this witchy Oracle who makes an electronic whoosh sound when she moves her arms. Is she secretly part of the Sisterhood of Karn, I wonder?

4. The best part of this movie, so far, is the sheer amount of mythological fanwank involved in it. The main plot involves Jason and the GOldne Fleece (though it isn't about the quest for the Golden Fleece at all, but a MacBeth kind of setup where Jason' was kidnapped and his uncle, who happens to be Iole's father, was killed by his brother to claim the throne, and the Golden Fleece is the mark of his kingship). That's already kind of pushing it. But in the scene where MacBethocles's evil son challenges Hercules, when the other young men of Macbethocles's generic kingdom are trying to emulate Hercules by doing various macho-man Greco-Roman athletic things, one of them is told that he's too sick to participate in the marathon by his doctor, whose name is... Aesclepius. And then, three men are complaining about how people are neglecting intellectual pursuits to follow the example of Hercules, and one of them turns out to be Orpheus! And then, Hercules is advising some young men who are learning how to pole vault, and Castor and Pollux are standing beside him! And to top it all off, he then teaches a young man how to use the bow, and it's Odysseus! And Hercules tells him that one day his life will be saved by a bow! I swear, it's like the Greek mythological equivalent of a Star Trek novel.

5. The DVD mispells the title of the movie on the menu! They call it "Hurcules." They're certainly sparing no expense for this DVD.

Best line in the movie: Designated Love Interest to Hercules: "You know that my family is strange." I'd say that by Greek mythological standards her family is strange because they only practice murder and not incest.

Also: You can download this movie from the Internet Archive. Their print is probably significantly better than my DVD's.

Also also: According to the AMG review, "it it also may well have planted the pop culture seed through which Marvel Comics was able to spawn the Mighty Thor in comic books three years later". That makes the movie rise several notches in my respect. I say thee, yea!

Also also also: I just found out from Goodle that this movie was also MSTed! (As were its sequels, Hercules Unchained and Hercules Conquers the Moon Men) I have to see that.

Bad news

2006-04-01T04:04:58Z

So just now I found that my aunt, who has had cancer for some time, has just been placed on respiration. Any of you who pray should pray for her and for my family. As to what this is going to do to my writing, who knows. Maybe I won't be able to write, maybe I'm going to be incredibly driven. Right now it feels selfish for me to write, I feel right now as if writing anything would require trying to ignore what's going on and I don't want to. I apologize for my infrequency of posting, I was just starting to get back into the rhythm of writing when this happened.

Another ficathon?/Unhappy new semester

2006-01-08T23:31:44Z

Well, in just one day I'll be starting my next semester of college, which will put a bit of a crimp in my productivity. (Such as it is--at least I've been writing some NEQ episodes again.) Well, in the short term, anyway. My classes mostly look good this semester, and being exposed to some new ideas will probably give me some inspiration after a while. That and the new Who finally coming out on DVD!

On the fanfic front... astrogirl2 just posted about a new ficathon, apocalyptothon. The premise sounds very interesting, but as with Astrogirl I know almost none of the fandoms. (Although the ones I do know--Who and DCU--I know like the back of my hand, and I could write comicverse or movieverse X-Men in a pinch.) But the deadline is one I can actually handle (it's in June), now Astrogirl signed up for it, and part of me is wondering whether I should sign up too. I mean, I could probably think of hundreds of good end-of-the-world scenarios for Doctor Who or DCU. On the other hand, knowing my luck, I'd likely get a request that doens't have any of them. And what with college and everything, even a relatively generous deadline like that would probably be too much... So you should probably try to talk me out of it, though that didn't work for Astro. :)

Progress report/Happy new meme

2006-01-07T02:34:06Z

One of my new year's resolutions is to post more frequently this year. As I have chronic trouble finishing stories, which is perhaps why most of my "published" writing is for Never-Ending Quest, another is to finish a long(ish) story, but that hasn't worked so far. :) Still, you never know. I've been working for some time on a rather long Doctor Who story involving the Eighth Doctor (the one my earlier ficlet "Passing in the Night" was supposed to be connected with), but it's in limbo for now because I don't know to what extent it does, or should, mesh with the new series. (Which comes out in DVD here in a little over a month--yay!) Also, it was getting way, way too long. So I started plotting another story, involving a past Doctor, which I intended to be shorter and more manageable. Which, naturally, became even longer and more complex. I should have known that if I wanted to keep the story simple and manageable I shouldn't have involved the Holy Grail...

I also have a few original stories bouncing around in my head, and a few in other fandoms that I promised other people I'd write and had better get off my butt and finish. And I'll definitely have a few NEQ episodes up. Anyway, here's a silly meme (from astrogirl2 and lizamanynames among, well, practically everyone):

Give me a fandom, and I'll tell you

1. The first character I first fell in love with:
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
3. The character everyone else loves that I don't:
4. The character I love that everyone else hates:
5. The character I used to love but don't any longer:
6. The character I would shag anytime:
7. The character I'd want to be like:
8. The character I'd slap:
9. A pairing that I love:
10. A pairing that I despise:

And in case you're wondering, JH, NEQ counts for this. :)

Oh, and, because I forgot to mention it: This icon was created by rj_anderson.

A random drabble (old school Who)

2006-01-05T17:13:01Z

This was generated using the Drabble-matic. (Courtesy of lizamanynames) It may be the most disturbing thing I have ever (inadvenrtantly) written:

Vomitously Tripping

Yartek tripped along zestfully. He was on his way to meet his lover, the Animus, for Valentine's Day. He smiled to see a Aggedor hopping along, carrying an antidisestablishmentarianism in its mouth.

Yartek was almost on top of a tree when he came across a Shakespearian cake, lying alone on a dull plate. "That must be a treat from my convoluted bear," he said to himself, and tripped over to it. The cake looked lambent, so he ate it.

It gave him the most kinky tingling sensation in his nose. "How unusual!" he said and continued tripping to see the Animus.

When the Animus came out to meet him, she took one look and fell over.

"What is it?" Yartek cried sexily.

"Your tentacle! And your middle toe!" the Animus said. "They're transcendant! Can't you feel it?"

Yartek felt his tentacle and his middle toe. They were indeed quite transcendant. "Oh, no!" Yartek said. "I'm a woman!" He, or rather, she started to cry. "It must have been that Shakespearian cake you left for me. Did you know what it would do?"

"I didn't leave you any cake," the Animus said. "I got you a Mary Sue. It must have been that splendiferous man who lives nearby. He acts a little worriedly, ever since he recited a tissue compression eliminator."

"But how can you ever love me, now that I'm a woman?" Yartek sobbed.

"Well, I never knew how to tell you this," the Animus said oddly, "but I actually prefer women. And I think your tentacle is really controversial like that."

"Really?" Yartek dried her tears. Yartek kissed the Animus and it was an entirely absurd sensation, like an incredibly tired and lazy writer who is too tired to come up with a long and convoluted metaphor to describe transcendant feelings of true luuuurve.

They spent the night having entirely absurd sex, until the cake wore off suddenly.

Everything was rather awkward after that.

***

Well, the Animus was voiced by a woman, anyway... I originally put in Alpha Centauri from "The Curse of Peladon", but then I realized I would have to choose between male and female. I know way, way too much about Doctor Who.

Bizarre spams I've recieved lately

2005-12-10T19:21:28Z

zinc Raymond amok
(For some reason, half the spammers in the world seem to think my name is Raymond. This has been happening for years and I've never been able to figure out why.)

slither Raymond demented

keats Raymond hypocycloid

biceps Raymond pull

fairy Raymond aristotle

accusative expiration

Via-ggra is Lousy QyD7hH (Via-ggra? That sounds like something out of Lovecraft.)

*Extreme* backyard makeover entry (Just how *extreme* can a backyard makeover be, anyway? And would I particularly want an *extreme* backyard makeover?)

Have you heard of hard erection? Come on in. manzanitahandyman[1-2]

anywhere Raymond masturbate

cowmen Raymond camelopard

Every man must have a sex! MUST!!!

Re: selfimmolation smoulder (!!!)

And my personal favorite, one of the few instances where the words tacked onto the end to avoid spam filters actually fit the spam subject:

Get a larger penis lovebird brinkmanship

Finally, while this one wasn't mine it was so hilarious I had to share it:

To fix flaccid problems in the bedroom, read this. freud

(And don't worry, I will write something over Christmas break. Maybe. I hope.)

Untitled ficlet

2005-06-13T20:18:01Z

This story was written for 15minuteficlets. The challenge word was young.

Title: Untitled
Fandom: Doctor Who/Batman crossover
Rating: PG

This was written for the community 15miuteficlets. The challenge word was "young"

The Doctor belongs to the BBC, and Ra's Al-Ghul belongs to DC Comics. For the Doctor, this takes place during the period where he was amnesiac and caught on Earth, between the novels "Endgame" and "Father Time," during the 60's or 70's. For Ra's Al-Ghul, this takes place at some point before he met Batman.

***

Ra's Al-Ghul walked into the room where he kept his most dangeroud prisoner. It didn't look like a prison, but rather a spacious library crammed with books, with wide stained glass windows that let in sheets of light. But the hallways that led to the library and the land around the building were filled with highly trained guards and subtle death-traps, traps which had inevitably posed a danger to Ra's Al-Ghul himself when he walked through them, as the man who he had imprisoned was easily his equal. The books were all ones he'd known the Doctor had read before he'd turned against him--the Doctor had proved quite a voracious reader. And the windows did not show the outside world.

The Doctor was reading an ancient work of Arabic philosophy that he must have read hundreds of times before, as engrossed as if he was reading it for the first time, much to Ra's Al-Ghul's frustration. He had been like that every time Ra's Al-Ghul checked on him. Oddly, he seemed to be softly humming something by Gerswhin, tapping his feet in rhythm.

Ra's Al-Ghul coughed abruptly, and the Doctor abruptly pulled himself away from the book. When he saw Ra's Al-Ghul, he grinned a wide idiot grin, as if he didn't know or care that he was imprisoned. "Ah, hello," said the Doctor. "Do you have any tea?"

Ra's Al-Ghul sighed. He seemed lost in thought, yet was totally focused, preparing for any attack the Doctor might make. "What do you see in them?" he asked.

He tensed as the Doctor began to move, but the Doctor did not attack, instead yawning and stretching like a cat. Surely he was planning escape, but he showed no sign of it. Sometimes Ra's Al-Ghul wondered who was supposed to be wearing who down. "In who?" blithely responded the Doctor.

"The humans. I have studied the remnants of the history that existed before the Elementals died, and in that history you did indeed defend humanity. You even opposed Operation Golden Age, which I myself financed. But it seemed that you no longer remembered the old history. I had hoped that your amnesia would allow you to look at humanity objectively. I have walked the earth for centuries upon centuries, and all I have seen them capable of is failure, futility, greed, selfishness, destruction. There are a few who do good, but they are so little compared ot the damage they do to each other and to those with whom they share the earth."

The Doctor shook his head. He rose up, now seeming firm and full of purpose. He looked Ra's al-Ghul firmly in the eye. "There are times when I feel that way as well," he said, with momentary sadness, "but then humanity manages to surprise me. You're looking at them with blinkers. That's all you see because that's all you want to see." He sat down again, settling into a radiant, joyful, yet slightly Cheshire Cat-like smile. "You're still quite young. Perhaps you'll understand when you're older."

***

Author's note: Ra's Al-Ghul is probably a bit off, since I only recently started to grok Batman, but at least I managed to spell his name correctly all the time.

Silly meme thing

2005-06-09T18:25:55Z

Sorry I haven't been around in so long. Anyway, here's another silly meme, from astrogirl2:

1. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.
2. Go to http://images.google.com and search for that word.
3. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results -- don't tell me the word.
4. Put this in your own blog so that I can do the same.

I get the strangest spam these days

2005-03-28T21:18:10Z

Just today, I got a spam email trying to sell me subliminal advertising software. I have to wonder, do these things work on yourself? Because I could install it and make it flash "finish your stories" every time I use the computer.

Something that may be of interest to those involved in Addventure-type things

2005-03-26T21:50:45Z

http://www.livejournal.com/community/phpstory/

Pointless ficathon pimping

2005-03-26T01:26:35Z

The Multi-Fandom Lyric Wheel is a ficathon where you basically pick the lyrics of two songs and then write fic in any fandom you like based on the lyrics of one of the songs you're given. It is only for genfic. Not much point in trying to plug it here as this journal has a fairly limited audience (I haven't established much of a presence in fandom yet), but you never know. :)

Passing in the Night

2005-03-25T03:46:02Z

This is the first fic I've actually finished and posted to LJ, written for 15minuteficlets. It was written fairly late at night, so don't be too hard on it. :)

Title: Passing in the Night
Fandom: Doctor Who (novel universe)
Rating: G
Pairing: Doctor/Grace (not necessarily romantic)
Time: Who knows. I lost track after a certain point.

Warning: This contains vague spoilers for some recent Doctor Who novels, as well as a Doctor Who story I haven't finished yet.

Fisherman's Wharf. San Fransisco. July 2004. He'd been to this place many times now and it was always fascinating to see how it changed from visit to visit. There was a man sitting on the bench, oblivious to him, perhaps caught up in his own grief or simply enjoying the beauty of the day. He tried to just sit back and enjoy the beauty of the day. But all he could think about was the fact that she would probably not be there.

The last time she'd met him, she had told him that she would meet him again here under this tree. At this point, that was a year ago in her time and ten in his. The last time they'd met had been just after his visit there to investigate Faction Paradox, just before everything had started really going wrong. After that, he'd had to spend his time on the run and then--he simply forgot. He'd forgotten a lot of things. And then, when he'd finally remembered, there had been many other things he'd had to take care of. And now that he'd finally had a chance, she never seemed to be there when he was. He had always wondered whether the universe had it in for him, and now he was beginning to be certain of it.

Maybe she was still at the hospital working late. Maybe she was helping UNIT USA on some mission or other--the Doctor was fairly sure this was after she'd joined. Or maybe she was out watching a movie with some friends, or with a man, a human man. She probably wanted to see him again, if she hadn't changed too much since the last time she'd met him. But the Doctor had never left her any signal device or anything that could help her reach him. He thought he knew the course of her future, had forgotten how flexible history really was. So when he went she had no way of knowing he'd be there, and vice versa. Maybe every now and then she would spend a few hours sitting on the wharf waiting for him, slowly beginning to think there was no hope he'd show up--why would someone who had been to countless planets and travelled with countless friends remember her, who he'd only met a few times?--and then she left, alone. And then, a few hours or only a few minutes later, the TARDIS would show up and he'd wait for her.

She didn't know what he knew. She didn't know that before long they would never be able to meet again. He wished could have a chance to say something to her--he didn't know what, as long as it was something--and tell her how much she'd meant to him. But he started to realize there was no hope. There was a planet that needed saving, somewhere, and Julia was probably getting impatient. All he could do for now was let the past take care of itself.

***

Author's note--well, I make several comments complaining about how there's too much angst-ridden characterization fic and not enough plotty fic, and what's the first fic I actually finish? You guessed it, an angst-ridden characterization fic, and probably not a very good one at that. Although it's tied into a fanfic that has more plot than you could shake an evil artifact from the dawn of time at, although with hopefully plenty of characterization as well. This might ruin that story, but this particular story insisted to be written and there was no point in stopping it.

Ficathon troubles, and another stupid little meme

2005-03-22T22:49:11Z

Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of work I had and wasn't able to finish my story by the deadline, although I will try to finish it later. I probably won't try another of these things until the end of the semester, although that's not too far in the future.

And here's another meme, taken from astrogirl2.

1) Take a screencap of your desktop
To cap a desktop:
2) For PC: Press "Print Screen" (prt sc) button
For Macs: Shift+Apple+3
3) Open your graphics program-o-choice
4) Press CTRL + V or go to "edit & paste
5) Save image as a JPEG
6) Upload the screen cap to your image server.
7) Reply to this entry with A LINK TO your screencap. Along with any explanations you feel are necessary.
8) Post your cap in YOUR LJ along with these instructions.

This is mine:

The background image is the cover of Seven Soldiers #0, seriously one of the best comic books I've ever read. You can read a preview of it here.

Sigh.

2005-03-07T23:03:49Z

Why do I always have to be full of ideas for so many stories except the ones I'm supposed to be writing? I guess I should be thankful I'm having ideas at all.

Well, it's official

2005-02-20T19:38:08Z

I succesfully joined my first LJ fanfic challenge, comica_obscura. I have a love-hate relationship with these kinds of challenges, because they can help me motivate myself to finish things, but I tend to be horrible with due dates. The authors of the stories posted for this challenge won't be revealed until about a week after they're posted, but those familiar with my writing can probably tell which are mine easily. :)