Embryo of Philosophy

I have so much fic floating around that needs to be posted to my journal.

Title: Fractured
Fandom: Count Cain/Godchild
Pairing: One sided Michaela/Cain
Length: ~1500 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Michaela knew her life was a fairytale. However, she forgot that fairy tales aren't always nice.
A/N: If for some odd reason you haven't read the original Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", do so now. This story will make more sense. Spoilers for volume seven.

( Once upon a time, there lived a princess... )

Right, this is just a little late.

Right after b_hallward convinced me to sign up for remixthedrabble, I was struck by a frightening thought. What if if I was assigned to remix her? That would be bad. I would fail. Utterly and completely. Bad.

So, I just hoped that luck and random chance would be on my side. The assignments were sent out... and I got phoebe_zeitgiest. And then I raged at the unfairness of the universe. The whole idea of the remix is "If you wrote this fic, what would what it be like?". The problem is that writing wise Phoebe's and my brains work very differently. I simply never would have thought to write anything like the majority of her stories. Plus there's the whole "Fuck, this is brilliant; what if I mess it up?" thing.

I made a big angsty post about it, and who should comment but Phoebe. This lead to a conversation that was both comforting and rather awkward on my end.

Choosing what to remix was the first hard part. I was both drawn to and repelled by And Not Your Yellow Hair. On one hand, it's one of my favorite stories and I knew it would fascinating to remix. On the other hand, I also knew that it would be really freaking hard to remix. The Way We Weren't seemed the most logical choice. I ship Muraki/Ukyou/Oriya, and it was a subject I knew I could work with. So, there was no reason not to do it. But I felt ashamed for not trying And Not Your Yellow Hair. Was I afraid of a challenge? Was I a coward? I felt like I had to at least try. (Veleda: like a shounen hero in some ways.) So, I did both.

I finished with plenty of time (for once), and asked Dorian if she would beta. She said yes, and I sent the drabbles off. Or so I thought. She never got them. Yeah, my email provider sucks mightily. So, the day before everything was due, I finally worked up the courage to email her again, freaked when I realized the problem, I emailed the drabbles again.

So, Dorian liked them, Phoebe liked them, and I didn't have to kill myself or flee to the Sierra Nevada. Happy ending!

Dorian, would you like to make a drabble request for helping out, especially on such short notice?


Here they are:

Title: And Not Your Yellow Hair (You Yourself Alone Remix)
Pairing: Hisoka/Muraki
Rating: PG-13
Orginal Fic: And Not Your Yellow Hair

( And Not Your Yellow Hair (You Yourself Alone Remix) )



Title: And the Way We Are (Gilded Cage Sampling)
Pairing: Muraki/Ukyou/Oriya
Rating: PG
Original Story: The Way We Weren't

( And the Way We Are (Gilded Cage Sampling) )

Title: Bounds of Propriety
Author: Veleda_k
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Graphic sex; very, very light kink (gags)
Word Count: ~4500 words
A/N: this was written for springkink. The prompt was: Cain/Riff: public vs private - "What'll the neighbours say."


( It was breakfast time at the Hargreaves household, and Merryweather was pouting... )

I haven't posted about Iran, mostly because I don't really know what to say. I don't have anything insightful to contribute that hasn't already been said.

Because I'm dumb, all I can offer is a selection of links cobbled from my friends list. If nothing else, I can try to make more people aware. I have to say something, because my silence is too damn loud.


A summary of current events in the rallies.

Why you should care and Why I will not let it go (and neither should you) both by one_hoopy_frood. The latter has some "what can I do to help?" links.

There's a live post going on here at ontd_political

There's a move to get Google to change their logo in order to show support.

Apparently, Saturday is going to be a global day of protest. There's information here. There's going to be one in Denver, and luckily, I am not working on Saturday. I encourage people to go. Here's a handy flier.

Title: But a Torment to Himself
Fandom: Count Cain/Godchild
Pairing: One sided Jezebel/Cain
Rating: R
Warnings: Incest, violence, attempted rape, and possibly disturbing imagery. This isn't a nice story.
Word Count: ~2500 words
A/N: Written for springkink on lj

( But a Torment to Himself )

( Cut to spare non-fandom people )

I've been putting off this post for too long.

On May 28th, two of the hosts of a Sacramento morning radio show called Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning spent over half an hour encouraging and promoting the physical and emotional abuse of transgender and questioning children. No, seriously.

( Read more... )

Well, it feels good to get that off my chest.


EDIT: Carl's Jr/Hardee's and Verizon have also pulled their sponsorship! Yes!

EDIT AGAIN: Well's Fargo is also no longer advertising on KXRQ!

EDIT TAKE THREE: Nissan's pulling their support as well!


RETURN OF THE EDIT: AT&T and McDonald’s are gone too! That's ten big name corporations so far.

( Cut to spare non-fandom people )

So, first order of business, ship_manifesto is having an OTP voting battle. You should go vote. Specifically you should go vote for Cain/Riff and Haruka/Michiru. Why? Because I said so, dammit! I offer slightly more convincing reasons here. Haruka and Michiru have a comfortable lead, but as of this post Cain and Riff are being slightly beaten out by Katan/Rociel. The match up seems appropriate, given that they're both from Kaori Yuki manga. Unfortunately, Angel Sanctuary is the more popular manga, which is a shame, given that I maintain that Cain/Riff is very much like Katan/Rociel... but better. Cain has his issues and he can be unkind to nearly everyone, including Riff, but he's not abusive and manipulative like Rociel.

There are lots of other couples to vote for. (Shunsui/Nanao! Juubei/Kazuki! Rogue/Gambit!) hulamoth, they don't have Guy/Marian, but they do have Mulder/Scully.

But that isn't really the point of this post. The point of this point is that I've signed up to post recs for Yami no Matsuei over at crack_van during the month of June. This brings me to a question

Poll #3773 Crossposting
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Should I crosspost the recs here?

Ticky box?

I originally started reading Black Butler (I'm not sure if fandom convention is to use the Japanese or English title) because the plot summary reminded me of Count Cain. Young, tortured Earls and the obsessively devoted butlers that serve them! However, while the plots have a somewhat similar feel, aside from superficialities, the characters are quite different. Ciel and Sebastian are definitely not Cain and Riff. However, that's really a good thing, as it allows me to enjoy Black Butler on its own terms.

I was initially confused about the time period. At first, I thought it was supposed to be the Victorian era, but then I saw cell phones, so I assumed present time. But, uh, no. It's the Victorian era, just... with cell phones. I'll admit, my mind kind of has to gloss over that one. Mostly, I don't care about anachronisms. You won't see me whining over the sorry excuse for period dress in Count Cain. (Kaori Yuki wanted to draw Gothic Lolita, so she did. Good for her.) Nor do I pitch a fit over the tomatoes and potatoes that show up in Merlin. However, cell phones are a little much for me. But the story's fun, and I like the characters, so oh well.

I really want to see further into Ciel and Sebastian's deeply twisted relationship. How does the power really balance out? How does Sebastian truly feel for Ciel? Inquiring minds want to know.

I also, uh, sort of ship them in a dirty, guilty way. (Ciel is twelve.) But the manga encourages me! There's a scene where the reader is intentionally lead to believe that Ciel and Sebastian are having sex. As it turns out, Sebastian is simply shoving Ciel into a corset. (...That doesn't make it seem any less dirty, does it? It makes sense in context, trust me.)

So, I liked the story and the characters, but I wasn't really hooked. But you know what? It just got really fucking awesome.

( Spoilers for up to chapter 33 )

Also, uh, wow. I am very dizzy. I think it's exhaustion. The weird thing is that I don't feel very tired. But, uh, yeah, to bed.

I really hope that this entry doesn't post itself three times.

I came a cross a very interesting article the other day. Apparently, Keith Olbermann offered to make a donation to Sean Hannity's charity of choice, if Hannity would undergo waterboarding. Hannity didn't take him up on the offer, but another Fox commentator did.

The article is also under the cut. It's short.

( Olbermann's offer to Hannity off the table )


I think this clears things up. People who have been waterboarded consider it torture. And one of those people is a probably-Christian white guy, so his opinions actually count, unlike those Islamic brown people. (EDIT: Er, that last sentence is heavy sarcasm. I think that's obvious, but...)

I think it's time to round up members of the Bush administration and change their minds. And plenty of people in the current government. (No, I am not serious advocating that we round people up and torture them. I'm a Liberal.)

But a good percent of the American people need a wake up call too. Slacktivist AKA Fred Clark is my favorite blogger. He's a liberal Evangelical Christian (no, seriously) who writes about economic inequality, civil rights, and how very crazy the current Evangelic movement is in the U.S. His running critique of the Left Behind book series is one of the most fascinating things on the internet. His latest post is about a recent poll stating that 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants said torture of a suspect could be often or sometimes justified, while 40 percent of the "religiously unaffiliated" held the same stance. Now, while the "religiously unaffiliated" stats are nothing to brag about (Almost half? My god.), they're a damn sight better than the white evangelical Protestants. (For white, non-Hispanic Catholics the rate was 51 percent, and for white mainline Protestants it was 46 percent.) I find this both horrific and darkly amusing. See, plenty of people have defended religion by saying that we need it to define morality. This implies that people without religion must be somehow less moral. But, as it turns out, in the United States, being a white Christians makes you more likely to be a horrible person. So, the next time someone tells me that we can't have morality without God, I'm going to tell them to shove it.

First of all, what the fuck, Colorado weather? I've gotten used to the seventy degree January days, and I've realized that it's never more wintry than in late April, but it's nearly June, so these grey, wet days have to stop. Or at least don't go changing it so much. Google weather said it would be seventy one degrees today, so I dressed for that. When I got on the first bus, it was warm. When I got off, it was chilly and windy. I was not alerted to this possibility! It was still chilly when I got on the second bus, but by the time I got off, it was warm again. Oh, Colorado, I will never understand you.

I had a doctor's appointment today, to check on my boobs. It was somewhat of a trek, just because walking still hurts a bit.

On the bus I encountered a wacky conservative Christian whom I had debated last semester at CU. He was quite eager to talk to me. I was trying to write, so I didn't really want to talk to anyone, but especially not a fundamentalist Christian. He was pleasant and polite, certainly. I have no doubt that many fundamentalist Christians are overall quite good-natured, with concern for others. However, this man, however nice he was, thinks that I'm going to hell. He believes that I face endless agonizing torment after death because I like to kiss girls, and because I pray to a goddess and the wrong god. Not only will I suffer unceasingly for eternity, but quite deservedly so. It's hard for me to think of someone who believes that as a truly good person.

However, he spoke about a talk he was going to give at his church about various literary genres in the Bible (didactic, poetic, apocalyptic, etc.), which sounded genuinely fascinating. (I'm a religious studies minor for a reason.) Of course, he's probably one of the people who thinks that the vast number of different genres and literary styles in the Bible prove that it was written by God, rather than offering evidence that it was written by a great number of people over a very long time. But what are you going to do?

Also, I saw a road sign on the way to the doctor's office that gave me pause. It was next to a creek and said "Ice may exist." And, yes, all right, I know what it meant, but it sounds quite existential to me. "Ice may exist. But perhaps it's simply our subjective perceptions telling us that the ice exists. Who can say?"

...Well, I was at least amused.

I did finally make it to the doctor. I'm healing nicely, and she removed most of the steri strips. And now I can shower! Seriously, bathing became a serious chore when I couldn't get my chest wet.

Before, when my breasts were still numb, I expressed concern that it might be the first stage of horrible zombie disease, and that I had zombie tits. My fears were allayed today. No, instead, I have frankenboobs! (I just can't decide if that should be capitalized or not.) They had to cut off my nipples then reattach them, so it's quite gross looking. (That, uh, might have been more than you wanted to know.) But it's only eight days after surgery, so I'm not worried. Plus, the doctor told me that I'm still quite swelled up, and that my breasts should get even smaller. I'm so excited!

Just like I'm oh so certain that you care about the state of my breasts, so I assume that you care about how my writing is going. I've finished one of my springkink stories, and started the other one. These stories are the reason that I've been researching Victorian carriages and trains. Don't laugh, I find it interesting. And my remixthedrabble entry is in beta.

All in all, my life is going well. This scares me. Surely something must go horrible wrong soon. Well, I'm starting my summer class on Monday. That will probably count.

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must (or rather, if you want to) then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?


dancing_serpent gave me Count Cain, Merlin, Yami no Matsuei.

( Read more... )

So, I finally went ahead and bought a paid dreamwidth account. La, la, la, money burns a hole in my pocket.

But that's not what I came here to talk to you about. I came to talk about the draft books.


So, for the past few months, I've been on an Arthurian legend kick. No, I have absolutely no idea where it came from, why do you ask? It certainly doesn't have anything to do with a certain British television show, no. I've reread The Lost Years of Merlin quartet, and I Am Morgan le Fay, both of which I recommend. I also read The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn. The former is indispensable, while the latter certainly has lovely prose, but I'm not sure that I really needed nearly two-hundred pages of T. H. White's political views put into the mouths of Merlin and Arthur. However, both did manage to break my heart. Oh, how I cried at the end of The Once and Future King. (Aside: I was at my mom's, and when she asked me why I had been crying, I told her that I had just finished The Once and Future King. She thought that I said Lord of the Rings and couldn't figure out why I was so bloody depressed.)

I'm now reading Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Virtually every version of Arthur's story that you've encountered--from Disney's "The Sword and the Stone", to The Mists of Avalon, to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"--are somehow based on Malory. This can create the problem in which people assume that Malory's version is the "original story." Every time someone rants that BBC's Merlin has deviated from the original legend, I want to chime in, "Yeah! They put in an attraction between Guinevere and Lancelot! That wasn't in the 6th-century poems! Hell, Lancelot wasn't there at all!" But I'm contrary that way.

Anyway, I was nervous about starting the book. What if it was boring or impossible to understand? (To quote Mark Twain, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.") But my version, which is edited by R. M. Lumiansky, is very readable. Lumiansky (mostly) modernized the spelling, replaced some archaic words with words familiar to the modern reader, and cleared up some pronoun usage. Hardly a bastardization of the text, and it creates a book that I can actually read, unlike the versions I looked at in the school library.

I'm only to page three hundred and seventy (out of seven hundred and fifty), so I can't fully discuss it. So far, my favorite story is Sir Gareth's, which I present to you here, slightly paraphrased.

( Read more... )

Of course, I'm likely so fond of Lynet because she has an actual discernible personality. Sure that personality is being jerk, but at least it's something. Sir Malory was apparently writing before they invented characterization. Most of the characters act largely the same, with a few jerks (Lynet, Kay). Or you can be evil. But the evil people act mostly the same, and they often become good, at least if they're men. See, you become good by being defeated in honorable combat. Women cannot be defeated in honorable combat, so they have no way to become good. Oh, and there's one character who's a coward. Sir Dinadan, if I remember correctly.

Note that I'm having difficulty remembering which character is which, after just reading the portion that he appears in. This is because there are so many bloody characters. I've given up trying to remember all the names of the various knights who show up.

I'm currently in the middle of the Tristram and Isoud story, which may explain why I'm losing momentum. I never could really get into their story. Maybe it's because they're mostly portrayed as being the victims of a love potion, and I can't get behind a grand great love that's artificially induced. At least with Malory, they love each other before. The love potion just cements things.

Or maybe I'm simply losing momentum because I'm just a little more than halfway through a seven hundred and fifty page book that's highly repetitive, with characters who all sound alike. And it is repetitive. The various battles all run into each other after a while, the story of La Cote Male Tayle is largely Sir Gareth's story all over again, and I still maintain that Tristram and Isoud are a poor man's Lancelot and Guinevere. Maybe I should take a break and read something else a little simpler. I have been wanting to reread the Harry Potter novels. Of course, that would mean going to the library, and I'm not supposed to leave the house for a few more days.

So, that's my book rambling. Don't you feel edified?

More specifically, it's my first full length Merlin fic. *Throws confetti*

Title: Swimming Lessons
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Gwen/Morgana
Rating: R
Warnings: Sex and nudity (Yay!)
Word count: 1,007
Summary: Gwen, Morgana, a hot day, and a little pond. Oh, and sex.
A/N: Written for comment_fic, but it, uh, became a little too big.

( 'My lady, I really don't think that this is appropriate.' )

So, I had my breast reduction surgery a few days ago. Things are definitively smaller, though I'll have to wait until the swelling goes down to get a fully accurate picture.

I'm only feeling a little pain and discomfort right now, but I'm definitely not up to 100%. It feels like I spent more time sleeping the past three days than anything else. Well, that and throwing up, at least the first day. I don't know what kind of anesthesia they gave me, but my body did not like it. So, for the first day, I was in pain, throwing up, and hopped up on Viocdin. It was just like what having my period used to be like! Except I was was far more nauseous, and for all that having people carve up your chest hurts, my menstrual cramps were way worse. It's so good to have these standards. Actually, my mom was worried that I would have a terrible pain because she recently had a cyst removed from her chest and she was going on and on about how much it hurt. This all made me a little worried until she said that she had to take two Vicodin to deal with the pain. At that point I had to explain to her that I used to have to take three Vicodin just to manage my cramps. Sometimes I believe that I even took four. Because I hate my liver. So, I'm not afraid of a little two-Vicodin pain.

But, anyway, I'm very excited to see what the final result will be once the swelling goes down and everything has shifted into place.

And they said that it couldn't be done.

So, this is where I go fishing through my inbox to find interesting articles.

First off, something I agree with so, so very much.

( 'I Was Raped' Should Horrify -- But Our Culture Has Stripped the Word of Its Power )


And this next article for a healthy daily helping of rage, along with a bit of hope. I disagree with Obama on some things; I'm not always satisfied with his decisions, but thank god we have him instead of another Republican.

( How Bush and Co. Broke the Law to Keep Women from Using Birth Control )

Now, maybe you thought that I was too harsh with that last comment. Just because Bush and his cronies were immoral morons when it came to sexual health doesn't mean that all Republicans are, right? And it's not like I'm impartial. I'm a liberal who believes in equality, and personal liberties, and the First Amendment, and all those other pinko commie things. But if you won't take my word for it, would you listen to Meghan McCain, who's not just a Republican, but John McCain's daughter?

( The GOP Doesn't Understand Sex )

But, I do have some unabashed good news.

( Washington, D.C., Council Approves Recognition of Out-of-State Gay Marriage )

And

( N.Y. Assembly Passes Gay Marriage Bill )

And now I feel slightly less guilty about all of my fandom posts. And we are all so edified, aren't we?

So, as you know, I signed up for remixthedrabble . I was feeling just a little nervous, until a horrible, worst case scenario occurred to me. I can't tell you what it is, it would ruin the anonymity. But I hoped that it would not happen.

You know those stories with twisted genies? Where you make a wish, and it comes true, but in an exact, literal way that is somehow just as bad? Well, that's what happened to me. THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT, UNIVERSE!

The only logical thing to do is to email the mods and explain that I have come down with a rare type of lymph node cancer, and I have decided to spend my few remaining years in Guatemala without internet access.

*SOB* I am so doomed. I will be a horrible disappointment and then ritual suicide will be the only answer.

It's about movies! That's not fandom. Unless I was in the fandoms for those movies. Which I'm not. So, uh, good.

I've been meaning to see Savage Grace ever since bitterfig wrote up a review of it. I liked it, overall. Very disturbing. I mean it. Lots of creepy sexuality up to and including mother/son incest. But that wasn't what diminished my enjoyment. I was expecting that from bitterfig's review. No, movie just felt slightly... flat? Empty? The movie's based on a true story, and it's an inevitable danger when dealing with such shallow actual people, but still. Julianne Moore does a great job with what she's given, though, and I also liked Eddie Redmayne as Tony. I wouldn't dissuade anyone from seeing it, unless the disturbing subject matter is a problem.

Also watched Imagine Me and You, a lesbian romantic comedy. I picked it up because I discovered that it has Anthony Head in it (Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Nathan Wallace from Repo! The Genetic Opera), and I adore him. Except the girl/girl angle, it was typical as romantic comedies go, but that doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable. None of the three members of the love triangle, including the husband who inevitably gets left, are demonized, and everyone tries to do the right thing. My main problem with the movie is that depends heavily on "love at first sight," which I find to be unbearably stupid. You have to know someone to love them. Infatuation at first sight? Yes. Lust at first sight? Most definitely. And love can grow out of either of those things. However, love at first sight is just nonsense. But the movie does allow the women to develop their relationship to the point where they do know each other and love each other for who they actually are. Oh, and H, the little sister of one of the main characters is the best part of the movie... unless that's Anthony Head.

Oh, and only the Merlin fans will care about this, but Angel Coulby has a brief scene right at the end. I was so surprised to see her. Anthony and and Angel! Now if only we could have had Colin, Katie, or Bradley.

Finally, I rewatched 10 Things I Hate About You, a favorite from many years ago. I wanted to see if it would hold up, no that I'm no longer in my early teens.

It did. While it's no great work of staggering genius, it's enjoyable, clever, and even intelligent at times. See it for Ms. Perky, the guidance counselor who cares far more about writing bad erotica than she does about the students, if nothing else.

It's common knowledge that the film is a teen movie version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. (The titles even rhyme. See what they did there?) And while I'll readily admit that whoever penned the movie was no Bard of Avon, there are compensations. This version of Kate (Kat) doesn't have a her will utterly broken and there's no glorification of spousal abuse. (And, yes, I do realize that there are differing interpretations of the play, but...) Besides, there are times when you want Shakespearean poetry, and there are times when you want something a little lighter.

Plus, there are certainly people out there who can resist Heath Ledger belting out "Can't Take My Eyes off You," but I am not one of them. The movie made me feel silly and young, like I was a teenager again, except without all the pain, misery, and general anguish that came with actually being a teenager. And I actually found myself identifying with Kat much more than the first time I saw it, when I didn't really know who I was as a person.

In conclusion, movies are fun. Yay.

Ok, I know that I promised a non-fandom post, but, uh, just a little longer. ( *SOB* All my non-fandom friends must hate me.)

There's only a few days left to sign up for Remix the Drabble. Sign ups end Monday night.

You want to come play. It's all the fun of a remix, but you only have to write one hundred words!

There are lots of fandoms to choose from, but right now I'm the only one offering Revolutionary Girl Utena or Count Cain/Godchild. So, if you write these fandoms, you should join so I won't be all alone. That would be sad. I might cry.

Go forth!