xposted to IJ and LJ

• Wrote 229 words on what I hope will grow up into an SGA story.
  
  
• Claude Lévi-Strauss passed away. Just hearing his name brings back so many memories from college, like sitting in an enormous lecture hall listening to my favorite prof.
  
  
• Does the San Francisco Panorama not look brilliant? Look at that list of contributors -- I can't wait!
  
  
• Here is another blog I really love: High Country New.
  
  
• Sorry to repeat myself, but higher education is my life, and I spend a lot of time worrying about it. The LA Times has an excellent article on the demise of higher education in California. Economists found that for every dollar the state invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return.
  
  
• Tomorrow night I'll be at my Mother's. I already miss my dear husband and my own comfortable bed.

Last Sunday, telesilla and I went to our favorite "special occasion" restaurant for a belated (because someone might have been at DragonCon) anniversary dinner. It's ironic in the "like people trying to keep you from having your wedding day" sense, because one year ago today, a majority of California voters decided that my marriage shouldn't be valid. This year, it happened in Maine (and you can't exactly blame the black folks for this one).

I've seen a lot of blog comments today about how it's counter-productive to say that people who vote against marriage equality are bigots. And it probably is.

But here’s the thing:

It doesn't matter.

If you vote against marriage equality, then in practical terms, it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re Fred Phelps or whether your best friend/co-worker/son/daughter/second cousin twice removed is gay. I don’t care if you’re a Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Orthodox Jew, or Muslim. Because from where I sit, the result is the same: you believe that my relationship with the person I’ve been with for five years, the person I moved 3,000 miles to be with, the one who goes out at 3 AM to get ginger ale and crackers for me because I have stomach flu, the one who’s held my hand and been there while I’ve dealt with my mother’s dementia and Parkinson’s disease—you’re telling me that because that person is the same gender as I am, our relationship is less valid and less worthy of respect than that of a man and woman who met in Las Vegas, got drunk and decided to get married in front of an Elvis impersonator.

To me, it's irrelevant whether you did so because you believe that God ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman, or because you think the state shouldn't be involved with marriage, or because you're worried about what to tell your children, or because you think two men having sex is icky and gross. What matters to me is that you've taken a conscious, deliberate action to say that I, personally, do not deserve the same shot at being happy with the person I love that any straight person does. Your reasons for choosing to make my life more difficult and more painful are much less important to me than the fact that you've made that choice.

If you're standing on my neck, I'll worry about why you'd do something like that later. My first priority will be getting you to stop standing on my neck.

Still didn't make 500, but closer today than yesterday, so I feel good about that. I'm glad I decided not to try to make myself stick to one fic, because I've started working on a More Than One Answer futurefic focusing on Joe and Dylan and Christina's daughter. I swear, every time I try to get away from the Keptverse and write something a little more cheerful, I get another bunny.

I had another Keptverse dream last night that was more weird than anything else, in that "WTF subconcious?" way. The only part I remember were that like so many of my nightmares, my old high school was featured prominently, and that there was a real problem developing with excessive inbreeding among the slaveowning classes of the Empire. I suspect that last bit is poisontaster's fault.

856 / 15000 words. 6% done!

xposted to IJ and LJ

Today I wrote:

210 words of what I hope will be a short Daniel Jackson story.

558 words of the story I've been working on, the one I've been dreaming of for months.

Currently, my favorite blog is The Iceland Weather Report.

I'm already behind, but I'm not sweating it too much. I'm thinking of coming up with a loose schedule for writing, recording, and gaming. I'd planned to record last night, until I realized that I probably shouldn't be using my theater voice at 10:30 on a weeknight.

I did want to clarify something: the issues I had after the warnings debate are mostly my issues. No one said, "You shouldn't be writing this." I'm the one asking myself what it means that I like to write about power disparities and consent and pain and pushing limits. And I'm the one who needs to stop overthinking it and work on telling the stories I have to tell.

525 / 15000 words. 4% done!

Tonight I wrote 694 words. I sure hope this turns into a story.

Tonight I also bought my mother a Kindle DX. I heard from my sister and she really likes the idea. Mother is so miserable; she's trying to read using a magnifying glass, a word at a time. It's taken her two weeks to read 240 pages.

She has also decided to give up driving. My sister and I are very grateful for that. Thank god she moved into her assistive living place about six years ago -- they have all kinds of services to help people get around, and there's even a little grocery store right on the premises.

The Kindle should be there by Wednesday, and I fly in on Thursday, so I hope I can figure it out, get it configured, and have Mother reading before I leave. I think Amazon gives you a month to make up your mind so we can always return it. But I hope she likes it. I really, really hope she likes it.

Changing the subject wildly: A show I really enjoyed was canceled: Defying Gravity. It wasn't a very good show, but I loved the premise and was really curious where it was going to go. I googled around looking for news of the show and discovered an interview with the show's creator about where it would have gone. Reading that made me even sorrier it was canceled.

Because of a combination of stress and Podbang, I'm not doing Nano this year. I'm not even officially doing WriSoMiFu. What I have decided to do is to try to write at least 500 words a day on some fiction, be it WIP or new, to see if I can reboot my writing enthusiasm.

It's not that I don't have stories to tell. The problem lately seems to be that I can't follow through on any of my ideas. A lot of it goes back to the warnings debate, which seems to have resulted in a me spending a lot of time on my part worrying about the kind of stuff I write, and a lot of questioning about kink and darkfic and their--and my--place in fandom. Introspection is healthy, but I've been doing it so much that I'm almost paralyzed when it comes to writing what I want to write. I'm hoping that by setting a low-pressure goal, I can get past this.

215 / 15000 words. 1% done!

( Sons of Anarchy )

The caps are here.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Happy November 1! It's el día de los muertos, my favorite holiday. I went into town and saw people placing flowers at little shrines along the road, where their friends and family have died, and we have candles burning. I made cupcakes but I don't have any sugar skulls, which makes me sad. I love crunching on them.

November 1 is also the first day of NaNoWriMo, in which I do not participate, but I do think it's time for me to do some writing. I am watching the community Mini NaNoWriMo, and have committed myself to writing at least 100 words/day this month. I didn't join the community because I will be AFK for several days -- next week is my mother's 87th birthday, so I'm flying back to spend the weekend with her. I still don't have a gift for her, though I'm seriously considering buying her a Kindle DX.

I'm using Write or Die again; I really like that little app. I don't think I'll buy the desktop version, though, because I like the online so much. Today I've written just over 600 words, so I'm happy. I'm not sure it will actually become a story, but it's something I've thought about writing for months now. We'll see if anything comes of it.

For Halloween, I saw Paranormal Activity, which scared me to death. I seriously have been leaving lights on when I sleep. Laugh at me if you will, but I'm not turning them off.

( Other things in my life )

Did you move your clock back? I mean, if you live someplace where you have to?

This is the "Fall back" switch from Daylight Savings Time, so set your clocks to 11 pm at midnight or whenever: you can always check timeanddate.com, just to be sure. I'm going to try and think of it as an extra hour to sleep in or get things done.

ETA to add Our Neighbors To The North

Title: More Than One Answer
Author name: darkrose & telesilla
Artist name: lapillus
Fandom: Misc. RPF (AU)
Genre: Slash
Pairing: Joe Flanigan/Dylan Neal/Chris Pine
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 23,500
Warnings/Spoilers: This fic is set in a dystopic alternate of the real world that includes legalized slavery and therefore deals with some consent issues. There is also some consensual S/M and mention of underage sex, although no actual underage sex occurs in the fic.



Summary: When Dylan Neal was six, his parents purchased a five year old kid named Joe to act as Dylan's companion and body slave. For the next twelve years Joe was Dylan's best friend, brother, valet and, eventually, lover. And then when Dylan went away to college, his father sold Joe and Dylan vowed to do what he could to bring an end to slavery.

Now, thirteen years later, his parents are both dead, and Dylan's about to run for Congress as a member of the anti-slavery Reformist Party. He's had Joe tracked down and has purchased him with the intent of bringing him back into the household. But Joe's been out in the system for the last thirteen years and Dylan's current body slave, Chris, has concerns of his own, and bringing Joe "home" again works about as well as you'd expect.

Notes: See the Fic Master Post.

Link to fic: More Than One Answer
Link to art: Art by lapillus

The fic links back to Dreamwidth because the whole story fit over there in one post. I turned anon commenting on and you can also use your OpenID.


Notes: First of all, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to poisontaster/poisontaster both for creating the Keptverse in the first place and for her work betareading this story. We also owe many thanks to helens78/helens78 who also betaread for us. Both of them helped make this a much better story; any errors are strictly our fault. We'd also like to thank the Usual Spatula Suspects for all the handholding and cheering; without them this would have been a much more lonely task.

Secondly, we'd like to thank lapillus for her great cover art. If you like it (and what's not to like?) please be sure to leave her feedback.

Thirdly, this story does not take place in a vacuum. It is an AU of an AU and as such, there are a few short pieces that we assume you've read in order to know the basic setup. They are listed here. Also, we have a Cast of Characters list here, which contains a bit of a spoiler.

Finally, if you've read this and liked it and haven't yet read A Kept Boy, run, don't walk, to read it. We're not the only people who have their own takes on the Keptverse, so you should also check out whatwekeep, a community dedicated to the Keptverse.

Richard Taylor! Viggo! Bob Anderson! Swords! I so wanted to like this.

Shame that Reclaiming the Blade does the ponderous narration thing. It's mostly the script, which keeps making portentous statements and generalizations about how The Blade was So Amazing before those Awful Guns. They kept reaching for dramatic tension, instead of just relaxing and letting their passion show. The Netflix version didn't have any special features, but I doubt they'd be worth actually paying much for.

Also, the term "European Martial Arts" does not need to be used every five minutes: we get it, OK?

(Yes, I'm in a rotten mood today, but the documentary really was disappointing.)

xposted to IJ and LJ

My mother is blind in one eye, due to macular degeneration, and has very low vision in the other. Fortunately, the macular degeneration has been halted in her good eye, due to new meds, but damage was done.

She is a great reader; nothing makes her happier than to settle down with a pile of books by her side. She has a favorite armchair that I call her "nest," and she settles in with coffee, a bright light, and her books. For the last few years, those books have been enormous large print ones, so heavy that she finds them difficult to hold due to her arthritis.

Now her remaining eye's vision has deteriorated to the point that even large print isn't large enough. She went to see a low vision specialist, who charged her $185 for ten minutes and sold her an $85 magnifying glass that 1) doesn't work well, and 2) is too heavy for her arthritic hand to hold.

I spoke to my own optometrist, who has followed her history (and checks me carefully for any signs of macular degeneration each year), but he tells me there's nothing for it but assistive devices. No magic treatment to restore her vision, or even improve it a bit. Right now, we don't believe she'll go completely blind, but she can't do very much, including read.

I've been investigating assistive devices, but they all seem to be magnifying glasses of one sort or another (like a flat fresnel lense you lay over the page, except the page has to be perfectly flat and what book is perfectly flat?) or would make her sit at a special table and read from a monitor. I want her in her comfortable nest.

To me, the obvious solution is books on CDs, which I love and listen to all the time. Alas, Mother doesn't care for them. I've bought her any number of them, but I don't think she's ever opened one; they just sit on her shelf.

I've been looking at the Kindle DX, the Sony e-Reader, and the new Barnes and Noble Nook. Sony's device is simply too small for Mother's vision, but both the Kindle DX and the Nook look like real possibilities. I found this comparison of the two (you'll have to click on it to enlarge the jpg). The Kindle is about an inch longer than the Nook, plus part of the Nook's landscape is taken up by some odd screen I haven't figured out yet (I've never seen a Nook in RL).

Of course, both have stupidly small navigation buttons, but we can paint them or something so Mother can identify which button is for what.

My question to my flist: does anyone own either of these devices? For someone very nearly blind, would they do? I've googled "low vision" and their names and found lots of very promising articles about them. They both cost a fair bit, but that doesn't matter to me -- it's my Mom, you know? Plus my sister is going to kick in. But I want to get something she can actually use. Bonus problem: she loathes computers with a white hot passion; they totally freak her out.

Advice or suggestions gratefully received.

( Other stuff, less urgent and interesting )

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2879

Top 10 Bowie Songs:

These are my personal favorites, not which songs I think are “objectively best.” Sort of in order, but some are too close to call.

1. Station to Station
This song is dark, beautiful, complex, innovative, and disturbing. Its enveloping atmosphere and progression of emotions captures a sense of the search for life’s meaning, the fear of emptiness and hope for transcendence.

2. Ziggy Stardust
The perfect archetypal rock song for the perfect archetypal rock star.

3. Subterraneans
So beautiful, longing, and sad. Bowie’s a master at capturing this particular emotion; “Subterraneans” is the best example, although…

4. The Bewlay Brothers
Even the Bowie encyclopedia doesn’t seem to quite know what to make of this song’s enigmatic lyrics. Whatever it’s about, the vivid imagery and haunting music are eerie and sad, steeped in a nostalgia for something deeply precious and irrevocably lost. (Plus, Bowie deserves major props for turning that chipmunk vocal effect last seen in “The Laughing Gnome” into something effectively ominous here.)

5. “Heroes”
Specific and universal, ironic and yet deeply moving–”Heroes” is an epic contradiction of a song. (I already raved about it here.)

6. Always Crashing in the Same Car
So much emotion brews beneath the cool surface of this song. It is a mood, a musical landscape of numb disconnection.

7. Alternative Candidate
I can’t believe this jaunty and twisted outtake wasn’t even on the album!

8. Cygnet Committee
Perhaps a bit over the top, but I love the sincerity of this folk epic. Bowie’s impassioned criticism of the corruption of 1960s ideals is a reminder of the substance beneath his style.

9. My Death (July 3, 1973 live version)
This isn’t even a Bowie song, but it ranks in my top ten for the quality of the performance alone.

10. The Man Who Sold the World
Thanks to Nirvana, I grew up with this song; I still adore Kurt Cobain’s raw vocal performance. Bowie’s original is equally sad, with a detached performance that gives its emotion a more distant quality. The lyrics are among his early best.

(Runners up: Life on Mars?, Five Years, Moonage Daydream, Rock N Roll Suicide, Aladdin Sane, Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing, Big Brother, Young Americans, Who Can I Be Now, Stay, Wild is the Wind, A New Career in a New Town, Neukoln, Ashes to Ashes, Ricochet, Loving the Alien, Jump They Say, Outside, I’m Afraid of Americans)

I know my descriptions tend to linger on the angsty aspects of the songs, but a lot what makes them so effective is Bowie’s irony, self-awareness, and sense of the absurd.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
(Anyone can comment on public entries.)

This VM fic makes me so happy. It feels like the author is making sense out of all the things I never thought made sense in season 3. Dealt with in this chapter: Duncan, Piz, the FBI. But if you're allergic to WIPs, I'd recommend staying far away from this one. I think it's been over a year since the last update and we're only on chapter four. So, yeah...

---

Apparently, I have things to say about TV today.

( Dexter )

( Lie to Me )

( Glee )

( Castle )


I'm going to save Sons of Anarchy for a separate post so I have time to cap a few episodes and possibly include some visual aids.

---

I bought myself a new laptop with a touchscreen, and because the software provided had Twitter compatability, I got myself an account. I've been reading it and trying to get the flow of the thing, but I gotta say, I'm still not sure. Even in my one lonely tweet, I still wanted to add about another post's worth. So what's the point if I know myself enough to know I'm too wordy? But add away if you're so inclined! I've added some accounts I recognized, but I'm sure I've missed a ton.

The touchscreen though? AWESOME!

Dear Nathan Fillion,

I love you more than words could ever say. Please never change.

Adoringly,
Clarissa

...

( Castle - 206 - Vampire Weekend: mini-picspam. )

...

Yes, I made an animated GIF. It was highly necessary.

*g*

slashababy is still open for signups! It's the Lotrips holiday fic exchange, so the more, the merrier. Anyone who doesn't want to sign up on LiveJournal, please send email to secret slasha @ gmail.com -- we can do it that way, no problem.

It's rec the reccers month at lotr_fic_recs.

If you're thinking of writing adoptive kid fic, you must read viggorlijah's post, Fandom Primer on International Adoption as a story trope: read it and weep. But the stories based on RL issues could be really good.

RPS Kink meme - just getting started. Some of the other kink memes have been amazing and very inspiring...

And because I've been told I don't plug myself enough: links to all the LOTR RPS fic I could find through September are at lotrips (October to come soon), and I'm still posting my fic recs on delicious.