all fanfiction is collected on no cowboys here.

( Original fiction )

Hurrahing in Harvest

SUMMER ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

assuming you watch anything, but i'm pretty sure you all do.

this question is prompted mostly by the (brief) discussion on tuesday about the tv show 'leverage'

Poll #1488524
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

what keeps you watching a movie/tv show?

(of course, as some people have found out rather painfully, batman alone is not enough--because then it's not really batman. it's a guy in a silly suit running around looking stupid.)

1. In a field of daisies

"You're not supposed to eat the flowers, you know."

"Or pick them, either. Although I suppose with those gigantic scissors, no one's going to bother you about it."


2. Inside a house in which something happened requiring detecting of some sort

"What do you see?"

"I told you: finger prints."

"C'mon. I'm stuck down here on the floor. The least you can do is give me a running commentary. Or get me a ladder."


3. ...I'm not sure, actually

"Why are we wearing these, anyway?"

"Dunno, but mine itches. How did people sleep with these on?"


4. On the top floor of a very tall building

"You're not the least big bothered about being thrown out the window? I don't see any sort of net or trampoline or bucket of water down there."

"Nah, she rarely draws the ground, so it shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, I've got wings around here somewhere. And balloons--those would work too."

"...You're going to blow up a half dozen balloons while falling and before hitting the ground?"

"I told you, she almost never draws the ground. It's not an issue."

"Well, you're the one going out the window."


5. In the air, more than once

"Let's just stay up here for a while."

"Let's."

thing wot i did today: finished a very important letter that's been sitting half-finished on my desk for a week.

things wot i did not do today: finish the letters that have been sitting half-finished on my desk for a month. balance my checkbook. give you guys turtles. i think the turtles are on vacation at the moment, sad to say.

thing wot i am going to do now: sleep.

So, Leverage. I've been hearing about this show for a while, and how much love it is and stuff, and having finally seen it all I can say is YES. This is the show I didn't know I was looking for, because basically it's Ocean's 11, only with the con men as the really truly good guys so I can cheer for them with a clear conscience. And the characters are all so ridiculous and fun, except for Nate when he's being stupid and damaged. But even then it's really hard to tell when he's really being stupid and damaged and when he's just faking it for the job, so.

Yeah, the plots all have ginormous holes you could drive a truck through (or an ambulance, in the case of the last episode we watched) but that's standard for the genre so I don't care. As long as they're not blatant about it, I'll happily do all the handwaving for them.

Also did some reading (around the edges of watching and working and trying to write): The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, which is a very funny and easy read on the progress (if you can call it that) of modern art (maybe that should be Modern "art"). And The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton, which has been called by a number of people the last great epic poem (or something along those lines). It's the story of King Alfred, and although the verse stumbles at times, when it sings it sings, and reading it made me want to read all the other great epics and also move to England. Except England isn't like that anymore, which is sad. Where have all the great men gone?

November is that historied Emperor,
Conquered in age, but foot to foot with fate,
Who from his refuge high has heard the roar
Of squadrons in pursuit, and now, too late,
Stirrups the storm and calls the winds to war,
And arms the garrison of his last heirloom,
And shakes the sky to its extremest shore
With battle against irrevocable doom.

Till, driven and hurled from his strong citadels,
He flies in hurrying cloud and spurs him on,
Empty of lingerings, empty of farewells
And final benedictions, and is gone.
But in my garden all the trees have shed
Their legacies of the light, and all the flowers are dead.

Hilare Belloc

Poll #1485296
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

favorite muppet

Went to see a local exhibit on Jim Henson two days ago, and it made me want to watch all our Henson videos all over again (which would be a couple of days worth, since I've got the first two seasons of the Muppet Show and we have almost all the Muppet Movies). It was also kind of inspiring, to realize just how much he created and how he dealt with failures by turning them into something else--if something didn't work, wouldn't sell, he tweaked it and tried again until it did.

I want to be like that.

These are all short and not what I'm supposed to be writing, but I don't really care because I wrote them and they're finished and I'm trying to make both of those things happen more often. (Whee!)

Elizabeth in Amber. Sometimes the longer road is simply longer. [tag for Before I Sleep]

I Am Bulletproof. Rodney's theory of Batman, which is perhaps a metaphor for other things.

Perfect Fit. John's stupidly in love with a cantankerous old lady.

i have a turtle doodle/cartoon/thingy (actually, i have a bunch), i just didn't get around to scanning it, uploading it, etc. will do so tomorrow. just so you know.

also, i have decided i'm not going to try to make sense of sga canon. if i like it, i'm keeping it. if not, i'll bend it until it makes sense or just pretend it didn't happen at all. (this realization brought to you by elizabeth in amber, which i may or may not remember to link to tomorrow. it's the latest thing over at gentle_edgar)

also also, why didn't they ever do anything with the Ancient city on athos? y'know, the one that sumner went to explore while john was running around with teyla. srsly, how cool would that have been to play with? it's definitely going to show up somewhere in Things Already Seen, which will probably be called TAS from now on because i'm lazy.

[theory of clouds]
I am training myself to identify species solely by the sound of their wings. I sit blindfolded and one by one Ilya sets them flying. The papery whispers are remarkably easy to hear, but it is by the weight of their bodies--cloud hands--that I am learning to know them, when they land on me, as they are more and more apt to do.

Lisa Olstein

*

for some reason this always makes me think of john sheppard and atlantis

Poll #1482014
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

brat, you are:

batman is:

So, every comment on this post (even if it's just "you're silly")will receive a comment back containing the next 100+ words from Things Already Seen. You may comment as often as you like, just please wait for me to respond to your previous comment(s) before leaving a new one.

I'd say "this offer good for today only", but if it works I might make it a regular thing.

1. "Well, once there was this kid named Bruce whose father was a healer, although his father and grandfather had been wealthy traders. One evening, because Bruce asked, he and his parents went for a walk to watch the stars come out. But the Wraith came and took both of Bruce's parents, sucking the life out of them while Bruce watched. For some reason, though, they didn't eat Bruce--just left him there with the bodies of his parents.

"So Bruce grew up with only Alfred, the family servant, for companionship...."

2. Rodney at the firing range. Rodney and Elizabeth? (and Radek? or a whole bushel of civilians?) Because John's seen enough of the future to know that the Marines aren't going to be enough to keep everyone safe, so the rest of the expedition needs to be able to defend themselves effectively. (Also, Rodney at the firing range seems like comedy gold)

3. Ford learns to fly! AKA Crazy John's flight school.

4. Sanctuary remix: in which John spins things a little to Sumner, Chaya is less than helpful, and the audience gets something like an explanation for the way things happened the first time around.

5. "Once upon a time," he said, and closed his eyes so he could pretend no one was listening. "Once upon a time, there was a boy named John."

gravity
n. why stuff goes down instead of up


sorry about the crappy quality--apparently the scanner doesn't like ballpoint pen

just for today--am very tired. watch this space tomorrow for creativity and turtles and john sheppard pretending not to be slightly crazy and more than a little damaged and stuff. tonight, i'm going to bed early and not worrying about word counts, loss of forward momentum, etc.

One bright day, in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords, and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise--
He came and killed those two dead boys.
If you don't believe these lies are true,
Just ask the blind man: he saw it too.


i kind of really want to use the first line as a title for an SGA story, or perhaps a section of Things Already Seen, which i should be working on right now instead of rambling on about this---maybe something along the lines of The Long Goodbye?

(best part about doing this unofficially is that i get to start with a positive word count.)
so. said i'd put together a Things Already Seen filter, which i have, but wanted to check with you guys again, now that i'm going to be posting UNEDITED fic bits daily (i think/hope/pray...). public/flock/filter? speak now or later, but i don't want to inadvertently annoy people by clogging up their flists.

...or maybe i should post it on my, y'know, fic journal?

...

nah. too inconvenient and also this way i can use my damnit! icon when necessary.

( warning: first 2,500 words have been posted previously, also, a complete lack of italics )

when we lock the doors, turn all the lights out, and spend the evening watching movies in the basement.

Poll #1478873
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

which movie should we watch while hiding from the trick-or-treaters?

batman?

1. The doctors, first when they said Janice could never have children, later when they said she had six months to live. (She lasted eight, but even now Mack's not sure the last month and a half were worth it.)

2. O'Neill, when the bastard said that not only were there aliens, but the Air Force'd been palling around with them for years.

3. The base doctor when she told him about the aliens that like to crawl up inside peoples' heads--funny how O'Neill left out that part. (Things like that shouldn't exist, but they do, and that's why he wears camo and carries guns and goes to dangerous places--though his siblings have never understood this and likely never will.)

4. His niece Bitsy when she announced that she was going to marry her history professor, despite the man being 23 years older than her. (Turns out the professor's a decent man and a surprisingly good shot and much better company than most of his new in-laws. Still not good enough for Bitsy, but no one would be, really.)

5. Sheppard, when the major sits down in Mack's temporary office and says that he's actually from a year in the future and that Mack had died on the hive ship the first time around. (He's seen madmen and pranksters and idiots, and Sheppard's none of those. There's too much weight to his words, too many things left unspoken.)

umbrella
n. an odd-looking structure employed in an attempt to shelter one's self from excessive rain or sunshine

friend
n. someone who will hold an umbrella over you so that you may drown dryly


this is a fairly accurate representation of the past week's weather

I should have written this earlier today, when I actually cared. Now I feel very "why am I doing this?" Bleh.

Which is a shame, because I read of bunch of fun stuff this week. Like Tom Strong, which is a pretty much mostly fun and just-this-side of hokey (it's Alan Moore, so it doesn't quite manage to get there--gets derailed by the "er, that's...not quite right" effect he seems to have going every now and then). Again, I really like the artwork and how the setting seems to be the world of today as borrowed from yesteryear's world of tomorrow (and if you can parse that sentence I'm impressed). And it's nice to read about a superhero (or "science hero", which is the in-story term) family that's not all angsty and screwed up.

Also read Coraline (the graphic novel, not the book, because Neil Gaiman's always checked out when I go to the library and it's kind of annoying). The plot's somewhat different than the movie, but I think this is one of those rare cases where the film adaptation stands completely on its own---that is, two people tell the same story, and both work. Other examples of this are Emma Thompson's version of Sense and Sensibility, and I was going to say The Princess Bride, except the film adaptation was done by the author so I suppose that doesn't really count. Again, I liked the artwork (and I keep mentioning this because I am SUPER PICKY about my graphic novel artwork, yo. Most of it is really annoying and makes it impossible for me to pay attention to the story): very understated, unlike the wacky visuals of the movie.

And because yes, I am reading books that don't come with pictures, I reread The Death of the Necromancer for the fifth or sixth time, which means it's going on my to-buy list. Basically, this was my palate cleanser for The Court of the Air. Competency! Snark! Characters who successfully care about each other despite being damaged! Mystery! Non-world-ending crisis!A world with depth and history and functionality to it, deftly done. Quasi-scientific magic! Definitely worth looking at if you're into fantasy.

Lastly, and somewhat disappointingly, How the Reformation Happened, by Hilaire Belloc. I read this because a) I love Belloc's poetry, and b) I've been meaning to brush up on my church history and thought it would be instructive to read about the Reformation from the opposition, so to speak. And aside from the slightly paranoid undertones, it was well-written, interesting, and, indeed, instructive. As long, that is, as Belloc wasn't discussing the reformers themselves, particularly John Calvin. He seems to almost deliberately misunderstand the doctrine of election and the removal of the priesthood. His book's worth reading, but should probably be accompanied by a Protestant/nonpartisan treatment of the Reformation.

The Itibar of Ilm looked in a mirror--
And there he saw the Ilm of Itibar.

"Is that me?" (The fear he underwent!)
"Me that is," he heard, and felt content.

JonArno Lawson

Almighty God, father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving kindness
to us and to all who you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life,
but above all for you immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray you, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
That with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages.
Amen.

He would willingly die for any innocent, but for his team, for Atlantis, he would destroy himself and do it with a smile. --This, for me, is the essential core of John Sheppard. Behind everything he does or says (in my version of things, anyway), this is the main motivation. Oh, there are other bits that are important: he's a flyboy, a not-so-closet geeky goof, more comfortable expressing his feelings with actions than with words, etc. But many of those things are somewhat dependent on circumstance, and are descriptors, not driving forces.

I'm not sure about the other characters. Teyla's is bound up with the preservation of the Athosians, I think, but as I said. *shrugs*

What motivations/core essences do you see driving/defining the various characters? Particularly through season one?

In related matters, I think I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, but instead of starting yet another novel that won't make it past a couple thousand words, I'm going to work on plowing through Things Already Seen. Which is technically against the rules, but I'm not planning on claiming victory or whatever--I just want to get this thing written, and I'm hoping NaNo might help me stay focused. Give me a writing schedule, that kind of thing. Here's hoping, because I'm tired of having stuff just sit and stare at me.