forget your Unified Theory of Everything

Okay so I wrote this fic. It was really hard, because it was more plotty than most things I write. I'm pretty happy with the result, but I kind of wonder whether it was off-putting to some. Lots of people hate my summaries, so I tried a different kind of summary with this one. I feel like it just made the story look boring, so I have now changed it to a summary that makes me want to click on the fic, instead of trying to write the summary I thought other people wanted. I never really know what to do with summaries, so I figure I should have just tried to make myself happy!

Anyway, this story was stressful but I'm really happy with it, and thanks to kedavranox for her original story and icmezzo for all her help!

Author/Artist: lettered
Title: The Fall of the Veils
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings/Content: Draco is asexual. Harry has a noncanonical power. A lot of minor character deaths occur in the backstory. There are OCs.
Summary: Muggles find out about wizards. This makes Harry feel bad. Draco doesn't love Harry back. This makes Harry feel sad. Then there's conspiracy and intrigue and working together and Legilimency and murder and adventure and suspicion and magical things, and all of this makes Harry feel mad. So this fic is about Harry feeling all the feelings, and then everyone else feels feelings too. Even Draco. (Remix of “Ellhorn,” by kedavranox.)
Word Count: ~62,000
Disclaimer: Characters from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. An important part of this story is based on “Ellhorn,” by kedavranox. In some ways this story is also a remix of Mercedes Lackey’s novel, Arrow’s Flight.
Author's notes: kedavranox, I don’t think this is what you meant by a remix of what happens before your fic! But as I thought about your wonderful story “Ellhorn” more and more, I focused on the line about Harry’s mind and who his captors were. The story spun out (of control!) from there, managing to pull together several ideas I’d always wanted to write. I’m sorry that the background for your short story turned into such a long piece, but thank you for letting me imagine a world behind your fic.

An impossible amount of gratitude to icmezzo for listening to my idea, encouraging me, and beta’ing. And inspiring a scene and giving me ideas! I’m really glad I met you. I can’t even begin to describe what all your help means to me.

The Fall of the Veils

Guys so I have this problem. I'm super excited about The Winter Soldier. And the problem is that my hopes are so high by my expectations are quite low. I really just want Steve and Natasha to be forever-bros; is it too much to ask; I guess it is, but it's all I want. And he tries to be all nice to her but she just looks at him a lot and tightens her mouth and doesn't say anything. And he guesses it's because she's Russian or something but he does stuff like invite her out for coffee and the thing is she says yes. He tries to make conversation but she doesn't say much, but she does drink all of her coffee, and kind of licks the rim a bit. And then he just wants to feed her and give her warm places to sleep, but he knew if he said that to her she'd look at him like he was crazy and he guesses he's just old-fashioned. And then the coffee shop is attacked and she knocks over the table to get behind it as a shield, but then when she sees her opening she steps on the edge of the table and then onto Steve's back because he's already bending over so she can use him as a stepping stool to jump on these guys and she tackles them. And when Steve and Natasha are done Steve gives her a hand up and then he says, "You have some . . ." and points at the corner of his mouth and she wipes the blood away with the back of her hand.

And then Steve pays for the coffee.

That's really all I want; is it too much to ask?

I am the co-creator, co-producer, and director for Hello Earth, a theater company which has produced Outdoor Trek three years running. Outdoor Trek is a live theatrical adaptation of an Original Series episode of Star Trek performed in Seattle's Blanche Lavizzo Park, and auditions for the episode "Mirror, Mirror" are tonight and Tuesday. Please help me by spreading the word to anyone in the Seattle area who likes Star Trek, theater, or having fun. Even if you aren't in Seattle, if you have friends on Facebook or other social media outlets, you can help by spreading the word. Below is further information if you want to get involved in this fan-run project:

Auditions tonight (Sunday, March 16, 2014) and Tuesday (March 18, 2014) from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, at Theatre Puget Sound, in the Armory/Center House on the 4th floor in Seattle Center, Studio C (Sunday, March 16th) and Studio I (Tuesday, March 18th).

Needed: Actors to fill all roles (except Kirk, Spock and McCoy), which will be cast without regard to the gender or race (or ability, size, age, etc) of the original series characters. We are not looking for impersonation. We are looking for creative people who want to be part of the process both on and off stage.

Auditions will consist of cold readings. Please be prepared to stay for the entire time; we may not need you for that long but we will be holding callbacks after hearing everyone.

Performances will take place at the end of July and beginning of August outside at Blanche Lavizzo Park.

Kirk and Spock

»Made a lot of headway on my fic. FEELS GOOD.

»Thank you to everyone who told me their Tumblr name or who friended me on Tumblr. It feels awesome, except a whole bunch of people friended me and I don't know who they are. WHO ARE YOU? WHO WHO?

»Still appalled by Outlander. However, am interested in the tv show, because Ron D Moore.

»I keep waiting to hear something awful about Moore, or see something awful he's done. I mean the big names that you know--Moffat, JJ Abrams--I just kind of picture them sitting in a room saying, "Okay, but how can we start with something cool and then fuck it up even more?" Even Joss Whedon, whom I really respect a lot, has made some serious mistakes that just make me wince super hard and say, "Ooh, buddy, I know you mean well, but really can you watch where you step?" I haven't seen Moore doing this, but . . . he has to, right? I mean I don't like anyone anymore; that's just how I am now--broken inside.

»Played Apples to Apples as Data. Was very eager to define for Lwaxana Troi and B'elanna and sometimes Jim Kirk all the 20th and 21th references. Had some trouble since the only teenager he knows is Wesley Crusher (he chose "High School Bathrooms" for the category "Neat").

I had four different friends from four very different corners of my little world telling me Outlander is one of their favorite books. This was what persuaded me to read it, even though the premise is not my cuppa. The premise was described to me as, "Married nurse goes back in time to 1700s Scotland. Meets some hot guy. Has adventures." All of this actually did sound like my cuppa, except for the implied adultery. Two out of four of these people said, "Weeeeeeeeeeeelll, but she kind of made the adultery okay."

Usually when I hear recommendations from a bunch of different people it's still from the same corner. It's fandom, or people at work, or people I knew back in Texas, or it's young people, or it's the media. It was strange to hear so many different people have such intense love for this book, so I decided to try it. I had to stop after the first three chapters. It was intensely boring.

But then another friend I had got super into it, so I started reading again. And then I got pretty interested when I heard Ron D Moore was doing the show. I love DS-9 and BSG, so this is fairly excited me.

Now I'm about halfway through this book, and I feel like I'm going to throw up. I wanted to know if other people felt the way that I do about it, so I looked at Goodreads and accidentally spoiled myself for the rest. I'm going to trudge on through, because I promised my friend I would, but seriously? I don't just find this book bad; I find it upsetting. It's like some unholy combination of Song of Ice and Fire (which I think is awful) and 50 Shades (which I don't think is awful, but I haven't bothered to read it. What I do know is that it seems to have a lot of S&M which isn't handled as nearly as carefully and deftly as half the fics in fandom).

But seriously, I want to know--am I just a hater, or is this book really as extremely homophobic and misogynist as it's coming off to me? Inquiring minds, guys.

A while ago I read All This And Love by J. Libby, a collection of self-published short stories.

I feel the need to start this review by confessing that J. Libby is a friend of mine. I don’t often read short stories, so I might never have found this book if not for our friendship. That said, hopefully this review inspires more people to read All This and Love than may otherwise have done so.

One of the reasons I don’t often read short stories is that it takes me a while to enter a world, but when I do I enter it fully. By the time I’m done with a really good short story, I just want more. To some extent, the stories in All This and Love have this quality, but on the whole the stories worked better for me than most short stories do.

The stories in All This and Love fall into two categories. The first category is stories with language so rich and dense that I feel like the point is the language itself, the feeling and themes that thrum through the words. When I read a poem, I rarely get upset that it’s over, not because I don’t like poems but rather because poems are less like stories and more like thoughts or ideas. They’re wisps of worlds, like dreams, and the point is that you can never enter them, they’re like dreams. 'like the girls in the movies' and 'fallen: a love story' read like poems to me—I don’t really want more or less. I just want that beautiful thing to exist in the world. Even though it’s the shortest, like the girls in the movies is probably my favorite story of the book. It reads just like prose poetry.

My favorite thing about Libby as a writer has always been her use of language and way with words. Even though the other stories are less like poems, they still resonate like poetry in some ways, especially this, too, like water and memory. That story, as well as the two remaining stories ('to the water and the wild', 'all of this and love') are more “stories” in the traditional sense of the word, with a bit more to latch on to in terms of plot and character. What worked for me in these stories, however, was the world-building. I finally understood that the point of a short story is to enter the world, whereas the point of a novel isn’t so much entering the world as traveling in the world. At any rate, these stories felt like doorways—peeks into other universes. Although I did want more, I found the glimpses interesting.

Libby’s other strength is theme. These stories are thematically linked by love, fantasy, and horror. I particularly enjoyed the horror aspect, even though I’m not a horror fan. There is traditional horror—one story has zombies, another werewolves—but what I enjoyed most was the gradual creep factor, the building sense of wrong Libby manages to create as several of these stories build toward climax.

Although I helped edit many of these stories myself, this book could still have used another good solid edit. And while I enjoyed these stories as they are, I still wish I knew more about some of these worlds and characters. However, on the whole, I'm glad I read this book because I enjoyed it. Above and beyond everything else, reading this language is like eating rich chocolate.

A-

Do recommend.

Apparently I no-show defaulted on Yuletide. I thought the deadline was the 23rd. I'd started a story but was unable to finish, so I was going to finish something else by tomorrow. Wow, I'm really doing everything on Earth wrong lately.

I feel so so bad for my requester; they were really nice.

We had to put our dog to sleep yesterday.

Geek Girl Con was this weekend and as much as I liked seeing all the people and doing all the things, it was really colored by our doggy. I think Housemate and I did pretty well in front of people, and the con helped to distract us, but mostly all I care about is my dingo-train.

We're laying off everyone at work and rehiring back a fraction of the staff, this has been going on for months, I got a promotion so now I have to be one of the ones making the hiring decisions, I have a trip to D.C. for work and I worked over 13 hours today, but mostly all I care about is my dog.

I think it was the right thing to do because she was really unwell and had been refusing to eat for weeks, and didn't eat at all the past three days. But she was really special to me, and we were petting her when she died, and she was my favorite of them all even though she also drove me the craziest.

Housemate did almost all of the work getting her to eat and cleaning up after her and taking care of her so I probably shouldn't even complain. I think the other dog is coping okay and one of the worst things is how I don't cry or sound sad when I talk about it.

Anyway so that's that.

Everyone is right about this movie. You should go see it.

( Thoughts. )

So flist, you who know all, what were/are your thoughts on the tv show Fringe? I'd especially like to know these thoughts in conjunction with your thoughts on either Alias, Lost or both.

A bunch of people say that Fringe was really good, but my thought is that these people also thought Lost was good, and yet the hype and obsession around Fringe never reached the level that it seemed to be around Lost.

For the record, I don't hate Lost . . . yeah, no, wait, I kind of do hate Lost. I only watched one season of it, so hating it is perhaps not fair, but it reminded me so much of Alias that the investment didn't seem worth it.

I also don't hate--oh, who am I fooling, I really do dislike Alias, but in a different way, because I gave Alias all of the chances. I knew it was silly and stupid insofar as realism, but I was in love with Victor Garber's character and his relationship with Jennifer Garner's character, and I was deeply interested in the slowly unfolding overarching sci fi plot.

After watching two and a half seasons I began to realize that there were a bunch of great ideas in the show but poor execution and even poorer follow-through. The characters never grew beyond their complicated, nuanced premise; the plot was a series of cheap tricks employed to keep you on the edge of your seat without ever delivering the narrative satisfaction that justifies such suspense--there was no overarching narrative, despite textual insistence that there would be.

I had to give up on Alias after four seasons, which was a great big waste of time to me. After the first season of Lost, I realized that the same thing was happening there, only on a larger scale. Worse, there was no Victor Garber. From what I've heard from other viewers, it's probably a good thing I gave it up.

So, having now experienced my vitriol aimed in Abrams' general direction--would I like Fringe?