who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

Slowly, and with more hours worked than I really want, the work shitshow is getting cleared up. It's not fun, but with the combined power of three editors we are making visible progress. Thanks to friends for all your hugs and comments.

BECAUSE I'M TIRED OF SENDING OUT REJECTION LETTERS: here is a list of ships that are currently causing my soul to make pained noises and need to be dealt with, oh dear television, like rightnow.

-Gigi and Lydia's boots/George Wickham's crotch (Lizzie Bennet Diaries)
-Lizzie Bennet/William Darcy (Lizzie Bennet Diaries)
-Elizabeth Nadyezhda Jennings/Phillip Jennings (The Americans)
-Belle/her books (Once Upon a Time)
-Belle/her adventuring problem-solving badassery (Once Upon a Time)
-Belle/Rumpelstiltskin (Once Upon a Time)
-Emma/Regina (I don't care if it's platonic, just jesus can they be on the same team for a minute) (Once Upon a Time)
-Emily/an empty space where Aiden used to be and Nolan should probably go (Revenge)
-Nikita/Michael (either shoot at each other or be perfect, none of this passive hurt shit) (Nikita)
-Originals/death in a giant fire (Rebekah can live if she gets to be human) (Vampire Diaries)

Leave what ships are paining you in the comments, we can commiserate and share angsty songs together.

I downloaded the Richard Feynman lectures on physics from the Six Easy Pieces selections (and several others, it was a giant folder, I don't remember everything, if you want them I can upload) and was listening to the first one on atoms and their movement on the drive to and from work today (I've got an hour commute each way, I have to make it productive somehow.)

I've always loved physics, and the weirder it gets, the better. But even the physics of the everyday is so simple and fascinating; I was working on my car tonight, and just knowing how a lever and circular motion can be used to lift an entire car with a minimum of effort is really quite amazing. Or knowing the chemical reactions that cause an engine to be more than a lump of metal. Or knowing about how hydraulic pressure controls a brake line.  It's all cool, all stuff I like to know about.

Feynman was talking in the lecture about how physicists discover laws in a way that's different from chemists or biologists... they have to come up with ideas first, about how things work, and those ideas, if they are good, are shown to be accurate through the observation of phenomena in repeated examples. It's not a theory or science without those experiments, but that idea, the imagination of it comes first. Feynman gave the example of hypothesizing about the structure of molecules and how those ideas could be proven by chemical experiments, and later by electron microscopes.

I was thinking more of how Einstein discovered all the things he did- it all started with thought experiments, with a giant WHAT IF. What if you were moving at the speed of light... and you looked in a mirror. What if you were moving upwards in an elevator really fast and somebody shone a light in one side. What if you were moving at 99% of the speed of light and your fellow traveler was moving at 95%, how would you each experience time?

And it occurred to me that in some ways, physicists and fic writers aren't that different. When you write fanfiction, you look at that world you're writing about, and you say... what if? What if we saw what Rose did after she was left in the other universe? What if Donna somehow met Gene Hunt? What if Susan used the skills she learned while ruling Narnia in this world, during the war? And so we write out these situations, seeing if they stand up to the way the characters really behave, and if they account for the laws that govern the internal logic of these worlds.

Sometimes they're bad ideas. Sometimes the way we've imagined them doesn't work, the characters just don't fit into those situations and so the fic falls apart, or maybe we just get no reviews or everybody goes "eh, that wasn't plausible". But sometimes they're great ideas. When people read the fics, they get a better idea of the motivations guiding that character, they find it consistent: a theory of behavior has been set forth and the situational evidence observed confirms that the original idea is more than just imagination, it's a legitimate predictor of further behaviors. The theory settles in people's heads and becomes something that guides their understanding of how the world works, whether that be how an atom is going to jiggle (Feynman's technical term!) or how Amy sees Rory.

I think that, in the end, that need to go "hey, what if..." is what really defines my interest in probably everything, making it a little less odd that I love literature and fandom and also physics, interests which have greatly confused people who think those can't go together (or, alternatively, have made people pretty much fall in love with me, which is a bit odder).

So that is how a raven is like a writing desk a fic-writer is like a physicist.

Dragon*Con recaps woo!

Or, at least it is until I get bored and wander off to read/compile all my Humphrey Bogart movies into a playlist for later.

I went downtown to Dragon*Con on Saturday and Sunday, and it was my first time, and I had a lot of fun and I'm totally going back next year. I kinda even want to look into working, because I love being behind the scenes for things. Nina, maybe we both can write for the Daily Dragon next year? By that point I may even have my own Atlanta apartment with crash space for friends?

But back to this year's Con, which was great and I didn't expect to end with me hitchhiking in northern Atlanta at one o'clock in the morning. But we shall get to that later.

( ME'N MAH FRANS. )

( The panels. )

( SPECIAL REPORT: The Buffy and Angel Guest Extravaganza Panel. )

( And then it all ended in hitching a ride from Doraville after one am. )


(NOTE: Some of you have your pictures in here. For now this post is locked to my flist. hollywoodgrrl , ohviennaninamazing, do you mind if I make this post public?)

Now that we've come to the end of series two of Ashes to Ashes and Some Stuff has happened that is strange and significant in mysterious ways, I think it is high time to go back and analyse once again the complexities of the first instances of Alex being totes crazycakes episode. Because I can both do my job AND have my iPod playing episodes, meaning that I can make money AND use my brain. Just not together.

In one of my earliest film studies classes my film professor started off by telling us that nothing happens by chance in a well-constructed film, and I believe this applies to the small screen as well. He went on to say that they are creating this story in a goddamn studio, controlling the light, the sound, and the objects in the scene, so if a character's face is half in shadow it is because somebody fucking wanted it that way. It doesn't happen by chance.

As Alex said, "I must believe that everything means something. Everything in this place is a clue."

This is my excuse for anytime I overanalyze this show.

I started with the opening shots, at a time Alex seems to indicate takes place less than a year after Life on Mars ended.
( 1x01 talks about 2x08. )

OR Gene Hunt is a Timelord. That is my other theory.

PS GO LOOK AT donna_gene . YES, THAT DONNA NOBLE. AND THAT GENE HUNT. AND THEM TOGETHER. YESSSSSSS.

GUYS GUYS GUYS. LOOK ITS A FICATHON.



takethewords in all her brilliance is doing prompts for fics and basically you should all get involved. Go! Write like the wind!

Okay, so, you know what needs to exist, like, RIGHT NOW? A Dexter fanvid focusing on Dex, Deb, and Brian, set to Nickel Creek's "When In Rome". Cause the song is all about survival and the conflict of finding meaning in life and fitting in with society, and so are they.

Grab a blanket, sister, we’ll make smoke signals.
Bring in some new blood
It feels like we’re alone.
Grab a blanket, brother,
so we don’t catch cold from one another
Oh, I wonder if we’re stuck in Rome.

Where can a dead man go?
A question with an answer only dead men know.
But I’m gonna bet they never really feel at home,
If they spend a lifetime learning how to live in Rome.

I enjoyed seeing the security guards outside the bookstore last night. I told them that nobody had gotten stabbed in the face for shouting spoilers, but it'd be exciting if that did happen, and they laughed at me.

Also CNN interviewed notfadeaway616and I was standing right next to him and they didn't ask me anything. I wanted to go into the values of pop vs. high literature, with references to Wilkie Collins, and finish off with an explanation of symbolism, particularly in regards to the young man carrying around a broom. I mean, clearly, when Rowling puts people RIDING on pointy objects, what are we supposed to think? Witches riding brooms has been a sexual metaphor since forever.

There were so many people last night... fire code? WHAT fire code? :P

But overall, it was fun enough. I walked around for a bit, avoiding the screaming children, enjoyed people's costumes (meril_gwend and I ran into each other there, she might have pictures up soon) and then because I had just had one of those days where you work on your feet for eight hours before sitting in rainy rush hour Atlanta traffic for another two hours, with bad contact lenses in. (I was afraid for my life more than once yesterday. But I did get 2gig flash drives for $17, woot!) And then I sat around and stood around a bit, reading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch for the umpteenth time, this time with the desire to compare it to Life on Mars (I'd say it was pretty comparable). And I talked to some people, where they said OMGOMGOMG SEVENTEEN MINUTES TIL MIDNIGHT THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING THING EVAR. And I responded, "No, it isn't, this is just a popular book. Have you ever heard of Wilkie Collins?"

Which confused them long enough for me to be a literature nerd at them, and possibly leave them scarred for life, before I returned to the gritty brilliance of Ankh-Morpork, a fantasy world that actually functions for me. Pterry has probably spoiled me for all Harry Potter ever, because I look at Harry and think, "Y'know, when Tiffany Aching was getting her magic training... she got more perspective on everything. And she knows how to make cheese. Even Esk is cooler. As is Ponder Stibbons and Rincewind... Terry Pratchett, why couldn't YOU have written the Harry Potter books?"

I dunno, I just wish Rowling had pretty much ever given us some exposition. Why does it work? 'Cos it's magic. Why is Harry good? 'Cos he's good. Why is Voldemort evil? 'Cos he's evil, and has a funny nose, and doesn't know much about genetics and inbreeding. And is from Mississippi?

And so much just doesn't make sense... like, if wizarding power is a blood and genetics thing, then why do they need wands? Why aren't they just naturally magical? And if they can do magic without wands, why don't they? It's rather a handicap... wouldn't they be better off learning to discipline their minds into focusing their natural magic without the use of a wand? Oh, I know what it must be: Rowling wants to make sure that boys are gripping their wands tightly. I get it. (Mention of something that happened in the first six pages, highlight to see): That must be why Lucius looked so uncomfortable when Voldemort wanted to grip his wand, with his wife sitting right there.
Also, if this society runs on its own currency and many wizards have absolutely no experience or skills in dealing with Muggles, and this society is basically a white-collar and service industry society, with production really restricted to luxury items such as cauldrons or herbs or whatever, then how does this society sustain itself? How do they eat, where do they get their toilet paper, etc.? This really bothers me, cause it means I can't believe in this world at all.

Whatever, I'm not staying away from the internet and fandom long enough to keep from being spoiled (and Frankly, Scarlet...) and I have a paper to write, so maybe this book will get read eventually. Last night I read the first six chapters and then went back to reading Night Watch. Let's see, mediocre teenage boy stock character compared to well-fleshed out middle-aged copper, landing thirty  years in his past, and oh so very human.... Sam Vimes it is, then. Harry, you'll just have to wait. Play with your wand like a good boy, just be careful not to go blind.