when it beats fiction, hands down

The thing I have learned is that my understanding of credit is a little screwed up sometimes. In that, while yes, it's good to desperately rush to pay off anything you owe in overpayments to your cards every month? It kind of sucks when you are overpaying to the point where you have to *use* said cards for things like gas and lunch.

Basically, I'm controlling myself from buying a new TV. Mine did this--thing? Where it stopped working? There are like, two others in the house, but they are not *mine* and though in fact, I only used mine for a.) watching QaF DVDs b.) watching Farscape DVDs, c.) watching SGA--wait. It was Fangirl and Child's Playstation TV, with a scary number of s-cords and random hookups abounding. It was where Child and I crashed on my bed and acted three years old. It was the first major appliance I ever bought all on my lonesome.

So. No TV yet. Because the one I want is the one at Frye's, that is kind of in that price range usually reserved for people who aren't me.

On the third hand, SGA starts in two weeks. Hmm.

On the fourth hand, plane ticket to be bought this month. Huh.

Early Afternoon Adventures

So, on the way to Central Market, witnessed a girl with major cojones chase down a mustang that put a serious ding in her back fender. And by chase down, I mean, all the way to the stoplight, got *out* of her car, towered *over* the guy's car, and basically bullied him right out to give his information.

Let me say again--this may be just me, but I'm not sure *I* could chase down two adult males after they made their escape from dinging up my car and *scare* them into giving their insurance information. Right on, Random Austin Girl. May your premiums never go up.

Anyway, invaded CM, bought a pound of Cherry Chocolate Cordial and La Vida Dulce, added small amounts of Cherry Blossom, something else, and Chocolate Creme. I'll report on the tastiness when tried. Basically, I spent most of the journey between CM and Parmer clutching the coffee to my chest and making soft sounds at it. To say I love it is an understatement of epic proportions. Did some grocery shopping, got a grill for Dad, bought more lettuce for the Warren, and cookies. Mmm. Cookies. And some other stuff that isn't as interesting as cookies.

Random Moment Off I-35

We stopped at a light before taking our exit back to Lamar. For those who live in Austin, you know exactly how hot and thick it is; breathing is like being trapped in a sauna, and the sky keeps making weird swirly motions like it wants to rain. If you don't live in Austin, thank God fasting. This isn't the hottest it's been, or that it's going to get, but it's not terribly pleasant. Loaded down with food and grills and lettuce and omgmycoffee, we stare blankly at the light and study the people around us.

We're those kind of people. We get bored easily.

Behind the guardrail is a small swarm of activity of two mid-twenties males and a ten year old kid in summer khaki and what looks like one or more styrofoam coolers. Usually, in this area, we might occassionally see a few panhandlers or random advertising people, but not often, and one emerges carrying three deargodisthat*iced*?Dr. Pepper cans and walking to cars. Goat'eed guy ducks back over the rail with Ten Year Old and does something archaic with cooler lids.

Mom looks mournfully at her hot, flat leftover Dr. Pepper and rolls down the window to ask how much. We're those kind of people. We buy soda from the side of the road. The slimmer of two guys come over with a hopeful smile and Mom opens her mouth to ask the price.

"Free pop," he said, smile widening, before Mom could get a word out. Leaning over, he cheerfully shoves two ice cold Dr. Peppers in the window and into Mom's surprised hands, dripping crushed ice into her lap and the seat.

Pop. Hmm. Northern boys.

"Why?" Mom asked, because--seriously. Why?

"I'm practicing generosity," he says, jogging backward for a second and tossing us the widest grin I've ever seen. Then he takes off to the next car and Mom stares at our acquired sodas in amazement. We're those kind of people. We don't often believe in things that come without a price.

We watch them go from car to car, skidding between three lanes and racing the red light, offering up soda and happy smiles on a miserably hot day. Some people refused to so much as look at them, standard operating procedure on intersections with people on foot. Others rolled down their windows, asking the same thing we did, taking the offered kindness with thanks of their own, and then the light changed as they scrambled off the asphalt to watch us pass until the light turned red again.

I'd like to be those kind of people, I think.

a continuing theme

Here, ninety-one listed found individuals, many still missing or presumed lost. A few stories, a lot of websites.

Finished updating to current, I think. I need to go back and double check all the comments, so more people have been added to the listing. I keep having this half-desire to build a database--yes, you can stop laughing now--to keep track of those who move between fandoms via their lj names and hook up all their former fandoms and acknowledged pseudonyms. A fannish registry, if you will. Oh! I could extend it to X-Files and other older fandoms! I could build a website for it all! And then I remember I'm lazy and would need to buy a new domain to house it all.

Fannnish project. I said I wanted one. *shakes head* I can't even think of what kind of script I'd need to run it.

But.

I spent the last week making a mental list of people I've missed. Pre-Smallville. Two link game can get me to any SV person I would want to find, possibly less. QaF--probably two links at most with most I like to keep up with. Movieverse--mostly I think I can find everyone, or know who to ask to find them, or conversely, I desperately want to forget them. Some--hmm. Some I know are gone for good--and let me tell you, nothing is more depressing than writing the line "presumed left fandom". Some don't claim that name or fandom or those stories, some stories are taken off the net and gone forever, some are around but I just haven't found them yet. It's weirdly unsettling. Koi and I were once talking about archives that seem to stand forever--Trekiverse, Gossamer among the oldest--and how they could vanish in a freaking *lightning storm*. Okay, yes, I know most servers are better protected than that, but still. EMP pulse. Yes, most are backed up in more than one place--I still have the entire XMMFF archive zipped into a corner of my harddrive. But go with it.

I have this entire depressingly nostalgic post stuck somewhere in my folders--I have a folder of posts I will never post, and considering you've seen what I'm willing to post publicly, that's really saying something--that's all about the vague sense of displacement at the realization that a part of my first fandom is completely inaccessible right now due to the loss of the people I first looked up to, waxed eloquent on feeling rootless, and possibly mourning how it's differnent than it was back in teh days of mailing lists.

I'm waiting on permission for one story still on another author, so I'll start with D'Alaire.

Recs

Irremission and Avalar by dalaire, Paris/Torres, multiple pov. The first one is written in a way that, if you've read my story Gladly Beyond, you'll say, Ah, this is where she got it. Yes, this is where I got it.

Irremission and Avalar are a Voyager AU, change point set pre-Voyager, rich use of original characters and some of the best world building ever.

D'alaire was the first Voyager novelist I read, the first I loved, the first I couldn't get out of my head. She was exactly what I wanted to be as a fannish author and she's stood the test of time that I can read her now and still love her fic. Extremely character-driven plot, and character-centric plot. Extremely, *extremely* detailed world building. But this isnt' her best work.

This is.

The Word Painter

Paris/Torres, AU, changepoint season two, 2.4 MB

It's long. This is a three or four day read. Well, I read it as it was being posted, but. Yeah. It's there in everything I rec, everything I read; everything I have ever loved in fic comes from here. All my taste was formed in this novel, what I ask of a good author, what I ask of a great author, what I expect of good worldbuilding, of a good AU. Every story I've read in seven years--seriously, it's July, I just finished my seventh year in fandom--is put up against this story as the example of how it's done. None have ever transcended it. samdonne is the first to equal it in sheer scope. It's amazing. For me--and I was just finishing my first year in fandom when I read it--it was the ultimat example of an author taking the source text and transcending it.

It's stuffed full of OCs that are fleshed out and utterly real. She built an entirely new *civilization*, complete with a complete *culture* and sent our characters in, and it's a mystery that isn't a mystery at all. It left me breathless and hurting and happy. And I read it so many times I have parts *memorized*. And I still love it to distraction. It's still my standard in worldbuilding, in OC creation, in culture building.

I am talking about this way too much. Yeah. I don't care. It's breathtaking and it's everything and it makes me feel like I'm in Voyager again the first year and reading this and thinking, this is what I've been waiting for. This is why I'm *in* fandom. This is why I'll stay. I want to read these, write these, *be like this*. Have a mind capable of creating something this utterly mindblowing. Hone myself until I'm capable of doing something close to this good.

I'm still getting there.