monday stuff

You know, Mondays after Thanksgiving are nice. I don't know whether it's the hypnotic power of turkey or the fact that I've eaten enough over the last four days to possibly kill a small island nation, but mmm. Copasetic.

Books - the Good

Because starting with bad hurt me, so I decided to change it.

Martha Wells

Entanglement by Martha Wells. Second of her SGA tie-ins and pretty much the only reason I bother with the tie-in novels. But yes. The characterizations are not only good but solid, the dialogue is not traumatizing, and there's a plot that not only makes sense but uses the characters well. And you know, John Sheppard. Awesome.

Quick link to Reliquary by Martha Wells for those who missed it the first time around. Because seriously, you shouldn't.

I keep thinking we need a--something for grouping reviews of tie-in novels. Hmm. Somewhere. for fanpeople. Even money someone is going to hit reply and tell me there is. *glee*

Books - The Bad

( so i don't have to remember when skimming flist by seeing this )

In closing: I really need to finish writing something. Or hell, start. I only have ten thousand WiPs. I should go look at them. And cry. Just a little. Wondering if I, too, had an issue creamy throats.

One day, when I'm very bored and possibly somewhat brain damaged, I really want ot try to write porn that doesn't once mention either genitalia even by inference, much less reference. Just to see.

recs of times before now

Because Austin is finally cold, and I'm in the mood for warm, warm fic. And cheerful fic! And fic that was generally posted fairly far back and so I feel it is my duty to make sure every new SGA Sheppard/McKay fangirl reads because wow. The awesome is legion.

Fic to Make You Smile

An Aesthetic, Solitary Thing by eliade - this was posted way back and I seriously don't think you can call yourself a Sheppard/McKay fangirl if you haven't read it. It's pon-farr! Alien!Rodney! Utterly gorgeous and hot and utterly beautiful the way only eliade can really be.

"You have a mating cycle," Elizabeth said, obviously wishing in a heartfelt way that he didn't. John was right there with her.

"I just said that I don't. Except...maybe." He seemed caught by the thought for the first time, interested. "Huh. That might explain the symptoms I've been having."

You've got to be kidding, John thought, fighting dismay. Beckett seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Elizabeth pressed him. "And what exactly does a mating cycle entail?"

He blinked at her. "I need to explain procreation?"

"In this instance? Yes."

I seriously cannot, cannot emphasize the awesome enough here.

A Blue True Dream of Sky by isilya - of all AUs, this one is one of my read-several-times-a-year, because it's just that damn good. It's an original take on the AU with a strong, original plotline and wonderfully realized characteriations. The story is set in the outback with cattle, a terrible disease, a researcher looking for a way to stop it, and a world so well-built I feel like I lived there. This isn't to be missed.

“I am not okay,” Rodney repeats, but he relaxes into Sheppard. Sheppard lets him lean there for a moment, which Rodney really appreciates; Sheppard is warm and strong and being inexplicably nice. Sheppard rubs his hands up and down Rodney’s arms, smoothing away the goose-bumps of Rodney’s chilled skin. Rodney heaves a couple of deep breaths, not failing to notice that Sheppard smells really good.

“Right,” Sheppard says, stepping back and touching the cut over Rodney’s eye gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Sheppard gets a flannel and a bucket of warm water. He wipes Rodney down slowly with careful strokes over all Rodney’s bruises. “Christ,” Sheppard says, “You really were almost killed, weren’t you.”

Rodney looks down to see that Sheppard has gone thin-lipped and frowning. Rodney shivers, and Sheppard eases down his shorts, and washes him so matter-of-factly that Rodney can’t even feel embarrassed. He sways forward into Sheppard and Sheppard rinses out the flannel and wipes his forehead. Rodney feels confused, and sore, and battered almost as badly by Sheppard’s soft touches as he felt by the stampeding cattle the night before. He says; “Quit being so nice, you’re making feel like I’m at my own funeral,” but he doesn’t quite hit the tone he was aiming for–it comes out all breathy and pleading.

That's not a quote from the plot; trust me in this, you will love it.

Existence as Interesting As Possible by wax_jism - I can say with honesty that anytime there is trapped on a dying planet that I usually expect a lot more trauma. And there is! But it is minor trauma. There is a dragon and a dying planet and some goat-like things, and Rodney, and John, and it's just--marvelous. Marvelous.

McKay shucked his BDUs and threw them over a branch. His boxers weren't anything funny like Sheppard had hoped. He would have bet money on McKay being the novelty underwear type. "Mutant deerskins, beard like a biker, living on mutant deer jerky and roots, back permanently bent from sitting hunched over that crystal... Is it cold? Piranhas? Embarrassing shrinkage?"

Sheppard stopped watching him undress and instead floated in the shallow water, staring straight up. Birds flew from treetop to treetop. Would there be alien squirrels in the trees?

Loud splashing and some undignified whooping announced McKay's arrival. "It's freezing, are you insane? I'm Canadian, I know freezing."

"You're a sad, pale, indoor Canadian, though," Sheppard said, turning his head to see McKay not far away, looking less disgruntled than he sounded. His arms were covered with goosebumps.

"It's not good to swim so soon after eating," McKay muttered.

"The water is three feet deep!"

"Sure, sure, we can risk our lives, I mean, what's the use of trying to be careful when the universe hates us? They all think we're dead, back on Atlantis. We're dead to them, we're lost in space. 'Oh, the Major and Doctor McKay, did you hear, so sad, eaten by a dragon. Now we must make do with Bates and Zelenka.' Good luck with that, by the way. They won't come looking for us. And if they did, what are the chances they'd look here? And if they did by some miracle look here, the rescue party would be stuck too. This planet is a galactic pitcher plant. Ergo, the universe hates us and wants us to die. I might as well swim now."

Jam Every Other Day by arionchan - two parts, linked. I'll quote my rec originally, because it kind of encapsulates my feelings on the story:

The author said Wonderlandish, and yes, surreal as hell, but it's so damn *good* and easy to follow and just--wow. I loved everything--the virtual environment, the ship, the way Rodney has to succeed and the way that he really needs to move on from that water related death thing--it just works in every way.

Pinched the bridge of its nose and actually, that is a familiar gesture and one he seems to provoke fairly often. Hell, sometimes he does it on purpose, just for the fun of it. "You're not immersed in a virtual environment. You're getting a direct feed of my system data which your brain is interpreting in whatever way is most intrinsic to you. And may I add that I hope you have some kind of psychological training, because that really helps when it comes to being an engineer on the good ship Protection. He, on the other hand, is essentially in here. With me. Which, actually, isn't the way the interfaces are supposed to work, and God only knows how he managed to do it. So what this means is that instead of having to just separate the virus from me and kill it, you now get the fun job of trying to separate it from both of us. And may I add that the odds the virus will still be trying to kill him, specifically, are very high? Or did you get that on your own, genius that you are?"

Okay, now. The formatting is not standard for reading, and it can and does get a little--*see-saws*. I just cut and paste to word and double lined everything to read it and that worked fine for me since I save fic I like anyway. Just--move beyond the formatting, find zen in how seriously cool this is, with a truly interesting plotline.

And...yeah. I am so avoiding work and I don't even care.

huh. so that was special. and mysterious!

Randomly.

Have you ever been reading along somewhere and someone you used to be friends with and thought was kind of sane sort of posts (non-fic type of post) in a way that makes you think they have fallen off the humanity truck and are tumbling down the hill of sociopathy toward the river of wish there could be a restraining order?

However, on the bright side, I got to use killfile for the first time and it was very exciting.

*clicks* I wish I could do it again.

Carry on.

think of it as a weird psa

So dramatic incident over the weekend. I'll link at the end of the post. I'm jumping straight to Saturday night.

Saturday, me and svmadelyn decided to do a dress rehearsal for the day we decide to break up dramatically. It was--intersting. After stripping each other of our communites, Madelyn hacked my lj (in that she has my password) and logged me out while changing my email. Sadly, I had just started changing her password when she changed hers and stopped me.

It was fun--but also chilling. The thing is, she has all my passwords, with the exception of two of my email and my webpage. While mulling creating a defensive sockpuppet (when she was trying to remember the password she gave my lj), it occurred to me--that was fucking scary. Mostly because I'm fairly sure that unless she told someone what she was doing, no one would figure it out unless she started posting fic, at which time probably a couple of people would mildly wonder about my sudden and inexplicable style change.

Granted, I trust Madelyn completely. (We also realized we co-run a disturbing number of communities.) Here's what gave me pause.

Egroups, yahoogroups, a creator in the end does have final say; yahoogroups doesn't really allow a coup (this could have changed since I was mod of wrbeta). Other mods can screw around, but they can't oust the creator and they can't throw them out. The creator can delete, can give the list to someone else, but there *is* a single authority, much like a ring if I were feeling pretentious, that rules them all.

Thing is, Livejournal doesn't have that kind of protection for the creator of the community. Some part of me knew that all along, but I was actually still shocked that it was possible; I'm not an active mod on a big community, so I don't come in daily or even weekly contact with many mod duties.

Here's why my Saturday was spent blinking slowly at lj in a kind of blank horror.

ckll and the dean_sam community coup - journalfen is being very robust, but just keep hitting refresh--totally worth it.

Short version: ckll gets thrown out of her own community. The full story on this is even better.

And believe it or not, this has happened before:

A Long Time Ago: Snarkstorm and the supernatural_tv coup

snarkstorm gets thrown out of her community, then banned. This one is a must-read. I also seriously have to admire marishna for posting all that.

Not my fandom, but if it hit me with a kind of shock that it was possible to steal communities--not to mention, hell, the latter of those two managed to keep it fairly under wraps--I wondered if anyone else would be surprised.

Read the caps in the last one as well. Fascinating reading.