a roundabout rec thing

We had this whole--*waves hands*--thing with requisitions and chairs and you know, hell at work. It's not often in my life that I am suddenly tempted to join the a convent, but if they can swear to me that requisitions aren't involved? I may be listening.

The first story of the Rabbit Fortress is complete. It took about a hundred of the cordy things for the base floor, which I'm thinking after The Great Snip Snip of 2006 (yes, I will refer to it as that; it still amuses me), I'll fill with pipes of various sizes hooked together to create a miniwarren for the Warren to crawl through. Thank you to the person who responded in my last post for the idea--I am inspired.

So what we have right now is twenty panels in a rough open box shape, opening down, one panel high, two panels wide, two panels deep. The entire open-one-side thing will epically not work, so open on short side off atrium that I went ahead and added. This will not be easy to remodel once it's done, so I want it to be easy to get inside to do the changes after all my boys have moved beyond the physical. They'll be like Ancients, in a way.

Okay, and suddenly, I have really scary thoughts about how the Ancients avoided worrying about bodily--things. Yeah. Let's not go there.

Anyway. The bottom layer is set and really quite large. Later, I'll add in a yard type to it for them to play in. It's goinng to take, at an estimate, probably about a thouand tie-things for this to work. But it looks like there will be plenty of running space, and I'll add in rabbit size lounging areas. This project is actually going to end up kind of scary, since I'm also planning for ways for them to climb upward and practice jumping more.

Fandom

Okay, because of the horror of requisitions failing again, I needed comfort fic. And lookie here, found some.

The Slow Braille of Touch by beadtific - this one just melted me into goo puddles. Like, good goo-puddles of happiness. Sweet without being at all syrupy, warm and hot and--well, wholesome, which sounds just weird of me, but I read it with this warm glow of happiness and hope and strategically placed yellow light feeling. It's a wonderful John, and God, I love this Rodney, and pretty much the glow place can be found here. Oh yes, comfort fic.

Less in the way of comfort fic, but equally good--wait. Did I ever tell you this story? Okay, when I was a kid, first grade, my school made me take an IQ test. Now I went to a normal public elementary school, nothign weird here, except possibly they put me in remedial reading. I'm not sure. This was twenty something years ago. This was remedial *something*. But anyway, there was some thought I was stupid, not merely completely unable to listen to more than three words of directions, since back then, they didn't diagnose ADHD at the drop of a hat.

Okay, this a long-winded way to start a rec for a story, but bear with me. In third grade, we had competitive timed math quizzes in addition and subtraction (yours truly kicked ass), and we had something called greater than/less than, with the > and <.

Okay, it looks easy, but it's totally not, because it took me three years to learn how to use those.

In fifth grade, long division kicked my ass. Kicked ass to teh point of almost failing math.

And in eleventh, I cried through my first three six weeks of geometry. I mean, my teacher curved my grade until we got to sin/cos/tan where I was happy, and part of it was the fact I was AP and Honors, and part of it was utter bewilderment because I was taking trig concurrently and I was getting As.

I won't even go into the horror of taking Precal in college, because me and my professor could not, for the life of us, figure out why I varied randomly on what I could understand instantly and what would never, ever click without an intervention and a grade curve for sheer effort.

There's a pattern with all of these things--they are things that no one has problems with when they listen to the directions. If you sit in class and not phase out, you'll probably get it right off the bat. Or in the case of fucking proving a fucking triangle--honestly, that was just unnatural and I don't care what anyone says. I copied the stuff blindly and believed what I was told with no understanding of what I was being told. And I have notebooks of this crap that I still can't understand at all and it kind of blows my mind, because this was the stuff that anyone could learn and I simply could not.

Almost there.

In geometry, I had to take a lot on faith. I couldn't understand it, so my teacher taught me to memorize it. And by memorize, I mean, go through teh book and learn *every variation* that might show up on a test so I could write down the answer. With no possible way for me to know I was right. I had to trust the book was right, my teacher was right, and my memory was that good.

Academic by miss_porcupine - it could be just me with flashbacks to geometry, but that hit me *hard* in the best possible way. He fucked with their understanding of the universe when he fucked up their math. That's so damn *cool*. I mean, that is totally me, sitting there in class, and my teacher just taught me that a triangle's sides do not equal 180. Well, okay, not quite? But damned close.

Sweet. I didn't even know I was waiting for this until it was here. Though I did amuse myself sometimes with thinking of an AU where teh Genii get away with Elizabeth and Rodney after The Eye/The Storm, and Rodney builds them all the nukes they want then sets them off while dashing madly for the gate while the Genii try to figure out how this entire nuclear thing works.

Also, it has this line.

"Torch this place," Sheppard ordered. "Nothing intact."

If God is kind, that line will appear in canon. And be followed by obedience and things blowing up. I'm hoping for a.) large things and b.) many of them.

I'll be having a quiet moment imagining it now. 'Scuse me.

Comments

[enname.livejournal.com]

Praise the Lord, someone else who has the same complete and utter incomprehension of geometry. I sailed happily through calc, through vectors, through linear equations and then we got to the 'choice' component of the course (the teacher's choice) which was geometry. Baaaad. My teacher didn't make me memorise it, but tried to explain it to me ... and well that messed up my entire maths mark.

Never helped that the rest of the class just took to it bloody ducks to water. *glare*

Ok, over it :P

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*grins* It's still my bitterest memory. Before that, I'd never failed to learn something *that* spectacularly. That blew my mind, literally. I would sit there in class just utterly floored this was happening to me.

God. I got through *matrices* and *differentiation* and was like the happiest clam ever during cal. But geometry haunts me. Like a big, haunting albatross of academic failure.

*still seethes*

*offers vodka for bitter memories*

[enname.livejournal.com]

I lied, it will haunt me forever.

*takes vodka and proceeds to gulp it*

I'm not a whiz at maths but I can generally intuit it well enough, and usually the more abstract it is the better I am at it. I liked matrices, adored cal and possibly even had a grudging like of statistics (Why didn't they just tell me there were formulas to begin with??) but geometry? No idea. None whatsoever. If it had been taught in Greek I would have fared better. Hell if it had been taught in semaphore it would have been clearer. That was the closest I have ever come to crying in class. Or flinging pencils at the teacher.

*proffers vodka back again*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

See, abstract I could do. Equations left out for solving? Good stuff. But try to make it practical--oh God, word problems. I mean, now I look back and think it's funny, but then I remember flinching--actually flinching at word problems. I couldn't--I mean, my mind refused to just go with it.

*clinks glass with you*

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Sepris, thanks so much. OOOh, and more recs of good stuff, too!

I had a Greek Geometry teacher who reminds me of a dark haired, rather smelly Zelenka. He'd curse in Greek when we were terribly terribly dense. And it was the ONE kind of math I actually ever got, so I have fond memories of that class. In sixth grade, I had a teacher that no one quite caught was senile and only taught us English for three months, so long division was a big scary thing for me, too, since I forgot how to do it. Algebra gave me hives. No lie.

And yet I married a math major who minored in Greek and does complex equasions in his head. I think we might be poster children for opposites attracting.

Also, when my Dad had a very bad week, he'd and say, "You wanna go to the movies?" And I'd say, "Whatcha wanna see, Daddy?" He'd get this slightly wild-eyed look and say fervently, "Something violent."

Explosions can be good for the soul.


(Oh, and did I mention? My dad was a minister. ;D)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Okay, that is so *cool*.

I mean, all of it. I'm kinda gaping at *all of it*. *hugs you* You rock. Seriously.

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

What if The Ancients were really rabbits?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

That would explain a terrible lot of things.

*stares into the distance* And yet....

[that_mireille]

I read "Academic" and was left completely uncomfortable and unsettled, for *exactly* the reason you point out. (It's good. I'm not complaining about it.) I *am* math. I mean, seriously, 3/4 of my non-fannish conversations involve either math or mathematics teaching. (The other 1/4 involve things like whose turn it is to do the grocery shopping.) I am (eventually) going to be a math teacher.

And the idea that Rodney went in there and *fucked with their math* just scares the hell out of me, because he could *do* it.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* They wouldn't know how to figure out he was telling them wrong. He's coming in as an authority figure in this, and they set themselves to believe him, and my *God*, can you *see* what they'll start wrecking? It's worse than even that--unlearning it when they *do* figure it out will be a nightmare--they won't even know where to start.

That was just amazing. I read it over and over just for that ruthlessness, as dangerous and destructive as a gun in the long term. This is one storyline SGA simply could *not* have in an episode, and it's so *good* and so *obvious* and the worst thing he could do to them. God. Love that.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

I mean, that is totally me, sitting there in class, and my teacher just taught me that a triangle's sides do not equal 180.
For a moment, I thought that was actually something true yet advanced that I hadn't learnt yet, and I freaked the fuck out. Heh. Geometry and me, we were happy to wave goodbye to each other.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Breathe. God, I hope they haven't changed that. Wait. Did they change that?

*starts biting nails* They *could* you know.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

No. *firm* Triangle/180 degrees OTP!

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

I've read them both. Academic leads me to believe they're both such utter bastards in so many ways. Rodney would do something like that if pushed to the limit. He's not a combat monkey, but he's so much more dangerous than that. John's dangerous in a different way but that line you pointed out. And i still love them to bits.

It could be canon, i hope it will be too. He's got the depths to do something like that if Rodney is threatened again. That's not just fanon influence, it's what's shown so readily in the show too. *wibbles and waits for season 3 to start, dammit*

I have a horrible bastard complex, i really do. Anti heroes(and the occaisional villian)make me drool...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I totally see them doing this. Rodney would barely need a push--he's a soldier by now whether he thinks he is or not. It's--yeah. Amazing.

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

I love "Academic", the first time I read it I just thought it really stood out. It's always nice when the writers remember that Rodney is not just super smart, but has some common sense, too (hell, more common sense than a lot of people considering he's rightfully freaked out about things).

You guys had remedial math in a public elementary school? That's mean. Of course, we started division in third grade and I had come over from a parochial school where we hadn't learned multiplication yet, so I would have probably been in it...and never realized my love for algebra in fifth. Also, geometry? Sucks. I feel for you because I had such problems with that.

Was the IQ test for a gifted program? Because they tested all of us and if you had over...130?...you got into the "smart kids" track. (special fieldtrips, taken out of class for a gifted class, that sort of thing)

And, after that long comment, I'll say that I'm definitely checking out the other fic, you usually make awesome recs ^.^

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was a test for a program that at the time did not exist. From the vague things that happened afterward--I went to a very small school, so k-12 was all on the same campus--they possibly used the percentage of kids who tested high to justfiy the GT program that was implemented when I was in fourth grade. Good times. Very good times. I just remember the anthropology project best--oh, and the Tudor model house builing.

Big fun.

[zoerayne]

I want you to know that it is all your fault that I dreamed about rabbit condos last night. I was, apparently, helping you put the rabbit condo up; my job was to make curtains and furniture for the rabbits (which, oddly, were actually cats). They kept escaping, and we couldn't figure out how, because the whole thing was securely shut.

You have invaded my dreams. O.O

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*smirks*

[clairshadows.livejournal.com]

My memories of maths are something akin to mapping a room full of glass blindfolded and on my hands and knees. For a brief shining moment everything would make sense and be so incredibly easy and then something would shift and the last page of equations would be wrong, wrong, wrong and I just wouldn't be able to see *why*.

Geometry I actually did alright at because I could see the shapes and have at least a vague idea of how much space they should take up, the same with calculus, but logs and minusing negatives and equations were hell. Give me words any day.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Heee! Yes. Exactly so.

[ashteth.livejournal.com]

*adds own math horror story to the pot*

i'm dyscalculic but i have a sciencey type brain, which mean i LOVES THE MATH except for the bits of it that involve, y'know, numbers. Yep, give me algebra and i can ace it, give me simple equations and i have to take my shoes and socks off.

Math = A Harsh Mistress.


But you = the best recs!

i mean: not two paragraphs into 'Academic' and there's already a reference to the bestest, most famous play to come out of my home city! *Salfordian!Love*

Then, the most synapse-tingling, tendon-snapping, out-an-out HOTTEST piece of arm stroking ever!

i find my porn in odd, not usually porny places. And you so enable me. thank you

The Slow Braille Of Touch

[slashpuppy.livejournal.com]

Help! I *cannot* find 'The Slow Braille Of Touch' and I've done a fair bit of looking. Please, please, tell me where this story actually lives or send me a copy if you have it? Pleaseeeee? :-)

acelly31@aol.com

Re: The Slow Braille Of Touch

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Breathe! She changed lj names.

http://beadattitude.livejournal.com/174585.html

Re: The Slow Braille Of Touch

[slashpuppy.livejournal.com]

I find that a hint of anoxia gets quick results! :-)

Thank you for providing a link to this story so quickly!

And what a lovely little story it was ...