If we haven't linked to your post, it's because there wasn't enough information in the header for us to spot it or make a link. Particularly for fanfiction, we need a title and pairing at least. Anything else is a bonus – spoilers and ratings especially. Please leave a comment if you think we should have linked to something, and we'll add it or pick it up for the next newsletter. However, the newsletters will not be edited to include any changes to your post that happen more than a week after we've posted the newsletter.


Discussion and Miscellany
pari_nicole79 posts a pic from Kirsten's twitter


Fanfiction
Gen
The Death of Spencer Reid by amichevole [PG-13]

Slash
Live and Die This Way [11/13] by just_jasper [FRM; Morgan/Reid]

Het
Something She Knows by savant [FRM; Rossi/Prentiss]
Who Gets the Friends? by mcgarrygirl78 [teen; Anderson/Gina]
Stay the Night by mcgarrygirl78 [teen; Rossi/Strauss]
Make Us Throw off Our Contentment and Beg for Something More by mcgarrygirl78 [teen; Prentiss/OMC]


Fanfic Searches:
MelanieNighting is looking for Reid PTSD stories, stories where Reid is good at sports and one specific model!Reid story
snuswoman is looking for Rossi/Reid D/s stories (top!Rossi preferred)
bubblesuds is looking for Reid het stories (Reid/JJ preferred)


Birthdays
No birthdays for this edition! Don't forget to comment here if you would like us to add you to the birthday list.

Yep. Still spinning this faux cashmere. But I MIGHT finish the singles this coming up week. If I do nothing but spin. Heh. This yarn is thiiiiin.

My mom’s birthday is coming up and I told her I want to knit her something for it. What did she want? She immediately said, “I want a hat like yours.” I got to see her during the Dark Days tour in Austin and she DID seem jealous of my hat. So I said I’d make her one. (The pattern is Spring Beret. Rav link.)

Here it is finished, but unblocked.

I used handspun merino wool in a colorway called “Stardust.” Neither of these pictures are accurate, but the second is a little closer.

Here is the hat blocking on a plate and posing with Bob the Spinning Wheel. The lace stretches out a lot!

Since I have a little time before I visit her, I might knit something else for her out of the rest of Stardust. Hmmm.

Originally published at Jodi Meadows. You can comment here or there.

The brief but glorious summer continues. I read part of a book on the not-so-busy north strand and swam when the tide was high on the crowded harbour beach. Waves too high and wild to properly swim, but the water warmer (to perception) even than yesterday, almost temperate. Some Polish lads were peeling pink, and some black lads teased me in a friendly manner about going for a dip, and dozens of skinny Irish children screamed in the shallows and jumped into breaking surf.

But soon the summer will disappear, and we will wonder, "Was it all a dream?" "Does the sun even exist?" "Perhaps it was a hallucination brought on by chemicals in the rain." But by the Peeling Tomato shade of healing sunburn, we shall know it was true, and that once, once, the sun appeared in glory.

And the memory of light will endure behind the clouds of another year. *strikes a grand and tragic pose*

Therefore let us continue on towards suppertime. And have cake and grapes, because it is summer.

This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479831.html. There are comments there. Comment where you like.

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the name change question. I'm afraid some of you will be disappointed, though. I can't let Varis and Vargas appear multiple times on the same page (much as I couldn't handle Kieran and Kiril), but there will not be any cute in-text reasons for this. (Okay, I say that now, but I may think of one later.) I just have to change it. The first reader who actually notices will get a cookie.

The true lesson to be learned from this is: there's no such thing as a throwaway name. At least if one is writing a series, anyway. One never knows when Random Character Bob will show up again, and when he does, you may regret naming him Bob.

In other news, Agent F just passed out while watching Animal Planet an hour before her bedtime. This is an unlooked for windfall of writing time, if I can manage not to pass out.

"The Lady Falls" by and-dark-skies
PAIRING: gen, with hints of het
RATING: FRT
SUMMARY: Based upon prompt Family.

Has just been added to Criminal Minds fan ficiton and is listed on the new stories page and the gen stories page.

Crossposted to chancesarchive.

Books 2012: 83-84


83. M.K. Hobson, The Native Star. (Spectra, 2010.)

I believe it was anne who described this as a slight book. I have to agree: there is little here of substance, and ultimately failed to portray its world or characters in convincing depth. Afficionados of late-19th-century fantasy Americana may be entertained by this fish-out-of-water quest-cum-love story, but it has little to say for itself that has not been said better elsewhere.


84. Ian McDonald, King of Morning, Queen of Day. (Bantam, 1992.)

An astonishing and accomplished novel, if stylistically difficult and, conceptually, very much working in a postmodernist vein. (I hate postmodernism as found in literature, normally. This? This is very much an exception.) It is also a deeply Irish book. And it treats the fantastic in an oddly slipstream/cyberpunkish/sfnal fashion. Although, hmm. I do not feel that the ending was earned.

I mean, I still have no plans to read Brasyl or River of Gods or the like. But this is a damned interesting book.

---

I am tired and sour and hate the world. I wonder why? Oh, right. I have work to do, and cannot conceive of how to start. (And fretting about finances and other things I cannot change is very wearing. I must wait until August to know if I have achieved funding, and backup plans cannot be set out upon without more knowledge of what shall come to pass at that time. Sigh.)

This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479699.html. There are comments there. Comment where you like.

Title: Practical Applications of Continuous Eye Contact
Author: blithers
Fandom: Community, Doctor Who
Pairing/Character: Ensemble, The Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Word Count: 447
Disclaimer: Two times not mine.
Author's Note: This story is intended to be a short missing scene from my story Tea Time and Time Lords, where the study group travels with the Doctor as companions. This should be standalone, however, so no need to read the other story unless you feel like it. Written for the Milady/Milord fic battle for eleventhimpala's prompt: "Jeff, Annie and The Doctor encounter the Weeping Angels."
Summary: The study group meets the Weeping Angels.

( here )

So iTunes just cued up Mystic Lipstick (Celtic Tenors cover), a folk song written in 1989 by Jimmy McCarthy. (McCarthy wrote a number of Christy Moore's folk hits.) And it seems strangely appropriate, because I've just finished watching an episode from the fourth series of Waking the Dead that featured Irish nationalism and British politics, and I have been having thinky thoughts about Romanticism rolling around in my head since I got back from Greece.

Greece has been terribly romanticised in its turn, of course. Leaving aside its mythological status as the Cradle of European Civilisation (a construct of the European Renaissance), the 18th century saw it constructed as a Romantic destination on the Grand Tour (et in Arcadia ego), a construct which bore little relationship to reality. The 19th century and the Greek war of independence saw the construction of a (self-built, internally contradictory) national mythology, and its growth as an Interesting Place for international Classically-interested archaeologists... well, let's just say that from a certain point of view the likes of Schliemann on the mainland and Evans in Crete contributed to the erection of Whole New Interesting Mythologies.

And now the stories northern Europe tells about Greece have to do with laziness and profligacy, and you know what? No more true than ROMANCE. Fuck off, ECB in Frankfurt. Look at some context.

Ireland did not, of course, see itself lionised and mythologised during the European Renaissance - quite the opposite, since the 16th century saw it viewed as a land of barbarians ripe for colonisation and the 17th century witnessed the repurposing of martyr and atrocity stories from the Thirty Years War to give voice to the anxieties and stife arising from the Rebellion of 1642 and the English Civil War - but the 18th century saw the beginnings of an interest in Irish antiquarianism and the start of a "national" impetus towards myth-making and - as the 19th century began - lionising the Catholic Emancipation movement in messianic and nationalistic terms. Nationalism and tenants' rights are the two major themes of Ireland's politics in the 19th century, and though the lack of a Home Rule victory until the 20th century prevented the canonisation of an officially-sanctioned nationalist mythology until much later, the pantheon contains numerous unofficial and contradictory saints. Complicating matters for Ireland is that its Protestant and Anglo heritage is much less easy to disavow than the Turkish heritage of Greece. If it is to be disavowed, it must be done in subtle terms, acknowledging Exceptional Anglo-Irishmen, casting the others as West Brits, betrayers of nationalism and the Historical Imperative of Irish Nationhood.

Then you have the Romantic Irish movement at the end of the 19th century, existing alongside Gaelic revivalism and the growing European antiquarian interest not only in "Celtic" cultures, but in magic and mysticism. No overview of Irish Romanticism is complete without an understanding of how the likes of Yeats and the rest of the Celtic Twilight literati partook of an international intellectual/literary atmosphere that included members of the Theosophical Society and the Order of the Golden Dawn. (And if anyone can point me to a solid and readable academic study that discusses this, I'd be grateful - I used to have a handful of references, but that was when I was still in school.) Lady Gregory was connected with figures from this milieu, and Yeats himself was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. A misty mysticism pervades much of Yeats' writing. He positioned himself as a "national poet" of the new Ireland, even after independence, and as many of the other literary figures who entered the national pantheon (Pearse, for example) not only died in the Rising or in the War of Independence/Civil War years, but had a vested interest in portraying their relationship to Irish Nationhood in mystical, quasi-religious, at times messianic terms (it is easier to get people to die if you position dying as a salvific act), misty mysticism pervades Irish literature of the late 19th and early 20th century.

It is an obscurantist haze layered over a complicated reality. What makes it worse is that misty mysticism - or at least its salvific/messianic nationalist offshoots - remain common currency in certain puddles of political rhetoric, and enjoyed a much wider currency than they do now within my own lifetime. (See Northern Ireland, pre-Peace Process.)

And both the misty mysticism and the complicated historical reality inform present national politics. But because our national myths (our dialectics, even!) rely all too much on the Romantic Mirage (and its obverse, the Lazy Irish Savage: hello, ECB! Our financial woes are actually mostly your fault, since you helped provide the credit - and then mandated the socialisation of debt - that got us to this point!), it is nearly impossible to even construct an argument about history today without engaging the Mirage. (The Mirage is politically useful, in that it elides discussion of class and the historical benefits conferred thereby: many of the present prominent political figures of the Republic have several generations of political connections, and those that do not generally come from publican or professional backgrounds.)

It's impossible to ignore it, you know. It just sits there, even if you never mention it, pulling the conversation askew with all the gravity of a soul-sucking black hole.

I say this, because I am contemplating opening Kevin Hearne's Tricked, which based on previous track record, will be an entertaining pseudo-Celtic mixed mythological romp set somewhere in the continental United States. While at the same time I am still reading Ian McDonald's King of Morning, Queen of Day - which at least in its first part, juxtaposes the weird and Romantic with the utterly mundane and is the better book for it. The more painful: but McDonald understands that the layers of the rotten onion (the Matryoska dolls of Irish mythology, each one stranger than the next) have a kind of recursive complexity impossible to reduce to linear clarity. The only possible shape is the spiral. Not the line, not the circle, but a twisted helix bending around an indefinable centre.

My analogy runs away from me. Still.

*rambles along, ramblingly*

This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479383.html. There are comments there. Comment where you like.

I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)

If we haven't linked to your post, it's because there wasn't enough information in the header for us to spot it or make a link. Particularly for fanfiction, we need a title and pairing at least. Anything else is a bonus – spoilers and ratings especially. Please leave a comment if you think we should have linked to something, and we'll add it or pick it up for the next newsletter. However, the newsletters will not be edited to include any changes to your post that happen more than a week after we've posted the newsletter.

Off-LJ Links
cmroundtable posts:
- Joe Mantegna to co-host the Memorial day concert
- First peek at Shemar Moore's new movie poster 'Relentless'

Challenges and Communities
cm_bigbang posts Schedule Reminders & Writer-Artist Matches

Discussion and Miscellany
lumiere42 reviews Hit/Run [S7 Finale Spoilers]

Fanfiction
Slash
Live and Die This Way (10/13) by just_jasper [Morgan/Reid, JJ; FRM]
Come Daylight (Part 16) by just_jasper [Morgan/Reid, Others; FRT]
Notation by amy494walker [Hotch/Reid, Jack; FRC]

Femslash
Waiting for the Storm to Break (Part 5) by tamoline [Crossover: CM/X-Men; Prentiss/Emma Frost; FRAO]
City on the River (Part 20) by nike_ravus [Crossover: CM/X-Men; FRT]

Het
The Other Wedding date by mcgarrygirl78 [Anderson/Gina; FRT; S7 Finale Spoilers]
What Kinf of Day has it Been? by mcgarrygirl78 [Hotch/Beth; FRT; S7 Finale Spoilers]
20 Moments Of Emily Prentiss' Life by ansera [Emily/Doyle, Hotch/Haley; FRM]
Threesome by mcgarrygirl78 [Rossi/Strauss, Hotch, Morgan; FRT; S7 Finale Spoilers]

Gen
The List (Part 14) & (Part 15) by ardatli [Crossover: CM/QaF; Team, Brian/Justin; FRM]

Other
Why Won't You? by freakingdork [Morgan/Reid, Prentiss/Rossi; FRM]

Icons & Graphics
luscious_words posts some Penelope 3.09 icons
maskerad posts some Criminal Minds icons [S7 Finale Spoilers]
ms_lesly posts some Criminal Minds icons & graphics

Birthdays
A happy birthday to madlori! ♥

Thucydides, Book 2, Chapter 3.

Section 1:

οἱ δὲ Πλαταιῆς ὡς ᾔσθοντο ἔνδον τε ὄντας τοὺς Θηβαίους καὶ ἐξαπιναίως κατειλημμένην τὴν πόλιν, καταδείσαντες καὶ νομίσαντες πολλῷ πλείους ἐσεληλυθέναι （οὐ γὰρ ἑώρων ἐν τῇ νυκτί） πρὸς ξύμβασιν ἐχώρησαν καὶ τοὺς λόγους δεξάμενοι ἡσύχαζον, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐπειδὴ ἐς οὐδένα οὐδὲν ἐνεωτέριζον.

The men of Plataia apprehended thus that the Thebans were within and [apprehended that the Thebans] had unexpectedly seized the town, and fearing greatly and thinking that many more had entered (for they did not see in the night), they advanced to come to terms, and accepting the terms, they kept still did nothing, especially since they [ie, the Thebans] offered no violence to anyone.


Section 2:

πράσσοντες δέ πως ταῦτα κατενόησαν οὐ πολλοὺς τοὺς Θηβαίους ὄντας καὶ ἐνόμισαν ἐπιθέμενοι ῥᾳδίως κρατήσειν: τῷ γὰρ πλήθει τῶν Πλαταιῶν οὐ βουλομένῳ ἦν τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἀφίστασθαι.

But negotiating these matters, they perceived that there were not many of the Thebans and they thought - by making the attempt - to easily prevail over [the Thebans], for the throng of the Plataians were not wanting to desert the men of Athens.


Section 3:

ἐδόκει οὖν ἐπιχειρητέα εἶναι, καὶ ξυνελέγοντο διορύσσοντες τοὺς κοινοὺς τοίχους παρ᾽ ἀλλήλους, ὅπως μὴ διὰ τῶν ὁδῶν φανεροὶ ὦσιν ἰόντες, ἁμάξας τε ἄνευ τῶν ὑποζυγίων ἐς τὰς ὁδοὺς καθίστασαν, ἵνα ἀντὶ τείχους ᾖ, καὶ τἆλλα ἐξήρτυον ᾗ ἕκαστον ἐφαίνετο πρὸς τὰ παρόντα ξύμφορον ἔσεσθαι.

Therefore it seemed to them to be [the case that] they had to attack, and they rallied alongside each other by digging through the common walls, so that they would not be seen going through the streets, and they stood wagons without yokebeasts in the streets, so that they would be in place of walls to form barricades, and made ready the other things as it appeared appropriate for the things about to happen their preparations.


Section 4:

ἐπεὶ δὲ ὡς ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἑτοῖμα ἦν, φυλάξαντες ἔτι νύκτα καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ περίορθρον ἐχώρουν ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς, ὅπως μὴ κατὰ φῶς θαρσαλεωτέροις οὖσι προσφέροιντο καὶ σφίσιν ἐκ τοῦ ἴσου γίγνωνται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν νυκτὶ φοβερώτεροι ὄντες ἥσσους ὦσι τῆς σφετέρας ἐμπειρίας τῆς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν. προσέβαλόν τε εὐθὺς καὶ ἐς χεῖρας ᾖσαν κατὰ τάχος.

After all in their power had been prepared, they kept watch while [it was] still night, and towards the beginning of the same dawn they advanced from the houses upon them [the Thebans], so that they would not lay hands upon be fighting [men] who would be better prepared after daybreak and would be engaged on an equal basis with the other men the enemy, but since in the night they'd be more fearful, [the enemy] would be weaker than their own men who had experience with the city. And so straight away they made their assault and went to hand[-to-hand] as quickly as possible.

This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479171.html. There are comments there. Comment where you like.

(banner by nvrbnkisst)

BRAINSTORMING POST

Hey, everyone! We would love to have summer activities again this year (maybe it will help brighten the dark cloud hanging over fandom right now, who knows?). But we want your input on what might make it better/more fun/easier to participate.

For now, we will definitely include:

• One to Three Fic Battles (thanks, milady_milord for letting us borrow the idea)


• Season 3 Episode and Scene competitions

In the past, we've also done weekly prompt posts, episode rewatches, media sharing, statistics recaps, interview roundups, countdowns, etc., but I don't want to assume anyone's interest in or commitment to these events.

Please comment below if you have ideas for any of these things:

• Weekly/Monthly Themes


• Events (weekly, monthly, once)


• Ways to attract more interest


• Things to improve


• Willingness to help out!

Anonymous comments are enabled. If any are screened, I will do my best to unscreen them ASAP.

Yearly rebaptism by ice and salt accomplished. The sea high, rolling moderately-sized breakers up onto the sand in the tiny bay between the headland and the harbour. A current dragging southeast along the shoreline, the water so murky you cannot see your feet. The smell of weed, the waft of old fish from the harbour, the rattle of a train coming into the station over the viaduct. The cringing moment before jumping headlong into a wave and the shock of cold as it breaks over your head.

More people on the beach than usual. Often it's all but deserted bar dog-walkers. Today Loreto girls (I was ever that young?) getting their too-long skirts wet in the surf, Polish families, a handful of Igbo women in flower-printed wraps, Irish people turning the traditional summer shade of Peeling Tomato: I left my kit beside a trio of young sunbathing possibly-Albanians (I am good with identifying foreign language groups but not that confident) and splashed off into the water for twenty minutes (roughly). I am all tingly and sleepy now, and decided to skip on going to town in favour of being a coffee shop yuppie - spending money I don't have in order to see if I can get more work done. Where work = writing a funding report in order to get a pathetically tiny amount of money. Still. Money.

Here's hoping this brief summer lasts a little longer.

This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/478752.html. There are comments there. Comment where you like.

Þæt, as they say, wæs god concert. We had great seats, the pyrotechnics were gorgeous--and hot*--and the set list was very nice, even if I would rather have heard "Rosenrot" than "Bück Dich." We had to miss the last encore to get home to the babysitter--the opening whistle of "Engel" chased us into the parking lot, and I'm not sure what they played next. I got to see "Haifisch," though, which I love unreasonably.

They played "Ohne Dich" and it was quite nice, but I'm afraid Laibach did to that song what Johnny Cash did to "Hurt." They'll never top that cover.

That's another concert off my life list. Having seen Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde, and given up on Siouxsie or the Creatures, the list is getting short. It would be nice to see Laibach. The rest would need a time machine.



* Not unlike many members of the band.**

** But Till, honey, the reason you can't get laid in Germany is because German women understand your lyrics.

Thanks to Yvette Nicole Brown:

( Read more... )

Right after I realise that I have a story, and enough grip on it that I can write it, I start working out how to write it. Who tells it? How do they tell it? What structure does it create to hang itself around? Because you can tell different stories from the same events by telling them in different forms. The story will adapt to the structure (unless you force it not to and then bad things will happen and changes will have to be made). The structure gets tailored to the story. This way you emphasise the narrative elements, that way you emphasise the themes (put simply and so in a way that doesn;t mean exactly what you're trying to explain)

Guilty is one of those bastards that wants -- needs it's complications. I think it's like TDBRAW and wants either a twinned spiral or a full double helix. The narrator -- who tells the bits that are better off told, spacing the live-action sequences. Maybe. The piece where Jenny opens their eyes could be tell but it could equally be show (urinals, vomit, weeping and all -- it came to me shown after all). The nightmare memories of the bad places the band have gone might be best at arm's length and told than shown in technicolour (because I get to see them that way but sometimes it's good to let the audience look away). And there needs to be a pattern to folding the story, because I don;t think starting from the beginning and going on to the end -- the simplest way -- can work with the story as the story wants to be. The simple story would be 'hey guys, we gotta kill these faeries' -- and not a lot of people would get the stuff about balances and think it'd be better to watch them kill right after that intro piece of narration, or maybe before it. Could be it's actually Bone Idol... with a frame of show-now, a thread of tell, and a middle of show-then. (at which point readers rebel because working shit out makes the brain tired -- simple stories in simple structures with some gold paint and carved finials will do them nicely).

At least I'm getting a faux happy ending. The Jenny doesn't get to die.

[Yes, still kind of seething with resentment -- but there are some bits I kind of like: "How did you open their eyes?" "Optrex" and "I had to keep bullshitting rational explanations for the others, but you believed in faeries." And I do love the bullshitting scientific explanations :) ]