Variations on the same theme

Yesterday I decided to remember that I paid for a cinema card for a reason and went and caught two movies. Opted for a comic book adaptation night.

Wanted: nowhere near as bad as Jumper, which a friend had likened it to. For one thing, the script's structure is much better and there are no such huge gaping loose ends. For another, Jamie totally pulls his weight. And I'd forgotten Thomas Krestchmann (sp?) was in it! And Marc bloody Warren, although it wouldn't have hurt if they'd actually given him, you know, a part. There's no point hiring Marc Warren if you don't want him to act. (Though he kept making me want to pause the movie to screencap and later make icons of. Kinda sad.) Anyway, the movie was still half ridiculous, and completely predictable, but enjoyable all the same. I kind of want to read the comics now.

Hulk: oh, god, that movie was boring. Liv Tyler annoyed me, Edward Norton was good but not compelling, and after a promising start Tim Roth's character became a caricature. I liked Betty's shrink boyfriend, though. The guy you saw for one and a half scene, yes. The normal guy. The last scene had more wit in it than the rest of the frakking movie. ("You should talk." "And you should listen." *glees*)

Has anyone seen Surveillance? It looks promising. However, the trailer to the Bank Job sort of put me off the movie. Apart from how it made me realise Stephen Campbell Moore was in it woot!

I want to write Iron Man fic, but I really don't know the fandom well enough. Le sigh. People, suggest Iron Man crossovers for me to drabble about. I might manage that much.

Speaking of which, I don't think I ever recced the best Iron Man/Firefly crossover ever: Advances in Thermodynamics by sotto_voice. Go read. And marvel at how well she captured all their voices. Special love to Tony and Rhodey.

For Fred anybody that likes the Authority, go read this amazing fic, now. It's nothing surprising, but the Midnighter voice is so amazing. That guy is so much darker than I could ever write him.

Examples, not PC, and probably rated something, if only for language.

For starters, I’m not a tough guy, I’m a bastard. Sure, the opposition are bastards, but who bastards the bastards, to quote a little Latin.

Or:

That could only happen to me, or possibly any other poor fuck who got the Henry Bendix mindwipe treatment, with a spa massage and battle computer thrown in as handy extras.

Or:

How can I think with this going in my head, I think I’ve almost got a whole belfry of campanologists (I half remember a very good education, or at least the sense of one) in there, ringing away.

Or this piece of genius:

I want to bash their freaking teeth in, and rip their dicks off, and stuff them in their mouths. I’m not sure where to stuff the teeth yet. But I’ll think of somewhere. I let the computer run that scenario, keep me nice and happy, and talk to her like the nice retired civil servant I am, while my fists are covered in his blood, and I break his nose for the sixth time, and kick him so hard in the crotch that his balls come out his ears. She talks about her kids, and I talk about my little girl, as we sit on the coffee table and wait for the cops.

*is in awe*

Okay, I'm officially flooding your flists now. But I have to share this fic. The Operative meets Jubal Early. One of the best takes I've read on post-Serenity Operative, who we know how much I care about. So go on, it's short and it's excellent. Go read it, and... skip the summary and warnings. Because they'd give you the wrong idea about this fic, and that'd be a shame.

I don't do recs very often, but...

First off, Something Like Moebius, by doyle_sb4, which is what I got for the Jark Harkness ficathon. And people, look out, because it is good. It's with Jack as a kid, and he's spot-on. And... just go read it already, will ya? Trust me on this one. It's not too long (but not too short either, perfect length), and it's packed full with DW goodness.

And then, this ficlet by gabby_silang. ( Spoilers for Serenity! Watch out! )

I've been unable to produce anything this weekend. I was so enthusiastic about writing something, and it just would not come. Not anything. So I reworked Tapping (no, I'm not giving up on it, but I am however going to make some radical changes to make certain Willow is as far from Sue as possible, and get a better sort of plot overall) and started rereading cgwriting's very good Without. I'm enjoying it even more than I did previously, and it's good to get a Haldir fix now and then. Cinnie, it's been a while since I last told you: you rock, honey. Your writing is so very enjoyable, and such a welcome relief from the mass of insipid fanfiction one can find out there. Thank you for sharing all your stories with us.

So, if I did not spend it writing, what did I do with my weekend? Julia and I went downtown on Saturday to buy Leticia's birthday gifts (Lety is the Spanish assistant here), and I bought lots of clothes in TK Max (sp?). Which is bad, but feels so very good. On Sunday the boys cooked us an absolutely wonderful meal, with duck and oven potatoes, and we opened my last bottle of red wine. A true Sunday lunch. (Feel free to imagine the goofy smile on my face.)

By the way, my co-Serenity-attendants, I had - is it Sean? - on the phone, and it turned out they had lost all my details. So I gave them again and he said the tickets would be mailed to me first thing today, and he apologised for it all. The point is: the tickets are on their way. And Fred? I can't wait for CoRo!

Now if only my muses would come back from wherever they spent the weekend...

Wanted to pimp a certain fic here and the last chapter I read left me absolutely no choice. It's an Inuyasha fic - no, guys, I don't know the first thing about Inuyasha either, but let me tell you, this goes beyond usual fanfiction. This is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read of late. It's called One Less Star, and it's by cgwriting. It's absolutely excellent. Right now, I lack the words, because the chapter in question left me in an odd state of angst-filled apathy, or something. It gave me the same feelings I got several times while reading The Fionavar Tapestry by Kay, and some of you know how much I adore those books, one of the main reasons being because of scenes that gave me such feelings. I don't know if I'm making myself clear.

Let's use an analogy most of you will get. Remember Hero, the S1 AtS episode where Doyle died? That's pretty much it. Except that I get pulled in and emotionally involved much more easily on TV, and you've got to work much harder to get me involved in a written work. This here was somehow more subtle than Hero was.

But it's not just that that makes the quality of OLS. That was just the last scene I read. The whole of it is excellent, truly so, because such scenes can only work well and evoke such feelings when what surrounds them is of equal quality. Right now I'm just a bit shaken by it. Since I don't have greenie_breizh to cuddle up to (but will this weekend), nor any Ben & Jerry's handy, I think I'll go get myself some Nutella. I wanted to keep reading OLS, but I need a break to take all of this in.

Sis and I will actually be going downtown to try and find a birthday gift for our mum, after my Nutella break. Wish us luck. She's hard to buy presents for.

Go there: http://www.herr-der-ringe-film.de/v2/de/news/news-detail_1030.php
December. We have to wait until December? That hint of a scene between Pip and Faramir was the absolute tease! And on a very superficial note, I much like Dom's look in the interview. Am steadily preparing myself to the fact that RotK EE will still not be even close to a film I could have genuinely embraced and adored, so with a bit of luck by then I will actually enjoy it a whole deal more than the threatrical version.

Who am I kidding? I will completely enjoy it more than that!

Also, I went through quite a bit of AKT fanfiction - all of it slash. Most of it crap. Let me not put up links, but *oh* *my* *joss*, I couldn't even go through most of them. There was one, however, that caught my attention, exactly the atmosphere I was thinking of for my not-yet-written Chaucer piece, plus a delightful use of a second person narrator (which some people know how much I adore). Listen is short but powerful, a delightful piece of fiction that will take five minutes of your time to read, and hopefully pull at your heartstrings for the sheer emotion of it. How I adore Chaucer.

Well. Off to call the Consulate. Cross fingers, people.

( LJ-related meme )

And this is gakked from twixou:

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

Looks like I'm not as crazy as you could think. Yay!


That being said, we watched If these walls could talk 2 last night and boy, okay, Chloe Sevigny does have something in that movie. She has the same kind of energy as Stuart in QaF UK - so very sexual. Can now understand greenie_breizh's obsession with her.
We also watched Snatch again - kudos to Brad Pitt, really, he does an amazing job in that movie. Love all the accents, too, and Jason Statham rocks. Big time. This movie is such a good piece of fun.
Which Dogville was not. It didn't get to me as much as Dancer in the Dark had, but still. The directing was really fascinating, and the acting... Joss, the acting. It was so very good. Entrancing. Revived my Paul Bettany loving, too - I wanna see Master & Commander again, now - despite the disappointment in Billy-sightage.

Which makes me think, I crossed a new line. And it's all khylarenelf's fault! I was rather angsty the other day, and she'd posted some fic recs, and one of them she said she read to cheer herself up, Billy's Best series by Lemur. So yes, people, I have read my first RPS fic... and I enjoyed it! Tremendously so, in fact. This series is so incredibly well-written and realistic, it's not just the guys jumping on each other and shagging like bunnies right away. You see the slow process they have to go through, questioning their sexuality, acknowledging the attraction, etc. It's just... wowowow. So very good. Have already read it twice, actually, just because I can't get over how realistic and touching it is. It rings true. (How bad is it? I'm enjoying RPS! Or, okay, one RPS fic.)

As I said, here's chapter two of FoF. And again, please review? A feedbacked (fedback?) Fan' is a happy Fan'. Many thanks go to cgwriting again, who considerably helped improve this chapter with helpful, constructive advice. And did I mention she was writing a sequel to No Rest for the Weary called Tempus Fidgets, which is Dawn/Groves? Yes, Groves. Yum, as far as I'm concerned.


( A Flight of Fancy - Chapter Two )

Mwaaaah.

Thanks guys for the comments on Boys Meet Boys. I have no doubt you *will* live up to this, Khylaren. You're so very good at this.

After having, against my better judgement (the one that says I should be studying), spent my evening reading BMB fic, I've realised how much mine sucked. Mwah. Those guys are so good. Check out the fiction at Whee! I'm naked!, especially the stuff by Avarice... oh, and Harley's Big Adventure is quite worth it too... and I'll stop pointing out special fics now. Just go read your heart away, people!

*pouts* I should have read all this before posting Boys Meet Boys.