| Okay, this is just annoying... |
[02 Oct 2008|08:12pm] |
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For some reason, I can't get Youtube to work anymore. It will load and play the first 2 seconds of a clip, but then it stalls, even though it indicates it is still loading.
What could be causing this, and what do I need to do to fix it?
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| the Baebes are back! |
[17 Sep 2008|11:15pm] |
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music |
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Cantrip - Finnish Tune - L'Ogre Aux Quatres Bras - Fear Nam Meur Sleamhna |
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On Monday, October 20th, the Mediaeval Baebes are playing at the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park. Tickets are $22 in advance (and probably won't be available at the door -- they sold out last time).
I'm going to pick up tickets on Saturday direct from the House of Musical Traditions, if anyone else wants to come. Just let me know, and if you come to Sci-Fi Fridays, give me the money then.
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| Dance like no one's watching |
[09 Sep 2008|11:16pm] |
So I attended my first drop-in session tonight. $15 at the door, which isn't too bad if I only attend ten sessions or less this season.
The teacher does 'Laban based movement', which means nothing to me -- I'm not knowledgeable at all, I just like dancing.
I will have to get a set of sweats or loose pants to do this in -- which means stopping at Target or something. I hate drawstring pants, but I think I'll need the loose fit.
Some of the floor exercise didn't work too well for me -- I'm not too flexible in my legs, even though I can do things like cross my knees over each other so that my feet are pointed in different directions. It might have been that we started from lying on our backs. Or that I'm not good with crouching positions.
Anyway, I had fun, I cleared out my head, and I'll probably do it again next week if the train is favorable again.
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| Argh.... |
[07 Sep 2008|04:13pm] |
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mood |
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frustrated |
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music |
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Gregorian - My immortal |
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I am stuck on my ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) marveloustales story -- the one that is due WEDNESDAY.
I have five pages of not terribly coherent plot skeleton, and a couple of cute scenes. Why am I writing in a fandom where two out of three of my favorite characters are *dead*?
The really bad thing is that for writing plot, my inner extrovert wants to come out and talk -- to other people. And I haven't been able to meet up with sanj to talk over this recently, since she's the one local friend most up on all the weirdness of the Marvel Universe. Gah.
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| Modern dance for fun? |
[24 Aug 2008|06:17pm] |
I'm thinking of dropping into the modern dance class a local dance studio -- Liz Lerman Dance Exchange -- but I'm not sure if this is going to be right for me.
Any have any experience with modern dance for a beginner? Is there anything I should look for in a class? Anything that would be a warning sign to avoid the class? What the heck should I *wear* to class -- bearing in mind I have no exercise clothes, because I hate gym and buying exercise clothes in my size is not really easy?
Anyone want to come along the first time? Bolstering each other's courage might work...
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| Two Paths in the woods (hunting plotbunnies) |
[19 Aug 2008|10:45pm] |
I swear, my brain is trying to kill me. I finished the first marveloustales story, to some nice feedback, and have been trying to work on the second.
The prompt is "616 -- Astonishing, genderswap, gen "... pretty simple, right? It's broad enough you can do almost anything, right?
Except my brain wants to do TWO plots, and they are mutually exclusive. In one, I would tackle transgenderism, and actually write Abigail Brand -- who is pretty nifty and would be dealing better with her lover accidentally turning into a woman than he is. In the other, I just write a female version of Beast -- and frankly, Bobby is talking about how he's not phased by meeting a version of his best friend who has always been a woman (in fact, she's kind of hot and he can totally see why the other-him loves her, because he would totally be dating Hank if Hank were a girl) and generally making Scott's head explode from sheer not-phasedness.
I might wind up writing *both* the damned stories. I wonder if that's within the rules.
Hmm, I notice I'm being very mean to Scott. Apparently, I don't think Scott deals well with weirdness, which is ridiculous considering he's been a superhero in the Marvel Universe all his adult life...
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| Fic: "That has Such People in It…" by neotoma, Marvel 1602, gen, rated PG |
[15 Aug 2008|06:45am] |
Title: That has Such People in It…
Author: neotoma
Prompt: 1602 | The Witchbreed. Scotius, Hal or Javier would be preferred. | Gen | How do the witchbreed adjust to living in the New World?
Rating: PG
Word count: 9514
Disclaimer: The characters and settings featured in this story are the property of Marvel Entertainment. This is a work of homage and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: objectionable (but period) language
Author's notes: thanks to beta clara_swfit and st_aurafina. Written for the Marvelous Tales ficathon.
After the anomaly was destroyed, and Sir Nicholas mourned, the village settled back to a normal life on this plantation of fair England in the New World. The travelers from the Eagle's Shadow helped setting the disorder to rights, and then were each man required by nature to find an occupation for himself.
( Javier wished to continue his self-appointed task of sheltering and educating Witchbreed )
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| And now off to the betas... |
[13 Aug 2008|07:24pm] |
Finished the first marveloustales story to the betas this afternoon. Almost 9500 words, so I hope they are in the mood to read...
I should start working on the other one, I suppose.
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| Huh... |
[12 Aug 2008|09:15pm] |
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music |
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Mediaeval Baebes - Star Of The Sea |
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This story I'm writing for marveloustales is going to fail the Bechdel test at this rate... I haven't managed to write a scene with the two female characters at ALL (I haven't really written any of the Fantastic Four 1602 characters, actually). Maybe Susan Storm can be a silent partner in the trading mission -- it seems like something she'd be clever enough to see the advantages of.
Frankly, I'm running out of time with this, if I want to get it to my betas before I have to *post* it on Friday...
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| Random question for German speakers... |
[11 Aug 2008|08:12pm] |
What would be the vocative of 'Gypsy', for someone in the early 1600s, preferably the least polite form? The context is that one teenager is mocking another, while having concealed his background.
This story I'm writing is full of characters behaving badly -- the period language is full of thing that you just don't *say* nowadays. I'm going to walk a fine edge between authenticity and unprintable-ness. Especially considering it is setting in the early American colony, and the Europeans general tone when speaking of the natives was *patronizing* at best.
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| 4,500 words and counting... |
[10 Aug 2008|10:23pm] |
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music |
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Mark O'Connor - Devil's Dream |
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I'm up to over 4,500 words in my first marveloustales prompt. I hope to be done with it by Wednesday, barring the plot going kudzu on me.
Anyone interested in beta-ing a Marvel 1602 story for Friday posting? I'll need grammar, characterization, and plot, and some knowledge of Elizabethan/Jacobean culture or early colonial America would be much appreciated.
The second prompt has sprouted a Brand/Beast subplot oddly enough. Especially since it's supposed to be a gen story. Of well, it will probably get jossed when I get Astonishing this week, which certainly looks interesting -- and the colors are improved from last issue, which really seemed like a horrible watercolor wash job.
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| Story due in 11 days... eeeek |
[04 Aug 2008|10:25pm] |
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music |
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Abayudaya - Ali Omu Yekka |
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I only have 1700 words for the first marveloustales story, which is due on the 15th. I am so behind on this... I still don't have a conflict in the plot, though I know what various people are doing.
I think it might wind up a fight between Scotius who wants to stay and farm in Roanoke, and Hal and Robbie, who want to break off in different directions to explore. It might be that the external threat to them as long as they were in England was all that was keeping Javier's Witchbreed together. At the moment, it seems the best idea I have come up with for a plot to hang off of.
I'm going to just have to write tomorrow, no matter what kind of gibberish I come up with. There's a plot out there *somewhere* for this prompt.
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| An Open Letter to Warren Ellis... |
[24 Jul 2008|08:46pm] |
Yes, I finally wrote it... now I need to send it to Marvel and Warren Ellis. I tried very hard to focus on the writing, not the art -- Ellis might have contributed to some to the layout, but he's not responsible for how badly the panels flowed -- that looked to be entirely a compositional problem.
( An open letter... )
Yes, I'm ragging him for his terrible gaffe with the science -- but if you're going to write SF, you should get the basic science you're building off of *right*.
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| The Dark Knight |
[19 Jul 2008|12:07am] |
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Can't talk, head too full of squee.
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| Ficathon times two... |
[17 Jul 2008|10:49pm] |
I signed up for another prompt at marveloustales -- "616 | Astonishing X-Men | Gen | Genderswap!", so yes, sanj, I'm going to do the 'woke up female' story. I think I even have a MacGuffin for it, if I don't get too badly jossed in the two months I have to work on it.
I've begun plotting for it, and I've found using male pronouns for the transformed character is necessary to keep him in character. I'll do a search and replace later, since I'm putting brackets around every pronoun that refers to him, but to keep his actions sounding like *him* they're needed for the moment. I don't know that any of the story is going to be from inside his head at *all*, either. So far everything I've got is from other characters. I might actually write Ororo this time round, which should be interesting. I'm not used to writing *wise* characters -- smart ones, yes, but Ororo is wise, which is different.
And I'm definitely going to write a queer-sex epilogue as a bonus, because while I will be telling a gen story that is mostly about how male privilege extends even to mutants, I kind of want to explore the sexual implications of it too.
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| Behold the Power of the Internet... |
[17 Jul 2008|07:07pm] |
Yesterday, I first read about Sean Tevis' bid for state representative in Kansas -- and his XKCD style story about his campaign via BoingBoing. At the time, he had about 1000 donations out of 3000 need.
Today when I check it, he had 2741 donors!
I think Kansas might be getting a new state representative real soon now...
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| Wading into the fic pond yet again... |
[13 Jul 2008|08:25pm] |
So I've signed up for one of the prompts over at marveloustales -- "1602 | The Witchbreed. Scotius, Hal or Javier would be preferred. | Gen | How do the witchbreed adjust to living in the New World?" for August 15.
It's not an enormous challenge, since I've been working on a Marvel 1602 for a while now. I've checked books out of the library (on Jamestown, because they didn't really have anything at my branch about Roanoke), and read up on the Powhatan. But it wasn't what I was going to focus on...
I think I can write something about all three, since from my reading has shown some interesting rifts among the Jamestown colonists based on class -- and there are huge class differences between Javier, Scotius, and Hal from canon, and right after the story ends, there's a lot of interesting things to talk about. Especially how Sir Reed Richards and Carlos Javier talked about how there would be no more kings in Virginia -- but I kind of doubt that they'd be all that happy with any of the students espousing leveling talk.
But -- does anyone know any good background reading on the Tuscarora of colonial times? They're not really in North Carolina anymore, but they were there when the second Roanoke colonists landed.
Oh, and if you're interested in writing a story yourself, the claiming post just opened up.
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