a fool's musings

Boreas by Waterhouse
Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...

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the five Ws, or, all about me

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current mood: current mood

"pathological and unbalanced"

Items of Interest

    Music
  • Walk On - U2
  • Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
  • If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
  • Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet
  • Town Called Malice - The Jam
  • One - U2
  • The Space Between - DMB
    Books
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2002-02-27 - 10:59 p.m.

The Politics of Friends

really, really liked "Hartsfield's Landing," tonight's WW episode.

The chess thing was wonderful, as was the President's confidence in Sam [in more ways than one] and his rematch with Toby.

I love that he and Toby don't let each other get away with anything.

Josh and Donna seem to be better. I guess the job offer thing is done and gone.

I hate that Sorkin puts these things in episodes and then completely drops them.

Apparently, it's now canon that the Fleckers took Donna in, so she didn't room with Margaret, Josh didn't pay for her hotel space, etc. etc., which is all stuff from fanfic.

I have the hardest time with this show, keeping fanon and canon straight, which I don't have with other shows. Maybe because I *haven't* seen all the eps? Or because so much is left unknown?

Anyhow, I really liked it.

And I've got a little idea swirling with Scott and Logan and Hank and the Professor playing chess...

I suck at chess, by the way. I taught Alyssa how to play a few years ago, but I doubt she remembers. She was only 8.

As for me, Daddy taught me young, but I never *could* see the whole board, as Jed keeps telling Sam to do. I could never anticipate 8-10-12 moves ahead.

I don't think like that.

But the genius, the tactics guy, the old soldier and the telepath... there's some chess waiting to happen, I think, and maybe some discussion about women and life and war and fine old scotch and Cuban cigars...

I wonder if Pete or one of the "gals" would be up for co-writing...

Anyhow, the named anchor thingy works in IE, but not in Nutscrape for some reason, so um, all you Netscape users [yeah, you] are going to have to scroll.

Sorry.

Speaking of LJ, what the hell use is it if it's always down?

Also, speaking of LJ, I'm torn about the whole "friends" business.

I mean, I list interesting blogs/journals that I read here, and I read others as well, that I click to from the ones I've got listed.

And I understand that the "friends" feature in LJ is mainly for the convenience of seeing who's updated and who hasn't.

But since they call it "friends", I'm a little leery of adding people willy-nilly.

I mean, I know them, sort of - I read their journals and leave comments occasionally - but they don't really know me. So there's no expectation of reciprocation there.

But what happens if I add someone and then take them off? Or if someone adds me and then removes me?

What does it mean exactly?

Am I not interesting enough?

I don't think this diary as interesting as some people's journals, but then, I'm also not as well-known as some people, and perhaps I've been hampered by the lack of commenting capability, because you can't really get into a good discussion here at diaryland, the way you can on LJ.

And my god, could that sentence *be* any longer?

Anyhow, I've not yet added anyone but DD, Bethy and Melissa to my friends list, because I'm still contemplating the politics of it all...

Any guidance would be most appreciated. *g*

And remember, comments = love.

<*snerk*>

~victoria
[current mood: hesitant]
[current music: Touched - VAST]

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2002-02-27 - 5:10 p.m.

Time's Fool snip

Here's a new snip from Time's Fool.

Thank god for the Summers boys. So helpful. *g*

I don't know what I'd have done with Scott and Alex to help break down the writer's block, and also make the Alex/Rogue break up a little less painful for Alex. I do like this version of him. *g*

I'm going with movie novelization past for Scott, since it helps with the Alex stuff, but all other bets are off in regard to Summers family history. *g*

As always, let me know what you think.

The goddamned named anchor thing isn't working for some reason, so I've posted the same snippet over in the LJ, if you want to comment.

Please feel free. This is completely unbetaed, as I just finished typing it up, and I'm heading home in ten minutes or so, and any help is most appreciated. *g*

***

About a week after that first date, when it was clear that he and Rogue were hitting it off well, Alex found himself cornered in the locker room by his older brother.

The smell of rank sweat and used towels that never seemed quite clean assaulted his senses for a moment, taking him back to his freshman year of high school, only months before Scott had blown the place apart on the night of his senior prom and both their lives changed forever.

Scott put a hand on his shoulder and indicated the bench that rode the floor between the two rows of lockers, and they sat.

"Consider this the obligatory 'If you hurt Rogue, I'll kill you' speech," Scott said, only half-joking.

Alex looked askance at him. "I figured it'd be Logan giving me this talk. Shouldn't you be saying this to her? I *am* your little brother, after all."

Scott gave a short bark of laughter. "You're my brother, but Rogue's -- she's ... fragile."

"There is something about her," Alex agreed. "Sometimes I get the feeling she's not completely -- there. I mean, like she's not with me. I don't know where she goes, and I -- I don't know if she'll ever let me in wherever it is, but--"

"You have to understand," Scott interrupted. "When Greg left her, she was devastated. It was really, really ugly. It took us a long time to convince her to start dating again and --"

"I'm not talking about Greg."

Scott's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Then what--"

"Logan."

Scott snorted. "She's--" He shook his head. "Logan's never going to have the balls to admit he loves her, even if he eventually figures it out."

"You know?"

"That he's in love with her? Of course."

Alex nodded, frowning. "I didn't think you'd noticed."

"I'm not Team Leader because I'm good looking, Alex."

"That's a relief."

Scott ignored the sarcasm. "I know what's going on around me. I just don't feel the need to get involved in other people's personal lives."

Alex choked.

"Unless it affects the team, of course," Scott continued, still ignoring Alex's response.

It took a few minutes for Alex to stop laughing. When he did, he said, "Like you didn't hound Rogue and me into dating?"

"That was a special circumstance."

"You're such an old woman, Scotty, I swear."

"Fine. I just don't like him, all right? I mean, he's all right, but I don't want to help him out."

"You're still upset about his thing for Jean?"

"What? No." Alex raised an eyebrow at this denial, and Scott relented. "Okay, yeah, a little. Did he have to be so -- blatant about it? As if Jean would want his brand of machismo." Scott shook his head, disgusted. "But that's not the point.

"The point is this. Rogue's been hurt badly, and I don't want to see it happen again. She may believe she's in love with him -- God knows she pined publicly for almost three years. But he'll only hurt her in the end."

"I thought you said he loves her."

"He does, but he's too much of a loner and a vagabond to ever really make the kind of commitment she needs."

Alex stood and began pacing in the small space available. "And I can? I travel just as much, if not more than he does."

"You know who you are," Scott interrupted sharply. "You travel because you love it, and your job requires it. But you have a home -- here, San Diego. You've put down roots, and we know you'll always come back because of that.

"Logan can't. Not until he finds his past, or whatever it is he's really looking for, or he decides to focus on the future instead.

"And Rogue, as much as she loves traveling and having adventures -- and she does, which is another reason I think you two will be great together -- she needs a home, a place of her own. Something that's not going to disappear when things get rough."

Alex nodded, stopping to stand before his brother, and looked down at his hands as if they were the most interesting things he'd seen in ages. He was going into this thing with Rogue with his eyes open. All either of them really wanted was some fun, and a respite from Scott's constant matchmaking. If more came of it, well, he'd worry about that later.

He smiled when Scott jumped up, a bewildered look on his face.

"Shit. Jean's going to kill me. We were supposed to be meeting the video guy at ten."

He rushed out of the locker room, leaving Alex to his thoughts amid the dirty towels and smelly socks.

Alex showered slowly, and turned Scott's words over in his mind and filed it all away. He never had been one to borrow trouble.

***

~victoria
[current mood: frustrated with html, but accomplished that I finally wrote something *g*]
[current music: Stuck in the Middle with You - ??... and having Reservoir Dogs flashbacks]

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2002-02-27 - 11:48 a.m.

pure Lexy goodness

I love Lex!
Find out who your Smallville Lover is!
Brought to you by Juliette Torres.

Of course.

How could it not be?

Though I was tempted to fill in the Lionel answers.

'Cause he's the Magnificent Bastard, the Prick Daddy, Da Man.

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2002-02-27 - 10:01 a.m.

Peevishness and Fen

I've actually got a bunch of items I'd like to discuss, but first, I feel the need to get some peeves off my chest.

In the subway, on the sidewalk, if I'm ever driving a car, if you see me coming, get the fuck out the way!

Ahem.

I just hate when people meander in front of me while I have places to go and I can't work up enough speed to feel like I'm *moving*.

For someone as sedentary as I, once I get started, I need to move continuously, and I need to do so at a reasonable speed. I don't run, but I cover a lot of ground walking, even with my short little legs.

In other news, the zit that ate my face is finally disappearing, I think.

I hate PMS.

I hate my skin.

Goddamn oily Sicilianness.

Ahem.

Fandom peeves?

Don't fucking quote the whole story when you send feedback to the list.

The author knows the story - she wrote it. The rest of us don't need it clogging our inboxes again.

Also, and this is very important, turn off the fucking smartquotes in Word before you post. Or save your file as text and then copy and paste that.

Because all those little boxes and weird symbols in your story, where the quotes, apostrophes and em dashes are supposed to be? Not cool. And, a quick road to the trash bin of my laptop.

Not that you care, obviously.

But I could be missing great stories 'cause I can't read 'em.

Though I'm doubtful, I admit. Because if you've been doing this for a while, you should *know* these things already.

Also, Internet spelling.

I loathe internet spelling with a fiery vengeance.

yes, I have a bit of a vendetta against capital letters. But at least I spell everything correctly, and if I don't, it's a mistake.

Acronyms are okay, though not too many at once, eh?

But when I see "ne 1" for anyone, etc., it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

English is a beautiful, rich language.

Learn how to freaking use it.

Which leads me back to a fannish thing I was thinking about this morning.

I've decided I don't like the word "fen" to mean "fans".

First off, it always makes me think of swampland, which isn't a good thing. I mean, slime and stink? You've just hit two of my personal squick points with that.

Also, you realize "fans" is a perfectly good word, right?

Then there's the whole, "We don't like to be identified as 'fanatics' because that has a bad connotation.

I hate to tell you, but, uh, you *are* a fanatic.

So am I.

If you are writing fanfic and building shrines to a fictional character [virtual - by which i mean websites with your fic or screencaps or whatever - or otherwise, and if you've got a little Lex shrine like Amy's in your cabinet at home I don't want to know] and dissecting the minutiae of your chosen show/book/boyband, you are a fanatic.

Not a stalking, "I think Star A is my husband" fanatic [though there are some of you I wonder about] - those people should more rightly called "lunatics" or "insane."

We are obsessed. Highly focused.

Fanatics.

Embrace it, and stop worrying about it. You'll be happier.

Let the freak flag fly.

Now if I could only take my own advice.

Sigh.

Another word I don't like is "hir". I understand the desire for gender-neutral pronouns, which English lacks, and some people object strongly to the use of masculine pronouns in this capacity, but "hir" just looks dumb to me. I think it confuses more than enlightens, and it reminds me in some ways of those people who insist on spelling women "wymmyn" or whatever.

My advice there? Get over yourself.

Yes, English is alive and constantly changing, and neologisms are popping up all the time in common usage etc. But I don't care for that one. s/he and him/her are clunkier, but they have a certain naive charm, to my eye.

And in the fanfic world, in most fandoms, I think you can safely use "she" and "her" as your gender neutral pronouns, because the women far outnumber the men, who will be very quick to correct you if you get their gender wrong. *g*

In other news, more quizzes:

you have an ominosity quotient of

six.

you are really ominous.

find out your ominosity quotient.


Take the Concubine Quiz at Scared Ducky!

And did you see my pretty Faith icon at the LJ? (yeah, I'm actually cringing less and less as I type those initials together. I think I've managed to separate LJ=LiveJournal from LJ=Logan/Jean. I like the first, loathe the latter. *g*)

You can go there and comment on this entry, if you feel like it.

At least, that's how I'm hoping this will work... It'll just take me a minute to get an entry up over there, with the link back here.

I'm thinking named anchors on each entry will work for the "jumping to the correct part of the page" thing, because I prefer to have multiple entries on a page here, rather than just one at a time, y'know?

But you don't care about the mechanics of it all, do you?

~victoria
[current mood: peevish]
[current music: Let My Love Open the Door - Pete Townsend]

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2002-02-26 - 10:30 p.m.

Tuesday night television

Hmm...

Buffy was decent tonight. Loved the teaser, with the vamp - "let's just call it a night, huh?" <*snerk*>

Nice to see Riley again.

And I never thought I'd say *that*.

*Loved* that Spike is still evil and makes no apologies for it.

Take *that*, redemptionista fools!

The ending was done quite nicely. I felt bad for William, as well as for Buffy.

The whole Willow-addict thing still irks me; I don't think I'm going to get over that one, but I liked how they handled Buffy's depression here. She knows what she's doing - now it's just a question of how she deals with it.

Anya and Xander weren't quite as annoying with the wedding stuff, and I guess they're going through with it. I don't like it, on the deep Willow/Xander shipper level, but... it could be worse. And the wedding will, I hope, be hilarious.

I wonder who's going to play Uncle Rory?

The wife was a bit of a Mary Sue, but since she's not sticking around, it's okay. And she makes Riley happy, which means he won't come back often, so *that's* okay.

And I like Riley. I just didn't like a season and a half devoted to him, with him being the only competent male on the show for a while.

Plus there's the fact that he spurned Graham and Forrest...

As for Smallville - Christ, they scared me.

I thought poor Chloe was gone there for a moment. I did *not* expect that to be the teaser.

So Whitney is canonically a senior, eh? That makes so much more sense. Doesn't explain why he was on the field trip to the shit factory, but still...

There were some nice Clark/Lex moments, and it was wonderful to see Ruthless!Lex.

*swoon*

And really, I understood Clark's guilt -- he *could* have saved Chloe if he hadn't been weakened by the kryptonite -- he could have run down and caught her. Though how'd he explain it, I don't know.

And what about the camera? Wasn't it on when phaseboys came into the library? Couldn't they have used that as proof of krypto-mutant stuff?

Some nice ChLex interaction, as well. I hope Sarah T. was paying attention. *g*

And I really hope that last Lana/Lex moment meant nothing. Because Lex hit the nail on the head when he blew her off the first time at the Talon.

Dissed and dismissed, Missy. Gave me a happy. *g*

::shudders at the thought of Lex/Lana::

~victoria
[current mood: satisfied]
[current music: The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve]

PS: Couple things - I was going to say go to the journal to leave comments, but LJ is all fucked right now, which pisses me the hell off... Diaryland, I love you. *g* Now watch D'land go down... *snerk*

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2002-02-26 - 4:20 p.m.

Icons, baby. Icons!

Many many things to discuss, but mostly, I have a LiveJournal.

So I figure what I'll do is, use this for all my ramblings and then link to here from there.

Then if you have something to say, you can go over there and comment.

Whee!

Plus, mood thingies and icons.

Woohoo!

Icons!

Though you know, it's entirely possible I'll have enough to say to keep both things going.

God knows, I've not yet learned to keep my mouth shut, even when it would behoove me to do so.

Except when I'm drunk.

Learned that lesson in Acapulco.

*g*

And the less said about *that*, the better.

~victoria
[current mood: giddy]
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2002-02-26 - 11:55 a.m.

Big Pimpin'

I've been meaning to mention this, and well, now's as good a time as any, right?

New multi-fandom recs site. Small, but growing:

Bright Shiny Objects

I'm doing the X-Men Movieverse and Smallville recs [which means I better get my ass in gear and get caught up on SV fic soon!], and people whose taste and judgement I trust are doing the other fandoms.

So go. Visit. Read. Learn. Enjoy.

Also, since I'm being all pimptastic here, I updated The Muse's Fool last night, adding Crumpled, a very short Xavier/Magneto ficlet, and The Question, which you've seen already if you've been reading this here diary - Rogue asks Logan a question he's not expecting.

Both ficlets are in answer to Khaki's "He should have seen it coming" opening line challenge and both have been helpful in getting my writing going again after that 10 days of blockage.

I don't know why, but those opening line challenges just bring out the hidden angst grrrl in me. *g*

~victoria
[current music: Baba O'Reilly - The Who]

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2002-02-26 - 10:46 a.m.

The One Bag Life

I hate people.

Just thought I'd get that out in the open.

Extra-long commute this morning, which made me late, which meant that this woman I work with was sitting in my area, waiting for me when I got in, since I was supposed to bind her books first thing this morning.

Grr.

It's not my fault her people didn't get her the information until yesterday, so she couldn't collate them until last night.

I'm just getting to eat my breakfast now.

Bah.

Hey, they're really hitting the Chlark on all cylinders in the ads for tonight, eh?

I hope Kinetic is a good ep. It has potential, what with the Shadowcat-like powers Whitney is going to get.

And I guess there's new Buffy tonight as well?

Not getting my hopes up.

So I've been using my Burberry tote - it's not that big, but it fits a surprising amount of stuff in it, which is great.

It follows my new philosophy:

The One Bag Life

I see these women on the subway with their little fashionable purses and their big totebags and then they're also carrying a little shopping bag for their book and umbrella and walkman.

Bah.

Feh.

I want to carry one bag and one bag only.

One bag that holds everything I could possibly need on my trip to work each day. I'm obviously not talking about people who are going away for a weekend or are carrying a laptop or something. That's an occasional extra - not something they're schlepping every day.

I mean, I fit my walkman, my notebook (with two 3.5" diskettes with all my fic files on them, so nothing is ever on the company's computer, except in RAM), my subway map, my makeup case ((which contains two lipsticks, a chapstick, a compact mirror, a cover-up stick that I use under lipstick, a lipliner and the case for my contact lenses. I also carry a few pens, my cell phone, and one or two "feminine hygiene products", depending on what time of the month it is. My checkbook, change purse and wallet. A paperback, if I feel like carrying one. Extra batteries for my walkman, another chapstick, a pack of gum and some tissues. My Swiss Army knife and a teeny Zippo flashlight. My keys stay in my pocket, mostly, with my MetroCard, but in the summer, they'll go in the bag, as well.

What more does any one person need during the day?

This bag is about 7.5" tall and about 3.5" wide.

And it fits everything I need in it, except an umbrella, which I rarely carry anyway, unless it's pouring when I leave the house. And I could fit the little plastic bag in which to carry the wet umbrella when I'm done with it in this bag.

I love this bag.

more importantly, my *back* loves this bag, as I'm no longer toting around everything I own. What the *hell* did I used to carry in that huge briefcase?

Extra tapes, to switch out if I got bored. Copies of all the stories I'm working on, which is a shitload of paper, let me tell you. Especially considering how much I'm *not-working* on most of them.

I can't even remember what all else I carried.

I just know I can't go back to doing it.

I have seen the light, and I'm spreading the good word.

The One Bag Life.

Learn it.

Live it.

Love it.

And psst... pass it on. *g*

~victoria
[current mood: better]
[current music: If I Had $1,000,000 - Barenaked Ladies]

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The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

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