a fool's musings
Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...
Warning: Adult Content
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06.25.03 - 3:24 p.m.
Jagr meister
Fox Sports NY is reporting that the NY Rangers have acquired RW Jaromir Jagr from the Washington Capitals for RW Mathieu Barnaby, C Petr Nedved and C Jamie Lundmark.
I don't know if it's true, but hot *damn* that'd be cool.
Now if they could just convince Scotty Bowman to come coach...
Edited at 4:40 pm: Apparently, this is just a rumor. Sigh.
I still want Scotty Bowman to come and coach them, though. He really is like a hockey mutant. His mutation is winning Stanley Cups.
~victoria
link
[current mood: hopeful]
[current music: Live and Let Die - GnR]
[random quote: \"This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.\" Spike]
~*~
06.25.03 - 12:29 p.m.
Recs Update - 6/25/03
The Unfit Recs LJ has been updated with 28 stories in 9 fandoms (well, seven fandoms, 2 crossovers).
Go and read your little hearts out.
Then send feedback to the writers like the good people I know you are.
And as always, if you have a better link, or a link isn't working, or you have an opinion on a rec that you'd like to share, feel free to drop me a line, here or in the LJ.
Oh, and all the HP fic is pre-OotP. No spoilers.
Speaking of OotP fic, Too Little Too Late is up on the site.
::cuddles Remus::
~victoria
link
[current mood: productive]
[current music: Love Me Two Times - Aerosmith]
[random quote: what's so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see?]
~*~
06.24.03 - 11:38 a.m.
aesthetics and surrealism
My vocal distaste for cat stories is going to be my downfall.
*snerk*
There are workmen here now, putting pretty, shiny wooden counters on top of the new cabinets. They don't match. I don't know who picked wood to go on top of grey metal cabinetry, but they made a poor choice. Looks jarring.
Speaking of which, I saw a woman on the bus stop today who looked like she was wearing two different outfits. I know I shouldn't snark, but I can't help it.
Her top was black and white, some kind of swirly circular print, and she had cool silver and black jewelry on that matched. But her skirt was brown and green and an altogether different print. With brown sandals.
It was horrible. Clashing prints. Brown and black together. ::shakes head::
What mirror told her she looked good this morning? I really don't get it.
I understand that my taste is not everyone's, that I'm not head of the Fashion Police (though I should be. I have fabulous taste), but some things are just bad, no matter which way you slice 'em, and this outfit was in the bad column. If it had just been the top with a black skirt, or the skirt with a white or tan top, she'd have been fine. But the two mismatched prints together? Hellacious.
I seem to be quite concerned with aesthetics today, eh? Speaking of which, did you all look at the new site colors? Did you like/dislike?
Ah well, "Riders on the Storm" is playing, it's supposed to be 90 degrees today, and Remus and Sirius are just about to land somewhere in Germany to discuss The Prank in the Five Things fic. Plus, Jack Bristow was in my dream last night for some reason.
Life is, as usual, surreal.
And now, Peace Frog! Whee! My favorite Doors song!
Oh, and Better Than This is in beta, and Too Little, Too Late will probably be done soon.
I am a productive Miss P.
Oh, and I forgot!
The Right of Kings is up on the site.
Also, if I Get Weiss Laid, Alias will be my 15th written-in fandom.
Whee!
~victoria
link
[current mood: sleepy]
[current music: Peace Frog - the Doors]
[random quote: there's blood in the streets it's up to my ankles, there's blood in the streets it's up to my knees]
~*~
06.23.03 - 4:29 p.m.
"my colors are blush and bashful"
As most of my conversation these days is related to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I'm doing most of my posting in the LJ, because I don't want to spoil anybody. I don't know how long I'll consider spoiler-protecting things - at least a week, most likely a few weeks.
So diary posts may be thin on the ground, though I do hope to finish off the Five Things fic (being in the appropriately angsty state of mind helps) and also Better Than This, which had to be modified slightly due to new canon, even though first cousins are allowed to marry in England.
*snerk*
Which explains a lot, about a lot of things, both fictional and real.
I'm still planning the site redesign, and well, I'm tempted to show you what it's going to look like, but if it doesn't pan out... Ah hell, this is it (though there may be some modifications to font, that's the color scheme, well, the black and white scheme).
I've liked the blue and gold look, but I'm tired of it. I want something that's easier on the eyes, and charcoal on off-white strikes me as the less harsh version of black and white. *g*
Anyhow, I'm part-way through the As on recoding, and I've figured out CSS, I think (well, it's not kicking my ass anymore, at any rate *g*), so it should be done in a few weeks - it's what I'm working on when I'm too stressed/depressed to write.
Considering what OotP did to me, I may get it done more quickly than expected. *sigh*
Speaking of OotP, as I am and will be for weeks to come, I'm sure, Too Little, Too Late - first draft, unbetaed, highly spoileriffic for OotP and also featuring my favorite OFC, Gracie Fellowes, née Chadwick.
I *knew* she'd come in handy some day. *g*
As haloscan is down again, please comment int he LJ.
~victoria
link
[current mood: sleepy]
[current music: Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen]
[random quote: God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of]
~*~
06.22.03 - 2:37 p.m.
How I got my copy of OotP by Victoria P.
Finished OotP last night at around 1:30am. Cried. Am still fartoyched about it, to be honest. It's a very bleak book. Knee-jerk and highly spoilery thoughts are up in the LJ.
As for getting the book - Leslie came over Friday night and we watched the first movie, as she hadn't seen it. We ate pizza and drank beer.
Can I just say that Alan Rickman's every little smirk and eye-narrowing is ten times more hilarious if you're a little lit? *So* over the top.
I explained as much of the Potterverse as I could, including the One True Love of Sirius and Remus.
Then we watched the first hour of Sharpe's Rifles, which she also hadn't seen, and as she's a big Sean Bean fan, I think she'll be back to watch the rest of them.
By that point, it was 11:45, so I told her I wanted to walk over to B&N and get the book. She agreed to accompany me, since it was on her way home anyway.
People were already lined up outside, but we were fairly close to the bookstore entrance - it wasn't like the TTT premiere when I was all the way down the block.
People who had reserved a copy of the book could go right in, but those of us who hadn't had to stand outside and wait. They gave us tickets - red for the early birds, pink for the latecomers like me. A little after midnight, the line moved enough so that we were in the store. Pink ticket holders had to go upstairs and wait until the reserved people and the red ticket holders got their copies.
Leslie and I chatted and snarked (they canned NEO. The meeting that made my life a living hell has been eliminated, due to budget cuts. Too late for my sanity [and my duodenum], but whee!) until she left at about 1am.
They'd told us that the store was closing at 2am, and there was a lot of worry they'd send people home empty-handed (I told the story of the Gaiman signing, where apparently, a couple hundred people were turned away because the store was closing, even though he was willing to stay and sign).
Then they told us that, no, everybody on line would get a book, which meant big huge sighs of relief.
Leslie and I also mocked the poor organization of the event and the lack of signage. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. All they needed was a couple of signs. *snerk*
You can't take meeting planners anywhere.
Anyhow, at about 12:45 they announced that the people on the second floor (that would be us) would start getting their copies in about 15 minutes. Leslie took off at about 1, when things hadn't started moving yet.
They snaked us through the whole bookstore - I think many people made impulse purchases 'cause they picked up something to read while on line and then got engrossed and wanted to find out what happened. (I was good. I held a few books in my hands, but... 4 bins, no money. Although the paperback of Heavier than Heaven was *really* hard to put down.) I also don't envy those poor schmucks who work there and have to clean up the mess. I hope they got paid overtime.
Anyhow, right after Leslie left, the line started moving, I mean, really moving. They were taking us downstairs about 25 at a time to get the books (which were behind the cashier area - you handed over your money, you got your book), and I had mine by 1:35 and by 1:45 I was home. By 2:15 I was curled up in bed reading. *g*
I put it down at 3 to sleep, got up, ran errands, then read on the train ride out here to the parents'. Read in the car on the way to Aunt Elizabeth's party. Took a short nap when we got home, and then stayed up until 1:30 to finish.
And cried. Oh man. Not great heaving sobbing, but still, I *wanted* to cry like that. So I have two coda fic ideas, both of which are sequels, strangely enough. I have to get my head back together to write, though. I'm still drained from the first, rapid read through.
I'll have to reread at a more leisurely pace, and see if I can find some way to the Land of Denial.
Oh, the other good thing? The three my mom ordered from Amazon arrived at around 12:45pm yesterday afternoon, which meant nobody had to miss my aunt's birthday party, and my sister and my niece don't have to fight over who gets to read it first.
~victoria
link
[current mood: fartoyched]
[current music: some random movie on television inthe background]
[random quote: The plans I make still have you in them ...]
~*~
06.20.03 - 5:20 p.m.
Better Than This: August 1995
So I'm grooving on quiet angst right now - yesterday it was Aragorn/Boromir (finished: The Right of Kings). Today it's Sirius/Remus, trying to get one last hit in before new canon comes along (and tells us, I hope, just what kind of laying was going on at Lupin's. *eg*).
So, Better Than This
Remus watches as Sirius sleeps.
Then.
Now narratively speaking, of course
August 1995
“No! No! James!”
Remus wakes with a start at the sound. The walls of the cottage aren’t very thick, and Sirius is right next door.
He throws off the covers and swings out of bed, the wood floor warm against the soles of his feet. He thinks, as he has every night since Sirius arrived, that perhaps he should have followed his first instinct and offered to share his own bed, rather than giving Sirius the guest room.
He wonders if it feels as much like an exile to Sirius as it does to him.
He’d reckoned Sirius would want as much space, as much freedom as he could possibly get, and sharing a bed with an ex-lover seemed awfully confining to Remus. Not to mention presumptuous on his part.
He’s still not sure if it’s concern for Sirius or his own fear that leaves so much unsaid between them.
Sirius is quiet when Remus slips into his room, but Remus doesn’t leave right away. He stands at the window, dividing his attention between the waning moon and Sirius’s still-too-thin form.
Their time together has passed quickly, amiably, as if they were nothing more than old school chums who’d lost touch along the way. They sleep in, since Remus works nights, and spend the day researching ever more obscure magic for the fight against Voldemort. In the late afternoon, they walk to the park, and Padfoot (Snuffles, Remus must constantly remind himself) runs in the grass, plays with other dogs and with delighted children. The Muggles wouldn’t know a Grim if they saw one; to them, Pad-- Snuffles is a big, lovable goof. Remus smiles and laughs, feeling younger and more carefree than he has in almost fifteen years, even knowing what darkness approaches.
In a few days’ time, Harry will be visiting, spending the weekend before heading to the Weasleys’ and then onto Diagon Alley to shop for school supplies.
Remus would like to get the air between him and Sirius cleared before Harry arrives, but he’s not sure how to do it. He’s never been one for meaningful discussion of his feelings, and none of the books on relationships he’s browsed through (and he has to grin at the amazing number of books Muggles produce on the subject) cover their particular situation. His grin widens into a full-fledged smile as he imagines it -- Gay Werewolves and the Innocent Ex-Convicts Who Love Them.
He wonders if there’s any money to be made in writing such a book, and has to bite back a laugh so he doesn’t wake Sirius, who now seems to be sleeping peacefully.
He likes the feel of having a smile on his face, but he sobers abruptly as he recalls that he’s no longer sure how Sirius feels about him. A shallow version of their friendship has been rebuilt, but neither of them seems prepared to address the deeper questions.
Sirius begins thrashing, the sheets twining around him, baring him to the waist. His hands curl into fists and his face twists in pain.
Instinct overcoming his reservations, Remus moves swiftly to the bed, slips in beside him.
“Shh,” he whispers, curling his body around Sirius, stroking his hair. “I’m here.”
“Remus?” Sirius asks, voice hoarse, eyes still closed.
“Yes.”
“Just another nightmare,” Sirius says.
“I know.” Sirius doesn’t respond; Remus can feel the tension in him, muscles locked, unable to fight or flee. Remus closes his eyes, breathes Sirius in. Warmth floods his chest and he tightens his embrace for a moment, before thought returns. Sirius is shivering, even in the August heat; his skin is clammy where it’s pressed up against Remus. ‘It’s too much,’ Remus thinks, ‘I’ve mucked it up.’ He withdraws just an inch or two. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll just go.”
Sirius grabs his hand in a viselike grip, runs a thumb over Remus’s wrist.
“No,” he says. “Stay.”
Sirius sighs and Remus feels this familiar-yet-strange body in his arms relax. He inhales again, buries his face in Sirius’s hair. Up close, he can see there’s gray in it, and he’s once again full of sorrow at the years Sirius has lost, the darkness they’ve both endured.
Closing his eyes, his last thought before he falls asleep, Sirius in his arms, is that they both deserve better. And maybe, now that they’re together again, they can have it.
end
***
Okay, I'll admit it this is the quote that caused the fic: I know I can love you much better than this, but it's better this way
It was supposed to be much angstier, but since I'm already at the pinnacle of angst in the Five Things fic, I wanted something quiet and hopeful. I hope I managed it. I think I did.
Comments/suggestions are always welcome. Either here or in the LJ.
***
Uh oh. My lower GI tract is behaving badly.
I'm coming around to the belief that eating healthy is just as bad for me as eating junk food is. I mean, I had a salad for lunch. It had raisins and carrots and sunflower seeds in it. How bad can that be? And yet... trouble.
Don't say "this too shall pass" - I have to get home, straighten up the apt. and be ready for Leslie to arrive (late as always, I'm sure).
The B&N by my house is open late tonight, and the woman said she thought I'd have no problem getting a copy of the book, even though I haven't preordered. I'm thinking I may need to get a copy of "Quidditch Through the Ages" and "Fantastic Creatures" as well, if they're available. It pays to have as much canon as possible on hand while writing.
So I figure I'll offer to walk Leslie halfway home, stop off at the bookstore and get my book, as Amazon has not yet shipped the copies Mommy ordered (earlier this afternoon I walked Daddy through the emailing Amazon to complain procedure. I suppose if I get a copy tonight, and the preordered copies don't arrive tomorrow, it's worth getting them for free, but still, irritating that they'd screw up *again*).
Fifteen minutes until it's time to go home. Sigh. Once I leave here, I probably won't be online again until sometime tomorroow afternoon or evening, depending on how things go tonight.
Have a good OotP experience. *snerk*
Keep your fingers crossed for some good Remus/Sirius interaction, preferably including witty banter and slashy subtext. Another embrace wouldn't go amiss, either. *g*
~victoria
link
[current mood: anticipatory]
[current music: Roxanne - the Police]
[random quote: Roxanne, you don't have to wear that dress tonight walk the streets for money you don't care if it's wrong or if]
~*~
06.19.03 - 4:59 p.m.
CSS? Not kicking *my* ass anymore.
y'ever figure out something that's been bugging you, that you know you should be able to make work, but it keeps not working?
And then you figure it out, and voila, it works?
Yeah. I had that this afternoon. CSS? Not kicking *my* ass anymore.
*snerk*
This day has been *endless*, especially without fic to work on, but I did have time to fiddle with coding, so it's all good.
I couldn't convince Leslie to go to the midnight OotP party tomorrow night, but she's coming over and we're going to watch the movies instead. Or one of 'em at least, as they're long. I lured her with promises of Alan Rickman and Kenneth Brannagh and Jason Isaacs (with his Wannabe Wegolas Weave and his snakey stick).
There will be beer and possibly pizza, which means I need to buy beer and straighten the apartment.
And then Saturday morning before I hit Penn I'll hustle myself to B&N and pick up a copy of the book.
::quivers with antici....pation::
They're playing "Sweet Child o'Mine" again, and I have somehow begun, as I always do with my favorite characters, associating the song with Remus. And Sirius. Well, with Remus thinking of Sirius.
::shakes head::
Come on!
"Now and then when I see her face she takes me away to that special place And if I stared too long I'd probably break down and cry... She's got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain I hate to look into those eyes And see an ounce of pain Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I'd hide, and pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by." and then the "Where do we go, where do we go now, where do we go?"
Is a perfect SB/RL song. Just change the gender.
~victoria
link
[current mood: sleepy]
[current music: Sweet Child O'Mine - GnR]
[random quote: She's got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain I'd hate to look into those eyes & see an ounce of pain]
~*~
06.18.03 - 1:38 p.m.
on archiving and self-pimping
Occasionally I get this urge to spatter myself across the internet like a virus, to make sure that every possible applicable archive is infected with my stories.
Usually, it passes before I get around to doing it, because it's annoying and time consuming to delete the headers, save the file as text, fill in the little forms...
Somehow, all that work becomes annoying when I'm not also posting to a list at the same time. I mean, these are older stories that I never bothered to submit (older being a relative term here, as one was posted last week. *snerk* But you know what I mean), but if I want a larger readership for my HP stories (and I do), it seems I ought to post them to Fiction Alley, right?
So last night I submitted Nothing Like the Sun, So Many Monsters and Always Something in Between. As you can see, the first two have already been uploaded. So if you prefer to read your fanfic there, have at it then. Read and review, folks.
*snerk*
I'm all about self-promotion and infecting the web with my presence.
I am not interested nor involved in the politics that seem to go hand in hand with archiving in the HP fandom. I find it fascinating (and more than a little amusing) from an outside perspective, though, that such rivalry exists. I don't even know what each archive is supposed to represent (beyond Sugar Quill being the bastion of Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione shippers. Even I'm not so thick that I couldn't glean that.)
I just want my stories to be read, and I know that as a no-name, newbie writer to the fandom, I ought to archive visibly. And before the flood of fic based on OotP starts rolling in.
I figure I've got 7 serious HP stories, stories that I *want* read and consider good work: Nothing Like the Sun, So Many Monsters, Thirst (previously archived, and well-reviewed though not in any great quantity), Always Something in Between, Voyeur, In Shadow, Capable and Crush. When I finish the Five Things fic and Memorial Markers, that'll be two more. Everything else is drabbles (or silliness).
And I just counted, and that's 9 (11 with the Five Things, which is killing me. ::sniffle:: My poor Remus, and Memorial Markers). Huh. More than I expected. And depending on how OotP goes, there may be even more.
I know some people don't archive, and some people dearchive when they leave a fandom (something that strikes me as silly - just because one is no longer writing a particular genre doesn't mean one lets all one's work go out of print, as it were), and some people archive all over the damn place.
I'm generally one of the latter. I don't know. It's something to do with the whole DIY aesthetic of fandom (something which I will be discussing in more detail if I ever get around to writing about awards again. *snerk*), the idea that one should make one's work readily available for reading. Otherwise, what's the point, you know?
And I was just interrupted for half an hour by the ever-migrating files, so I've lost my train of thought and should probably wrap this up.
Anyhow, if you've got feelings one way or the other about archiving your work (for writers) or about having authors' fic available (for readers), you can comment here or in the LJ.
~victoria
link
[current mood: infectious *g*]
[current music: Born to Run - Bruce]
[random quote: the highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive]
~*~
06.17.03 - 11:24 a.m.
OotP anticipation ramble
You know what I need? I need a good Remus wakes up the morning after the Shack scene in PoA fic.
I'd rather not write it myself, is what I'm saying.
I have a terrible headache and I don't know why. Okay, it could be lack of sleep combined with humidity and this a fellow commuter's bathing in cologne that did it. Advil hasn't helped, and as it's a sinus headache, Excedrin won't do anything either.
Sigh.
I got more of the Gryffindor section written yesterday, and also more of the fifth section, but I haven't quite figured out where the last one is going. I mean, I know where it's going, I'm just not sure about getting there. The Gryffindor section is hard. Harder than the Slytherin section, which wrote itself. Which is some nice character work, I think. And I like the ending of it, though it makes me sad. It *works* for me. The HUfflepuff section is sweet but too damn long. Twice as long as the Slytherin section, which works much better.
And I realize that my blathering about it here without you all knowing what I'm talking about is completely boring to you and probably useless to me. And yet, blather I do.
*snerk*
I'm trying to convince LEslie to go to the HP release party on Friday night, but I somehow doubt she'll go for it. And it's on the West Side. I misread the address. Sigh. That means cabbing it or taking the long bus route around.
I could just go early Saturday morning before I get on the train - see, apparently, Dom and Helen are going to the Yankees-Mets game Friday night, so M&D will be babysitting early, which means Daddy won't come pick me up at the train. I suppose I could go to Northport instead of Ronkonkoma.... or I could just stop worrying about whether Amazon will deliver the book on Saturday as promised and go get myself one Friday night or Saturday morning (and hey, if I have to knock over some kid to do it, well, it's a cruel world. *snerk*)
I can always give the extra copy to Alyssa, so she and Marguerite don't have to fight over the one Marg ordered.
It *is* a long train ride. And since Aunt Elizabeth's party is Saturday afternoon, that cuts into my reading time tremendously. Not happy about that. Because I really don't want to avoid the internet until I finish, but I may have to. Too many stupid people with too much excitment leads to unprotected spoilers, and meh, I'm not thrilled with being spoiled.
Though I might like to be prepared if Remus dies.
::shakes head::
Stop thinking that.
It's not going to be Remus. He's not important enough to kill off, and he has to have sweet reunion smoochies with Sirius, and they can provide Harry with a stable home.
Maybe it'll be the Dursleys who cack it. That'd be fun. I don't think Dumbledore will die until book 6. At least, were I writing it, that's what I'd do.
Of course, if *I* were writing it, Harry would indeed end up living with Remus and Sirius, who would have the Big Gay Canine Love of All Time and Ron and Hermione would bicker and smooch like a magical version of Nick and Nora Charles.
Sadly, I'm not writing it (nor cashing the royalty checks), so probably only the Ron/Hermione portion of that little fantasy will come true.
~victoria
link
[current mood: headachy]
[current music: Goodbye Yellowbrick Road - Elton John]
[random quote: goodbye yellow brick road where the dogs of society howl you can't catch me in your penthouse I'm going back to my plo]
~*~
Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within.
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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