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edenfallingRandom things of interest:
1. Yuletide nominations are closed. Presumably the nominated fandoms will now be winnowed and/or corrected, and sometime soonish signups will open. I did not nominate any new fandoms, but I did renominate a few from previous years, and I expanded the character lists while I was at it. So that is my tiny little contribution.
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2. My current health insurance plan will cease to exist at the end of the year. Fortunately, my company has two new plans to offer. I am yet not sure which to choose, especially because it appears, based on the monthly premium figures vs. the deductions from my paychecks, that I have been getting a $23-per-week discount on my current plan (which I nonetheless cannot afford on my own), and I have to call the office to figure out how and why that is happening, and whether it will happen again for whatever new plan I choose.
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3. I wrote 250 words of "Secrets" ch. 14 tonight. Ginny and Daphne are meant to be arranging a truce, complete (perhaps) with grudging half-complete apologies on both sides. Getting them to be civil to each other is like pulling teeth. And yet, it is thematically important, and I laid this damn plot thread all the way back in chapters 2 and 3, so here I am, with my metaphorical pliers. *resolve face* I am going to finish this story if it kills me.
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4. Tangentially to point 3, I hate all my current WIPs. Distract me, people! Give me a fandom and a prompt, and I will write a ficlet for you. First five comments (on either LJ or Dreamwidth) get fics.
A) As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art -- 600 words, Chronicles of Narnia, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
silverblade219.
B) A Certain Point of View -- 550 words, Harry Potter, foralchymie.
C) Health Insurance -- 675 words, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, foryggidee.
D) Compatibility -- 1,500 words, Naruto, forlynati_1.
E) Sons and Daughters -- 150 words, Naruto, fortheodosia21.
F) Some Work of Noble Note -- 850 words, Star Trek: AOS, forvalles_uf.
1. Yuletide nominations are closed. Presumably the nominated fandoms will now be winnowed and/or corrected, and sometime soonish signups will open. I did not nominate any new fandoms, but I did renominate a few from previous years, and I expanded the character lists while I was at it. So that is my tiny little contribution.
-----
2. My current health insurance plan will cease to exist at the end of the year. Fortunately, my company has two new plans to offer. I am yet not sure which to choose, especially because it appears, based on the monthly premium figures vs. the deductions from my paychecks, that I have been getting a $23-per-week discount on my current plan (which I nonetheless cannot afford on my own), and I have to call the office to figure out how and why that is happening, and whether it will happen again for whatever new plan I choose.
-----
3. I wrote 250 words of "Secrets" ch. 14 tonight. Ginny and Daphne are meant to be arranging a truce, complete (perhaps) with grudging half-complete apologies on both sides. Getting them to be civil to each other is like pulling teeth. And yet, it is thematically important, and I laid this damn plot thread all the way back in chapters 2 and 3, so here I am, with my metaphorical pliers. *resolve face* I am going to finish this story if it kills me.
-----
4. Tangentially to point 3, I hate all my current WIPs. Distract me, people! Give me a fandom and a prompt, and I will write a ficlet for you. First five comments (on either LJ or Dreamwidth) get fics.
A) As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art -- 600 words, Chronicles of Narnia, for
silverblade219.B) A Certain Point of View -- 550 words, Harry Potter, for
alchymie.C) Health Insurance -- 675 words, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for
yggidee.D) Compatibility -- 1,500 words, Naruto, for
lynati_1.E) Sons and Daughters -- 150 words, Naruto, for
theodosia21.F) Some Work of Noble Note -- 850 words, Star Trek: AOS, for
valles_uf.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 11:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-22 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-25 12:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 03:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 03:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 04:33 am (UTC)If this is still too vague, feel free to give my spot to someone else or I can try to come up with another prompt.
As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
Date: 2009-10-21 05:36 am (UTC)As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
---------------------------------------------
Susan left England, after. The last summer she'd been happy -- before her family soured, before she turned all her fierce concentration onto seizing the frothy illusion of the present and letting the past and future fade -- she had toured America with her parents.
She went back across the ocean, chasing the sunset over frigid waves. It was better to be alone in a foreign land; she could pretend she had chosen to be apart, that her old life wasn't gone but simply tucked away in a corner, waiting for her to return.
She could never bear to do nothing, and frivolity hurt like knives through her feet and lungs now, hurt like Lucy's bewildered tears and earnest pleas. She needed to be useful, needed a purpose, a cause to distract herself. She went to college, became a teacher. Susan was good with children; she remembered managing Edmund and Lucy, and even Peter in his moods. She was strict but fair, and sometimes -- if her students had been particularly good -- she would tell incidents from history, dressed up as if they were fairy-tales. But she never told made-up stories. She never lied.
She married late. She'd always thought she ought to, since no one else was left to carry on, but she had gone cold, after. She had lost the knack of charming men. But no skill grows so rusty it cannot be dusted off and put to use again, and one day she found herself in conversation with a fellow teacher, then going out for coffee, then cooking him dinner, then meeting his parents, then holding his hands in a church and exchanging vows. His name was Thomas Hart. Susan took his name, severing her last tie to the past.
They had one child, a girl with mouse-brown hair, a narrow face, and a mind made to solve puzzles. Thomas named her Jane. She was nothing like Lucy. Susan was grateful, both for the lack of reminders, and because raising a child was something new, something she had never done in either before. Jane and Thomas were her anchors.
Jane grew, as children were wont to do, and proved both like and unlike Susan. She was never frivolous; she always thought of the future. She studied physics. It was an unusual choice for a woman. Thomas made skeptical noises, but Susan shushed him. She respected science. It played fair. And she had raised Jane to be practical; if her daughter thought she could be successful in her chosen field, Susan believed her.
Eventually, Susan retired from teaching. Her students (and their parents, and her colleagues) threw her a party. She gathered the children around her one last time and looked at their eager faces. They were so ready to believe, so ready to trust. Life had not betrayed them yet.
If she told them about four children who found a whole country inside a wardrobe, what would it hurt? What was the harm in a small fantasy to color the darkness they would slog through over the years? Susan closed her eyes. She pictured Jane, ensconced at a laboratory in California, hapiness bubbling in her voice every time she called. She pictured Thomas, solid and warm, waiting at home for her that night. She pictured a life -- small and contained, perhaps, nothing glorious, nothing rare -- and set that against the weight of loss and promises unfulfilled.
Not yet, she told Lucy in her head. Not yet, and maybe not ever. She had her own life now, her own truth. It was good, and it was enough.
She told the children about Eleanor of Aquitaine instead.
Then she went home.
---------------
End of Story
Re: As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
Date: 2009-10-24 01:57 am (UTC)And I find it interesting how she treated Narnia as if it was a lie, while she disguised stories of history as fairy tales.
Thank you for this :)
Re: As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
Date: 2009-10-24 02:07 am (UTC)Re: As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
Date: 2009-10-27 08:21 am (UTC)Susan ruled as royalty, walked by the side of her god, and suffered exile twice over. The loss of her entire family was simply the last paving stone on her path. She never forgot but to speak would break her heart in two.
So she lived instead.
Lovely. You get that Susan's enduring gift has been forbearance as much a Lucy's was unwavering faith.
Re: As Love from Lies, or Truth from Art
Date: 2009-10-27 05:40 pm (UTC)Nor did I ever think Lewis betrayed, her, really, though he definitely gave her a raw deal by killing her entire family. After all, while she didn't get to the true Narnia with her siblings, she's still alive. She can be good and do good, and Lewis never says anything that (to me) implies she has no hope of getting to the true Narnia in her own time.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 05:40 am (UTC)A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-21 07:49 pm (UTC)---------------------------------------------
A Certain Point of View
---------------------------------------------
Barely one week into the school year, and things were already spiraling out of control.
Severus Snape drew a deep breath, dug his fingertips into the edge of his desk, and glared at the Carrows. "This is a school," he hissed, "not an abattoir. We are here to educate children. Yes, the older ones are lost to us, but the younger ones can still be persuaded. But only if you let them live. Only if you offer rewards as well as punishment."
Alecto and Amycus stared sullenly back. "Little bitch had it coming," Amycus muttered.
"Be that as it may, you are never to take such drastic measures again," said Snape. "The Weasley girl is recovering in the infirmary, and I have personally Obliviated her entire class. This incident did not happen. Do you understand? And it will never be repeated."
"The Dark Lord said--" began Alecto.
"The Dark Lord," said Snape, "wishes to purify the world of Muggle filth. I fail to see how killing purebloods, however misguided their beliefs, falls within his plans." He forced his hands to unclench and steepled them on the desk: the image of control and disdain. "I would be within my rights to deal with you as you dealt with that class. But this is not the time, nor the place. We need to work together to maintain control until the Dark Lord's inevitable victory. And control is maintained through order, not through blind indulgence in childish revenge."
The Carrows shifted in their seats, their expressions defiant.
Snape stared silently at them, counting to ten, and again, and again. Their shifting grew more nervous. He was a stronger wizard than they, more cunning, much closer to the Dark Lord... and they knew it.
"Bruises are acceptable," said Snape, after a long, uncomfortable minute. "Small cuts. Harsh words. Humiliation. Even Cruciatus, for offenses that warrant detention rather than a simple deduction of house points. But you will not leave permanent marks, and you will never, under any circumstances, risk the death of a student."
The Carrows were cowed, but still unconvinced. Mercy and restraint were foreign concepts to them. When had they become such beasts? When had they let their minds go fallow?
Snape hissed through his teeth. "Idiots. Think. Not only are they our students, they are hostages to ensure their families' compliance with the Ministry and the Dark Lord. A dead hostage is worse than useless."
Finally, his point seemed to get through. "Sorry," muttered Amycus. "I didn't think that far."
"Obviously," said Snape. "Don't let it happen again. Dismissed." He slid a sheet of parchment to the center of his desk and dipped a quill into the inkwell, shutting the Carrows out of his attention. After a moment, they stood and clomped toward the doorway.
"Thank you, Severus," Dumbledore's voice murmured as Alecto closed the door behind herself.
"I didn't do it for you," said Snape, refusing to turn and meet his painted eyes. "Everything I told them was true."
"Even so," said Dumbledore, gently. "You are a better man than you know, Severus, and I am truly sorry for the burdens I laid upon you." Painted robes rustled as he shifted, unseen.
Snape set down the quill and left the room. The parchment sat in the center of his desk, a single word staring back at the portrait:
LIAR.
---------------
End of Story
Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-21 09:57 pm (UTC)You kno, actually he doesn't do badly as a disciplinarian, especially in a situation like this when he has to be the voice of reason because there's no one else to do it for him. It's just previously he had little perspective as to when it's acceptable to bitch out a student because it might break their fragile psyche. XD
Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-21 10:04 pm (UTC)Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-22 08:01 am (UTC)Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-23 02:29 am (UTC)Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-22 02:40 pm (UTC)I've never quite conceded that Snape was working for Dumbledore, the Phoenix, etc., as he was working against Riddle. The man remained petty and vindictive, unnecessarily so if he was merely maintaining a cover. Here, you have him maintaining his cover quite nicely, giving the students some protection while still looking Death-Eater-Inner Circle. And all the time hating the dead Headmaster who forced him to need a cover.
Thank you!
Re: A Certain Point of View
Date: 2009-10-23 02:36 am (UTC)I think I would not like Snape half so much (as a character, not as a person) if Rowling had definitively made him Good or Evil. There is justification for both views -- the relative weight of the evidence probably depends on one's views of True Love and related conceits -- and I find that I can't even make up my own mind. So I try to leave him ambiguous, walking that tightrope where he's never fully on either side.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 05:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 05:39 am (UTC)Oh, right. I'm a moron.
Date: 2009-10-21 02:55 pm (UTC)...Perhaps something lighthearted from Buffy? Xander being great?
Re: Oh, right. I'm a moron.
Date: 2009-10-21 05:37 pm (UTC)Health Insurance
Date: 2009-10-22 04:29 am (UTC)---------------------------------------------
Health Insurance
---------------------------------------------
Buffy hung up the kitchen phone with an ominous click and pinned Xander with a glare. "You said there wasn't a problem. Dawn and Vi are in the hospital. With one broken arm, one sprained ankle, and lots of gashes just dripping with Chaos demon slime. Demon slime, Xander! How is this not a problem?"
Xander eyed his friend warily. Scowl on face, hands on hips, weight dangerously forward on the balls of her feet... oh yeah, not good. She was going to snap pretty soon -- like maybe right now, actually -- if she didn't remember how to relax and have a life around her Slaying.
And she was scowling harder. Right. Time for explanations, not mental babbling.
"Well, see, when we got to Cleveland I figured, Hellmouth plus Slayers equals fights, right?"
Buffy nodded impatiently.
"And fights equals injuries, no matter how good you guys -- you girls -- you... how good you are at kicking evil's ass, right?"
"Unfortunately," Buffy agreed. Her left foot was tapping. Bad sign.
Xander spoke faster. "So I thought, lots of injuries plus maybe strange magical problems and weird demon diseases -- don't look at me like that! I got syphilis and plague from a ghost; I know what I'm talking about! Anyway, I thought, there's some famous hospital in Cleveland, right, and we know hospitals have problems with demons and vampires, so I..." He swallowed and nearly reached Willow-babble speed.
"SoIgotusagroupdiscountattheClevelandClinicifweletthemresearchallmagicalproblemsandguardthebloodbank."
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Try that again, with breathing?"
Xander shrugged, reaching up to tug nervously at the string of his eye-patch. "I kind of... found the old Council's health plan, and when I went in to see about reactivating it for us, I saw a stake in this administrator's desk and we kind of got to talking about vampires and Slayers and stuff and I got us a really cool group discount as long as we let them research any magical problems we run into and guard the blood bank so their security turnover won't be so ridiculous?"
"Xander! I can't believe you told--" Buffy started.
"They already knew!" he said.
She jerked her head dismissively. "Okay, whatever. I can't believe you're okay with turning people into lab rats! You know what happened with the Initiative!"
And there it was, the break he needed. Xander stepped forward, put one hand on Buffy's shoulder. She was so tense she was almost shaking with the effort it took to stay in control, to look strong, to be perfect.
"Buffy. Listen. They're not soldiers. They're doctors -- first, do no harm, you know? They want information about magic and demons so they can help people. Save people. Like you do."
Buffy turned aside, hands clenched into fists. "I-- you can't-- damn it, Xander."
"It will be fine. I swear." He let himself relax, let a cautious grin ease over his face. "And hey, if I'm wrong? You can land me in the emergency room, and get everyone to send cards saying 'I told you so.'"
"Xander."
His name in that tone, exasperation and grudging amusement, meant he'd won. And Buffy tilted her head, let herself lean on his shoulder, closed her eyes and just breathed for a moment. Xander pulled her in for a loose hug, blinking back an embarrassing attack of tears.
Score one for the forces of good against the forces of... well, not evil, obviously -- Buffy was trying to do what she thought was right, like she always did -- but she didn't realize that she didn't have to be General Buffy anymore. She'd forgotten it was okay to let other people be strong for her now and then.
"Right, enough sappiness for one night. Let's go see Dawn and her lovely new arm cast," Xander said, pushing on Buffy's shoulders to turn her around and head toward the garage. "I'll bet you ten bucks she needs new clothes, and there's a lot of paperwork waiting for your signature."
Buffy sighed. "Kill me now?" But her tone was flippant, not drained or serious, and Xander allowed himself a tiny victory dance as he followed her out to the car.
---------------
End of Story
Re: Health Insurance
Date: 2009-10-22 06:01 am (UTC)Their voices were really clear. I really like the idea behind the trade with the doctors too.
Re: Health Insurance
Date: 2009-10-22 06:18 am (UTC)...
Sometimes, I really wonder about my brain.
Re: Health Insurance
Date: 2009-10-22 06:36 am (UTC)Group discount.
Group discount!
Oh Xander, never stop being great.
Re: Health Insurance
Date: 2009-10-22 06:54 am (UTC)On that note, one thing I have always found odd about BtVS fanfic is the number of people who claim that Xander is their favorite character, and yet do everything they can to not write about Xander. Instead, they write about a generic badass he-man warrior type (optionally also a secret genius, ninja, assassin, etc.), who happens to share Xander's name, hair color, and general family background.
I like Xander for being a normal guy thrust into a crazy situation, who screws up a lot, who is a doofus, who is way too attached to in-group vs. out-group morality, who doesn't always think his actions through, and who can be a possessive jerk... but who will never give up, who always tries to do the right thing, who actually managed to put together a functional adult life for himself (and for Anya, for a while), and who cares so much for his friends that he will die for them and break himself to make them happy. And he does all this while remaining basically normal.
I think that is pretty damn awesome, you know? I mean, he saved the world by telling a story about a yellow crayon! Giving him superpowers kind of misses the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 06:51 pm (UTC)I didn't see the latest Trek film (didn't have the scratch for a ticket), but I have this scenario in my head - probably due to Babylon 5 infection - one small ship, a pirate squadron, and Enterprise still an hour out. Buying time for the colony behind them, not themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-21 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-22 05:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-23 04:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-23 08:22 pm (UTC)Some Work of Noble Note
Date: 2009-12-04 12:40 pm (UTC)