MOOP!

There is a forward to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy specifically on the subject of having adventures. It says: Don't. Ever. While you may think you would enjoy gallivanting across planets, running away from the worst the universe has to offer, outsmarting, outbluffing, and outfighting aliens from a hundred thousand million different races, the truth is most people much prefer to stay at home, or in a nice well-made spaceship, and drink a good cup of tea.

But if you can't get the tea, you might as well.

Every once in a great while, I am driven to reread something I have written, and I find that I can be an _excellent and enjoyable writer_! Which is not to say I wouldn't take an editor's sledgehammer to my works, but it's very reassuring to find reminders that I Don't Suck at this, I just need to get my damn act together and DO THE THING.

The above quote is from my Hitchhiker's Fanfic, The Cold Sands of Anatidae. It is fluffy, and cute, and quite rough in points -again, sledgehammer. And just enough of it gets the voice entirely right that I think my H2G2 peeps should go read it, even though it's several years old at this point.

~Sor
MOOP!

I've really not been writing much this week. Sorry? I don't know.

I'm back in Somerville. My biggest current project is "fanfiction" followed loosely by "what do I do for New Years (since staying at home and writing fanfiction is inappropriate in a number of ways)". Also, there's something about Dante, especially as my Christmas gift for myself was the notebook I wrote the very first draft of Dante in, back in aught-four.

I am not allowed to open it until I have finished the current draft. Damn my impossible rules!

The fanfiction project is sorta because I wound up missing the deadline for a couple of homestuck fic-swaps, but I was able to sign up as a pinch-hitter. So, I did all my Yuletide nonsense (I wrote twice as many stories as last year¹) and now I'm signing up to write all sorts of homestuck nonsense. But of course, comments have started coming in on the Yuletide stuff, and some of them have ~*~ideas~*~ that I'm eager to poke at. If I was really good, I'd manage to write them before the author reveal, but I really need to go poke at source material first.

New Years is...I need something to do. I've been formally invited to -I believe- four parties, and informally invited to a party that wasn't happening but is possibly being hosted by other people in the household and maybe I'm invited by them and I'm not really sure what's going on there. If nothing else, this is providing an interesting analysis of what constitutes a "New Years" in my mind. There has to be counting, there has to be many geeky people, and games. And if I'm being perfectly honest with myself, there is supposed to be kissing immediately after midnight. Starting with boyfriends and working my way out to make sure everyone in the damn house gets a kiss on the cheek.

I mentioned last year that New Years is my holiday for relationships. I don't think that fact has changed, but this is literally the first year since...04/05²? that there's not even the possibility spending time with someone I'm dating.

So that's...weird. Weird enough that, in my sortof current perpetually exhausted state, I really have been starting to wonder if the right answer is to just...disappear for a night. Spend New Years alone, writing or meditating, or sleeping.

That is, of course, the other thing. Work has the nasty habit of taking up a significant portion of my energy. It's physically difficult --lots of being on my feet all day and carrying/reaching things-- but more importantly, it's socially difficult. Not in the way you'd expect --I don't get much introvert-drop from dealing with customers (or coworkers, although they are harder) all day. But having my schedule so roughly controlled by someone else? Arrrrrg, no. No, is bad. I've been missing or late to dance things, I've started going to bed before the people I normally stay up late talking to do, and when I do make it to happy friendly groups of people, I'm a lot less capable than normal of dealing with them. I've been sitting in a lot of corners lately, because that's what happens when I am out of energy. I find claustrophobic spaces in which I can recharge.

I've also gotten more self-deprecating, but that's something I can handle. It's not like I'm not always in such a state, just some days I'm more vocal about it, and start crossing the line between entertaining and annoying/worrysome.

Okay. Now I have ~things~ to write, and more importantly, I need to figure out if I'm going to attempt (and probably fail) to go on adventures tonight after work. And also I need to get ready for work. And probably I ought to shower.

Catch you lot later.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: So, two.
2: Okay, so, 05/06 I was dating Blue but she couldn't come. 06/07 I was single, except that kSatyr and I were pretty obviously going to start dating (and he might have thought we already had). 07/08 I was also single, but hahahah, that was the New Years where I started kicking ass at being poly.

So, last night Racheline linked to the most amazingly ridiculous fashion trend ever: pinstripe suits where the pinstripes are actually comprised of words, small enough to not be immediately noticed.

I. Covet.

Everything to do with this idea, I like. I like suits, I like words, I like secrets, and I adore the concept of being read. So basically, this is the intersection of everything I want in the world, and if I only had a spare 13,000 dollars (note: Did not add a zero) I would be pouring over ideas until I could think of something perfect for my suit to say.

At any rate, she asked people to offer what they want their suit to say, and clearly more importantly, to offer what the suits of various fictional characters would say. Someone else offered Zaphod --"GALACTIC PRESIDENT, BABY!"

And so I promptly committed fic.

---

TITLE: "Trying for Title Eight"
RATING: G
WORDS: 356

***

No one in the galaxy could pull of a purple suit with blindingly sublime green pinstripes. Fortunately, most people didn’t try. Unfortunately, Arthur was currently sharing a spaceship with one of the fools who would –he had been reading the guide when Zaphod made a triumphant entrance, posing to emphasize the canary-yellow cravat that finished the outfit.

“What on Earth are you wearing?” Arthur asked, wishing rather fervently that Zaphod hadn’t lost or broken every pair of Joo-Janta Peril Sensitive Sunglasses on the ship.

“Oh, Earth-man, cool, yeah! You wouldn’t believe how mind-bogglingly expensive these threads were, but look at the colours, man! Hoopy yeah?”

Arthur stared bleakly. “Yeah?” he offered tentatively, wincing as Zaphod launched over the couch to sit next to him.

“Well just check out the best part!” Zaphod chuckled, thrust an arm under Arthur’s nose, and smiled broadly. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the colours were not so much ‘clashing’ as ‘having declared war to last for generations’. Arthur felt his eyes start to water as he stared in horror at the little green letters crawling along the purple wool.

“Zaphod, your suit has words on it.” he managed to explain, wondering if he could get a headache by staring too long, or maybe if this was another one of those moments where he already had a headache, and just hadn’t noticed yet.

“GALACTIC PRESIDENT, BABY!” Zaphod exclaimed, waving his arms in a grandoise fashion. He thrust the other arm under Arthur’s nose, and continued “And the pants say “BEST BANG SINCE THE BIG ONE” -did you hear about that, Centri’s such a nice girl. I’m still trying to decide on the vest, I can’t choose between “COOL ENOUGH TO KEEP A SIDE OF MEAT FRESH FOR A WEEK” and “SO HIP I HAVE TROUBLE SEEING OVER MY OWN PELVIS”. What do you think, Earth-man?”

Arthur stood, suddenly very badly craving tea, or really, any excuse to extricate himself from the conversation. “How about “seven-time winner, worst-dressed sentient being in the universe”". As he stalked from the room towards the kitchens, he could hear Zaphod call out behind him:

“That’s no good –I’m going for win number eight!”

---

I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to keep figuring out what the perfect ideal ridiculous suit would say¹. On the other...

Man does this make for awesome fanfic drabble. I've got a bit of Roxy Wasserman percolating, and someone was pointing out how perfectly Lucius this is.

What would your suit say? What would the suits of the characters you love say?

~Sor
MOOP!

1: "PINSTRIPE" is a pretty excellent suggestion if you're going for only one word, and of course "MOOP!" is the first thing I think of for things like this. I would basically eat a baby to have a suit with the full text of "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions" which is such a great story from Machine of Death. Someone in the comments of Rach's post suggested the digits of pi, as many as would fit, which makes my eyes go wide and my brain go "want!"

There's a lot of good stuff out there. Fun little mental exercise!

Take a picture of yourself right now.
don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
post that picture with NO editing.
post these instructions with your picture.

I happen to actually be dressed and showered for the day, *and* wearing a new skirt¹, so no problem.

Pity the lighting is somewhat rubbish.


And oh fine, here:


Gonna go say hi to my grandmother, yes the dead one. Catch you later.

~Sor
MOOP!

ETA: Oh here, fine mom. It's a long read --thirty-six chapters. Enjoy. The Paladin Protocol, Big Bang Theory, season three (and 1 & 2) spoilers, Penny/Sheldon, PG-13ish, no noticed (therefore glaring) grammatical or spelling errors --there may easily be subtle ones.

Since you were complaining about the lack of a link.

Semi-relatedly, oh dear god, Sheldon has crawled into my head, what do I do what do I do this is so awesome and so terrible all at the same time.

Man, life was so much easier before I had soulbonds¹.

What, like when you were ten?

Yes. Shut up. Your existence will confuse people who haven't been reading my journal for six years.

I think it's actually reasonably clear that I'm a variant of yourself, who you have discussions with regularly.

S: Well of course, who else is going to understand her on the level necessary for true communication.

ARG. YOU. OUT.

S: *pouts*

YOU DON'T POUT. Fucking fanfiction messing with my perceptions of characters, I don't even get to have a normal Sheldon Cooper in my head I have to have this...this variant impostor!

H: Now now then, you've never much objected to me being a work of fandom?

...Musicals are not fandom.

H: Indeed. Is the new boy fuckable?

S: Am I what?!

Hyde: no, Sheldon: OUT, me: stop livejournaling, it is too late for that nonsense and no one is going to understand this entry. Hell, I'm not sure *I* understand this entry. Goodnight!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Soulbond, noun. Coined (as far as I know) by madamluna. Character stolen from some work of media who lives in your head and chats with you and drinks all your booze.

I list them as a separate concept from Denizens. Unlike Denizens, who can be original characters, soulbonds never are, they're generally stolen, wander around for a few days/weeks, and vanish quietly when their source material stops being quite so much of an obsession. See also Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Mary Poppins, Zaphod? I guess Zaphod, he was kinda a nomansland between Soulbond and Denizen, the original Hyde (as owned by Luna), and both White and Black spies.

No, this entry is not meant to make sense. Sorry about that. Sometimes I use my livejournal for this sort of faffery.

Some cooking notes from the last several days:

Nachos:
Lettuce should not go in the microwave. Chips should not go in the microwave for longer than *maybe* thirty seconds, and probably better cap it at fifteen. Seriously, about the only thing to go in the microwave is the meat if you have some, the salsa, and the cheese.

(Future order to try: Meat, salsa, until warm, add chips and cheese, give 'er fifteen more seconds *then* add lettuce and sour cream and devour. Will probably taste better.)

Also, if the only salsa in the fridge is medium, but you *have* mild in the pantry, you are allowed to open the mild, you know. It will taste better all around.

Milk goes really well with nachos, keep up the good work.

French Toast:
Do not undercook! Seriously, undercooked french toast tastes *nasty!*

Look, use the good little t-fal frying pan. Cook one handed --don't even bother with a spatula. When the toast stops sticking to the pan, it's ready to flip/done. It's brilliantly easy, mmkay?

Flipping french toast is really easy and makes me feel impressive.

CRACKING EGGS ON THE COUNTER INSTEAD OF THE SIDE OF THE BOWL IS SO AWESOME YOU GUYS!

Pasta:
Hon, if you're the one making the pasta, you get to pick what goes in the sauce, yes, even if you're outvoted two to one.

That being said, mushrooms are probably much better as part of the sauce then as a garnish. Just saying. Maybe try again tomorrow? Ignore the haters who don't want delicious fungus in their sauce. It's good for them.

Waffles:
The waffle iron is not non-stick you [badwords¹]. Next time, use the pam, and we'll see how it goes from there.

Pancakes:
Again, if you're using the tiny t-fal god, go ahead and just assume that the pancake is cooked when it stop sticking to the pan. I didn't actually get to nom on any of these pancakes, so I don't know how they turned out, or have any other advice.

General:
You are kindof a whore for that little frying pan aren't you? Not that I really blame you --it works like a dream, especially for breakfast foods, but still. Huh.

Chris's law of cleaning continues to work like a dream. If you clean the dishes while they're still hot, you don't even have to scrub. It's brilliant.

***

New Methods of Rationality chapter is up! Go here!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: "dumb cunt" technically. Why my brain thinks it can get away with that sort of misogynistic bullshit is beyond me, but there we go. I've given it a proper talking to, don't you worry.

Okay. We're gonna start this entry by pointing out that I am smart. Not necessarily in the traditional genius knowing a lot of things about a lot of highly complicated nuclear science etc things, but in the heaps of common sense and a pretty good ability at figuring out how things work, and understanding explanations, or at least knowing what I need further explanation on way. More Feynman, less Einstein is my general goal¹.

Being a smart kid, I tend to be interested in reading things that are also smart. I'm not saying I want to go pick up a half-dozen Highly Academic texts and plow through them, but when it comes to things like my fiction, the more I find myself saying "c'mon, *really?!*" to the characters, the less inclined I am to enjoy it. The whole horror movie "don't go in there alone, you moron!" thing? Yeah, that. I find characters with no common sense to be frustrating and uninteresting --in general, the more clever a character is, the more likely I am to enjoy watching them interact with their world.

Every once in a while, I find a character who has more common sense than I do. Not just pragmatism or enough common sense that I never go "don't do that, you moron!", but a character who I honestly feel would, if reading my story, have a fair number of moments in which he or she said "don't do that, you moron!" to me, --not just stupid moments, but things which I thought made perfect sense at the time.

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. Is one such character.

And he's still flawed as hell. There are multiple other characters in his universe who are just as or differently intelligent as he is, and they are saying all the "don't do that, you moron" things that I don't even comprehend because I just don't even realize that they're a "don't do that, you moron" thing in the first place!

Flawed characters are interesting. We want them to get better, to learn more, to become more intelligent, clever, closer to perfect without ever actually reaching it, because perfection is boring. And so, a flawed (therefore, interesting) character who is flawed in ways that don't make me want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them?

If HJPEV was a real person, it is extremely possible that I would be a little bit in love, and more than a little bit intimidated by that fact. Hell, just looking at the way I interact with the people in my life who *are* decidedly smarter, and I know that I would have just about the hugest crush possible you can have on an individual without ever speaking to them (because I wouldn't know what to say!)³

For those of you raising an eyebrow and going "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres??", ah. You must not follow me on twitter. You haven't had to put up with me for the last six weeks, throwing in quotes and lines and just *buckets* of squee about what really is, the single greatest fanfiction I've ever read.

It is called "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". The author's description on fanfiction.net is "Petunia married a scientist. Now rationalist!Harry enters the wizarding world armed with Enlightenment ideals and the experimental spirit... "

It was first brought to my attention by ncarraway when he twote the line "What part of 'get fitted for robes' sounded to you like 'please cast a Confundus Charm on the entire universe'!?" with a link, and I was intrigued. My first quote was from the fifth chapter, I wound up practically *devouring* all seven that were then up. By the end of the seventh chapter, I had decided that this was a hilarious way to look at the wizarding world, and was enjoying all the intelligent ideas floating around.

It was probably somewhere around the tenth chapter where I realized that the intelligent ideas were a part of it, but more importantly, I cared about the characters and wanted desperately to know what they did next.

The story is currently up to chapter 20, and while the intelligent ideas are still intelligent, and the characters are brilliant and wonderful, I now want desperately to know what the *plot* is going to do next. Especially after reading the spoiler-tastic author's notes for chapter 20, because the provide insight to a Voldemort who has actually read the evil-overlord list and is clever enough to understand it.

Oh.
My.
Gods.

So, let me just point out that I cannot recommend this fanfic highly enough. I love it enough that I actually went and reopened my account on ff.net, just so I could get e-mails whenever a new chapter was up --and believe me, my heart has soared every time one has. Foster and I just spent a highly enjoyable 20 minutes discussing the plot and ideas. I linked it to JoshZed, who has linked it to people, and at one point came to me with the ethical conundrum of "this has changed my thinking and the thinking of friends, is it wrong to link it to someone with the underlying plan of trying to change *their* thinking?"⁴. I gave it to @AlBri (SCD-Alex) one night, and he came to me the following Monday at dance to squee about how brilliant it was, and how he kept wanting to read more, rather than sleep.

This fanfic? Is really really good. I've been recommending it all over the place, to people in real life and on Twitter. Now it really is time I link it to all of you.

So go read. It really is worth the time.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Not that I'm ANYWHERE close to either, of course, but what I know of Feynman, means that I pretty much want to do his taxes free of charge², and yes, I don't *care* that he's dead now and doesn't have taxes to do.

2: Warning, feminism.

3: See also Sean the suitpunk boy who was in my math class and who rendered me utterly tongue-tied, because not only was he a form of gorgeous I really like (suitpunk: rumpled hair, multiple piercings, t-shirt, vest and jacket, also, skinny as a rail) but because he was not only smarter than I am at multivar calc, he managed to nerd-snipe our teacher for a class period, which was hotter than hell.

If he's somehow reading this, hello, want to go get coffee sometime? I promise I will try not to babble at you too much!

4: It was a little more complicated than that, but without permission, I don't think I feel comfortable going into details.

COMMENT POLICY: No spoilers, please. Feel free to link squee-worthy lines of dialog (that was almost what this post was, just dozens of those) but don't disclose plot elements in here right now. Catch me on IM instead.

ETA: Jesus *Christ* that got long fast. Sorry guys. But the fanfic is JUST THAT GOOD!

ETA2 (11:11, 2010 05 10): I forgot to point out (and I feel like a dick for doing so) that there absolutely needs to be a trigger warning for chapter seven of the fanfic --a bad guy talking casually about rape specifically.

It was the end of the seventh book, and I ran away. I had watched the rest of it happened, snarked with little kids and laughed at unfunny bits, but it occured to me that the end mattered, that I had to see it alone.

So I ran, and hid up a tree where I covered my ears and eyes and ignored it all.

But Voldemort chose to use the patio around this tree as his base. My hands slipped, I kept learning bits and pieces of The End, and finally, I succumbed, to follow Voldemort and learn what happened.

A good group of Death Eaters were gone, I knew that much. Not dead, gone. See, Dumbledore had died, and then strange things began to occur. The Death Eaters who had dissapeared were still walking around, but had no memories of the terrible things they had done, or any reason why they would have done these things.

And Dumbledore was completely gone. But Voldemort was his brother, and so he knew exactly where to look. A small antique shop, where much of the action I can no longer recall took place. Voldemort dragged Dumbledores body from behind the counter, and pulled out a small tube, with three coins in the top.

Dumbledore had lied about what it took to kill him. He had lied, and never told anyone, including his brother, that he was a time-wizard.

Voldemort poured out the coins and the other things in the tubes, and brought Dumbledore back to the present. They talked. And Voldemort concieded.

Dumbledore died anyways. He couldn't stop that, he was a very old man. But before he died, he brought his brother back, and gave him what was left of Dumbledores life, old artifacts and memories, saved over the year. (One of them, I was pleased to see, was a truly heinous kilt, in horridly clashing pinks and yellows --paisley, I believe, with an inner lining of happy faces. It really was atrocious)

Voldemort took over his brothers shop. He began to sell the dolls and things there to the muggles who had been watching. I saw the earings Tho had sent me and mom, lego blocks, and quietly pocketed them.

I then left. And woke up.






It was a Weird Fucking Dream. Keep in mind that the above is what I can remember. Earlier, there was a secret hallway, with too many doors and I or Harry or whichever one of us it was was trying to sneak into it past the Slytherins, and then out again when Draco came back.

Yeah.

At any rate, this has been an Awesome birthday thus far. I woke up far too early, and got to watch a bit more then half of the moon dissapear, and then I went back to sleep and was rewarded by Harry Potter dreams.

And of course, I slept about 14 hours total last night. Aig. Stupid clones and their inability to sleep. :P

...who I miss like voldemort misses dumbledore.

Anyways.

I hate sleeping that long, but besides that, thus far my birfday has been good. Presents time.

~Sor
MOOP!