sundries

[rm]

LJ security issue with locked posts. You may want to check your stuff.

Swim club gets fined for racism, but apparently is going to continue to fight the charges.

There's a dust storm in Sydney. Right to the gut this went for me; strange, the ways in which I still consider her mine. Also, CNN says it looks like Mars. I gotta tell you, when I went to Australia the first thing I was utterly struck by as the plane landed was just how fucking red EVERYTHING was. It's hard to imagine all that airborne, even looking at the photos and video.

So Mars! That story I posted last night, man -- I went through a lot getting that done -- tried relatively normal narrative structure four or five times and there was all this other stuff built around it -- a girl who was interested in pre-Empire human gender and sexuality who'd had books on Lashansky when Jack had been fucking her back in their Time Agency academy days, actually seeing Jack go back to Cardiff at the end of the story and reestablishing the greenhouse in the new Hub.... but when it finally had to be written and I didn't have the emotional whatever to keep fighting with it the way I had been, it got really spare, because all that other stuff distracted it from being Martin's story and Jack's story as opposed to "let's talk about how Torchwood fucks you up" which is really on the backdrop. Some of the stuff I had to pull out made me really sad -- I had a lot of great material around Martin's death and some of the other people in the house; Martin has a daughter, but I never got that fit in, just like I never got to talk about his childhood or his three older brothers or religion, but it's all there in my head. AND THEN, I almost didn't post the story, as I was like "fuck Torchwood, fix this and make it original fic" but that story felt less honest to me than this one -- that would be making people up, and these were real. My process about writing is weird. Anyway. I'm glad it's done.

The range of panels for this Gallifrey One in Feb has been announced. Go look. If a couple of them don't make you go Oh, Rach..., you haven't been paying attention.

There are two mosquitoes living in our bedroom. They are only biting me. They are waking me up each night. I am miserable. Last night, before bed, Patty tried to kill them, chasing them about the room with a cane (it's the only way we can reach the high ceilings).

Note to self: call Mike's Comics.

Busy day today.

Comments

[st-aelphaba.livejournal.com]

mildly random: you were on my mind the entire time i read Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" this past weekend. if you haven't read it, you must.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, checked the locked posts thing after news made that post. Whoopsie!

And fwiw, some of those Gally panels are just making me go "oo! yay!" Particularly the Kaffeklatsches of Kasterborous.

[nonlinearmusing.livejournal.com]

There are two mosquitoes living in our bedroom. They are only biting me.

For some odd reason, I found this hilarious? *shrugs*

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the heads-up on the security issue! I was wondering what on earth the weird box on my first entry was.

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

The area around Meteor Crater has that same Mars red look. Cool and trippy.

[dancedarkly.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, mosquitoes. My sympathies – I've spent many a summer night hitting the ceiling with a large towel.

[bluejeans07.livejournal.com]

Agh, thanks for letting me know about LJ. @_@

And ooh, panels! One of them particular tickles my fancy~

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Supposedly certain essential oils will make one less attractive to skeeters when applied to the skin: citronella (also see: candles), lemongrass, rosemary, lavender, peppermint, clove (those last two should probably be diluted with a carrier oil). Or you could just say the hell with it and pick up some Off! or Deet at your local drugstore.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Also, taking a spoonful or 2 of brewer's yeast a day will make one smell unattractive to mosquitoes, plus it's good for you.

[graene.livejournal.com]

I think lemon eucalyptus is where picaridin (the as effective as DEET in proper dilution pnatural ingredient per CDC) comes from, you should be able to find that oil too. I seriously contemplated planting several in our yard, but eucalyptus are widowmakers and we have enough falling branch issues already.

[crimson-bride.livejournal.com]

OMG, Sydney. *stares* I keep forgetting you're a fellow sometime resident.

[jackarono.livejournal.com]

Try a broom to get the mosquitos. Bigger paddle area than a cane. :)

Last night, before bed, Patty tried to kill them, chasing them about the room with a cane

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

If that ain't true love, I don't know what is.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'm going to write a longer comment about Mars, eventually.

Some of those panels made me go "Oh, Me", but I'm just self-centred.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm probably gonna be on the death and crossplay ones. But that's probably predictable.

(and um yay, because, like the Annie thing -- I don't think you knew me then -- this is one of those fics that I sorta want to talk through a lot, because, um... well, writing is weird.)

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Sydney was so weird yesterday -- for the whole morning, it was just this perpetual early twilight -- you know how it is when it's overcast, and the sun is going down, and for a a minute or two, just enough light gets through to create this other-worldly golden glow.

I can definitely see which Gallifrey One panels are going to interest you. I'm kind of interested that the title of the character death one is "the moment has been prepared for", because I think one of the big differences between Ianto's death and the way that Donna left the show is that Donna's demise was prepared for -- we had lots of foreshadowing in the twelve weeks leading up to it, and in interviews RTD had indicated that there would be some big tragedy that would upset people, whereas with CoE, the five-day format meant, firstly that the (extremely clunky) foreshadowing didn't have as much time to settle with viewers, and also all the leadup interviews implied that Ianto's story arc would involve a triumphant love story.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I know I've been suggested for the death panel (ha) and the crossplay one, so hopefully I'll be doing those.

I wasn't active with the current season of Who when the Donna thing happened (so I saw Journey's End, before I saw the rest of that season), and I was gutted by it, but I also wasn't personally engaged with her, but you raise a good point.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

The interesting thing with reactions to Donna is that a lot of people were saying that they'd wished she HAD died, rather than lost her memories -- that the Doctor should have respected her wishes (a view I have some sympathy with, even though I understand why the Doctor did what he did), and that her life was worthless without the Doctor in it (a view that I definitely do not share). I have to wonder though, what fan reactions would have been like had RTD actually gone there -- it's one thing to say you'd prefer it in the abstract, but whether it would have actually felt that way had the Doctor delivered a corpse back to Wilf and Sylvia...

I think the other big difference between the ways that Donna and Ianto left the show is that I think most people were aware that Catherine Tate was only able to do one year as a full-time companion, so writing her out of the show was inevitable, whereas it's clear that GDL would have been happy to keep playing Ianto for at least one more season. So even though many people were upset with the way Donna was written out, they accepted the fact that it would happen, whereas with Ianto, we have people upset with both the way he was written out and the fact that he was written out at all.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The story has it that when the NW of Western Australia was being explored for mineral potential what really threw people was the fact that the highly iron rich mountains were red due to rust.

[rm.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRAP.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* Just found some (geological) confirmation.

http://www.austhrutime.com/hamersley_range.htm

Prior to large-scale production of oxygen by photosynthetic organisms using processes which produced oxygen as a by-product, the iron remained in solution, but as soon as dissolved oxygen became available the iron began to rust to iron oxide. So much of it was produced that at least parts the oceans probably turned red.

[timelady.livejournal.com]

I totally feel for you with the mosquitos. I've been spending the last couple of weeks with my legs looking like pin cushions and not to mention that the bites swell nice and large. And I just got attacked again last night (7 bites and they're so itchy I feel like I want to gnaw off my leg). No one else in the house has gotten any bites. grr... If anything works to make them stay away from you, let me know. I'm tired of itching.