Mo's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Mo" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:45 am
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Secrets and Lies
This is a one-shot, written for the X-Men Movie Ficathon. I figured I'd post it here, too.
Title: Secrets and Lies
Author: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mofic
Summary: There’s something Jean never told Scott.
Rating: G
Recipient: joanne_c
Request Used: Charles Xavier/Jean Grey or Charles and Jean. Charles teaching Jean how to control her powers and if the author can, his teaching her about telepathic sex. Inclusion of Scott is fine in either scenario as well.
Scenario: “Secrets and Lies” draws only upon the first X-Men movie as canon, so the account of Jean’s childhood, family, and entry into the X-Men does not match that depicted in X3 or that of the comics. This story is, in addition, consistent with my X1 fiction and expands upon some events briefly recounted in my series “Canadian Nights,” “Reminiscences,” “Taking Chances,” and “Past and To Come.” Except for the reflection at the end, everything takes place before the events depicted in “I Know What You Are.”
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my betas: talktooloose, niteslayer, lilacsigil, bittenfeld.
( Read more... )
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Additional Note on Request Not Used and Why: joanne_c had a Scott/Logan slash request and that’s most of what I write so my first inclination was to do it. The request was “Scott/Logan or Scott and Logan (much prefer slash but is okay if not). Learning about each other after Jean's death in X2, the good and the bad and accepting each other for who they are. I would like for Jean/Logan to have been completely one-sided on Logan's part, please.” I didn’t do it for this ficathon because I decided I’d written that story pretty thoroughly already here and didn’t have anything more to say about it.
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08:02 pm
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I Had Such a Lovely Time
with talktooloose today, who should come to NYC more often. How many people can I discuss writing, X-Men, coming out, family history, literature and architecture with? How many people would I have such a good time roaming about with for hours?
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09:13 am
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Recent Reading - More Charlaine Harris
I talked in this post about reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels - the Charlaine Harris books on which the TV series True Blood is based. I'm nearly done - finishing up the eighth (of nine) books now. And I still feel, as I said in that post, that they get better with each book. In fact, I think someone starting them might do well to jump in with the second or third. She does a good job of giving you enough information that you can read them without having read the previous novels in the series, without recapping so much that she bores old readers.
One thing I find very fun - and I think other fanfic people will, too - is that she borrows from all sorts of sources for situation, plot and character. She pulls from popular culture, classics, supernatural legends and melds it all together into a frothy vampiric Louisiana concoction. One large subplot is lifted intact from Dumas, for example. Of course that meant that I (and anyone who had read The Three Musketeers) knew how it would come out, but I found that just made it more fun.
Another thing Harris does well is to avoid the major pitfall of mystery novels of the Amateur Detective variety. I find with that genre the problem is that most people never come across one murder to solve, so it's hard to swallow when someone can't go to the store without stumbling over a dead body. The reader starts wondering why no one around this person thinks it strange that anywhere s/he goes people get murdered. Some authors solve the problem by having the main character become so good at solving mysteries that people seek him or her out when there's a murder the police can't solve. Others have the character go professional. Some just ignore the problem and hope the reader won't notice.
The problem is intensified with a small town setting, where several murders in a row would likely be noticed as unusual. But Harris deals with it well, both by the supernatural element (vampires live violent "lives" and so do the other supernatural creatures she introduces) and by varying the setting. Although the first book takes place solely in the small town in which Sookie lives, later books move to Dallas and New Orleans.
All told, I'm quite enjoying the books and think they make fun, escapist reading. The characters are witty and the dialogue (and Sookie's internal thoughts shared with the reader) are often LOL funny. The plots are clever (if often borrowed) and the characters become more real with each book.
There's another series of books by the same author that I think are also quite good, in a different way. These are the Harper Connelly mysteries. They have a supernatural element, but are much more tied to the real world.
Harper Connelly is a young women with a special power: she can detect the presence of dead people. She feels an emanation from corpses and can tell family or authorities where to look for a missing person (provided the person is actually dead). In the presence of a corpse she can also tell a little bit about the person - name, age, gender, how they died. She and her step-brother Tolliver go all over the country providing this service for a fee. Families and police departments are initially skeptical, but since she's always right they're often won over.
Harper and Tolliver are great characters, multi-layered and with a well fleshed out history. I've read three of the books so far and the mysteries themselves have all been predictable, but I didn't mind because I found the characters and plots compelling. The tone is much darker than the Sookie Stackhouse novels and the writing is better. I'm looking forward to getting the rest from the library.
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08:36 pm
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I'm the Mother of a Twenty-One-Year-Old
Where did the time go? I swear it's just yesterday that I was 21 myself...
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12:06 pm
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Writing to the Author - Fanfic and Published Fiction
One of my favorite parts of this whole fanfic enterprise is the interaction between writers and readers. I love it on both ends.
( Read more... )
This has, btw, become a sort of a thing between me and my brother Joel. He sometimes refers to me (or introduces me) as "my sister Dale, who corresponds with murderers." To which I always reply, "One murder. One letter."
Tags: meta, reading, writing
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02:39 pm
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Recent Reading: Southern Vampire Mysteries
On a totally different (and more fun) topic, I've been reading Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire mysteries, which are the basis for the TV show True Blood. As I reported here I wasn't thrilled about the first book in the series, but liked it well enough to read more.
I've read four of them now, and I think they get better with each book. There are some Mary Sue-ish elements, as one of the commenters on my original post pointed out, but Sookie becomes more fleshed out and more real with each book. And she's genuinely clever, making the books often quite funny. The mysteries are quite good, the new characters she introduces in the later books interesting and well described, and I like that the books are different enough that having seen the show doesn't mean I know what's going to happen.
Oh, one funny thing. In the fourth one:
( Cut For Those Who Don't Want to Be Spoiled )
Okay, so my fiction predicted - in 2004 - Barack Obama becoming president in 2008, and now this. You heard it here first.
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07:12 pm
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I'm Out of a Job
So, for those who know me fannishly: I've been working for NYC's health department the past six years and change, in the IT Division but doing emergency management work. I managed a web site for doctors and other medical providers on urgent and emergent public health issues, did emergency planning and business continuity planning for our systems and application development, sent out alerts to medical providers at all hours of day and night and did a bunch of other emergency-related activities that touch on computer systems in one way or another. It was an odd-ball job - sort of half IT and half public health. It's a tough, tough time and I have certainly worried about losing my job, but my sense of job security - such as it was - came from the belief that they knew they needed somebody to do my job and knew that no one else would do it. It's too public health-y for IT people and too computer-y for public health people. It was perfect for me. I loved the work, enjoyed working with most of my colleagues, felt I was doing something worthwhile.
I lost my job today. No warning, no severance, no explanation other than "your services are no longer required." I'm reeling. I can't imagine how I'll find another job at my age and in this economy.
Current Mood: devastated
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11:41 am
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A Five Questions Meme
Meme
1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.
lunabee asked me:
( 1. What is attachment parenting? )
( 2. What attracts you to the Scott/Logan ship? )
( 3. If money were no object, what would you purchase right this minute? )
( 4. Favorite things to do in New York City? )
( 5. Seen any movies you enjoyed recently? )
Anyone want to play?
Tags: meme
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12:34 pm
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Recent Reading: The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson
My sister lent me this book (Hi, Sharon!). In doing so she said that there's more sex in it than what she usually reads, but she thought it was appropriate to the topic. It's not more sex than what I usually read (or write) but I agree it's appropriate to the topic, although I think it will unfortunately limit the audience.
This is a YA ("Young Adult" - library/publishing term for books aimed at kids age 12-21 or so) novel about a 17-year-old gay male high school senior in the Chicago suburbs. It's a serio-comic first person story, crafted as Charles James Stewart's journal. His father - whom he refers to as "First" - is also Charles James Stewart, which is how he comes to think of himself as Charlie the Second.
A lot happens in Charlie's senior year - social changes (his best friend since elementary school has more time for a new girlfriend than for Charlie), relationship developments (his first boyfriend), a rocky time in his parents' marriage, etc. Charlie has a clever, snarky approach to life and he's very, very funny, often in a self-deprecating way. He's also kind of obsessed with sex, and much of the journal concerns masturbatory activities, sexual fantasies, and - eventually - actual interpersonal sex. The sexual descriptions are explicit and frequent and, unfortunately, will probably rule the book out for a lot of the target audience, or at least for the parents who buy them books.
Still, there's lots here for adult adults. Charlie is a fully realized and well-developed character and he grows and develops throughout the book. It's not a coming out book - he is already out well before the book starts - but rather a coming of age one. I liked that it's not a book about being gay but a book about a gay kid growing up. Charlie learns things about his parents, about family relationships, friendship, and sexuality and he often learns them with pain and difficulty. The other characters are all seen through Charlie's somewhat self-absorbed adolescent eyes, and Ferguson does a great job of letting the reader know things about them through Charlie's descriptions and experiences that Charlie himself does not realize. The sex is sometimes comic, sometimes poignant, often hot, and always very, very real. As is Charlie.
Highly recommended, and I think of interest to slash fen.
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03:52 pm
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How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Part 2
So, as described here Zara and I had a lovely time in Minnesota and Manitoba visiting relatives a few weeks ago. While my girls were on vacation with their other mother and vickifelder's daughter was at sleepaway camp, Vicki and I had a very nice mini-vacation, too.
We had gone to Lambertville/New Hope last summer, just for a weekend, and decided to return for a longer time this year. After determining that I could afford to use three vacation days and still have the time I needed for the High Holidays, we planned a Saturday to Wednesday vacation.
The inn we'd stayed at last year wasn't available, so I found us another one. We wanted a small bed and breakfast inn, beautifully restored and with antique furnishings but up-to-date plumbing, electricity, wireless computing and A/C. And we'd really liked staying in somewhat quieter Lambertville yet close enough to walk to New Hope for night life, so I looked in Lambertville and near the bridge. I found this lovely place, which certainly met all of our requirements. We had a two room suite that felt very private, with a four poster bed and a two-person Jacuzzi. Comfy robes, fluffy towels, delicious breakfasts. It was a welcome pampered haven.
In addition to enjoying being together in the inn, we did get out and do some things in the area. There's a great restored steam locomotive (says Dale the train buff) and they have a scenic Wine and Cheese evening ride in a brass-and-mahogany filled dining car, which we both enjoyed greatly. We went berry and peach picking; walked around a lot; had massages and manicures; did some shopping; saw a movie; ate really well; read a lot. It was very hot and we wished we'd brought bathing suits so we could have gone tubing, but other than that it was pretty much perfect.
It was a very different vacation from my other one. I like having both kinds - the family-filled-catch-up-with-lots-of-folks kid-focussed ones and the quieter, adult only ones.
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09:49 am
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Recent Reading: Searching for Schindler: A Memoir by Thomas Keneally
A few months ago Zara and I went to a lecture at the 92d Street Y about the making of the movie "Schindler's List," as described here. The lecturer mentioned a recent book by Keneally about the writing of the book and the making of the movie, called Searching for Schindler: a memoir and it sounded very interesting. So I put it on my library list and read it last month. It's definitely worth reading!
I think Schindler's List - both book and movie - are really essential reading/viewing. It's the rare case, for me, where I can't say that I like the book or the movie better. The movie does what movies do best, the book what books do best. They're very different and both very worthwhile (and this is coming from someone who almost never thinks a movie that's over three hours is worthwhile). They're also both really harrowing, albeit ultimately uplifting. This new book is something else. There's some of the harrowing detail that can't (and shouldn't) be avoided in any story that touches on the Holocaust, but this is a much lighter book. Most of it is quite entertaining and some of it is laugh out loud funny.
( Read more... )
Read this book!
An unintentionally funny postscript: on the back of the edition I read is a notefrom Spielberg to Keneally. I've already returned the book to the library, so I might not have the quote exactly right, but it's something like, "If I'd read this book before I made the film, the film might have been an hour longer. I owe you a great deal. The world owes you more." I'm sure he meant that he and the world owe Keneally a debt for bringing this story to the public eye. OTOH, one could read that as meaning that by writing Searching for Schindler after the movie was made, the world owes Keneally because he saved us all from a 4.5 hour Spielberg movie.
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09:53 am
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Better Late Than Never
I'm on my shul's Shabbat leyning rotation. I leyn generally once a month.
What does that mean?( Read more... )
Well, I got my leyning assignment for September and - coincidentally - I'm leyning Ki Tavo, maftir aliyah. So I'll be doing what I would have done 41 years ago if it hadn't been forbidden me. Better late than never.
Here's a picture of what leyning looks like:
The young woman in white with the yad (pointer) is the one leyning.
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09:29 am
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Happy Left Handers Day
It turns out that August 13 is International Left Handers Day. I never celebrated because I never knew before!
Like our President, I'm left handed. I'm very left handed, having shown a strong preference for using my left hand when just a few months old (or so I've been told - I don't really remember) and continue to have a much stronger dominance than most left handers I know.
Best wishes to my fellow left handers, everywhere!
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02:06 pm
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How I Spent My Summer Vacation
I just got back from vacation last night. I'm way behind on f-list but will try to catch up. Here's what I've been doing:
( Read more... )
All in all it was a great trip and Zara got to add two states to her States I Have Visited list.
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12:25 pm
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Off to the Land of Ubetcha, Loonies, Toonies, and Universal Health Care
Zara and I are going to Minnesota and Manitoba for a week (the ubetcha is the Minnesota part). I'm hoping to connect with family and friend in the Twin Cities, and then we'll head to Winnipeg Beach, where my family has a house: Pleasant View Cottage (pictured in my icon). I'm really looking forward to visiting with far flung family, hanging out on the beach, going to a water park, experiencing the Mall of America, and just generally relaxing. Plus there's the thrill of being The Jackal - entering a country with one passport and leaving with a different one.
I'll be mostly without 'net access, starting Monday. Catch you all on the flip side.
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11:04 am
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Recent Reading: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
As mentioned elsewhere, I'm loving the HBO TV Series "True Blood" and was intrigued to read the books it's based on. So I got the first one from my library and read it the other day. I'd been warned that the books are not very well written, but I wanted to see how they compared to the show. Well, this is definitely a case where the adaptation is considerably better than the original.
( Beware - Spoilers for Both TV Show and Book )
In sum, I don't think it was a very good book and I'd be unlikely to have read it if not for the show. Still, there were things I liked about it and I enjoyed comparing it to True Blood and have already requested the sequel from the library.
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10:59 am
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Unusual Names and a Life of Crime
A study in Social Science Quarterly profiled on the Today show suggests that giving kids unusual names can lead them to bad behavior and eventual jail time. The study explains that unusual names lead to low self-esteem, which lead to delinquency, saying "having an unusual first name leads to unfavorable reactions in others, which then leads to unfavorable evaluations of the self."
I guess it's too late to save me and my kids... or Barack Obama.
Current Mood:  amused
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09:27 am
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Is This Funny if you don't live in NYC?
"People in New York are especially excited by Judge Sotomayor because she comes from the Bronx. In fact, Judge Sotomayor famously presided over the landmark New York City case, Shut Up vs. No, You Shut Up." Conan O'Brien
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07:32 am
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Finish the Sentence Meme
So, finish each sentence.
( Read more... )
I tag pin_drop, anime_heart, wneleh, ww1614, and ringthebells.
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10:39 am
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I Don't Know If This is Funny or Appallingly Close to Reality
Probably both. From the Onion:
WASHINGTON—Pentagon officials announced Tuesday a new policy toward homosexuals in the armed services, the so-called "Don't Tell, Let Me Guess" system, which gives Pentagon brass the opportunity to state their opinion on a soldier's sexual orientation, provided it's followed by the phrase "Am I right?"
"These new guidelines allow homosexuals to serve in the armed forces, as long as they don't show any outward traits that would tip us off and ruin all the fun of guessing," said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who purports to have "excellent" gaydar. "When you make a game out of it, you're much more invested in the survival of your fellow serviceman—at least until you guess whether or not he or she enjoys sex with members of the same gender."
Pentagon officials said soldiers who are correctly guessed to be homosexual will face immediate dishonorable discharge, unless they can prove they have killed at least 10 enemy combatants in a particularly brutal fashion.
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