162: Love Is Better Late Than Never
First, thank you so very much, kind anonymous gift-leaver and equally kind non-anonymous gift-leaver. (maygra, you are wonderful.) It makes me ludicrously thrilled to see the prettiness on my user info page right now.
So, I spent the last week frantically acquiring data and then writing a whole bunch of crap about anime music vids, and the feedback thereof. And as I did this, I was getting presents, and getting love anonymously, and it made me a happy data mistress, let me tell you. So I was trying to think of a way to say thank you to you sweet and wonderful people. All of you, I mean. Yes, even including you. (And I was also thinking, oh god, I cannot wait to get back to talking about something I actually know something about. Like, anything. You'd think, with what I do for a living, I'd be better at writing in a total knowledge vacuum, but it's still hard.) And it is the time and the season for loving, even if I'm a little behind the times with that.
So I put all those things together - Valentine's gifts for me! Love for all friendkind! Fan fiction! - and came up with the obvious answer. Which is that I should rec some gen.
(Later: stories containing actual sex. I haven't forgotten that the word "porn" is right in the mission statement of this LJ, I swear.)
The One That Proves That You Can't Trust a Man Who Can't Trust a Herring. The Colbert Report - Lost Episode - December 2006, by scrunchy. The Colbert Report, gen.
Okay. Here's the thing, and I want certain people out there on my friends list to take a deep, deep breath, because I know what I'm about to say will upset them. I've never seen an episode of the Colbert Report. Or the Daily Show, for that matter. We don't have cable - we don't even have broadcast television - and I understand these magical works appear on a thing called the "comedy channel," which is a cable dealywhop. So, while I approve of the concept, I won't be experiencing it directly any time soon.
However. I have seen some clips from both shows on YouTube, that great leveler of - well, basically all playing fields, until we're all frolicking about in knee-deep pixel mud on a infinite plain filled mostly with shaky webcam footage. But my point is, YouTube makes it possible for those of us without cable to see small snippets of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart doing that thing they do. (At least, it used to be possible. If it isn't anymore, then Viacom has a personal hate note coming from me.) So I know just enough to know that the shows can be quite funny.
But I don't think they can possibly be as funny as scrunchy's script for a lost episode. No show could consistently be this good and awesome and grand and not cause spontaneous deaths from joy in viewers. I mean, the FDA would be looking into the Colbert Report if it was as good as this. There's Jon Stewart! Stephen Colbert! Furry crabs! David Duchovny! And just - really, I cannot convey in words how wonderful this transcript is, except that I want to read several dozen more of these, right now, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get them. (Oh, by the way - does anyone know how to feed and care for the wild scrunchy when she is removed from her native habitat? I'm, um. Asking purely out of curiosity.) And I am speaking as someone who normally reads script format works only if a) they are written by Tom Stoppard or b) I'm being paid to read them. And yet - well, I guess I have to add a third category to my list, because I love this, and I love it in part because of the script format. It is delightful, gleaming perfection. With crabs.
The One That Should Be Subtitled "And Teen Angst Is the Same Every Damn Where." Singapore Standard Time Is the Same as Australian Western Standard Time, by Punk, aka runpunkrun. Katamari Damacy, gen.
Oh, the Prince. You have a father who is simultaneously awesome and totally insane. You are only two centimeters tall, but the weight of the universe rests on your tiny green - well, you don't seem to have actual shoulders. Your tiny green cylindrical head, then. No wonder you have angst.
Really, I'm surprised you haven't already formed an emo band called Katamari Sadnessy.
In this story, Punk manages to convey - no, to capture, as if on archival quality film - the Trauma of Being the Prince, and she does it so very perfectly that I want to hug her. (Truth be told, I want to hug the Prince, too. But I'd squish him, and anyway he seems to be in something of a mood right now. Getting stuck under that dresser will do that to you. And those damn pencils. They can cost you critical seconds, I'm here to tell you.) See, it turns out that the Prince is Everyteen.
I tell you, I cannot wait for the inevitable sequel, in which the Prince is sent to earth to roll up enough family therapists to create a Therapy Katamari, which will then help the Prince and the King (and the Queen) work through their issues, probably by saying things like, "And how does that make you feel?" and "But what is the origin of your need for crabs?" and "I feel it! I feel the Cosmos!"
The One That Makes Me Want to Write a Dissertation on the Anthropology of Board Games. (And Pretty Much Proves That Daniel Jackson Already Has.) Teal'c's Five Favorite Board Games, by Komos, aka paian. Stargate: SG-1, gen.
I love this so very, very much. I mean, we all know of my unhealthy love of Five Things stories. And some of you know of my entirely healthy and balanced love of Teal'c. I think a few of you may even know of my profound love of board games, although in that case I will have to look at you squintily and ask why, precisely, you've been poking through my closets. But even so, I could never have predicted that the combination of the three would be this wonderful.
One tiny warning, though: after you read this, you will never look at the classic board games of your childhood the same way again. Like, I enjoyed Life when I was a kid. (Although, you know, the signs of how I would turn out were there even then; I always insisted on having two blue pegs or two pink pegs as my married couple. In other words, I slashed plastic pegs at the age of six. Obviously, I was Born to Slash, and should consider getting that tattooed on my bicep.)
(Slightly more disturbing is that I also tended to bite the heads off the little pegs, rendering them no longer miniature people substitutes but rather sad, truncated sticks with a squished part at one end. That is a little less easy to interpret, at least in terms that will keep me out of a mental hospital, but I want you to know: I haven't bitten anyone's head off. Yet.) Anyway, my point is, I loved the game. But after reading this story, well, I love it even more, but I think that if I ever play it again, I'll probably get a severe case of the sniffles.
But the one of this set that kills me (in the good way, the way that has absolutely nothing to do with biting off my little plastic head) is the last one. I won't even name what game it is, for fear of spoiling you, but I will say: if you miss this - well, I will pity you. (And I won't let you play any of my board games. So there. Nyah nyah nyah.)
The One That Could Easily Replace Three Full Units of Psych 101. Although, in All Honesty, That Might Be Harder on the Students Than Just Reading about the Milgram Experiments Again. Matter, Form, and Privation, by Domenika Marzione, aka miss_porcupine. Stargate: Atlantis, gen.
I've been waiting a long time to recommend this one, because I wanted to do it justice. I wanted to tell you how beautiful it was, how perfect, how utterly inevitable, how necessary.
But I've come to the conclusion that I'll never write well enough to do that, to explain to you why you should read this story. I'll never write well enough to do give it the summary it deserves. So instead I will just say - read this. Read it even if you don't read SGA. Read it even if you think original female characters are a sure sign of bad fan fiction. (And if you can read this (and my other surefire disproof of that faulty theorem) and still say that, well, you may wish to check your ability to read English.) Read it even if you think, from this recommendation, that it sounds depressing.
Yeah, okay, it is depressing. But it's also a story that I wish could be canon, that I wish the SGA writers had the balls to write, because this is what life in Pegasus must actually be like. (And for me, that provides a whole key to understanding Teyla and Ronon, and how they must view the people from earth - So lucky! So innocent! So very much in need of protection! - but that's a whole other essay that I am quite sure you don't want to read, so I will stop this summary here and spare you. No, really, no need for thanks - the look of silent wonder on your shining faces is enough)
So, I spent the last week frantically acquiring data and then writing a whole bunch of crap about anime music vids, and the feedback thereof. And as I did this, I was getting presents, and getting love anonymously, and it made me a happy data mistress, let me tell you. So I was trying to think of a way to say thank you to you sweet and wonderful people. All of you, I mean. Yes, even including you. (And I was also thinking, oh god, I cannot wait to get back to talking about something I actually know something about. Like, anything. You'd think, with what I do for a living, I'd be better at writing in a total knowledge vacuum, but it's still hard.) And it is the time and the season for loving, even if I'm a little behind the times with that.
So I put all those things together - Valentine's gifts for me! Love for all friendkind! Fan fiction! - and came up with the obvious answer. Which is that I should rec some gen.
(Later: stories containing actual sex. I haven't forgotten that the word "porn" is right in the mission statement of this LJ, I swear.)
The One That Proves That You Can't Trust a Man Who Can't Trust a Herring. The Colbert Report - Lost Episode - December 2006, by scrunchy. The Colbert Report, gen.
Okay. Here's the thing, and I want certain people out there on my friends list to take a deep, deep breath, because I know what I'm about to say will upset them. I've never seen an episode of the Colbert Report. Or the Daily Show, for that matter. We don't have cable - we don't even have broadcast television - and I understand these magical works appear on a thing called the "comedy channel," which is a cable dealywhop. So, while I approve of the concept, I won't be experiencing it directly any time soon.
However. I have seen some clips from both shows on YouTube, that great leveler of - well, basically all playing fields, until we're all frolicking about in knee-deep pixel mud on a infinite plain filled mostly with shaky webcam footage. But my point is, YouTube makes it possible for those of us without cable to see small snippets of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart doing that thing they do. (At least, it used to be possible. If it isn't anymore, then Viacom has a personal hate note coming from me.) So I know just enough to know that the shows can be quite funny.
But I don't think they can possibly be as funny as scrunchy's script for a lost episode. No show could consistently be this good and awesome and grand and not cause spontaneous deaths from joy in viewers. I mean, the FDA would be looking into the Colbert Report if it was as good as this. There's Jon Stewart! Stephen Colbert! Furry crabs! David Duchovny! And just - really, I cannot convey in words how wonderful this transcript is, except that I want to read several dozen more of these, right now, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get them. (Oh, by the way - does anyone know how to feed and care for the wild scrunchy when she is removed from her native habitat? I'm, um. Asking purely out of curiosity.) And I am speaking as someone who normally reads script format works only if a) they are written by Tom Stoppard or b) I'm being paid to read them. And yet - well, I guess I have to add a third category to my list, because I love this, and I love it in part because of the script format. It is delightful, gleaming perfection. With crabs.
The One That Should Be Subtitled "And Teen Angst Is the Same Every Damn Where." Singapore Standard Time Is the Same as Australian Western Standard Time, by Punk, aka runpunkrun. Katamari Damacy, gen.
Oh, the Prince. You have a father who is simultaneously awesome and totally insane. You are only two centimeters tall, but the weight of the universe rests on your tiny green - well, you don't seem to have actual shoulders. Your tiny green cylindrical head, then. No wonder you have angst.
Really, I'm surprised you haven't already formed an emo band called Katamari Sadnessy.
In this story, Punk manages to convey - no, to capture, as if on archival quality film - the Trauma of Being the Prince, and she does it so very perfectly that I want to hug her. (Truth be told, I want to hug the Prince, too. But I'd squish him, and anyway he seems to be in something of a mood right now. Getting stuck under that dresser will do that to you. And those damn pencils. They can cost you critical seconds, I'm here to tell you.) See, it turns out that the Prince is Everyteen.
I tell you, I cannot wait for the inevitable sequel, in which the Prince is sent to earth to roll up enough family therapists to create a Therapy Katamari, which will then help the Prince and the King (and the Queen) work through their issues, probably by saying things like, "And how does that make you feel?" and "But what is the origin of your need for crabs?" and "I feel it! I feel the Cosmos!"
The One That Makes Me Want to Write a Dissertation on the Anthropology of Board Games. (And Pretty Much Proves That Daniel Jackson Already Has.) Teal'c's Five Favorite Board Games, by Komos, aka paian. Stargate: SG-1, gen.
I love this so very, very much. I mean, we all know of my unhealthy love of Five Things stories. And some of you know of my entirely healthy and balanced love of Teal'c. I think a few of you may even know of my profound love of board games, although in that case I will have to look at you squintily and ask why, precisely, you've been poking through my closets. But even so, I could never have predicted that the combination of the three would be this wonderful.
One tiny warning, though: after you read this, you will never look at the classic board games of your childhood the same way again. Like, I enjoyed Life when I was a kid. (Although, you know, the signs of how I would turn out were there even then; I always insisted on having two blue pegs or two pink pegs as my married couple. In other words, I slashed plastic pegs at the age of six. Obviously, I was Born to Slash, and should consider getting that tattooed on my bicep.)
(Slightly more disturbing is that I also tended to bite the heads off the little pegs, rendering them no longer miniature people substitutes but rather sad, truncated sticks with a squished part at one end. That is a little less easy to interpret, at least in terms that will keep me out of a mental hospital, but I want you to know: I haven't bitten anyone's head off. Yet.) Anyway, my point is, I loved the game. But after reading this story, well, I love it even more, but I think that if I ever play it again, I'll probably get a severe case of the sniffles.
But the one of this set that kills me (in the good way, the way that has absolutely nothing to do with biting off my little plastic head) is the last one. I won't even name what game it is, for fear of spoiling you, but I will say: if you miss this - well, I will pity you. (And I won't let you play any of my board games. So there. Nyah nyah nyah.)
The One That Could Easily Replace Three Full Units of Psych 101. Although, in All Honesty, That Might Be Harder on the Students Than Just Reading about the Milgram Experiments Again. Matter, Form, and Privation, by Domenika Marzione, aka miss_porcupine. Stargate: Atlantis, gen.
I've been waiting a long time to recommend this one, because I wanted to do it justice. I wanted to tell you how beautiful it was, how perfect, how utterly inevitable, how necessary.
But I've come to the conclusion that I'll never write well enough to do that, to explain to you why you should read this story. I'll never write well enough to do give it the summary it deserves. So instead I will just say - read this. Read it even if you don't read SGA. Read it even if you think original female characters are a sure sign of bad fan fiction. (And if you can read this (and my other surefire disproof of that faulty theorem) and still say that, well, you may wish to check your ability to read English.) Read it even if you think, from this recommendation, that it sounds depressing.
Yeah, okay, it is depressing. But it's also a story that I wish could be canon, that I wish the SGA writers had the balls to write, because this is what life in Pegasus must actually be like. (And for me, that provides a whole key to understanding Teyla and Ronon, and how they must view the people from earth - So lucky! So innocent! So very much in need of protection! - but that's a whole other essay that I am quite sure you don't want to read, so I will stop this summary here and spare you. No, really, no need for thanks - the look of silent wonder on your shining faces is enough)