rusty_halo

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Mmmm. Fancy mixed drinks? Totally the best way to deal with that kind of news. Thank you, Galaxy Global Eatery.

The possibility of Hamlet coming to NYC is totally my silver lining. PLEASE LET IT HAPPEN. (*crosses fingers, knocks on wood, and prays*)

Note to self: in the midst of hangover misery, don’t forget to put Writercon tickets on sale at noon tomorrow!

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http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2703

Just got back from the vet. He said Lucifer seems fine based on the exam, but I should watch him closely to see if anything changes. I’m going to work from home the rest of today and probably tomorrow so I can keep an eye on him.

I miss sleeping. Every single noise wakes me up now because I’m afraid it’s Lucifer having a seizure or Lucifer throwing up. :(

Anyway. Distracting myself with Doctor Who stuff before I go do more work:

* Excerpts from Russell T. Davies’ new book about writing Doctor Who. Have I mentioned how much I love this guy? I adore his enthusiasm and positive attitude and, yes, his crazy cracked out ideas. I can’t wait to read the whole book.

( Discussion of rumors that could possibly be spoilers )

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http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2210

I had a busy week.

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Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
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jaydk is the greatest friend in the history of the universe. I know this because she came over to my house last night with a huge DVD folder full of just about every publicly available thing in the history of David Tennant's career.

So we ordered take-out, drank raspberry beer, watched three episodes of Doctor Who (we're doing a rewatch), and then stayed up until 5am giggling over the cuteness of David Tennant. Interviews, various states of insane gravity-defying hair, award shows, cooking shows (!!!! if you're a DT fan and you haven't seen him and his dad on "Ready Steady Cook" you are totally missing out), some incredibly awful sitcom about cops on boats in which the only redeeming feature is a super young David Tennant... oh and then we watched the full Doctor Who Confidentials from the end of season three. The official DVDs leave so much out! You get multiple angles and takes of David sobbing over John Simm! And a whole retrospective about the Master! And did I mention all the footage of John Simm? Good lord, the two of them.

And then jaydk left and I checked my FL before going to bed, and there was a new chapter of versaphile's latest and OMG HOTNESS OVERLOAD.

***

The Veganomicon potluck on Saturday night was awesome, too. My friend Eva hosted it at her place in Brooklyn, and it was the perfect amount of people for a party, where you can all gather around and basically have one conversation, split into separate digressions, and then come together again as one throughout the night. And I knew everyone, all good people who I like seeing, and can somehow manage to carry on conversation with even though it's not about Doctor Who. Plus Eva's got great musical taste; lots and lots of the 1980s, with Depeche Mode recurring throughout the night.

We all cooked, so we had tons of good food--this artichoke garlic pesto pasta; baked pumpkin ziti; greens with cranberries and pine nuts; roasted eggplant, tomato, and red pepper stew with chickpeas; and awesome desserts: chocolate chip banana bread pudding (mine, it got devoured!), chocolate chocolate chip cookies, pecan rum cookies, banana wheat germ muffins.... And lots and lots of wine. Red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, dessert wine.... we all sprawled around in a circle around this little table, stuffing ourselves with food and drinking and talking until 2am.

***

And now: what better way to kill time on a holiday afternoon than sprawled out in front of your computer, cat snuggled in your lap, watching one of the worst shows in the history of television?

( Torchwood 1x05 - the best episode so far? )

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

Some kind of ridiculous combination of cold medicine and coffee caused me to stay up until 2pm on Saturday night. Like I was awake all Saturday night and Sunday morning before finally crashing at 2pm Sunday afternoon. All the while thinking "this is not a very wise thing to be doing when I am sick." And reading Life on Mars fanfic.

jaydk was over until 5am. We watched Voyage of the Damned and reveled in the mutual squee. I'm so glad that we both loved it. That one scene, where the Doctor snaps his fingers and the angels carry him up, god, I just love it so much. I haven't felt that kind of pure fannish adoration in a long time.

We also watched some of the old series, which is the first I've ever seen of it. I'm not sure what the episodes were called, but it had some kind of mix of vampires/zombies/whatever that thing is in Creature From the Black Lagoon. Also Russians and Nazis and Vikings. And, um, it looked a lot like something a second-year high school Media Arts class would've come up with. Although I did really like Ace. After just one episode she was already more interesting than Martha in her entire series run.

Oh! And then we watched David Tennant in Casanova. It was probably some combination of DayQuil and lack of sleep, but Casanova just totally ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. David Tennant is so emotive, with that expressive face and those huge eyes, and every time he looks sad or hurt I just ACHE FOR HIM. Ack. I hate crying during movies.

I think I've completely lost my ability to judge fanfic objectively, but here are a few Life on Mars stories that stood out:

We Could Steal Time by dorcas_gustine has really hot kitchen!sex. And good characterization. Although the author has some weird issues with commas. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

All These Editions of You by dorcas_gustine is in three parts, the first of which is told from an excellent Gene POV. The author keeps him in-character while showing how much he cares about Sam underneath, as much as he'd never admit it even to himself. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

Say Hello to the Id by maestro1123 has a slashy ultra-sexually-charged fight scene that is just beyond hot. Plus fucked-up masochistic Sam. Some Sam/Annie but mostly Sam/Gene. This is more violence porn than sex porn, so technically not NC-17.

It’s Jus’ Magic by mikes_grrl is just fantastically cracked-out nonsense of the best sort. Sam/Chris, NC-17.

There are a bunch of stories that try to explain a gay Gene within canon. I thought Undercover by mikes_grrl was one of the better ones. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

I posted an entry the other day but LJ was being weird and wouldn't post so I had to backdate it in order to get it to go through. So then it didn't show up on anyone's FL apparently? (I don't really get the whole backdating thing). But it's here.

Whatever, it wasn't important, just squeeing more about Doctor Who. But the one important thing is: If you have Doctor/Master fic recs, please share. Because I am having a fanfic emergency. In the sense that I want to devour everything ever written in that pairing. Um, as long as it's written well, because I'm a snob.

I'll start with a rec of my own: over the past two days I absolutely devoured New Dawn Fades by omphalos. It was so good that I rushed home and read it until 2am last night. Frantically clicking "next" every time a chapter ended. And very nearly crying at several points throughout the story. And constantly finding myself surprised at how genuinely well-written and in character it was. I loved it. It's the kind of fic that goes to really dark places, but doesn't leave you feeling miserable. And the kind of fic that manages to make you happy without drowning you in icky unrealistic fluff. It was so good that I watched the end of "Last of the Time Lords" three times, because it felt like seeing the characters from the fic come to life.

(Also because I got a new monitor. It's 22 inches widescreen. It's so gorgeous I might just stop watching television and view everything on my computer now. And I got it super cheap on Black Friday!)

I also read all of versaphile's Ten/Master stories (well, except the one that went into mpreg territory--it's too big of a personal squick, sorry) and loved them. Oh, and I sent this series as a rec to jaydk, because I thought it was written well.

What else? Oh yeah, I need Doctor/Master icons. I'm looking but just in case anyone can point me to some nice shareable icons somewhere, that'd be great.

The Doctor/Master thing... well, I already posted raving about it. But continuing that train of thought, the other thing that really works for me about it is that I don't have to distort the characters OOC in order to buy into it. Spike and Xander (sorry!) always required a little suspension of disbelief. Even Spike and Angel, to be honest, although that one's a lot more canonical.

But Doctor/Master... I mean, my god. The Master commits mass genocide and the Doctor's response is to hug him, forgive him, and give up his life of adventure in order to take care of him? Not to mention all the "I love the way you say my name" and "are you asking me out on a date" and oh yeah, the Doctor referring to the Master's wife as his beard.

And then the Master dying in the Doctor's arms, and the Doctor holding him and sobbing! (Sobbing way more than he cried for Rose, btw.) And I know, last of his kind and all that, but still. It's a wonderful ship because there's so many potential interpretations. The Doctor's forgiveness can be interpreted as a kind of heroic transcendent Jesus-thing, or it could just be a really fucked-up co-dependent neediness thing. Or both. Same with the Master--sure, he does a good job of loathing and tormenting the Doctor, but he's also totally obsessed with the Doctor and the Doctor's reactions to what he does.

I don't know. It's the kind of thing that sets up a million different possibilities for a fic writer to explore. Also part of the fun for me is that I'm largely clueless about the canon of the show, and so I don't really have particularly set ideas of the characters in my head anyway. There's not much of a boundary between fandom and canon to me at this point, since it's all new to me right now.

(Speaking of fandom, jaydk and I were having fun reading one of the DW forums and laughing at the wank that's going on over various spoilers. However, it's definitely cemented my feeling that participating in fannish discussions tends to ruin my fun when it comes to whatever the fandom is actually about. I either get teeth-knashingly angry at the writers or at other fans. So I'm going to avoid actual Doctor Who fandom as much as possible, and just focus on the creative works that come out of it. And have fun.)


Oh, and then on... Monday?... I posted this angsty filtered whiny post (sorry) and jaydk saw it (oops) and decided to cheer me up by inviting me over to watch David Tennant DVDs from England on her new multi-region DVD player. CLEARLY I NEED TO POST ANGSTY THINGS MORE OFTEN. Because this was so much fun. We watched Learners, which I actually thought was awful, but David Tennant plays this adorable dorky driving instructor and was just super fun to watch.

And then we watched the first episode of Blackpool and OH MY GOD! First of all the show was amazing. Super well written and beautifully filmed and just gorgeous, with its own wonderful style, dark and funny and clever, and the acting and directing and everything was just excellent. And then. David Tennant. GORGEOUS. Like Doctor Who melded with Fox Mulder, minus the aliens. He plays a detective and he's all scruffy and smart and constantly eating (EEEE! ORAL FIXATION) and it's just adorable. OH and the most important part: at the end of the episode he sings! a duet! of "These Boots are Made for Walking"!!

Naturally, we have urgent plans to watch the rest of this series this weekend, since it was a Monday night and we only got through one episode. Don't spoil me. It was so good.

What else? I'm overwhelmed with stuff. I'm still re-reading "Queen's Play" and I started "Beat to Quarters" by C.S. Forester (good so far). I'm listening to PIG again and rediscovering how awesome it is and how well Raymond Watts' lyrics go with a nice dark Doctor/Master slash fic.

Oh, and I've been helping revamp the Chemlab site. Except it's not finished yet. But it's looking good, right? At least now the tour dates are up. I made the content management system and its structural stuff; others made the banner and color scheme; and various people have been doing the actual data input. The Hydrogen Bar.

Which reminds me of another thing I forgot to mention: CHEMLAB IS ON TOUR. They are wonderful and you should go see them. Definitely. Chemlab tour dates.

I have too much stuff in my head right now. Oh, and I've been trying to keep up with LJ, but not doing well with it. I love you guys and I'm trying to comment more often....


Tonight I'm going to see My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. I bought the tickets a while ago. I wish I knew exactly when they're going on so that I don't have to wait in some dank club half the night. I'm so tired today; I really just want to go home and sleep. Or, um, read Ten/Master fic on my gigantic new LCD monitor. *sigh*