Things and stuff.
Mar. 29th, 2008 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicVery busy lately, preparing for Impending Life Change and taking care of miscellany. Apologies to people I was supposed to beta for over the last few weeks, and to people who are looking for betas now. I hope I'll have time for it again if/when things start to settle down, but until then, please don't take it personally if I don't come by to read your posts.
Gah, and writing, forget it. I've already flaked out on two of four 'fests. This weekend is supposed to be for writing Remix. I can't figure out what to do. My assignment is tough this year. *scrunchy face*
On to more serious things. Last Saturday, my mom, my sister and I drove down near Philadelphia to visit my 90-year-old great-aunt, my mom's aunt, who's been ill, but is recovering, since falling and puncturing a lung (and subsequently developing a strep infection) a few weeks ago. We had to suit up to go into her room: gowns, gloves, masks. She has a trach tube and is on a ventilator, and she can't speak although she can move her lips, and her are wrists restrained so she doesn't pull out the tube, so she mostly lies there and looks uncomfortable; that was difficult to watch and imagine what she's going through; but her face just lit up when she eventually recognized us. Even if she doesn't remember we were there, she was happy that morning.
The Romantic scholar, slash writer and icon maker Atara S---- (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astarte59) passed away one week ago yesterday. Although I knew she was ill with Multiple Sclerosis, she was young still, and I had no idea she was so sick; she was blogging with her usual enthusiasm just the week before. It's terribly sad news. Her essays on the Byronic hero helped solidify my thesis topic at school, and her other essays on, say, Picard/Q slash were just plain fun reads (even if they ran just a little too far with the argument sometimes). I have her book on the Byronic hero in film, fiction and television, which is another fun and interesting read. She was a House fan, too, and posted sometimes in the meta comms. ... We corresponded for a little while a year or two ago, and I was supposed to write her an email-letter about my academic path and how she'd played such an integral part in it. I never got around to it. I wish I had; she should have known about it. Now, I think the best I can do is tell all of you.
All is not grief in the land, however. For instance, there are still minor celebrities to ogle. Case in point: a recently posted black-and-white portrait photograph of Joe Flanigan, care ofsheafrotherdon. I keep going back to study it some more. He's not the most immediately attractive of men, at least not for me, but the more I look, the more I ... want to keep looking. At the asymmetry of so much of his face—under his eyes, beside the base of his nose, his eyebrows and the muscles above and between them, his nostrils, his nose itself, the crease in his lower lip, the curve of his five o'clock shadow, his hair. At his narrow shoulders (so obvious in the zip-up fleece Sheppard wears, yet often concealed by his bulky military gear, biceps and weapons). At his eyes, of course, which, as many people over at that post have pointed out, gaze at you with far more startling, haunting presence than most or all of the other people included in the photographer's online gallery. Perhaps it's attributable to JF being an actor, able to expertly school his features so that even a neutral expression is compelling. Because it isn't "neutral." Can that expression be captured in a single emotion or phrase? What would you call it?
There are some fics I've managed to read over the past week or two, but I can't remember them right now. I'll come back at some point to rec 'em.
Gah, and writing, forget it. I've already flaked out on two of four 'fests. This weekend is supposed to be for writing Remix. I can't figure out what to do. My assignment is tough this year. *scrunchy face*
On to more serious things. Last Saturday, my mom, my sister and I drove down near Philadelphia to visit my 90-year-old great-aunt, my mom's aunt, who's been ill, but is recovering, since falling and puncturing a lung (and subsequently developing a strep infection) a few weeks ago. We had to suit up to go into her room: gowns, gloves, masks. She has a trach tube and is on a ventilator, and she can't speak although she can move her lips, and her are wrists restrained so she doesn't pull out the tube, so she mostly lies there and looks uncomfortable; that was difficult to watch and imagine what she's going through; but her face just lit up when she eventually recognized us. Even if she doesn't remember we were there, she was happy that morning.
The Romantic scholar, slash writer and icon maker Atara S---- (
astarte59) passed away one week ago yesterday. Although I knew she was ill with Multiple Sclerosis, she was young still, and I had no idea she was so sick; she was blogging with her usual enthusiasm just the week before. It's terribly sad news. Her essays on the Byronic hero helped solidify my thesis topic at school, and her other essays on, say, Picard/Q slash were just plain fun reads (even if they ran just a little too far with the argument sometimes). I have her book on the Byronic hero in film, fiction and television, which is another fun and interesting read. She was a House fan, too, and posted sometimes in the meta comms. ... We corresponded for a little while a year or two ago, and I was supposed to write her an email-letter about my academic path and how she'd played such an integral part in it. I never got around to it. I wish I had; she should have known about it. Now, I think the best I can do is tell all of you.All is not grief in the land, however. For instance, there are still minor celebrities to ogle. Case in point: a recently posted black-and-white portrait photograph of Joe Flanigan, care of
sheafrotherdon. I keep going back to study it some more. He's not the most immediately attractive of men, at least not for me, but the more I look, the more I ... want to keep looking. At the asymmetry of so much of his face—under his eyes, beside the base of his nose, his eyebrows and the muscles above and between them, his nostrils, his nose itself, the crease in his lower lip, the curve of his five o'clock shadow, his hair. At his narrow shoulders (so obvious in the zip-up fleece Sheppard wears, yet often concealed by his bulky military gear, biceps and weapons). At his eyes, of course, which, as many people over at that post have pointed out, gaze at you with far more startling, haunting presence than most or all of the other people included in the photographer's online gallery. Perhaps it's attributable to JF being an actor, able to expertly school his features so that even a neutral expression is compelling. Because it isn't "neutral." Can that expression be captured in a single emotion or phrase? What would you call it?There are some fics I've managed to read over the past week or two, but I can't remember them right now. I'll come back at some point to rec 'em.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 04:15 am (UTC)How much harder can Remix be for you this year than last? Last year you did such complex work.
Joe Flanigan's jaw is asymmetrical. That strikes me almost every time I look at him. Put that together with David Hewlitt's asymmetrical mouth, and... Well, I don't know what you get, exactly. They're both men whose personalities (and the personalities of their characters) make them better looking.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 11:57 am (UTC)So, support for Sheppard/McKay from asymmetrical jaw/mouth OTP? :)
Re: Remix... I don't know. I'm not very inspired this year. I keep trying to remind myself that I wasn't very inspired by my non-pinch hit last year either and that turned out fine, but I'm still working on choosing the story to remix and how to remix it, since those go hand in hand. I thought I had the answer a while back, but it didn't go anywhere. So here we are.
Thanks for the sympathies, too. My attachment to her is mostly intellectual -- we only saw her and her husband occasionally when we were growing up, and while she was very good to us, I appreciate her mostly because she was one of the only people who was decent to my mom when she was growing up.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 12:19 pm (UTC)ETA: Yay, they're both lovely! You must be so pleased.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 04:18 am (UTC)That's one hell of a hot photo. I find asymmetric faces so much more compelling and fascinating than conventionally handsome symmetric faces. (Which is probably one of the reasons I find David Hewlett so sexy and interesting to watch—that crooked grin of his is a killer.)
As for his expression...I guess I'd call it "guarded" or "wary." I get the sense that JF is trying to be open for the photographer, but that he's an inherently private and reserved person. I have no idea if this is in fact true, since I know nothing about the actor and have never read any interviews by or about him. That's just the feeling I get from looking at the photo.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 12:02 pm (UTC)I like that interpretation of JF's photo, whether it's true or not (it can be true if we believe it fits, can't it?). It works perfectly for Sheppard, and JF brings that to Sheppard, so.... I also like that looking at that photo is like being JF looking at himself in the mirror. Makes me wonder what he's seeing. Is he as self-hating as Sheppard? etc.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 01:29 pm (UTC)But, um. I have recently watched the entire first season of SGA in, like, four days, and have fallen in love *headdesk*. I keep doing this. I must stop. And at first I was like, people find *Sheppard* attractive? But...it's the personality thing. I'm a sucker for people in general with slightly odd looks but a cool personality (hence why, since McKay's awesomeness was more immediately apparent, I latched on to him). My first tear-your-guts-out sort of crush was on one of my best friends who was really pale with longish black hair and an odd face, and kindof looked like a dazed vampire.
Uh. Yeah. Anyone else here want to squish Beckett? It's the Scottish thing, I suppose. He has the most wonderful Hebridean lilt (my lowland mother accent is too harsh, imho).
I've never done a remix - don't really know what to do with them - but if you finish yours I'd like to read it. Good luck!
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Date: Apr. 1st, 2008 11:54 pm (UTC)That's funny about SGA. It sounds like you've gone through my last year in four days, getting sucked into the show and fandom and at first flailing over Rodney but then liking Sheppard more and more. Though I admit Carson is ... not my favorite. But I will not judge you. :D (Have you heard Paul McGillion speak with his normal Canadian accent? Him and David Nykl. It's weeeird.)
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Date: Apr. 2nd, 2008 05:50 pm (UTC)Zelenka! My love for Zelenka grows. He and Rodney are just like firecrackers, sparking off each other into fast-paced science no one else can seem to follow. Looks fun.
It takes a while, but eventually you realise that Sheppard actually has a kindof gentle dry humour, and a tendency to go nuts when friends are threatened but otherwise be in a default state of 'potentially amused'. It's odd, because he looks and almost acts like a typical tough guy, but then you realise he has really girly sloping shoulders and cute assymetries in his face, and then you can't ever see him as a tough guy again without going all woobie over skinny shoulders.
Ahem. Yes. But then, I loved Rodney from, like, the first five minutes of the show. It's so awesome to suddenly be in a fandom where, really, no one in the cast annoys me. I'm used to HP, you see, where I want to hit Ginny, and QAF, where Michael needs a good kick up the ass *makes self comfortable*.
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Date: Mar. 30th, 2008 07:20 pm (UTC)That is very sad news about
Remix seems to be a bugbear this year. :-\ Maybe there's a drabble you can remix? They seem to give a lot more latitude than a regular story.
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Date: Mar. 31st, 2008 01:20 am (UTC)That's a great idea about telling Atara's family; I've just gone and done it over in the post her daughter made after she passed away. Maybe it will bring them a little joy at a difficult time.