Fannishly Useless
Aug. 3rd, 2007 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowI know, I know. And I'm not even willing to step into the recent frays going around, in part because I'm currently keeping my head above water and working my ass off and don't have time for reasoned, measured responses to much of anything.
Mostly, it comes down to the fact that people? Are mostly idiots? And yet, if given the right circumstances, will rise to the occasion, will rise to the high expectations set for them. Or sink right down into the muck. It's a crapshoot.
Of the random:
* I am wearing an incredibly hot shirt today, and there is absolutely no one here to appreciate it.
* My copy editor just brought me news of a Shark Week celebration at the Aquarium of the Pacific, which I thought was very sweet.
* In counterpoint, one of my editors just told me a story about a friend of his who got munched by a Great White off the coast of Central California.
* And yet another editor just walked into my office wearing a dayglo orange mohawk suction-cupped to his motorcycle helment and announced, "these are totally the pet rocks of the motorcycle world."
I'd say they need hobbies, but these are their hobbies. And they get paid for them. I find that kind of nice. (I also found the mohawk weirdly charming because it looks more like a Roman legion decoration than an actual mohawk, being that your helmet goes ON your head.)
* I may succumb and buy Harry Potter for the trip east next week, unless someone has a copy they're willing to lend me. Otherwise, I'm going to finish the Michael Chabon, although there's something odd about it, makes me think of much of the Scandinavian lit I've read in translation and I wonder if it's the climate or the prose.
* Anyone know when S2 of Rome comes out on DVD? I find that I'm desperately missing my naked Romans.
* If I were to do the WIP snippet meme, I'd pass out from all my enthusiastic failures to follow through.
ETA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ainsley wanted a Farscape S1 drabble. Aeryn, and gun.
At a certain point, she knows they're going to have to choose between food and ammunition. The thought doesn't disturb her, but she finds it... exhausting. She can hear the arguments already.
They have a little time, though. Moya had been a Peacekeeper vessel. There are still random stores of weaponry and chakkan oil on different tiers, stashed in the former quarters of the officers, but Aeryn's scavanged most of what she could already. What's left behind is old or decaying, the potency fading from the oil, weapons missing vital components.
They've already traded the bulk of the working weapons for supplies. It's only going to get worse.
Aeryn has a pile of weapons on a table in one of the bays that she thinks she can maybe strip down and reassemble, shifting bits between them to make a handful of functioning weapons. She wonders if Zhaan could increase the strength of the oil, or if it's decay is inevitable (she wonders if it's dissolving, fading, turning into it's own original components, a pile of chemicals with no single reaction).
Mostly, Aeryn wonders when it happened that she started thinking this way, pulling together various bits, stealing parts piecemeal to make a whole. Her training was clear - your weapon doesn't work, acquire another one. Your ship is broken, take someone else's. There was nothing in their about salvage, about restore and repair.
And then she got here, and there was nothing to take, no one to subdue, no... options.
The first time her gun wouldn't fire properly, the first time her prowler made a noise like a cherian lion dying, the first time the soles of her boots wore clean through she got caught, she felt panic raw and roiling and acidy in her gut. She'd tell herself, "this can't be happening," but all the evidence suggested otherwise. She's a pilot, she understands how to take readings, assess the situation, even if it seems impossible or improbable.
Her life is both. She can only make decisions in the face of that.
When the panic fades, she finds herself with questions, with frustrations. How were these things that were supposed to work not working? Why and how and what now? (It is not unlike the moments with Namtar, when she raised her hand, saw her body - her reliable, perfectly trained body - failing to do what it was told, what it was SUPPOSED to do. After the panic, all she could do was give in, fall back on her training. Follow. And then Crichton had shown her that there was another answer. Another solution. You reach. Even if you fail, you reach.)
The second time the trigger loosens on her pulse pistol, failing to fire, she discards it, goes in search of another one, ends up fighting with D'Argo about neglecting her chores for the day.
It's Crichton who'd finds her later, hands her the old pulse pistol and a role of stretchy, shiny tape.
"I fixed the trigger," he says. "The spring's worn out, but I cut it and it holds. It'll be tight, but serviceable."
She tilts her head, looking at the gun, unsure of what to think, then holds up the tape as a question.
"Things break," he says with a shrug, "that's a good temporary fix."
A few weekens since they'd been trapped in the Flax, and she remembers his willingness to repair, to fix, to hold things together by sheer will. She remembers telling him of her own training.
"Easier to take someone else's," she says, and wonders what he'll say back.
"Maybe," he says, "but you like this one. Fits your hand. You know it's recoil, the amount of chakkan it burns, the way it pulls one way or another."
"The point is to be ready for anything," she says, echoing a million different instructors.
He grins, stepping in a little closer and taps the nose of the gun. "Point's to stay alive, right? I trust your aim, but I like improving the odds."
She's not one to think abstractly, but as she closes her hand around the tape (hands that have mutated and returned, hands that have saved and betrayed her) she thinks of her own self as something that came apart and is being reassembled, finding new pieces that fit, springs that need tightening, triggers that require adjustment. The thought is disconcerting and she turns from it.
"I could help you," Crichton says, "Go through the stockpile, figure out what's usable."
She shakes her head. "No," she says, "I'll do it."
He looks vaguely puzzled at her refusal - like he always does - so she gave him something. "If I need help, I'll ask."
Apparently, it's enough. He smiles at her, eyes flicking down to her gun. "Yeah," he says, "you do that."
When he leaves, she sets up a target, wastes some of their precious chakkan oil firing, testing the mechanism. Crichton is right. The trigger is stiff, tight, but the gun fits her hand and she adjusts it effortlessly to compensate for the way it pulls to the left. When she holsters it, she feels better than she has in days.
Mostly, it comes down to the fact that people? Are mostly idiots? And yet, if given the right circumstances, will rise to the occasion, will rise to the high expectations set for them. Or sink right down into the muck. It's a crapshoot.
Of the random:
* I am wearing an incredibly hot shirt today, and there is absolutely no one here to appreciate it.
* My copy editor just brought me news of a Shark Week celebration at the Aquarium of the Pacific, which I thought was very sweet.
* In counterpoint, one of my editors just told me a story about a friend of his who got munched by a Great White off the coast of Central California.
* And yet another editor just walked into my office wearing a dayglo orange mohawk suction-cupped to his motorcycle helment and announced, "these are totally the pet rocks of the motorcycle world."
I'd say they need hobbies, but these are their hobbies. And they get paid for them. I find that kind of nice. (I also found the mohawk weirdly charming because it looks more like a Roman legion decoration than an actual mohawk, being that your helmet goes ON your head.)
* I may succumb and buy Harry Potter for the trip east next week, unless someone has a copy they're willing to lend me. Otherwise, I'm going to finish the Michael Chabon, although there's something odd about it, makes me think of much of the Scandinavian lit I've read in translation and I wonder if it's the climate or the prose.
* Anyone know when S2 of Rome comes out on DVD? I find that I'm desperately missing my naked Romans.
* If I were to do the WIP snippet meme, I'd pass out from all my enthusiastic failures to follow through.
ETA:
ainsley wanted a Farscape S1 drabble. Aeryn, and gun.At a certain point, she knows they're going to have to choose between food and ammunition. The thought doesn't disturb her, but she finds it... exhausting. She can hear the arguments already.
They have a little time, though. Moya had been a Peacekeeper vessel. There are still random stores of weaponry and chakkan oil on different tiers, stashed in the former quarters of the officers, but Aeryn's scavanged most of what she could already. What's left behind is old or decaying, the potency fading from the oil, weapons missing vital components.
They've already traded the bulk of the working weapons for supplies. It's only going to get worse.
Aeryn has a pile of weapons on a table in one of the bays that she thinks she can maybe strip down and reassemble, shifting bits between them to make a handful of functioning weapons. She wonders if Zhaan could increase the strength of the oil, or if it's decay is inevitable (she wonders if it's dissolving, fading, turning into it's own original components, a pile of chemicals with no single reaction).
Mostly, Aeryn wonders when it happened that she started thinking this way, pulling together various bits, stealing parts piecemeal to make a whole. Her training was clear - your weapon doesn't work, acquire another one. Your ship is broken, take someone else's. There was nothing in their about salvage, about restore and repair.
And then she got here, and there was nothing to take, no one to subdue, no... options.
The first time her gun wouldn't fire properly, the first time her prowler made a noise like a cherian lion dying, the first time the soles of her boots wore clean through she got caught, she felt panic raw and roiling and acidy in her gut. She'd tell herself, "this can't be happening," but all the evidence suggested otherwise. She's a pilot, she understands how to take readings, assess the situation, even if it seems impossible or improbable.
Her life is both. She can only make decisions in the face of that.
When the panic fades, she finds herself with questions, with frustrations. How were these things that were supposed to work not working? Why and how and what now? (It is not unlike the moments with Namtar, when she raised her hand, saw her body - her reliable, perfectly trained body - failing to do what it was told, what it was SUPPOSED to do. After the panic, all she could do was give in, fall back on her training. Follow. And then Crichton had shown her that there was another answer. Another solution. You reach. Even if you fail, you reach.)
The second time the trigger loosens on her pulse pistol, failing to fire, she discards it, goes in search of another one, ends up fighting with D'Argo about neglecting her chores for the day.
It's Crichton who'd finds her later, hands her the old pulse pistol and a role of stretchy, shiny tape.
"I fixed the trigger," he says. "The spring's worn out, but I cut it and it holds. It'll be tight, but serviceable."
She tilts her head, looking at the gun, unsure of what to think, then holds up the tape as a question.
"Things break," he says with a shrug, "that's a good temporary fix."
A few weekens since they'd been trapped in the Flax, and she remembers his willingness to repair, to fix, to hold things together by sheer will. She remembers telling him of her own training.
"Easier to take someone else's," she says, and wonders what he'll say back.
"Maybe," he says, "but you like this one. Fits your hand. You know it's recoil, the amount of chakkan it burns, the way it pulls one way or another."
"The point is to be ready for anything," she says, echoing a million different instructors.
He grins, stepping in a little closer and taps the nose of the gun. "Point's to stay alive, right? I trust your aim, but I like improving the odds."
She's not one to think abstractly, but as she closes her hand around the tape (hands that have mutated and returned, hands that have saved and betrayed her) she thinks of her own self as something that came apart and is being reassembled, finding new pieces that fit, springs that need tightening, triggers that require adjustment. The thought is disconcerting and she turns from it.
"I could help you," Crichton says, "Go through the stockpile, figure out what's usable."
She shakes her head. "No," she says, "I'll do it."
He looks vaguely puzzled at her refusal - like he always does - so she gave him something. "If I need help, I'll ask."
Apparently, it's enough. He smiles at her, eyes flicking down to her gun. "Yeah," he says, "you do that."
When he leaves, she sets up a target, wastes some of their precious chakkan oil firing, testing the mechanism. Crichton is right. The trigger is stiff, tight, but the gun fits her hand and she adjusts it effortlessly to compensate for the way it pulls to the left. When she holsters it, she feels better than she has in days.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:25 pm (UTC)Season 2 is out!
Date: 2007-08-03 07:25 pm (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/Rome-Complete-Second-Season/dp/B000PGTPH8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7327982-4004633?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186169080&sr=8-1
Re: Season 2 is out!
Date: 2007-08-03 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:40 pm (UTC)ps. Also, you're right about humans and crapshoots.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 10:00 pm (UTC)(btw, even now Farscape=1st True Love)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 10:20 pm (UTC)I feel somewhat distant from it all as well, but then these days, I'm distant from most everything fannish.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 04:55 am (UTC)Thank you for a lovely reminder.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 07:55 am (UTC)