One of my resolutions this year is to read more books. It's a habit I've fallen out of in the last so many years, for this reason or that. To make things more interesting, I've challenged myself to 26 books, half of which not written by straight white men.

As always, there is a slight chance for spoilers, though I try to keep them vague or to a minimum. I failed at this with The Magician King because of the two, it's the fresher in my mind and there was a lot to rant about.

( 1. Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik) )

( 2. The Magician King (Lev Grossman) )

Oh, hey, btw, here's this unfinished Supernatural fic to what would have been a really awesome sci-fi AU about Sam being a full-body replacement cyborg. I started it last summer and just never completed it because my professional life started getting more demanding and my personal life fell apart spectacularly, killing most of my creative drive.

I might return to the universe because I'm quite taken with the prospect of writing a buddy cop fic where Dean teaches Castiel how to be more human (or at least gets him to stop referring to himself in first-person plural).

Title: Our Bodies Fly Apart
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: science fiction au, gen
Characters/Pairings: Sam & Dean, Sam/Jess
Warnings: bad skience, lots of talking around bad skience, a crash course understanding of phantom limb and how it might feel when it's your entire body that's gone, LOTS OF BAD SKIENCE GUYS, Dean Winchester and his emotional immaturity, minor character death.

Summary: Sam's body is destroyed but his mind lives on. As a cyborg, he's learning to adjust to a new reality and a new life.

I've managed to see more movies this summer than I have over the last two summers, which is nice. I always like to try to see the blockbusters, just so I can give an opinion to customers at my job. Opinions (sometimes) facilitate conversations, which (sometimes) encourages a customer to reserve a title, after they've realized how much they enjoyed the film. IDK - it makes sense when you see it happen a lot.

Anyhow, here's a rundown of what I've seen, plus short opinion:

( Iron Man 3 )

( Star Trek: Into Darkness )

( The Great Gatsby )

( Man of Steel )

( Monsters University )

I really need to invest in a horde of minions who are willing to take ridiculous glamor shots of me whenever I need them. We could have fun together. Do silly photo shoots.

( Hey, Derek, when you gonna drop Magnum on us? )

I love the job that I affectionately call Job 1. It's retail, sure, but for the most part, it's really cool. I get to talk to people about movies and shows that I enjoy and recommend, and sometimes (okay, a lot of times) those people end up becoming customers. It genuinely warms the cockles of my heart when customers come up to me and tell me that they watched something I recommended to them and loved it (and - in the case of tv shows - subsequently need more now). Yeah, this isn't where I see myself being in life, but right now, it's a pretty awesome deal.

As with any job involving customers, it has its down sides. Some customers are (gasp) rude; other customers can be a little creepy; and a few can be frustrating without being rude or creepy. This story falls in the latter category.

( Warning: Sexist shit I don't even... )

Title: In Which John was in Middle Earth at the Time
Series: Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: G
Type: Gen, drabble
Warnings: None
Notes: The title explains it all? Also, I blame the Sherlock Facebook page, which has become a repository for Sherlock memes posted Internet-ages ago on Tumblr. I couldn't help myself.

( Mobiles don't function in Middle Earth! )

Title: Panem et Circenses
Chapter: Prologue
Fandom: Sherlock, Hunger Games (pre-Trilogy)
Characters: EVERYBODY (in Sherlock)
Warnings: None (this chapter)
Notes: Thanks to hockpock and everysecondtuesday for their invaluable support and readership. This work is unbeta'd, un-Britpick'd, but obsessively revised and researched.

Summary: That crossover where John is a mentor and Sherlock is a consulting Gamemaker.

Chapter Summary: In which it's the first Quarter Quell and John talks everybody into sending him to the Games.

Panem et Circenses: Prologue

I've gone ahead and started writing a massive Sherlock Hunger Games AU, because my life sucks more than usual right now and writing is therapeutic. Also, the idea has eaten my brains. In the middle of the prologue (which I posted in chunks on ye ol' tumblr), I realized that this was serious business and I would most definitely be finishing it - even if it takes me two years and thousands of hours of my life - and my aspirations for this fic are to share it with a wider audience for their enjoyment, so I will most definitely need a beta and a Britpicker - ESPECIALLY the Britpicker. I'm writing the Capitol accent as British, and no matter how much BBC I watch and how many well-crafted Sherlock fic I read (by actual British authors), I'm going to make mistakes - some of which will be very embarrassing.

How does one go about acquiring a beta and/or Britpicker? I'm still a bit new to Sherlock fandom, and as with Supernatural fandom (outside of challenges), I keep to myself mostly, so I don't know too many people. I kinda have this anxiety about participating in communities, mostly because I'm afraid of stepping on people's toes. I'm clueless to how fandom operates outside of my own small corner D: (Seriously, I'm looking at sherlockbbc and whimpering because it's so intimidating!)

Or, better yet, can anybody recommend small communities, so I can test the waters of fandom participation?

(Ugh. I'm so pathetic. I need to man-up)

I WAS going to write up a post about my thoughts and feeling on the movie. While I watched the film, completely engrossed in the cinematic interpretation of one of my favorite series from this past year, it became jarringly apparent to myself that I wasn't going to be writing a review of the movie. What distracted me and disturbed me wasn't the sick spectacle of children killing each other in an annual reminder of why a nation remains oppressed, or the garish delight that the Capitol derived from it (the movie treats the former with respect and reality that you can't help but feel for the tributes - even the career ones - and treats the latter as completely detestable, as it should). No, what really rankled me was the reaction of the younger, teenaged audience to the stark violence and death on screen: they were cheering.

THEY. WERE. CHEERING.

There are so many things wrong with this. It makes me want to punch a wall and give up. Actually, I think I have an animated gif that sums up my reaction to the audience perfectly:



Okay, so Quentin Tarantino. Let's talk about him for a moment. Why? Because he did what Hunger Games did and it was beautiful, even though it was lost on a majority of his audience. Inglorious Basterds. Fantastic movie - one of his best. Not a good war film, but if you look it as, "How Quentin Tarantino would have won WWII" then it's fabulous. What makes it more fabulous is how Tarantino takes a moment to equate his audience to the Nazis in the film - no, not the ones that Brad Pitt and Co. are killing, but the other ones, the ones in the movie theater watching and reveling in the senseless violence of the propaganda film. Tarantino knows his audience; he knows that people see his movies for the witty meta and the ramped up violence. In Inglorious Basterds, he combines the two to prop up a mirror so that the audience finds them staring at themselves with more than mild discomfort. It's beautiful.

Hunger Games does very much the same thing. You're either: repelled and saddened by the senseless loss of young life in the brutal jaws of an evil police state; or you're giddy and entertained by the slaughter. The giddy reaction and mindless celebration of the Capitol mirrors our own entertainment at the ultra-violence that our media peddles and that we gobble up because our own tolerance is corroded from exposure. Perfect example: the young audience members cheering with each death. ( spoilers )

It was really hard to watch the film with the audience cheering at each death of characters they didn't like. It's like that part of the book - the tragedy of each tribute's existence - was completely lost on them. They became like the citizens of the Capitol or Tarantino's audience, reveling in the body count. Hunger Games expects its audience to realize the injustice of the Games and to be mad at each death - even the ones that saved the lives of our protagonists - but this was completely lost on the young audience at the showing I attended.

Maybe it's a sign of my age. Maybe I'm taking this too seriously. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of an anthill.

That said, I actually enjoyed the movie. While it wasn't a perfect adaptation, I realize that hardly any movie adaptation ever is and inevitably there are things that need to be trimmed out to tailor a movie that interests both fans and newbies. I adored the starkness and the uncomfortably close proximity of the camera, especially in scenes at District 12. The acting was great - though Jennifer Lawrence wouldn't have been a personal first choice for Katniss (the problem is I don't know who I would have cast in her place). Having read the books, I can't really say much about how the plot would have flowed for somebody who hasn't read the first one; everything made sense to me (except for the continuity error where ( spoilers ). I'm definitely going to see it again with everysecondtuesday, so I'll probably have more to say about it the second time around. As far as first impressions go, it made one on me.

Title: A Local Shop for Local People
Series: Sherlock, League of Gentlemen
Character(s): Sherlock, John, Tubbs
Medium: Photoshop CS3 + pen tablet
Warnings: None, SFW
Notes: All my obligations for art work are finished! So I decided to celebrate by drawing the ONE crossover I want to see but haven't found yet: Sherlock & League of Gentlemen. An explanation is needed for this one: League of Gentlemen takes place in this quaint English village called Royston Vasey, which is quirky, bizarre, and full of dark secrets. The Local Shop is located far outside of the town, and is run by married couple/siblings/IDEK Edward and Tubbs. The local shop only serves local people; so help any outsider who comes into the store, ESPECIALLY if they pick up any of "the precious things." (Sherlock and John are fucked)

( Our lives may depend on it )