For the flight of birds

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:21:49 GMT

Random post!

Mum and I went to Vancouver yesterday for the Boxing Day stuff. It was quite foggy going, but coming back was SUPER FOGGY. Literally, you could not read the road signs until they were by the passenger window, and the catseyes on the road to show the lane divisions weren't visible either. We have totally driven from Vancouver to the ferries a bazillion times, and we STILL got lost by not making the turnoff - AND DIDN'T NOTICE UNTIL WE GOT TO WHITEROCK. You can imagine how impressed Dad was.
I got a mild headache yesterday, which lasted overnight and is now a mild-moderate one. So I was lying down in mum's room with a wet cloth (she made me, otherwise I would have ignored it), and Dad came in and asked if I had caught meningitis. Thanks Dad.
BBC world news says that the Chinese think they have found Cao Cao's tomb, which would be pretty awesome if true.
The radio also said that some people are trying to start a new slang for "click on the link" -> "Clink," as in "Just clink on it." Or, as I of course heard it "Klink." XD

"Why am I so bad at being good?!?"

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:56:14 GMT

Well, I hope those of you who did the Christmas thing had a good one. I don't really like Christmas, but mine was nice as usual all the same.

Anyway, on the topic of giving, the LJ promotion this year is $10 off a paid account. Since most of you already have one, and I don't really feel it's a great gift to give someone something they still have to purchase, I'll just offer up: If you want a gift certificate for $10 off a paid account, just comment and let me know. I've got 10 to give away, anyone welcome.

And, since what's Christmas without presents, here's the nice begining to an unfinished post-Apocalyptic fic to warm your hearts.

Watchmen, PG, probably no pairings, Movie!verse AU

Snow is falling through the shattered pyramid walls, drifting down in feather-soft flakes.

It settles in Daniel’s dark hair and it glints there as he sits bent-backed on sandstone steps quarried thousands of miles away in the hot Egyptian sun, his cowl pushed back to rest in a soft roll on his back, his goggles hanging over his collarbones.

Across the room it is collecting on the slanting brim of Rorschach’s fedora, on the shoulders of his stained trench coat as he slouches against Ramses II’s legs, the stone monument seeing snow for the first time.

Near the bank of televisions it is landing on the already-frosting pool of crimson, tiny wisps of ice spreading outwards from each flake; mirrors of the pattern are being etched out on the shards of glass scattered like puzzle pieces over the marble floor. And, higher, on the single arm-length shard whose tip is buried deep in the back of Adrian Veidt’s neck.

The heat in the towering chamber has long since poured out of the ruined ceiling above, the Antarctic winds whistling as they sheer past the razor-sharp edges of glass and steel reaching up to the white sky. This second white Karnak, only a handful of months old, has not come close to outlasting the original. The gargantuan reactor building lies crumbling in the frozen sea, torn from the cliff-side by giant fingers which left have left deep trench-sized gouges in the ice, the destruction leaving the ruined palace cold and dim. With the winds sweeping the permanent dusting of snow into the air, the poor light filtering in through the grey skies struggles even to cast definite shadows in the pyramid’s interior.

There is no silence with the wind tearing itself to streamers above them and the occasional crack and rumble of wreckage tumbling into the sea from the darkness beyond the stairs. But, in the quickly-freezing tomb, there is a stillness to compete with its sand-filled Egyptian counterparts.

The red pool is crystallizing into a dark, lace-covered stain by the time the stillness is broken. Rorschach’s coat scrapes like sandpaper over the stone as he straightens, glass crunching underfoot as he walks.

“Should go.” His rasping voice is out of place in the frozen crypt, a live voice in the dead air. Daniel raises his head, slow as rusty clockwork, watches the man move across the floor without moving himself.

Rorschach pauses at the foot of the stairs, hands in his pockets, mask hardly shifting at all in the cold air, head tilted at an inquisitive angle. “She may return,” he says at last, tossing the words out into the stillness like smooth stones into a pond. Daniel sighs, pushes off his thighs to stand.

“No,” he says, glancing across the room at Adrian, then at a portion of floor cleared of glass in several long sweeps. “She won’t.” Another pause; Rorschach shifts, impatience beginning to show. Daniel looks back to Adrian, eyes open and staring sightlessly across the polished floor at one of the two giant statues. Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair! He shakes his head, voice broken and bleak. “What’s happened to us?”

“We failed.” Simple and direct, a knife to the heart.

Daniel goes on as if the man hadn’t spoken, “We were just ordinary guys, trying to make a difference. Not kings, not gods. How did we come to this? How did we become this?” He stares down at the ruined chamber, at the snow falling softly in, at the corpse of the world’s smartest man. At the empty space where Laurie should be.

“Didn’t. Simply failed to perceive megalomania in others.”

“I just… I can’t believe it.” His voice is lost, hollow.

Rorschach shrugs, blasé. “Takes time.”

“And you, Rorschach? You saw this coming? You really believed any of us could fall to this?” Daniel swivels to stare at his partner, tone sharp and bitter as cyanide.

Rorschach answers evenly, words rolling out without apparent thought or effort. “At base, human means nothing but violent, debased, power-hungry animal.”

Daniel passes a hand over his bare face, slurs his words past it. “Don’t start, not now.” He drops the hand away, looks up to face his former partner. “Just … just tell me.”

Rorschach stands still for a long minute before growling. “Should have. Veidt always paternalistic, possessed bloated sense of self-importance. Not surprising he would take matters into his own hands.” He shifts in irritation and begins mounting the stairs regardless of Daniel’s presence, shoes silent now that there is no glass beneath them. Daniel stops him by shifting gently into his path.

“It’s not shameful to trust people, Rorschach,” he says quietly.

The mask shifts, the vigilante tensing minutely, defensively. “Didn’t trust. Just didn’t suspect enough.”

Daniel nods, doesn’t say anything. Steps aside to let Rorschach up ahead of him, then turns to follow.

Beside the marble dais lined with televisions, snow slowly covers Adrian Veidt in a pale blanket.

END PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1

Walking back to Archie takes them considerably longer than the original trip. They are tired and battered, muscles stiffened by the cold and wounds aching. The wind is tearing across the ice from right to left, whipping the snow up with it and throwing it in walls of tiny razors into their faces. Even mostly protected by his cold-climate cloak and gloves, Daniel can’t help but be struck the absolute inhospitableness of this place, the vast emptiness. This is a frontier people have no place being in, cannot survive in, should not try. This entire continent is a tomb, and they are trespassers.

It’s an unscientific line of thought, but the last few hours have torn his heart out and shredded it, and the pain is quite simply blinding. He can’t disengage from it, can’t return to the detachment Nite Owl almost always allowed him to command.

Can’t think of anything except those millions and millions of lives, ended under Adrian’s fingertips.

Of Hollis, lying dead in his apartment, another indirect victim of this insanity, and of his mistakes.

Of Laurie, shivering against him, face too pale, eyes too wide. Her voice, still so steady if a pitch too high while her words hammered a thousand icicles into his heart: I stood on the edge of the pit – the city, it was just… just black and heat and – and the fucking thing had just gone off. The air must have been filled with – with fall-out, with radiation, with –

Of her choice, death from cancer within weeks, or resorting to Jon’s way of life. If it could be called that.

Daniel rubs at the goggles, and realises the moisture is inside, not out. He doesn’t feel the cold as he trudges across the white plain; just a heavy, embracing numbness.

-------------------------------------------------

Archie is where they left him, half buried in the snow, still trying to redirect heat to the engines. Daniel clambers up onto the top and opens the hatch for Rorschach behind him; the man drops stiffly down into the sheltered interior without a word. Daniel unplugs the bypass, sealing up the engine access carefully and packing away the tubing with a mechanical precision that requires no thought.

The inside of the ship hasn’t maintained its warmth. Archie is extremely well-insulated, and even in the late fall or early spring in New York can maintain an indoor temperature without heaters for hours if the doors aren’t opened. He wasn’t built for these kinds of temperatures, though, and has already been exposed to the outside for several minutes. The thermostat reads -8; Daniel ignores it – once the engines are on he can worry about heating, and in his numbness he hardly notices the cold.

He shuffles over to the instrument panels, flips through preflight and begins to try to start up the engines. The immediate reaction, a green light indicating fuel intake and ignition, is promising. The subsequent rumbling, coughing and then flickering red light, is not. Daniel sighs, switches off the starter motor and listens to the engines roll to a halt. He runs a hand through his hair, and turns to Rorschach.

“Looks like it might be – Rorschach?”

The still-masked vigilante has crammed himself tight into a back corner, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them, chin tucked in low. He looks up stiffly at Daniel’s words, mask mostly white with just a few small spots of black.

The sight of him slingshots Daniel from the numbness of his grief to the present so fast he feels dizzy. His dull perception of the world – millions dead by his indirect actions, Hollis bludgeoned to death, Laurie cancer-ridden – cracks and falls away, and he recognizes that it is freezing in the ship. That his breath is clouding, that his hands and feet feel like they’ve been coated in ice. Daniel stands to cross the space between them.

“God, you must be freezing.”

The man shakes his head, the movement a good deal too spasmodic for Daniel’s liking. “Fine.”

Daniel comes to stop right in front of him, Rorschach unfolding himself tersely to stand slowly. He totters and catches himself on the wall, avoiding Daniel’s outstretched arm.

“Give me your hand,” says Daniel curtly, own hand held out as if for money.

Rorschach looks at him, ink blots penny-sized and hardly moving at all, and Daniel doesn’t know whether that’s because the cold is affecting them from the outside or because Rorschach’s face has lost most of its heat. The man slowly puts out his hand, ready to pull it back or strike out with the other one. What seems like years ago in his basement, the man’s reluctance to be touched felt like trauma. Now it just feels like the actions of a rabid dog, too sick or confused to act rationally. Daniel hopes that’s the cold.

Rather than taking hold of Rorschach’s hand he grasps the glove by the finger tips and, before the man can protest, pulls it off to reveal the pale skin beneath. He has, of course, seen Rorschach without his gloves before, seen the fair skin and smattering of freckles along the wrists trailing up his arms. Now the skin isn’t just white but grey. His close-trimmed nails are a deep hypothermic blue from cuticles to whites, and the bloodless colour is bleeding out into the skin around it. Rorschach hisses and takes his glove back, yanks it on.

Daniel stares, shocked, then angry both with himself for not seeing it coming and the man for his insane passive masochism. “Christ, Rorschach, were you just going to freeze to death without saying anything? You’re allowed to need things. You’re allowed to be goddamn human.” He turns and strides over to the closet with the spare supplies for unusual missions; clothing for different situations and climates, equipment, rations.

Daniel digs out a heavy coat which he had bought years ago partially with Rorschach in mind, and as such is slightly too large for the man in order to avoid suspicions of mother-henning. He hands it to Rorschach, who takes it after a minute and a long look, along with a pair of boots a size too big. “If the boots are too big, there are some socks in here,” he says as if he weren’t sure, and taps the shelf. “Put them on, we’re going to be here a while.”

“Engines remain troublesome?” Rorschach pulls the dark coat, knee-length heavy-weave wool which, while not warm enough for this climate is better than nothing, and then stands staring at the boots by his feet.

“I’m not sure, but I think the heat might not have been enough; the fuel won’t have frozen, obviously, but the coolant fluid and any parts that have collected moisture… We could be looking at a serious problem here.”

“How serious?”

Daniel sighs, crosses his arms. “If we can’t get Archie somewhere sheltered, and preferable warm, possibly an insoluble one.”

Rorschach looks around at the ship’s solid bulk. Archie’s extremely buoyant, and in terms of both small aircraft and submarines he’s quite light. In terms of what two men can drag, he might as well be an aircraft carrier.

“Dr. Manhattan destroyed reactors. No electricity, no warmth in Veidt’s complex. Possibly no access for Owlship.”

Daniel glances through the half snow-covered windows at the complex, no longer a beacon of light but just a dark form on the horizon. “Even if there were, the only way we could get Archie there would be by finding some sort of vehicle. I’m sure there must be some, but I didn’t see any.” Just with voicing the thought, he finds himself suddenly, deeply exhausted. It’s been more than 24 hours since he last slept, and the absolute worst day of his life in more ways than he could ever have imagined. The thought of having to walk back to Karnak to search for trucks or tractors in the blinding snow and freezing winds is just too much; he can feel what strength he has bleeding away.

Daniel slumps back against Archie’s side, cold from the outside seeping in through his sides. They still haven’t reached equilibrium temperature, and it will only get colder. Daniel glances at the instrument panel.

“We can maintain a 10 degree temperature in here for maybe eight hours, running the batteries on and off, assuming the insulation is as efficient as I’m calculating it to be. We should get some sleep before we try anything else.” He can hear the exhaustion in his voice, the heavy tiredness that’s fallen over him out of nowhere to smother him in leaden fatigue. He looks at Rorschach, ready to argue but hoping like hell he won’t have to.

Rorschach looks back out the window, then at him and shrugs. Daniel sighs, part of the weight slipping away as sleep appears unlooked for right before him ready for him to grasp. He staggers over to the consoles and switches on the batteries, then the heaters. “There are blankets in the closet,” he says, but Rorschach knows that, has used them before back in the old days when they had shock victims in here practically every second week. He’s already pulling them out, the thin scratchy fabric ridiculously appealing.

The blare of the heaters is shocking in the quiet Daniel hadn’t really noticed, but he’s taken his share of the blankets from Rorschach as well as half the extra clothing in the closet and set up a bed next to the console where he can reach the battery shut off without standing, before he really begins to feel the warmth. Daniel lies down on the pile of spare cloaks and underclothes, rain slicks for civilians and light insulating coats for the worst kind of victims who have nothing when found, and pulls the blankets and his own cloak around him.

“Warm enough?” he asks, turning to look across the small space at Rorschach. The man is lying in his previous corner, buried in an indiscriminate heap of the closet’s contents with his hat pulled low over his mask and the coat’s collar turned up. From the looseness of his shoulders and the angle of his neck, Daniel knows he’s asleep already. He snuggles down into his own uncomfortable bed, and closes his eyes.

----------------------------------------------------

Daniel wakes up several times in a blurry daze to reach up and turn the batteries off or on, but when he next really comes to himself it’s cold and the soft light pouring in through Archie’s windows is exactly as strong as it was when he fell asleep. Enough to provide the ship with a dim, greyish light but not enough to read small print by, or perform complicated rewiring.

Luckily, that’s not a problem. Their problems are significantly more major.

Empty stomach beginning to twist itself in knots, Daniel pulls a couple of energy bars from his store by his chair and peels away the wrapping as quietly as he can, turning to watch the recently escaped prisoner behind him as he munches the unappetizing granola.

Rorschach is still lying in his twisted heap of slicks, coats, shirts and blankets, curled beneath it like an alley cat with his back to Daniel. Daniel stares in surprise at the nearly unprecedented sign of trust from the man; Rorschach has openly committed trusting gestures in the past, but usually only when he was too injured to be unable not to.

Although really, considering the situation, he might as well be. Without Daniel, he will die here in Antarctica.

It’s the single strongest reason Daniel can think of to keep going.

-------------------------------------------------

It turns out that it’s so cold in the ship because the batteries have run dry. While he’s got a spare, the thought of trying to replace it out in the biting wind, a process he’ll have to complete without gloves on, is not a happy one.

Of course, technically he doesn’t have to replace it out here, because even if he does he’s about 90% sure he can’t fix Archie in this environment. They’ll have to tow him to Veidt’s Karnak and hope they can find somewhere sheltered to repair him. With no base generators, warm is almost certainly out of the question.

Daniel is sitting in the pilot’s seat looking out the window when he hears the rustles behind him, Rorschach pulling himself up.

“Hrrm, Daniel? How’s the ship?”

“Not good. The batteries are dead. And I can’t repair Archie out here. We need to get him somewhere without the windchill, preferably somewhere warm.”

“Have to go back to the complex.”

“Yeah.”

He’s known it’s coming, but the thought of making that trip again is crushing. He’s feeling the cold now, feeling the burn from muscles which have seen more activity in the past 24 hours than the past 7 years, feeling the aches from all the cuts and bruises. And, still dragging heavy, is simply the weight. So many lives.

Rorschach, being Rorschach, is already heading for the hatch.

Daniel pulls himself up to follow and smiles, just a little, to see that the man’s replaced his shoes with the boots. Then he pulls his gloves up, raises his cowl, and follows his partner – here and now, Rorschach without a doubt is – out into the snow.

The first time he made most of the journey without feeling the cold simply due to the adrenaline pounding through his veins, the thought of confronting Ozymandias when he knew even with Rorschach he had virtually no chance of beating the man. The second time he made it without feeling the cold due to the deadness inside him – it’s still there, he can feel it pushed away to the back waiting to ambush him when he runs out of immediate concerns, waiting to drop down and smother him, but it’s mostly buried by the jobs of the moment. But now he has nothing to distract himself from it, and it is cold. He can’t imagine how Rorschach made the trip twice in just his suit and coat.

Rorschach’s doing better now, although he showed few signs of distress before, in retrospect just a minor lagging behind and stiffness the second trip. He’s pulled the coat’s collar up around his neck and sunk his jaw low into its protection, but is walking strong and sure against the driving wind.

Overhead, the sky is just as white as it was 10 hours ago, and 4 hours before that. The wind has fangs of ice, and he can feel them now cutting in wherever he’s least protected, slicing against his throat, wrists, ripping through the webbing of his costume when the cloak whips open for an instant and down deep into his torso. The snow underfoot is thin and covers an uneven layer of ice; even his winter boots have trouble finding constant traction on it. And even without the snow and the wind and the ice, it is simply cold. It seeps in like water through his double layers, through the two pairs of gloves and the extra cowl and the cloak and slowly freezes his body from the tips inwards, skin from the outside in. He knows his extremities will be suffering from frostbite soon if they aren’t already, knows Rorschach must have gotten there long ago. They can’t keep trekking back and forth across this open plateau dressed as they are, or they will simply freeze to death. If their stamina doesn’t let them down first.

It’s a very real concern; Daniel isn’t sure he can stand another trek. Can’t, right now, even contemplate it. He just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, and the distant building growing slowly, slowly closer.

Slipping, I think you're slipping

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:13:55 GMT

While writing that previous Star Trek essay I brushed up against the idea of speciesm in the Federation, specifically regarding Spock. Here's some more on that.

A while ago I read this Nu!trek fic wherein McCoy calls Spock one of his usual litany of insults, and Kirk calls him on it. Which got me to thinking: wait a minute, why does this never happen in the series?

Think about it. McCoy constantly makes speciest remarks, insults Spock, mocks his culture and heritage and upbringing, and no one ever calls him on it. Why is that?

Well, you could say that this is an individual case and that McCoy gets away with it because he’s a sour old fusspot who is also an excellent doctor and could leave Star Fleet anytime he wanted to, is the captain’s close personal friend, is in some way Spock’s friend, and everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it. This is somewhat supported by the fact that when Styles begins to get down on Spock, Kirk does call him on it. (Balance of Terror)

Really, though, I think there’s something deeper going on here, and that is the fact that the Federation is not really as accepting as it pretends to be. You could probably broaden this argument from Vulcans to all aliens, but since in ToS Spock is the only alien crew member (that we see) and most times the other aliens are hostiles or not in the Federation at all, that would be a hard argument to make. So let’s stick to Vulcans, and why despite its creed of universal equality, they aren’t actually treated equally within the Federation. (There’s also the issue of the show not liking Vulcans and logic, which is why when Spock makes the logical decision it’s always the wrong one despite the fact that in 99% of cases it would be the right one, but that’s a different matter).

ToS, being made in the height of the Cold War, is really about America and underlining the qualities which make America the best country in the world. Those qualities are things like ingenuity, compassion, cunning, wit, romance, etc.

You will notice these are not things which the Vulcans are noted for.

You will say: oh, but Kirk and Spock are bffs! True, but ask yourself why. Spock, we know, respects the captain deeply and does care for him. However, owing to his upbringing, he is ashamed of that fondness up until Wrath (at which point the films start softening his character). Kirk, on the other hand, clearly respects and is fond of Spock as well, however it is the human half of him which Kirk is fond of. He may respect Spock’s intelligence, but he doesn’t embrace Spock’s logic. It is his humanity which makes him Kirk’s friend.

How do we know? Consider any one of the many times Spock has proposed a plan which is logical, or even made a “logical” statement. Kirk’s reaction is invariably one of long-suffering amusement. Spock’s logic is made a big joke, which would be arguably possibly appropriate if this were an aspect of his character he had chosen. It’s not. It’s who he is, who he has to be (yes, alright, he could have chosen to be human. Imagine a full Vulcan, then.), what his upbringing and culture and possibly even biology require him to be. Think not only of all the time Kirk has allowed McCoy to publically insult his first officer, but of all the times he’s rolled his eyes at Spock’s suggestions. How is that equality of beliefs and species? And it’s not only a passive “oh, Spock’s doing that logic thing again, just wait for him to finish” attitude. Kirk purposely disregards Spock’s decisions and practices as it serves him; he tricks Spock into giving up command to allow him to donate blood to his father despite Spock’s decision to act for the good of the ship, and he fudges the combat ritual during Amok Time (I actually don’t remember if Kirk signs off on this, but he sure isn’t apologetic about it afterwards). Again, that the show chooses these occasions in such a way as to make Kirk always in the right and Spock always in the wrong is a discussion for another day, but the fact that Kirk makes these decisions without any thought of how he is going against everything Spock stands for and believes in shows disturbing disregard for Spock’s logic.

If you’re not convinced though, and really need proof of what features of Spock Kirk cares for, just look at the end of the eulogy in Wrath. “Of all the souls I’ve ever known, his was the most human.”

This is the reason Kirk gives for his friendship with Spock, for Spock’s heroism, for Spock’s worth as a life.

He has totally and entirely missed what was important to Spock. Spock, whom humans would only regard as Vulcan and Vulcans as human, who decided that he would be wholly Vulcan and worked hard to present that front to the world. Whether or not he achieved it, it was clearly his wish, and yet all his human friends can only really bond with him when he shows slivers of the face he wishes he didn’t have. Even in Wrath, when he’s more relaxed about being Vulcan, it’s still a very important part of himself. And Kirk dismisses it without a thought. What. The. Hell.

Of course, it’s no mystery why there’s this kind of attitude in ToS. Made in the 60s when racial equality was just becoming conceivable, most people hadn’t done a lot of thinking about what equality between those even more different would look like (I have no excuse for Wrath). A lot of the speciesm that went on probably didn’t even raise flags as such. So perhaps it’s a positive measure of how far we’ve come that today, the treatment of Vulcan culture aboard the Enterprise comes off as nothing short of discriminatory.

In other news, by request, our tree. I particularly like the angel veering rather drunkenly to the right. Hopefully others feel encouraged to post pictures of theirs, as I'd love to see them! XD

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:38:48 GMT

Pointless sentimental family post.

My dad has a very outdoors personality, although more in the sense of lifestyle than sports. Anyway, every year he and I go out and cut down a Christmas tree. This is not as easy as you might imagine, picturing the wilds of Canada.

When I was quite little he used to get permits to go cut down the trees on the government land under the really huge telephone towers. But the permits became to sites further and futher, until we were driving several hours just to get there, and gave up. Then began the quest for u-cut Christmas Tree places. We went through several, and finally found our current establishment which is an hour's drive away on the death-trap highway.

Unfortunately, a few years ago we moved into a new house and the sitting room has a two-storey roof. This means dad now wants a serious tree - a fact which I was unaware of on the drive up. We arrived at the Christmas Tree farm and I was all ready to go and check out their meagre stock (I suspect it will be our last year there; they haven't been replanting) when he pointed out some trees over to the side. We're talking about 16 foot pine HEDGE trees; imagine the trees from the Harry Potter GoF MAZE. I thought he was joking.

Ha, ha. No. So we went and checked those out. FORTUNATELY, he feared for our truck's roof and its ability to support a tree LONGER THAN THE TRUCK. So we went and hiked around the other trees, and found a quite nice one which was very fat although not very tall. I was down with it. But dad still wanted a big tree. So we went back to look at the GIANT MAZE TREES. I had pretty much convinced him that this was not a good plan, when the sales guy came over and started convincing him that yes, he could get a SIXTEEN FOOT PINE TREE ON THE ROOF. These trees must weigh, I don't know, several hundred pounds. And, even if we DID get it on the roof, we then would have to get it off, into the house, into the tree-bottom-thing, and then get the LADDER to decorate it. I don't know if you've ever decorated a tree on a ladder, but it's not as much fun as you might think.

Fortunately common sense prevaled, and we got the short fat tree. Due to its shortness (perhaps 6.5 feet) we didn't have to shove it all the way in the truck as we have in the past. I will say, a Christmas where I haven't been on an hour drive with a Christmas tree as my neighbour, the end of the trunk staining the windshield with sap, somehow doesn't quite feel like a real Christmas.

Of course, it turned out that the tree was still too tall for mum and I to be able to put the angel on even with a chair, so we had to get out some thin piping and stick her on; she catapulted off multiple times and nearly got stuck in the back of the tree before we finally got her on.

(There's a Castiel fic in this somewhere)

Also:

It has been my goal to see a beaver while in Ontario. As you can see, this year's attempt was unsuccessful. However, Beaver Quest 2010 is soon to begin!

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:29:56 GMT

Just a quick post to say that I got home fine the other day. The weather here is very typical west-coast, nice and rainy. It is so warm after -30!

Also this morning I got up and walked past mum on the computer, only to recognize my own LJ on the screen. Turns out she was reading my Hogan essay. Then she finished:

Mum: Do you want to talk about this?
Me: YES!

So we had an awesome talk about women and signaling and dress and the targeting of shows in the 60s, and it was awesome. Clearly I should try to cross-involve myself with more shows my mother watched ~~three wasn't enough?~~

And now, Christmas shopping!

"He called me a fieldmouse." "No, no, it's a term of endearment."

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:05:34 GMT

EXAMS ARE OVER. They were horrible, and Stats was a mess of explaining rather than MATH and if there is one thing harder than DOING math it is EXPLAINING math. BUT WHATEVER, IT IS FINISHED AND ODDS ARE I FAILED NOTHING. PROBABLY.

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Ottawa and then flying home on Friday, probably at some obscene hour. Hopefully the break will be a productive one in terms of writing, although somehow I only really have the urge to write when there's something else I need desperately to be doing. Ideally I'd like to get out a new MK fic that I have kicking around in the planning stages, get going on the PSoH double-sequel, and maybe rein in the h/c in the HH epic!fic to acceptable levels (and also get past the current roadblock ^^;;). I also would like to start/finish my surprise project before Christmas, but given that that's only 8 days and I have no ideas it's not so likely. QQ Oh, yes, and one or possibly two giftfics. Oh, and a HH Christmas challenge.

I may be just a little over-optimistic about my potential productivity levels.

*leaves*

*comes back*

I LOVE THIS EXCHANGE TOO MUCH, I DON'T CARE, I'M POSTING IT. Oh fieldmouse.

PS: I was thinking today about changing my layout to put a graphic at the top. But I've no idea what I would put up. I don't think there's any one fandom which particularly defines me, and while I suppose I could just make a collage, I'm not really sure that I need be defined by fandom at all. Thoughts?

明日になれば涙が乾く

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:11:45 GMT

I was going to post some of the horrible crossdressing fic for you, but a) it is horrible and b) I might want to use it later. Something to look forward to! XD So here, have some MK drabble instead! I started writing a series of Squad drabbles (Five times Kid saves Nakamori’s bacon. Not that Nakamori would admit it.) but got stuck at 3. So here's one, because I am in a giving mood. (I know, so generous, a gift no one wants.)

In a lot of ways, Nakamori misses the old squad. Misses the men, misses the faith he could place in them, misses knowing which way they’ll jump at nearly any move on Kid’s part. But there’s something to be said for that uncertainty, and the fact that he doesn’t know what his men will do half the time when pressed means that neither does Kid, who knew the old ones equally well.

Of course, this also has the makings of a true blue disaster.

It’s the rainy season, rain pouring down from the sky so thick it feels like there must be an ocean up there above the clouds that’s leaking through. But weather’s never stopped the Kid before, and tonight’s no exception.

They’re standing on the roof, those without the uniform hat wiping water from their eyes every few seconds while trying to keep an eye on the white figure of the thief, balanced precariously on the edge of the roof.

They’ve got him surrounded in a complete semi-circle, and it might actually work this time because the combination of the wind and rain make the glider extremely dangerous to begin with, and even if Kid can keep in the sky he’ll have little control of where he lands, and Nakamori’s got two teams ready in cars.

The wind’s whipping around, drawing Kid’s cape out like a flag and then slamming it back into his body with a dull thwock that’s nearly lose under the stones-on-tin sound of the rain.

“Give it up, Kid,” shouts Nakamori, and he has to shout despite the fact that he’s only five metres from the thief. The men on the two ends of the ring, near the edge of the roof, shuffle in closer. “Come on in, and we can all get out of the rain!”

Kid is standing with his back to the empty sky, but he hasn’t stepped up onto the wide raised edge of the roof, yet, and Nakamori knows he must be just as aware as the Inspector of the dangers of using his glider, must be weighing his other options. Nakamori grins; Kid’s smoke won’t work in this rain, either. They’ve got him, this time. Almost certainly.

“I’m afraid, Inspector,” begins Kid, raising his head to stare Nakamori in the eyes. A waterfall of rain slices down from the brim of his hat over his back. He gets no further.

A quick flash of movement from Kid’s right draw his eyes, and Nakamori’s as well. Ohara, new even for the new squad, and right out on the left edge of the circle, has hopped up onto the roof’s edge and is charging Kid, hoping to force him forwards into the ring of cops. Kid dances backwards, eyes wide and face suddenly serious in the poor lighting.

Nakamori, with his heart in his throat, is already stepping forward and yelling at the man not to be a damn idiot, half the squad moving not towards Kid but Ohara.

And then the wind wheels around, and slams a sheet of rain like a pane of glass straight into them all from behind. Ohara, on the slick metallic paneling of the raised edge, skids. His eyes, wide and horrified, turn from Kid to his superior. And then he’s gone, dropping into the darkness 42 stories above the soaked Tokyo streets, night ringing with the simultaneous cries of 14 police officers.

An instant later, Kid dives after him.

Nakamori hits the edge at this point, along with the rest of the squad, all of them staring over the edge. Nakamori yanks his radio out, twists the dials in a panic and cuts off the scream of static with a curse.

“Teams two and three, Ohara just fell off the roof! Repeat, Ohara’s fallen off the roof, and Kid’s gone after him! Get your asses out there!”

Nakamori’s seen the thief do a lot of stupid things. He’s seen him light fireworks while holding them, seen him slice through the only rope holding him 8 storeys above ground, seen him dive straight off a bridge and into a white-water river. He’s not sure any of these things even compare to what he’s just done.

In the pounding rain, he can make out Kid’s white form slicing through the air like a hawk, held tight and aerodynamic as his cape flaps loose behind him. Ohara, in his dark uniform, is almost impossible to make out. But it’s clear when Kid reaches him, because the cape snaps out into the familiar almost-triangle and his decent slows dramatically. And then, as the wind and the rain hits, he flips sideways and spins straight into the side of the building.

Watching the glider fighting to stay in the air is the most terrifying thing Nakamori’s seen in years, and judging from the absolute silence on the roof except for the one tiny exclamation of “Holy shit,” from further down the line, he’s not alone in that. Kid’s an exceptional pilot, and for each air current he loses he manages to find another just as he’s in danger of having the glider’s nose forced down too far, but at each shuddering falter Nakamori feels his heart squeezing.

When it’s finally clear, after several torturous seconds, that Kid’s going to make it to the ground, Nakamori takes off for the stairs. He peels down one flight, squad trailing after him, and bolts into the elevator locked on the top floor. Oogawa, Sawada and a handful of others trip in before he pulls out the key holding the elevator on the 41st floor and slams 1.

The elevator takes half a minute to descend to ground floor, 30 seconds Nakamori passes by tapping his foot furiously, pulling out his carton of cigarettes and then slamming it back irritably into his pocket.

It’s the longest elevator-ride of his life.

On the ground, the police-cordon is relatively unattended due to the rain, even Kid’s fans having some limits. The two squad cars parked by the kerb are empty, and Yamamoto and Hoshino are in the street, stopping traffic.

This is because Ohara is sitting in the middle of the wet road, staring dazedly up at the sky, rain streaming down his face.

Kaitou Kid is nowhere to be seen.

Nakamori marches across the pavement to the man. Ohara blinks and turns to look at his superior and, spotting his expression, replaces his shell-shocked expression with one of mute apprehension.

Nakamori would like to ask him what the hell, the hell, he was thinking. And he will, later. Repeatedly. But for now there’s more important things.

“Ohara, where’s the Kid?”

The man glances around, as if expecting him to pop up behind him. “I don’t know, sir. He dropped me here, and took off.”

“Took off,” says Nakamori flatly. It’s less windy down here, but there’s no way Kid could get airborne once on the ground, regardless.

“I, uh… he maybe ran off, Inspector?”

Nakamori gives him a look that makes Ohara squirm. “And you didn’t try to stop him?”

There’s no answer to that, and Ohara doesn’t try. Just looks miserable, and wet, and alive.

“Right then. Back to the station. Don’t bother with the report, I’ll do it.”

Ohara nods frantically, scrambles to his feet and takes off. Just as well. The idiot’s got no experience in making up excuses for the stupid messes Kid gets himself into.

My Stats exam is tomorrow, but it is entirely open book and frankly although I am horrible at math it's really difficult to work up any impetus for studying at all when you can pattern-match and read your notes in the exam. So on the one hand I feel horribly guilty for only having studied for maybe 3 hours, but on the other I just have nothing to do. Economics went stupidly well (I felt), although I memorized a bazillion finicky little things and then it was all broad self-evident concepts. HOWEVER, in the middle of the exam someone called me (I hardly ever take my phone with me, and when I do I always forget to turn it off) and embarassing as that was, hearing the little tinny HH theme playing in the middle of the exam just set me to smiling for the rest of the morning. COULD YOU BE MORE OF A GEEK, ATHENA?

Overall, it has been a pretty poor exam season with two of my exams falling foul of stupid complications which hurt me, as a good spontaneous but bad long-term writer, more than most. It will definitely be ironic if I do best in my two math courses. BUT WHATEVER. TOMORROW, SEMESTER 1 WILL BE DONE, AND I WILL BE FREE TO FIC WITHOUT A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

PS: FMA, you have an amazing talent to leave me just sitting and thinking "OH SHIT" at the end of EVERY CHAPTER. Never change.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:17:42 GMT

Self: The night before an Econ exam is not a good time to start writing a ridiculous crossdressing fic. Especially with a Stats exam in two days, when you fail at both these subjects. It's like the only time you can put out huge bursts of fic is when you really should be doing something else. x.x

...having said that, any suggestions for names for a happening German club in the 40s? (Yes, I know, just pretend the whole sentence isn't an oxymoron.)

Also, man, Larry Hovis, you had a pretty good voice but your songs were terrible. I am sorry.

Better stay inside and watch out for falling boxcars

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:58:31 GMT

Another in the series of Essays Which Are Not of Public Interest.

Note: Although somehow this became a bizarre sort of tutorial, it is definitely not my intention to actually be telling anyone how to write. It just seemed the easiest way to get my thoughts out. So.

In some ways, Carter may be the hardest Hero to write (unless you’re with me in the Hogan hater camp and trying to write him in a favourable light). There are two basic reasons for this: one, he’s pretty inconsistent. Two, he can’t really exist. Let’s start with the first one, it’s easier.

Carter springs from a 60s half-hour sitcom written by a group of different writers and spanning a six-year period. It’s hardly surprising that his character hasn’t remained static, but apart from one particular change he hasn’t achieved any sort of movement along a continuum, he’s just wavered between one end and the other of the competence spectrum as the episode required.

Before getting into that, it’s important to note that, however much he screws up Carter is not a moron. Even in the episodes where he makes the biggest gaffs, he also makes positive contributions. He’s also not an easy-going pushover; in Drums Along the Dusseldorf he’s pretty obviously irritated with the bigotry his Indian heritage is met with (possibly prompted by the fact that Hovis himself grew up in part on a reservation), in One Army at a Time he refuses to follow along with the colonel’s frankly crazy scheme to have him infiltrate the German Army until he’s ordered to and even then he doesn’t do it willingly. Basically, he has legitimate views and opinions, he is never a useless member of the team and he is never entirely a buffoon, and to portray him as such is unfair. (Of course it’s equally unfair to portray him as an entirely capable, efficient genius.)

Having said that, sometimes Carter flies pretty close to either line, and that gives writers a lot of flexibility with him. He can be completely out to lunch or surprisingly competent as the occasion demands. He has in the past made demented mistakes along the lines of forgetting to set timers, forgetting to put film in the camera, forgetting the camera itself, speaking in English as a German soldier, etc. But he’s also been trusted with some surprisingly difficult tasks; impersonating a German soldier in a German unit for several days, pretending to be an expert in chemical warfare (not far off…), making bombs, etc. Carter is your deus ex machina card; if you need someone to do something unbelievably stupid, or alternatively to suddenly have some surprisingly helpful suggestion, you play him.

That makes him pretty helpful, but it also means you have to play a balancing act. The show tends to manage this with a sort of scale approach; for each idiot thing they have him do, he also performs some other action competently. In Get Fit or Go Fight he screws up their plans by guessing Klink’s age to be 59 (and then when told he’s ten years off, 69), but he later makes up for it by proving to be surprisingly athletic. In Klink’s Rocket he plays the role of informer and convinces Klink and a Luftwaffe general he knows the location of a secret rocket base, then forgets it. In Two Armies at the Same time, he’s too clumsy to get away, but saves the day by infiltrating the German unit. It’s a pretty reliable formula. Of course, some episodes genuinely have him be more or less competent so that’s also possibility, but he always keeps well within the extremes (admittedly closer to in the incompetent end).

If you’re just writing a straight-from-the-show, no frills-added fic, that’s great for you. Make sure you keep him competently incompetent, and you’re fine. The problem comes when you start to step outside the bounds of what’s addressed in the show.

Hogan’s Heroes, by its unique nature, pretty much had to entirely avoid moral quandaries. This means we never have an idea of how the Heroes view their more morally questionable actions – i.e. blowing up civilian factories, bridges, etc. If we do see their reaction, they are uniformly pleased/amused (“when the whistle goes, the whole factory’ll go up! Hohoho!”) and the laugh track chuckles along. The problem is that this is pretty unlikely to be anyone’s real reaction outside a comedy, and if it were those characters would come off as extremely unsympathetic.

We can pretty much extrapolate on how the other characters would deal with the fact that they’ve been responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths, because they have pretty normal and believable characters.

This is not really true for Carter, because he’s like those elements which can’t exist outside of laboratory conditions. Carter, unless he was seriously bipolar, could not exist outside the show. On the one hand, we’ve got a quite innocent, credulous, trusting guy. On the other, we’ve got a pyromaniac mad bomber who’s directly responsible for most of those hundreds of deaths, and who does his own sound effects. You can practically see the writers chortling and rubbing their hands when they came up with the idea to make the clumsy fall guy the demolitions expert midway through season 1: Yes! It will be hilarious! Mwhahahahahaha-ahem.

So basically, Carter’s been saddled with two different personalities which can only work together in a show where morality is practically non-exist, or require him to be extraordinarily simple (or insane). He isn’t, so we have to do a bit of thinking in order to adjust him to work in the real world (fic = the real world. Pffahahahahaha).

I think for me, probably the most important thing to remember about Carter is that a lot of his “simplicity” is a result of being from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, a lack of higher education, and pretty much the fact that he probably never knew anyone rather than necessarily inherent simplicity. He’s had an extremely limited amount of interaction with people, which results in him constantly putting his foot in his mouth; he probably spent a lot of time alone or with siblings who were interested in the things he was, rather than having real conversations with people holding differing views. It’s this upbringing that’s also probably responsible for his tendency to see the world in black and white; he has an extreme amount of trust for people (including clear bad guys) until eventually something clues him in and he tips straight from a sort of absent positive attitude directly into strong dislike. That’s all a result of nurture rather than nature, and presumably he could eventually grow out of it. Add that to natural clumsiness and absentmindedness, and we pretty much account for the “clumsy innocent” half of his personality. With thought, that’s all stuff that can be kept.

The “mad bomber” thing is a lot harder to account for in trying to make him a normal person, and probably the most realistic way to accommodate it is to have him keep his strong enthusiasm for chemistry and electronics, but to tone down the love of explosions and destruction a bit. How he deals with the deaths he’s caused is too big a question for me to address here, but not having him turn into a horrified moralist would probably be the first step (or, for that matter, expecting him not to realise the results of his “hobby.”)

Finally there are some aspects which frankly I don’t think can be kept, such as his tendency in the show to chat with the Gestapo on the multiple occasions when they’re captured. Presumably this is meant to demonstrate his innocence and credulousness, but in any portrayal of him as a real person it’s pretty hard to keep. In building a realistic Carter, necessarily not all aspects of the show can stay, and if we’re jettisoning traits this one should be the first to go.

Basically, it’s difficult to make a more realistic Carter without having him smarten up and age up a little. While that’s not entirely to the show’s ideal of him, it’s also not unbelievable; we’re talking about a guy who’s been trained as a soldier, sent across the world, fought for his country, and is now living in a prisoner camp. Really, is just a smidgeon of maturity such a bad thing?

You've got silver in the stars

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:35:48 GMT

Post exam icon dump!

Following yesterday's rain-fest, it's now quite icy. Owing to the city's lake-bound location, it's also extremely windy. I can see this is going to be causing me, as a not-so-large person, a few problems.

Hey it's beginning to snow

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:21:08 GMT

Query time! International edition!

As a Canadian, I have the general idea that people in other countries don't know much about Canada (as evidenced by my frequent conversations with Japanese school children last year wherein the guesses for Canada's national animal were always koala or kangaroo). However, when it comes to place names, how much exactly don't people know? If I were to mention a province, would people have a general idea where it was (coastal, central), or even have heard of it? For eg, if I were to namedrop say, Manitoba, without mentioning Canada would people still know it was a Canadian province? I ask because I know in fics you can get away with having a character announce he/she's from a state without saying America, but would this pass for Canada? Americans welcome of course, although I'm more concerned with knowing whether people further abroad would or wouldn't recognize the provinces ~~c'mon, there are only ten!~~.

In other news, we had the first serious snowfall of the year! But then it started raining and now the world is slush and water. I am looking forward to tomorrow's predicted -5, when it will all freeze into horribleness.

OH ALSO: whether or not you read webcomics, you should read Gunnerkrigg Court. It's just amazing; the art is very fine even from the beginning, and the plotting, pacing and characters are all excellent. I read all 25 chapters in 2 days, and wish I hadn't because now I want more.

EDIT: Woo, here comes the backlog of LJ notifications. x.x

Christmas bells are ringing (on TV, at Saks)

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:53:26 GMT

It is snowing, and I am completely ignoring the fact that I have an exam to write tomorrow, and I BOUGHT 20 EXTRA CHRISTMAS CARDS THIS WEEKEND, so in what is for me unusual Christmas spirit, I'm up for sending out cards this year, possibly even with snippits of fic, depending ~~safe in the knowledge that my friends list is tiny~~. If you want a card (and don't live in my city, because then I will just GIVE it to you rather than submitting to the machinations of Canada Post) comment with your address! Comments are screened!

In other news, did you know that until post-WWII British and Commonwealth dogtags were made of red and green fibre (respectively for the two copies) and just strung on common twine? BECAUSE I DEFINITELY DID NOT.

Come gather 'round people

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:44:48 GMT

Had a nice weekend in Ottawa; went to the National Natural History museum and saw many stuffed animals (not the children's kind).

Came home on the train, and wrote another media essay. Now off to fix up some fic!

Crane’s Hogan was undoubtedly a popular character in the 1960s.* This is perhaps not surprising, consider The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s Napoleon Solo or Star Trek’s James Kirk; both were charismatic, good-looking, intelligent, witty ladies men in positions of leadership. Hogan shares a number of traits with these men, as all heroic characters must conform to their era’s perception of attractive characteristics (why they remain attractive today and Hogan falls through the cracks will also be addressed). Today, despite being the lead of the show, he comes across as possibly the most distasteful character (barring perhaps the Serious Bad Guys). For a viewer who grew up in the late 80s and 90s, a lot of his characteristics put him, if not outright in the villain camp, at least in the position of the morally suspect, sleazy guy you wouldn’t trust with anything. He breaks a lot of the tropes which today we look for in brave heroes. But 4 decades ago, he was all that and a bag of chips. So what attitudes/perceptions have changed?

*Evidence: The fact that he starred for 6 seasons, and my mother, who says so.

Hogan has three major interactions with the world: Hogan the leader, Hogan the prisoner, and Hogan the lover. Obviously he carries basically the same character to all these roles, but I’ll address them separately for the sake of clarity.

Hogan in his position as a leader has a pretty clear role cut out for him; the audience expects him to be an intelligent, compassionate, capable commander who provides strong leadership to his men. I’d argue that here we see the first difference between the 1960’s perception of leadership and that of today: there was a much greater acceptance then of a leader sending his men off on dangerous and possible fatal missions. Hogan does it quite blithely all the time, whereas today it’s rare to see leaders willing to potentially sacrifice men in that fashion, and if they do do it it’s in seriously dire circumstances and the men volunteer. Hogan frequently explains how dangerous a mission is, and when no one wants to do it, volunteers someone for them. To today’s audience, this is shockingly cavalier.

Hogan does, I’d argue, overstep this boundary even for the 60s in some cases, which is part of what causes men like Kirk and Solo to survive as (relatively) good commanders while Hogan seems like a jerk. Take the following example (quotes indicating actual dialogue):

Hogan: So, you and Carter are going to drive into a huge chemical factory with a truck full of dangerous substances and a bomb. When the bomb goes off, the factory will go up and you two run out in the confusion.
Newkirk: We’ll be killed, sir!
Hogan: “And I have to play cards with Klink! I may very well be bored to death!”

Another reason Hogan fails this role, definitely today and perhaps in the 60s, is his unwillingness to self-sacrifice. He does occasionally take a dangerous mission himself, but he’s just as likely to assign it to some other unwilling man. There’s no logic to it. And in some circumstances where you really expect him to act nobly, he… doesn’t. In one instance, he is taken hostage by a female Gestapo spy, who is alone and has a gun on him from behind. His men approach, without him warning them off, and then when she tells him to he orders them to drop their weapons and surrender themselves so she doesn’t shoot him. Pretty much the worst possible thing that could happen to the men both personally and in terms of their jobs is to be captured by the Gestapo, and if he’d ordered them to shoot her he’d probably have been the only casualty, saving both his men and the operation. But he doesn’t, and they’re all captured.

I’m not saying Hogan never acts for the good of his men; he does (eventually) allow both LeBeau and Carter to escape when they request to do so for personal reasons, he himself sometimes takes dangerous missions, and he does sometimes make legitimately volunteer missions. It’s also a bit difficult to separate out his unfairness and the show’s humour, since him volunteering men for missions always gets a big laugh. It’s definitely true that a lot of the callous humour in the show is put in not particularly because it’s in anyone’s character but just because they weren’t able to think of a better joke. But this role is assigned to Hogan so often it becomes part of his character, so I’m judging him for it.

Tally Board: Hogan’s selfish, callous and unfair as it suits him. Next!

The changing times make it really difficult to judge Hogan and the show on their attitudes towards their captors. Obviously, HH was temporally much closer to WWII than we are. Today, a number of what we perceive as Hogan’s distasteful habits relate to his mocking, sarcastic or even threatening attitude towards Klink and Shultz, but at the time I’m betting a lot of that passed above-board with the anti-German sentiment still sloshing around. For pretty much the same reason, it’s also quite difficult to recreate the HH scenario in a more modern form. Clearly today there could be no question of a sit-com in a POW camp (some might say this is a bit odd, since there were many more actors/viewers back then who had been in one than now, including Clary who had been in a concentration camp as a child), so it’s difficult to recreate the Hogan-Klink relationship in order to consider whether today Hogan’s attitudes would be considered unattractive.

The show makes assessing the acceptability of the Hogan-captor relationship particularly difficult by presenting Shultz, and Klink to an extent, in a positive light; it makes us feel like we should like and sympathize with them to the point where it becomes difficult to see some issues from the Heroes POV. The bizarre power dynamic between Hogan and Klink confuses this problem more – there is no firm way to say who is in control, so we can’t judge whether Hogan is behaving cruelly to a man who is in a sense under him or kicking at one who’s above him. But let’s ignore that.

A lot of what Hogan does, i.e. manipulating Klink and Shultz, we can pass as necessary and normal in the situation. I think we can even pass the times when he manipulates them into a position that’s disadvantageous for them; he is their enemy after all. Where it becomes a question of unappealing character traits is when Hogan gets excessively sarcastic or mocking, which is not infrequently. On the one hand, it’s easy to see how a POW would behave that way to his captor. On the other, it doesn’t help him at all, and in fact it’s to the detriment of his mission to alienate Klink with his smart-ass comments. Further, in the context of the show, Hogan is not an unhappy man overall. He’s not biting at Klink because he’s fed-up and stressed out and resentful, he’s just doing it to goad the man. (I stress in the context of the show, because as I’ve mentioned before, the show purposely makes life at Stalag 13 unbelievably rosy so as to avoid the “mocking POWs” problem. Fanfic, or just a few minutes of consideration, frequently paints a more realistic picture.) I’m not even going to give examples, it happens in every second episode.

Tally Board: Hogan’s selfish, callous, unfair, sarcastic, and goading. Next!

The issues of womanizing in the 1960s is a topic I am so not equipped to even handle. I think it’s fair to say that by the standards of the day, Hogan doesn’t stand out in the slightest. By today’s, you just want to beat him down with a shoe. The double-standards are particularly irritating – “you’re a woman, you can’t do this job! But here, let me make out with you and prevent both of us doing our jobs!” and I’d say in that case he is edging a bit out towards territory other womanizing characters occasionally stay away from. Romance in the 60s was hitting on anything with legs, and almost certainly getting some action later on. Nothing was required on the part of the man to generate the woman’s interest other than looks and rank. These are all seriously squicky things today, and the expectation that you can have any woman you want because you’re handsome and have control over others is the kind of logic only villains use.

Leading us to the fundamental question: viewed today, is Hogan closer to a villain? In a lot of ways, I’d argue that yeah, he is. If he weren’t fighting for the Allies, you could portray him in exactly the same way and have him be a perfect villain. He’s intelligent, stuck-up, sarcastic, callous, perfectly willing to order men to sacrifice themselves while not doing it himself, and confident that he doesn’t have to skirt chase because the skirts will come to him (but willing to do it anyway). You could totally film the series from Klink’s POV, and Hogan would be a villain, something you can’t say of Klink from Hogan’s POV. He’s an opponent, but not a villain.

So, a lot has changed. We like our main characters to be compassionate and considerate as well as witty and sarcastic. Romance is okay, blind womanizing is not. You can sacrifice people if you have to, but you’d better have a good reason for it and be repentant. It’s one thing to mock and insult a man who can fight back, but when it’s an intellectual inferior, it’s just crass. Today, Hogan would do a great job as that member of the team who’s smart and necessary but everyone hates, or equally, as the antagonist. Hero material, he’s not.

NO MORE CLASS!

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:19:02 GMT

I wasn't going to post today. I was going to be a good person and try to curb my pointless entries. BUT the_wykydtron HAS CHALLENGED ME TO BEAT HER ~~POOR~~ AWESOME TASTE IN MEN.

1.) List 15 fictional characters you'd sleep with at the drop of a hat
2.) Tell us why...
3.) And provide pictures!

1. William Bush, A&E Hornblower series

I'm gonna preface this right now by saying: A&E Series. What we know about Bush in the novels is that he's big, has gnarled hands, and is into serious debauchery when the chance arises. These may not be bad things, but more information is needed.

Paul McGann's Bush, on the other hand, is magnetic. He steals scenes right and left, and looks damn good while he's doing it. He's strong, decisive, capable and loyal. He's educated enough to respect boundaries without being bound by possible gentlemanly constraints.

2. Andrew Carter, Hogan's Heroes

Carter's good looking and mischievious, and a sweetheart - what else can you say of a guy who carried his girlfriend's bag, books, and her when the snow got deep in the winter. Yeah, he's a bit out to lunch sometimes, but he's got plenty of enthusiasm where it counts.

3. Sam Vimes, Discworld

He lives entirely by his ideals, and when he can't, it breaks him. 'Nough said.

(Sidenote: there are pictures of Tommy Lee Jones as Vimes floating around the internet, which kind of disturbs me. I mean, I'm all over T.L.J., but maybe not in this role...)

4. Rorschach, Watchmen Movie!verse

... I'm going to argue it's less bad if it's movie!verse?

OKAY HE'S SHORT AND ORNERY AND GINGER AND WEARS A TRENCHCOAT, OKAY?

5. Gojyou Minekura Kazuya's Saiyuuki

I think Sanzou is better-looking. But Gojyo knows how to show a girl a good time. Sometimes, that's all you want.

6. Control Le Carre's books
No image available
Control is a total mystery; he appears only in memories in the Karla trilogy, and only in a few pages of the various other novels, and I WANT TO KNOW MORE. Because someone who can run the Circus while never letting out their name is worth it.

7. Hattori Heiji Meitantei Conan

WHEN HE IS OF AGE.

He's cute, smart, athletic, and has an awesome accent. He goes out of his way to protect his friends, he's stupidly passionate about things he cares about, and he's romantic. Sorry, Kazuha.

8. Solid Snake MGS

SURPRISE. Seriously, how could he not be on the list? If it's pre-MGS1 Snake, he's young, muscled, angsty and frisky. If it's post MGS1, he's more confident, thoughtful and compassionate, while being even better-looking. Old!Snake's not so much my thing, though. ^^

9. Fox Mulder The X-Files

You know that episode where the shape-shifter pretends to be Mulder and just keeps staring at himself in the mirror saying, "you're a damn good looking man?" yeah.

10. Stephen Maturin Aubrey-Maturin saga

There's gotta be one doctor on the list, right? Maturin's all about the intellectual, unemotional, precise practice of science. But when he focuses on something, he gives it his all. I could stand to be the point of that focus.

11. Inoue Security Police (SP)

Bright, dedicated, good-looking, and looking for a girlfriend. Also enough of a nerd not to get caught up in a superiority complex.

12. Shinomori Aoshi Rurouni Kenshin

Not enough of a nerd not to get caught up in a superiority complex. But wow does he look good doing it. And I'm sure all that secret ninja training would come in handy. I will say, though, he definitely improves in looks in the later books/episodes.

13. Midou Ban GetBackers

GetBackers spends its time encouraging panting after its characters, and boy does it succeed. Ban's smart, forceful, emotional, and definitely interested.

14. Zhuge Liang Red Cliff

Yeah, it's pretty much the intelligent good-looks going on here.

15. Balthier, FFXII

Sky. Pirate.

...So, apparently it's the smarts and good looks that does it for me. Surprise?

In other news, off to Ottawa, back on Sunday.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:32:22 GMT

I didn't participate in Nano this year, because I'm a wimp and was worried about my course load, and because it's been years since I wrote original stuff and even though people write fic for Nano I still somehow feel like that's a cop-out.

But I tallied my stuff anyway, because it makes me feel productive and worthwhile (although clearly not as worthwhile as the_wykydtron, good lord.)

Hogan's Heroes
Opportunity Cost - 17,000
Epic!Fic - 14,000 (apparently not that epic)
Challenge!Fic - 3,000
~~Hands Across the Sea~~ - 8,500

Misc
The Adventures of Rorschach the Cat - 3,000
Bush the Hogwarts Divinity Teacher - 5,500

Total: 51,000

Wait, what? x.x.x And that's not even counting 10,000 words of essays, which I actually had to think about.

So, apparently I should just suck it up and do Nano next year.

And, for something not completely self-centred, the answers to the music meme.

2. Tarzan wasn't a ladies man - Superman Song, Crash Test Dummies (I really thought this would be the first thing people got. Huh.)
6. 守りたいものがあるこの場所で強くなるから - Compass, One Piece Movie 8
13. Strange brew, kill what's inside of you - Strange Brew, Eric Clapton
14. I asked her to stay, she wouldn't listen - Won't Go Home Without You, Maroon 5
16. You say you're not from Texas - That's Right, You're Not From Texas, Lyle Lovett
17. At night they would go walking - Cemeteries of London, Cold Play
19. 背中に耳をピットつけて、抱きしめた - 1/2, Rurouni Kenshin
22. Show me how to lie - You're Gonna Go Far Kid, The Offspring
24. I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees - Crossroads, Eric Clapton
25. From underneath the trees, we watched the sky - If Everyone Cared, Nickelback
29.　もしもこの先君と一緒に歩いていけなら - Mitsumeteitai, Saiyuuki Reload Gunlock

You wanna reach the co-op boy, you've gotta get past me!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:34:02 GMT

GOOD LUCK, SASKATCHEWAN! I BELIEVE IN YOU!

I have to say, I find it a bit bizarre that all the news articles on the Grey Cup are only focusing on Saskatchewan fans, and I'm pretty sure that it is not because we are amazingly more hardcore than Montreal's. Perhaps there is more Montreal-focused stuff in the French papers, but really it is a bit unbalanced. Of course, I suppose Quebec/Montreal also has more sports teams to cheer for whereas in Saskatchewan the Roughriders are pretty much it.

In other news, finally posting some of that HH insanity I've been working on. Oddly enough this isn't even the Epic!Fic I started on but something else I just picked up as a fun side project. And then it became really dark and depressing and morally suspect ~~and frickin' long~~. GOOD TIMES. CHAPTER 1 SUCKS, I AM SORRY. IT IS HOGAN'S FAULT. More seriously, I actually did have a hard time writing some of it, and I feel unsure about this fic since the scenarios it touches on are historical truths rather than convenient fictional contrivances. People actually were tortured and killed by the Gestapo, and writing about it even in passing makes me uncomfortable and feel like that this is not really material I should be touching. So, yeah. I guess if it squicks you in a "wow, that wasn't tasteful" kind of way, let me know?

AAAAAAAAAAAARG FF.NET ATE ALL MY PUNCTUATION WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. THIS IS WHY YOU CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS.

... it turned my breaks into HRs. WHAT.

EDIT: SHIT.

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:09:36 GMT

Ganked a meme while waiting for dinner time to roll around!

1. My username is ______ because ______.

I think I answered this in comments once, but basically back in grade... 7? I needed a hotmail account. Athena and Crikey were both taken. Synthesis was required. Although I use that name predominantly on the internet now, for reasons best known to myself back in the day when creating an ff.net account I decided to go by a different name, so some division remains.

2. My name is _____ because ______.

SECRET! Although if you read closely enough there are hints now and then. ^^ Anyway, my father chose my name as one he particularly liked, and my mum was fine with it (just as well since her leading options were Chloe and Phoebe). It doesn't run in the family or anything (although my middle name does. Fun fact: although it's a really simple name I didn't know how to spell it 'til I was around 10 because I just never thought about it. At all. And then one day kind of realised "hey, I don't actually know how to spell my name." Simple, but not so common in English.)

I have to say I've always found the question "do you like your name" to be an odd one, mainly since names are just such an odd thing in general. I mean, yes, they're extremely functional, but how much really does a random collection of sounds resemble you? No much more than it resembles anything else, really. As far as it goes, I don't particularly like or dislike my name, although for some reason it does seem to be one the Japanese have latched on to as a common Western name and are particularly fond of assigning to morally suspect women, which is... less cool.

Probably the reason I'm so indifferent about my name is that coming from a 3 person family, we never use names. There's never any need, it's always really clear who's being addressed or referred to; if one person isn't looking or talking with you, it's the other person. I hardly even call my parents mum or dad really, to the point that it feels artificial when I do. And owing to this, being called by my name in conversations actually makes me really nervous since the only time it ever happened when I was a kid was when I was in trouble. Interesting times!

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.

For the Flight of Birds, because I actually am very keen on birds? If I were better at math, I would seriously have considered becoming an ornithologist or a vet (although mum recently told me she has someone who trained as an ornithologist working for her in a data-collection agency because they couldn't find an ornithology-related job, so maybe it's just as well (yeah, Athena because a History degree'll get you so much further)). And then there's that old story about prisoners training birds to give themselves a sense of freedom in their cages, as well as the comparison of a bird flying through a shaft of light to human life, two images I particularly like.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

... you can name it?

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

Snake, because I was super-into MGS? I had "there are no happy endings, because nothing ends" in mind, although really either the first part or the entirety of the quote is true for MGS. Now that that interest has kind of waned to the point that it doesn't define my entire LJ existence, I've been considering changing it, but I don't know what to since I'm not currently into any one thing the way I was in MGS. I suppose it doesn't really matter and I could just change it every week as my interests change, but I'm not so into that. I guess I'll keep thinking.

I have to say, though probably not surprisingly, I tend to associate people's personalities with their userpics. Obviously I don't do this with people I know, since I already know what they're like, but I definitely do it really hardcore for people I only know as LJers. Which makes me wonder if that avatar makes me seem serious and depressing.... >.<

EDIT: Just watched an episode of the X-Files which used the same orchard as SPN's Scarecrow. What, there's only one creepy orchard in the Vancouver region?

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:37:08 GMT

So copperbadge recently expounded a theory suggesting that in times of economic downturn, shows kill off characters. And I was all, "Well, I'm safe, there's no one SPN can kill off this early in the season."

FFFFFFFFFF. I cried. Just... I had come out of Season 2 assuming Ellen and Jo had been passively removed by the usual fan sentiment which kills off all female characters in this show. And then then came back, and I was so please. AND THEN THIS.

I don't object to Jo and Ellen being killed off, but I do feel like this was a bit early in the season. Like they decided "welp, time to get down to business. How should we indicate things are getting serious? I KNOW, LET'S KILL SOMEONE OFF. BUT WE NEED TO SAVE BOBBY AND CASTIEL FOR LATER. WHO'S LEFT?" I dunno; I think it would have had more impact a bit later on.

Can I also take this opportunity to address something which has bugged me in the past, but DROVE ME CRAZY in this ep? SPN's habit of pre-shooting speeches is just EXTREMELY DEMENTED. I mean, you've got this opportunity to kill possibly the most powerful angel ever, stronger than anything we've met so far in the show, and we've already established that angels have both telekenesis and the ability to kill you seven times over in the blink of an eye. If Lucifer felt threatened by the Colt, the MILLISECOND he noticed Dean next to him Dean would be dead, or the Colt would be gone. Therefore, in a scenario like this, you take the shot FROM FAR AWAY while Sam is distracting him (already an iffy proposition, but we'll ignore that). We know both brothers are expert marksmen, this shouldn't be a problem. If it were, he should have taken the shot as soon as he felt he was close enough. NOT APPROACH WITH THE BLOODY GUN NOT EVEN EFFING COCKED AND PROCEED TO MAKE A SPEECH. Especially not knowing what this opportunity cost. So, yeah.

I guess I might as well also note a couple of interesting points here that I'd just like to throw out there:

1. frauleinfrog informs me that she's pretty sure Michael was older.
2. My mother (who had a Catholic education which involved a lot of religious history) tells me that she read somewhere back in the day that at least some of those crazy medieval monks/religious theorists who wrote a lot of the angel lore came up with the idea that each angel was his own species and that as such this "brother" concept is a bit strange overall.
3. She further informs me that as a child she was told everyone has an angel watching over them, protecting them from harm, and there used to be posters about it showing pictures of little children being blown out of the way of cars by the angel's wings, etc. FIC AWAY, PEOPLE.

Just some food for thought.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:46:45 GMT

I COULDN'T STOP MYSEEEEEEEEEEEELF. So here, for you, is chapter 2 of Bush the Hogwards Divination Professor. ~~And it's trying to develope plot, whyyyyyy~~

Sequel to this insanity

“They’re plotting something,” muttered Ron around a mouthful of toast, crumbs falling onto the table.

The Great Hall was filled with the usual morning buzz of students trying to cram down meals in the narrow space between waking and first class. Further down the Gryffindor table Lavender and Pavarti were leaning over the previous year’s Divination textbook, armed with a long scroll of parchment.

“They’ve got it in for Professor Bush; they’re out to discredit him!” He gestured angrily with the edge of his toast, smearing marmalade over his fingers and crumbs into Hermione’s book.

Harry glanced over at them momentarily, before turning back to his breakfast. Hermione glared at Ron, and swept the crumbs off her page. Ron glared back. “Glad to see you two are so concerned! They’re only trying to ruin the best bloody Divination professor we’ve had.”

“You only like him because he isn’t trying to make you learn anything,” said Hermione dryly, tucking away her book when Ron seemed likely to make another gesture.

“No, I like him because he doesn’t expect us to be good at the impossible! You know Trelawney, if she didn’t think you had talent, it was disappointed looks and unfair grades all the way.”

“You weren’t any good, and you didn’t fail.”

Ron waved away her objection irritably. “That’s not the point! The point is that now those two are trying to get rid of Bush.”

“I’m pretty sure he can handle two students, Ron,” said Harry, serving himself more bacon.

“And if he can’t, he shouldn’t be teaching here anyway,” added Hermione, finishing the last of her pumpkin juice and setting her cutlery down on her plate.

Rom glowered. Harry, sighing, interceded. “Besides, he told Pavarti’s fortune right. I mean, she did have to get that cut checked out. So he does have some merit. They’ll accept it, sooner or later.”

“But that was just luck! It was the first thing anyone would notice about her, that bloody great bandage.”

Hermione smiled. “So you admit he’s a fake, but you want to defend him anyway?”

“If it means Trelawney can’t come back, I’d vote for Snape as Divination professor,” declared Ron. Then frowned. “Okay, maybe not. But – hey, where’re you going?”

----------------------------------------------------

Divination was in the first block after lunch. When they arrived in the tower classroom, it was to find the equipment they had been using in the previous two classes cleared out. Only the benches remained, and the professor’s large desk at the arbitrary front of the circular room. The students sat themselves awkwardly on the benches, holding their bags on their laps or putting them on the ground at their feet; Harry took a seat at the far end of one row, Ron slumping down next to him and glaring at Lavender and Parvati’s backs. Harry focused on the professor instead.

Professor Bush was standing behind his desk as he had for most of the previous two lessons, face stern and watchful, and Harry doubted that Ron had much grounds for his fears. The man didn’t have Snape’s harsh tongue or sneering eyes, but he had a strong presence all the same, gave off a sense of steady control like fire did heat. He felt less like a teacher than a man used to organizing people.

The last of the students filed in, and the door slid shut. Today there were no fires burning but the room was warm as always, heat from the castle rising up and becoming trapped in the tower classroom. Some students were already pulling their robes away and loosening their ties; Harry and Ron did the same. Bush, dressed in crisp navy blue robes as always with his hair pulled back in a ribbon-tied tail, didn’t seem to notice the heat.

“Alright then, settle down. We’ve finished our review, so hopefully you lot have at least some recognition of how to use the basic methods you were taught. I’d like to think you’ll continue on experimenting with any that interest you, although that probably shows a greater degree of idealism than can be substantiated. Nevertheless, if any of you are considering doing your NEWTs in Divination – and some of you should,” here Bush glanced around, and although Harry couldn’t tell who he was addressing it was clear the professor at least had some idea of it, “– you will want to continue studying in your spare time; you know who you are. That being said, we’ll be moving on today to – yes, Ms. Brown?” The crisp lecture-tone broke off into a duller one as he turned to address the hand.

Harry could hardly blame the man for having learned the names of his two front-row dissenters.

“Professor Trelawney’s old syllabi indicate that the first month of the 6th form is always used for astrology, sir.” There was a crackling of parchment as Lavender held up the list. Professor Bush didn’t look at it. “It always figures prominently on the end of year exams, and really it is one of the most –”

“Professor Trelawney, as previously noted, is not teaching this course. You may rest assured that if she returns for the spring semester, she will be informed in detail of what you have been taught. As for star-gazing…” Bush strode slowly around his desk, wooden leg thumping steadily on the flagstones. He stopped in front of it and leant back against it, eyes sweeping slow and steady across the class. When he spoke it was in a different tone from his usual lecture-voice, something closer to exposition; story-telling. “Men have used the stars as guides for century, travelled and navigated by them, found their place in the middle of a featureless sea with their help. Next to the sun and the wind, they are a sailor’s best friend, and their importance shouldn’t be overstated.” Bush straightened, and his tone snapped back to that of a professor. “However, the art of astrology involves keeping track of not only eight planets and their moons, but the interaction of all of these bodies, along with various other factors the least of which is not time. It is one of the most complicated arts in Divination, and consequently in the world there is at any time only one or two people who could even be considered to be approaching mastery of its concepts, to say nothing of application. To expect you, as 6th form students doing a one-month module in it, to gain anything other than enough knowledge to carry on polite conversation, is ludicrous.”

Ron turned to Harry, grinning from ear to ear, as most of the class rustled in approbation.

“However,” continued Bush, ignoring the class’s reaction, “if you two hold a genuine interest in studying astrology, you may come to me after class and I will assign you a special project.”

Lavender muttered something which Harry didn’t hear. The professor glanced up at the rest of them, commanding attention with sharp eyes.

“Now, then. As I said before, we will be starting the first module of this term. And, in order to do so, we will be going to the Astronomy tower. Ms. Abbott, if you would lead the way?”

Hannah, in the row closest to the door, grabbed her bag and opened the door. Ron turned to Harry as they both stood.

“How cool was that? He just shot down everything Trelawney ever said, again.”

“Pretty cool,” agreed Harry, grinning back. “What d’you think the module is?”

“Dunno, but it’s bound to be good, isn’t it?” They began shuffling towards the door, most of the class chattering about the same topics. Harry glanced at the professor as they headed for the door, and saw that he was leaning back against his desk again, shuffling a pack of cards in his gnarled hands.

-------------------------------------------------

It was always windy on the Astronomy tower. At night, it was always cold as well, even in September and June. In the height of the afternoon, though, with the bright sun shining down on them in from a wide blue sky, it was almost pleasant.

The roof, a flat empty space usually used for students’ telescopic observations, had for the afternoon been arranged with the divination tools absent from the classroom. Tables had been set up in rows with the bone charts, sand-tables, fire pots, crystal balls, tea pots and small boxes presumably containing anything light enough to be blown away by the gusty wind.

In the centre of the roof a larger table had been placed. On it a long piece of parchment lay open, weighted down at all four corners by paperweights, with a ink pot sitting lonesome beside it.

The class gathered awkwardly around the main desk, each manoeuvring to get a glimpse at the parchment. Harry and Ron fought their way to a position at the far edge of the table and got their glimpse with disappointment. The parchment was blank.

Professor Bush thumped up last of all, every second step echoing loudly in the stairwell. He strode over to the group gathered around the main table, and made a quick count.

“Very well; you’re all here. As you can see, I’ve laid out for you all the methods you’ve been working on in the past few days. You may use any of them, as many as you like, and the rest of the period, to answer the question I’m going to ask you.”

Harry straightened, Ron beside him shifting his weight excitedly. The entire class leaned forward, tense with anticipation.

“I want you to tell me, verifying your answer any way you choose: what the weather will be tomorrow.”

Everyone groaned, Harry included.

“C’mon, sir,” shouted Dean from the back, Seamus echoing the sentiment.

Bush let it the protests on for a few seconds, then cut them off with a motion. “All right, that’s enough. You’ll be doing as I tell you; you’ll see why tomorrow. You have the rest of the class, and as many of these methods as you care to make use of. Off you go.”

The class broke up into smaller, discontented groups, each standing with its back to the wind and muttering quietly as it headed for the more popular tools. Harry and Ron ended up with the fire pot, Harry wincing in memory of burnt fingers.

“Maybe he has a really good reason,” suggested Ron, clearly not believing it himself.

“Maybe. And at least he doesn’t expect us to tell our entire futures from a cup of tea.”

Ron brightened. “There is that. Alright. What’s the deal with the flames, again?”

----------------------------------------------

They tried the crystal ball and the tarot cards after the fire pot, dallying to use up time rather than out of any genuine interest. Around them the rest of the students were mostly doing the same; some like Seamus were staring up at the sky as if waiting for a miracle, while others – mostly only Neville – were feverishly trying to draw answers out of the tools provided them. Professor Bush spent the time pacing slowly around the perimeter of the roof, sometimes coming in to help a group when they got the sand-table’s needle stuck in the mechanism or clogged the tea pot’s spout with leaves.

At the end of it, Harry and Ron had decided to just extrapolate on the weather based on past experience; it had been a beautiful day the day before, and the weather at the moment was good as well. And, since it was only September the likelihood of extremely foul weather wasn’t too high.

“Alright, alright, finish up,” bellowed Professor Bush, who had moved back to stand by the main table. “Finish up and gather around.”

They did so, hurrying over against the wind and standing in front of him while he uncorked the ink bottle and pulled a quill from his robes; it occurred to Harry that he rarely saw the man holding his wand. “It’s very simple,” he explained. “Just write down your name, and beside it your prediction. I don’t want hourly forecasts, just an overall description. Sun, clouds, rain, wind, whatever you like. You can specify morning and evening if you choose.”

Ron glanced at Harry with amusement in his eyes; Harry nodded. Not too likely.

Bush handed the quill to Dean, the closest student to him, and stepped away to give him access to the parchment. Dean stared at the blank surface for a minute, and then began scrawling.

-----------------------------------------------------

By the time Harry made it to the parchment, pretty much all of the options short of hurricane had been taken. Seamus, he saw, had voted for hailstorms, while Neville had predicted heavy fog. He put himself down for a sunny morning and cloudy afternoon; Ron followed him and switched the order around.

They were nearly the last students to go, with only Hannah and Susan Bones trailing behind. When they had finished Professor Bush stepped over, taking the quill from Susan and looking down at the sheet. “Well, I see were are to be in for an interesting day,” he said, wryly. Then, to their surprise, dipped the pen in the ink and wrote in a line in quick cursive before corking the ink. The class immediately pressed forward, and he held it up for them to see, every pair of eyes automatically scrolling to the bottom of the page to read:

Wm Bush, fog in the morning, thunder in the afternoon.

He let it dry for a moment, and then rolled it up and tucked it away, along with the quill, inside his robes. “Very well then, you’re all dismissed. I will see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Up here, sir?” asked Susan. The professor glanced down at her, eyes shining.

“No, I think that would be unwise. The regular classroom will have to do.”

That got a laugh, and they filed out grinning.

-------------------------------------------------

Afternoon potions passed as uneventfully as possible for any class containing both Harry and Snape. The evening was taken up doing Charms homework – “And it’s only September,” moaned Ron, trying unsuccessfully to make an armchair holding Hermione walk across the room. It shuddered and caused her to spill her notes over the rug; she gathered them with a simple charm and made his chair tip him out backwards. They went to bed with more bruises than success.

Harry was drifting through that early-morning state between sleep and daydreaming, just imagining that he’d finally gotten an A on his Charms work, when Ron shook him awake.

“Harry, wake up!”

Harry, blinking, more fell than got out of bed, and was immediately hit by a damp chill. Ron had thrown the window wide open and was gesturing outside. Squinting while he fumbled for his glasses, Harry drew his blankets around his shoulders.

“What? Just looks like grey. Is Slytherin Tower on fire?”

“Not quite as good. Look; fog!”

Harry finally got his glasses on, and stumbled over to the window, shivering. Outside, the world was wrapped in a heavy grey blanket; not even the ground was visible from their dormitory tower. “Yep, it’s fog,” he managed at last, and then turned to hurry over to his bed.

“Oi, Ron, shut the window already!” shouted Seamus from the other side of the room, voice muffled from being buried deep under his blankets.

“Don’t you remember,” protested Ron as Harry jumped back under the covers. “Fog! Bush predicted it!”

“So did I,” said Neville from his bed, half-asleep and still tremulous.

“Yeah, well,” said Ron defensively, shutting the window.

-------------------------------------------------------

The first crack of lightning sounded just as classes let out for lunch, the Gryffindor 6th years hurrying in from Herbology in the greenhouses.

“Maybe he Charmed it,” said Lavender, glancing out a window just as the boom of thunder followed, causing her to jump into Harry. “You saw yourselves, he didn’t use anything to predict it, not even those Muggle playing cards.”

“Hermione can make a lightning storm in a bottle,” added Dean.

Hermione, a few steps ahead, turned to speak over her shoulder, “Yes, but that’s entirely different from creating an entire weather system. That takes several extremely advanced charms, and is generally frowned upon since it has the potential to create droughts or floods even when executed correctly. No professor would ever create an entire thunderstorm just to enhance his reputation.”

“Trelawney would,” said Ron, sotto voce. Lavender elbowed him in the side and marched off, Pavarti by her side.

-------------------------------------------------------

Professor Bush, unusually, was standing in front of his desk when they filed in, shuffling his pack of cards idly as he watched them. The usual divination tools were gone, but the tables had been restored from the Astronomy tower. He waited for them to seat themselves, then knocked his cards against the desk’s edge, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. He didn’t have to wait long for silence.

“Well, I suppose you’re all wondering how I managed to make the weather agree with my predictions,” he said, and then with his eyes on the front row, “and no, Ms. Brown, that was not an admission of guilt.” He set his cards down on the desk without looking, and then reached back behind him. He had, Harry saw, picked up another set of cards, although they didn’t look much different than the one he’d had before. He fanned them out face-up for the class to see, showing that they too were just plain Muggle playing cards, although the backs were a different colour. “Here’s your hint.”

He glanced around, eyes finally landing on Neville, sitting near the front of class. “Mr. Longbottom, would you come here?”

Neville stood, shaking, and shuffled forwards. He was handed the cards, which he nearly dropped.

“Shuffle them up well,” said Professor Bush, and turned him around so they could all see him shuffling by the simple method of splitting the deck into two halves and cramming them back together. He did it several times before Professor Bush stopped him. “That’s enough.”

The professor took the deck back and fanned them out again, this time with the backs up. “Pick one. Look at it, and show the class, but be careful not to let me see it.”

Harry watched as Neville clumsily drew a card out, shielding it with his hand as he looked at it, and then turned to hold it out to the class so that the back was to the professor. It was the jack of hearts.

“Alright, put it back again, face down.” Neville did so, and Professor Bush nodded and began dextrously shuffling the cards together again. “You can take your seat.”

When he had shuffled the cards back together several times, he fanned them out face down and ran a finger slowly over the outward edge slowly. It only took a single pass for him to pause on a card and slip it out from the rest. He held it up facing the class; the jack of hearts.

Professor Bush didn’t have to ask for identification with the immediate reaction as the class burst into impressed chatter. He quelled it almost immediately with a harsh series of taps from the deck in his hand.

“You lot are rather credulous, aren’t you? Anyone here with a sibling must have learned to mark cards as soon as you had a wand.”

“You didn’t use one, sir,” pointed out Ron, immediately.

“That you saw,” returned Professor Bush sharply. He took the edge off with a hint of a smile, though. “As it happens, they weren’t marked magically, but Muggles aren’t any worse at good old fashioned trickery than our lot.” He raised the card, back to them this time, and tapped one corner. From two rows back, Harry couldn’t see anything, but he knew enough about marked cards from a month of being forced to play audience to Dudley and his Magic Kit to guess that some sign was hidden in the bright red pattern, a pattern chosen specifically to distract. His Aunt’s horror at her son’s temporary hobby, even if he hadn’t understood it at the time, had been almost worth it though.

“So you did cheat,” said Pavarti.

“In this case, yes, but that’s not the hint.”

“You used a Muggle trick?” said Dean, frowning.

“No, but closer.”

“You didn’t do what we thought you did,” said Harry aloud, as he realised it. Professor Bush’s eyes turned to him, and he quirked his lips up again.

“Not bad, Mr. Potter. 5 points to Gryffindor. You are mostly correct; I didn’t do what you thought I did. In fact, I didn’t use magic at all.”

Confusion washed through the class, but Professor Bush didn’t give it time to set. “What you all need to realise is that this subject represents the largest source of abject trickery in the magical world. The lofty will tell you that divination is about reading the future. I can tell you that really, two thirds of divination is the art of convincing someone you know something they don’t.” He ignored the protests from the front row. “I can divine the weather for you correctly 9 out of 10 times without ever pulling a card or glancing in a crystal ball. I don’t do it with Sight, I do it with experience in a profession where being able to predict the weather matters. Probably I’m a da – I’m much more accurate than most seers you could name. Does that make me a phony? Does that make the man who runs the book in the Quidditch World Cup, or the one who sets Gringott’s interest rate, a phony?” He shrugged, and really did smile this time.

“Maybe it does; probably that’s why we don’t pretend to be Seers. But we can predict the future – in specific areas – with a high level of accuracy all the same. And although the study of divination would like you to believe that there is something pure and noble in the art, you need to realise that in a lot of cases all divination is is extrapolating knowledge from experience and expertise.” Professor Bush set down his marked cards, and picked up the other pack to replace them.

“Which means, as some of you will no doubt have determined, that you have the potential to divine answers in certain areas.” He tapped his cards, tap-tap, tap-tap. “For the rest of the period, I want you to consider what those might be. In fact, I want you to make me three predictions. They cannot be in an area which you or your friends can influence – for example, school Quidditch matches if you are or know a team member, or the outcome of your Potions essay or what hat your head of house wears – and rest assured I will know if you try.” He grinned, not humorously this time, and gave his cards a slow shuffle as he raked his eyes over them. “Apart from that, I give you free range; you can predict for me next Monday’s dinner or the result of a professional Quidditch match or the weather tomorrow. I will, however, impose a time restriction. Whatever you predict must be going to happen by November 1st. Remember, three things. Have them written down by the end of the period.”

Harry, gaping just slightly, finally turned to Ron. And found that the boy was already tallying up the summer Quidditch scores for the Hornets. Sighing, he opened his own book and pulled out a ream of parchment.

Go right on quoting regulations

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:43:32 GMT

So I was going to stay up late tonight and fic and work on a new crazy music video, and generally enjoy one of the few nights a week I can actually stay up late. But then my friend's laptop fried itself and she has an essay due Monday, so it's the pen and paper for me.

I had also planned not to post tonight, because wow have I been spamming LJ recently, but the_wykydtron requested this, so here it is. Probably it could have been better thought out.

Star Trek has always been about the triumph of intelligence and ingenuity over all odds. Of course, sometimes these odds contained both logic and science. In a lot of tricky ways that we won’t consider because it’s liable to cause brain damage, The Original Series is really bipolar on the logic issue. It relies (presumably) on logic to fight for equality and all the good stuff the Federation stands for as natural rights. But then it purposely sets up bizarre and highly unlikely circumstances so it can show that, at the end of the day, Human Ingenuity is better than Cold Blooded Logic because really humans are all about feelings and that’s what matters (sorry, Spock, we’re multicultural but our values are better than yours. In order for Spock to be able to be awesome, he has to be human too. This is a thought for another day).

The show’s mucking up of science comes from ignorance rather than intention. Okay, yes, they were years ahead on some ideas (cellphones, PDAs, shuttles), and unlike Star Wars they know that a parsec is a measure of space not time, but in other areas science fails miserably. It fails not really because they intended it to, but because they just didn’t know and presumably didn’t want to do all the thinking that it would require.

The movies, however, are the Future. They have better science, because they now have money. We’re probably not supposed to believe (or notice) this, but we do because it’s kind of obvious when a show that previously considered the height of engineering to be some mysterious silvery globes trades up to reactor rooms and cut-off doors and even just things like gas masks for emergencies. I’m pretty sure the old Enterprise was basically one big health code violation.

Onto the argument! The Enterprise of Wrath of Khan is clearly stated to be the original ship from ToS. Presumably it’s had upgrades over the years, but it’s the same bird and indeed is called in in The Search for Spock to be retired. Equally, the crew is the same; they’ve probably kept up on advances in their fields, but it doesn’t come up. Basically, nothing major has changed from the good ol’ days before everyone wore the same colour uniform.

Introduce Khan. Khan, if you remember from "Space Seed", is part of the “Eugenics Experiments of the 1990s.” He is a super-human, super-smart, super-strong, so super he can’t wear a shirt, in fact. Last time, Khan was only defeated by betrayal from within his ranks. So how do they defeat him this time, then?

They defeat him because Khan, although he doesn’t know it, is stuck in The Past. There are two major events which define the Enterprise’s victory over The Reliant.

1. Round 1. Khan attacks the Enterprise in a Federation vessel using the element of surprise, and Kirk’s idiot decision not to raise shields even when Reliant wouldn’t answer hails and then lied about why. They pound the Enterprise, killing several of the very sparse crew, before Khan contacts them for terms of surrender. Using the time, Kirk and Spock call up Reliant’s code number and use it to control the ship’s systems from the Enterprise. They drop her shields and give her a pounding back, then limp away to regroup.

Although it’s not explicitly stated, this code is almost certainly not a new invention; it must have existed since Starships had computer systems which could communicate, to prevent exactly what Kirk and Spock do from happening. But it’s never used in ToS. Why? Because although in canon it existed back then, in actuality it didn’t. If it had, we’d probably have seen it in “The Ultimate Computer” when ~~HAL~~ the Enterprise destroys a number of other Federation vessels, and almost certainly in “The Menagerie” when Spock commandeers the Enterprise to help his old captain.

2. Round 2: This is, I think, an even stronger example. During the fight in the nebula, the Enterprise uses the element of surprise to attack and defeat Khan by fighting in three dimensions; they drop below the Reliant and then come back up behind her. Spock claims this strategy may work because Khan “hasn’t adapted” to space warfare where there are obviously 3 dimensions. Maybe not, but a) Khan would have been trained in air warfare where I’m pretty sure there are three dimensions and b) KHAN IS A STRATEGIC GENIUS.

Why doesn’t Khan recognize that there are three dimensions in space? Because ToS didn’t, either. My personal favourite example of this is Balance of Terror, when the Romulans have the Super Weapon which they fire at the Enterprise and the Enterprise by slamming into reverse is able to just barely outrun it backwards. But it’s really clear by the image on the screen that the weapon is basically a large fireball aimed at them (yes, okay, not actual fire). If they had risen or fallen, they would have avoided it. I can’t recall a single time when anyone gave instructions for the ship to be moved in such a way that would suggest it moving in height and depth.

Basically, there is no reason either of these plans should have worked on Khan. Although he might not have known how to stop the first, the fact that it was as shocking as it was is unbelievable for someone who a) is a genius b) had access to the Enterprise’s tapes c) grew up in a very computer literate age. Obviously ToS wouldn’t have been able to predict that, but since they generally guess at science developing faster than it actually did, it’s not unreasonable to assume he’d have thought of it. Even if you exclude c, just knowing how the computers worked should have given him enough idea of outside hacking with 20 years to think about it. And as for number 2, it’s highly unlikely.

You know who these plans would have worked on? That’s right, ToS. WoK uses Khan to show just how much Star Trek has grown since back in the day. How much cooler the heroes now are, how much better they are at planning and fighting. They don’t have to be able to look good without shits, they are smart.

But sorry, Spock, you’ve still got to be human to be cool.

見つめていたいいつも

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:22:22 GMT

I feel like I should give you guys something, but nothing that you're interested in is really going anywhere at the moment since HH basically ate my face. So here, have a music meme instead, because they are pretty much my favourite thing ever.

Put your media player on shuffle and give me the first line of 30 songs!

(Like I have this many songs with lyrics...)

Feel free to ID, we can have a party! I even edited out (most of) the really impossible ones, or there'd have been a lot more JPop on there. ^^

1. ~~The Mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar (what does this line even meaaaaaan?)~~ Graceland, Paul Simon seiberwing
2. Tarzan wasn't a ladies man
3. ~~It's getting near dawn~~Sunshine of Your Love, Cream and Eric Claptonprospectkiss
4. ~~Tired of being what you want me to be~~ Numb, Linkin Park seiberwing
5. ~~What a thrill~~ Snake Eater, MGS3 _dahne_
6. 守りたいものがあるこの場所で強くなるから
7. ~~Hey there Delilah what's it like in New York city(talk about shooting yourself in the foot)~~ Hey There Delilah, Plain White Ts frauleinfrog
The Best is Yet to Come was in here, but I'm not even going to try.
8. ~~君の後ろすがたを~~　 Tooi Nioi, YO-KING ningen_demonai
9. ~~Mister Raindrop, falling away from me now (...)~~Mr. Raindrop, Amplified frauleinfrog
10. ~~白い雪景色幸せを数える　(good luck.)~~ Winter Bells, DetCon ningen_demonai
11. ~~What'll you do when you get lonely? (I totally heard this as "Why don't you do when you can call me" and had to look it up. Shut up.)~~Layla, Cream and Eric Clapton the_wykydtron
12. ~~明日今日よりも好きになれる　（My computer has 京 before 今日, wtf? )~~ Kiseki, Greeeen frauleinfrog
13. Strange brew, kill what's inside of you (Eric, stop dominating the list.)
14. I asked her to stay, she wouldn't listen
15. ~~So, you think you can tell~~ Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd lucia_tanaka
16. You say you're not from Texas
17. At night they would go walking
18. ~~Many nights we prayed~~ When You Believe, Prince of Egypt _dahne
19. 背中に耳をピットつけて、抱きしめた
20. ~~I can't believe I've fallen down to my knees~~ Broken Hearted Soul, Ra ningen_demonai
21. ~~恋は THRILL, SHOCK, SUSPENSE (GIMME)~~ Koi wa THRILL, SHOCK, SUSPENSE, DetCon ningen_demonai
22. Show me how to lie
23. ~~100 days've made me older~~ Here Without You, 3 Doors Down arisha
24. I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees (If this is how you behave, see if I rip anymore of your CDs)
25. From underneath the trees, we watched the sky
26. ~~Beauty queen of only 18~~ She Will Be Loved, Maroon 5 ningen_demonai
27. ~~What have you done? (x.x)~~What Have You Done? Within Temptation the_wykydtron
28. ~~Oh momma, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law~~ Renegade, Styx vhasbls
29.　もしもこの先君と一緒に歩いていけなら (Apropos of nothing, I understood the first lines of this song for the first time the other day. I've only loved it for what, 3 years? XD)
30. ~~I can feel it coming in the air tonight~~ In The Air Tonight, Phil Collins lucia_tanaka

I think all this switching from English to Japanese has alienated my computer's never very constant love. It also occurs to me this list would be better if I had plugged in all the music I have on it, rather than just the stuff currently in my media player rotation. Or if, you know, I had started to listen to new stuff since the last time I did this meme. OH WELL.

You think you pull your boots on right and wear your hat so well

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:44:09 GMT

I was wandering around today with my head in the air as always, and it occured to me: wait a minute, how are Carter and Kinch sergeants in the Air Force but were drafted?

Then I realised I didn't actually know much about any of these topics. So I went off to find out.

It's very clear that Carter, at least, was drafted - he complains about his draft board all the time. On at least one occasion Kinch suggests he was drafted as well (he receives a letter from the board). It occured to me that it seemed highly suspicious that men drafted presumably not before December 1941 had been ranked as Sergeant by 1942-43 and were being assigned to the Air Force.

Turns out that one of these assumptions was incorrect - draft for WWII started in 1940. But still, you could only be drafted into the Army, not the Air Force (for obvious reasons of technical competence, and probably also less of a need for men than army battalions)

In any case, there's no way either of these men could have been sergeants. I assume that if you were drafted into the Army you could rise in rank with training and experience, but it apparently takes over 5 years to get to Staff Sergeant (Kinch's rank), and longer to make it to Technical Sergeant (Carter's). That being said, I haven't found any information on what rank new conscriptees are assigned and just assumed it was private. I suppose they may have taken personal experience prior to draft into account when assigning rank, or allowed men to move up quicker depending on it, but this makes little sense in Carter's case as early in the first season he had no apparent chemical knowledge (when asked to do something of a chemical nature because he ran a drug store he tells Hogan he just sold candy bars) or any other apparent expertise (again suggested by the drug store). And, yes, I guess they may have allowed faster promotion due to the war, but again I highly doubt this would happen in the eary days in the Air Force.

It also becomes clear (as I hadn't realised before reading up on this), that Carter outranks Kinch and might hold the highest rank after Hogan among the POWs since we know there are no other officers among them. Which means that, as Kinch is Hogan's XO, rank is pretty damn relaxed in camp (shock). And yes, okay, would you appoint Carter as your XO? I suppose too it could be that Kinch was originally ranking sergeant and Hogan didn't want to shift his command structure whenever new men came along, which makes sense in a skewy and unmilitary way.

So, yeah. Historical/military inaccuracy! Shocking! I would never have suspected! Since really the problem here (apart from the rank confusion) is created by people complaining about being drafted, I strongly suspect that those were just throw-away lines tied into the current situation ('Nam). Again, current events create anachronisms! Shocking!

Yeah, I'm done.

Next time on useless and uninteresting fake-essays: Why Khan represents ToS and the Enterprise represents The Future.

And if I had a pony I'd ride him on my boat

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:29:48 GMT

WHY AM I EVEN TRYING TO PRETEND THIS FIC IS NOT ONE LONG MESS OF CARTER H/C /COMPETENCE? It's only made worse by the need for an external view. HEY MAYBE I COULD USE NEWKIRK INSTEAD OF HOGAN? Because man, Hogan, you are just CRASHING this fic. Thanks.

In other news, I slept really poorly last night because my brain kept making me WAKE UP AND WRITE FANFIC. For fandoms I'M NOT EVEN IN. XXXHolic, anyone? WTF, brain? And then a huge long PoH sequel to the ones I've already got (okay, admittedly I am in this fandom, but not at the moment) full of ridiculousness and yakuza and smexing. SERIOUSLY, SELF. I spend months languishing with nothing to write and no interest to write it, and then suddenly I have 5 projects in 5 different fandoms. I even started writing another DetCon insanity on the train to Ottawa. CALM YOURSELF, ATHENA. On the bright side, school is winding down a bit so at least I have time to work on some of these ideas. I've only one paper left, and that's a partner project so it's basically like half a paper, and some homework that shouldn't be too bad. So 2 full weeks without too much work. Of course, my program keeps trying to change final exam dates to the day I am flying home because it seems to have taken upon itself to screw me over in every possible way, but I'm learning to accept that. (Honestly, though, 2 classes decided to have early exams, so I booked the flight, and then they BOTH spontaneously decided, "nah, let's have it be the day Athena's flying out instead.")

Made a couple new icons; maybe I'll churn enough out later to put up a batch. Because you're all so interested in Carter icons.

(Can I just say "One Army at a Time"? By far and away my favourite episode.)

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:19:07 GMT

Thank you to everyone who gave their thoughts on the previous entry. There's obviously no easy solution, but I'm not going to give up. I'll give it more thought, and if anyone has further suggestions or ideas feel free to send them on to me.

In completely unrelated news: Self, I think you have perhaps misunderstood the purpose of editing to remove gratuitous h/c. Why is it that a character who walked away from a Dramatic Event prior to the edit is now being carried away unconscious?

Also, season 6 of Hogan's Heroes. Kind of like season 3 of ToS. I definitly know why they cancelled it. The plots are boring and/or reused, the characters have lost their spontaneity, people's reactions have lost their subtlety, Hogan's romances are carried on to the detriment of missions ~~Carter's jacket was replaced~~... Amusingly, though, I saw mum this weekend and talked a bit about HH which she was a fan of when she was young (shut up, I have some original tastes, I swear).

Mum: So who do you like?
Me: ... Carter.
Mum: Oh, he was cute. I always liked Shultz.
Me: Yeah. He was such a good actor. Most people online are big Newkirk fans.
Mum:... which one was Newkirk?

FAMILY > INTERNET FOREVER.

sorry guys

ADVICE ACTIVELY SOUGHT

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:44:48 GMT

Guys, I don't often post about serious topics, and I don't often request feedback. I'm doing both now. If you are reading this, please consider replying with your thoughts.

The internet is a big place, and most of us go nameless and faceless. We know our friends by their screenames, their avatars, their personalities. We don't know their real names, their cities, sometimes even their countries.

I follow my share of people on the 'net; we all do. We're all familliar with the following scenario: Person A posts something, promising an update next week. Next week comes around, no update. We're disappointed, but we wait. The week passes and another begins. And another. We're no longer disappointed, we're worried. But we don't know A's email, we don't know A's name or face, we don't know how to contact him/her.

We've all been in that scenario. I can think of several people who just dropped off the 'net without a word, some of whom "faded out," but some of whom disappeared abruptly in the matter described above. I have no idea if they just got tired of fandom, or if they need help, or if God forbid they are dead. Last month I considered making this post, but decided against it feeling it was just a concern of mine alone. Tonight another friend of mine told me that someone she follows online has suddenly disappeared, and she's worried. So what the hell am I waiting for?

PROPOSAL: A community which would record people who have suddenly disappeared from the 'net. Although it would be LJ it could also apply to ff.net, any of the other blog sites, or just the net in general.

PURPOSE: The internet is in one sense huge. In another it's tiny; 5 degrees of separation and all that. If the community became well enough known, eventually we would reach a point of critical mass and hopefully at least start getting a few answers from people who know the MIAs in real life. If it only found answers for %5 or even 1% of queries, it would still be serving a purpose.

QUESTION: First, does such a community exist? Second: if it does not, does this seem like something which you would find potentially useful? If you know of no such community, please consider asking your own f-lists, or even just linking here.

I have no experience running a comm, and frankly a bigger name than mine would do better for the purposes of this, but I would gladly set one up and flog it and manage it as best I could until someone better qualified came along.

EDIT: I'm on the way out the door, so this could be better, BUT:

You guys have definitely raised a big issue, and I had considered it but probably not in that much detail, and one of the main reasons that it occured to me people do drop off the face of the net is because they're frustrated/anxious/tired of fandom and just don't want the criticism that will come if they publicly announce that.

My thought had been something a lot simpler (and the critique about reaching a large enough base is totally valid; I doubt if I ran it myself it could). You would just post "Person A (LJ name: X FF.net name: Y Personal Site name: Z) has been silent for X weeks/months/years." The names could be tagged alphabetically and maybe added to a more handy list once a month or something. If anyone knew, they would just post "Person A is okay but off the net/off that account OR hopefully not but A is missing/deceased," and then A would be struck off the "missing from the 'net" list with that information next to their name. It would not be a means to track people down, just to know mainly that they were ALIVE (and the mod could take it on themselves to delete comments heckling for further information). Because honestly, I worry about that. The only reason right now I can think of to make a will is to put in a clause saying, "please update these sites for me saying I'm not around anymore."

But if everyone here thinks this is unfeasible/untenable/not worth it, I won't pursue it.