I'm sure it's meant to evoke the subligaculum and apron of the roman soldier, and I realize they were a traditional form of military attire for a very long time, but I maintain that those retarded culottes are why Romulans failed to rule the galaxy. Even kilts are more manly than culottes. What was their strategy? To cause the enemy to laugh themselves to death? TNG was no improvement! Then they started wearing snow parkas with bland, boring but still culottes. *dies laughing* Ah, crap, I guess the Romulans just won.

Medium: Books (and to-be Movie)
Fandom: Twilight
Subject: Jacob and Bella's torrid love affair
Title: Because She Likes It Doggy Style
Warnings: Sexual content, though no spoilers (unless you count the origin of how this mix came to be, and in that case I doubt you've read even the second book, so you can just skip that part if you want)
Notes: First of all, cross-posted, so sorry if it spams up your friends list. Second, I thought I should tell you about the origin. Which I will tell you after the cut. And PLEASE PLEASE REALIZE! that yes, I am being partially sarcastic. I'm a total Bella/Edward shipper. This was just begging to be done.



( this world is only gonna break your heart )

I am considering giving up chocolate for a month to see if I experience fewer migraines.

O_O

Cue shock, speculations on the pending apocalypse, and bets on how long I can hold out.

Title: A Slipping Knot
Author: shiegra
Rating: R
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin
Pairing: Kenshin/Kaoru, ensemble
Summary: AU. In a world where witches are hunted down and rounded up to be used like cattle, Kaoru and Misao have managed to create a haven for their kind. But after all their cautious years, something happens to make their plans go up in smoke.


Part Five

I have spent the last month of feckless time-wasting by watching through all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At first I just wanted to see what the fuss was about (and I like to have some TV on while I do my Latin), but I really got drawn into it, and thought I would offer some aggregated thoughts now I am done, in the form of both incoherent 'reaction shots' that I recorded mostly as I went along, and some more thoughtful stuff I wrote this evening after watching 'Chosen'.

( Waffling )

( Coherence )

Back at the start of this month, we decided to do a longer bike trip, out toward Luray. Despite our best intentions, we left late enough to get caught in horrid traffic down 95. It was so bad, we pulled off for a break and searched for an alternate route. Eventually, we reached the more pleasant road cutting west and then got lost in Luray because someone hadn't bothered to check the map carefully. After we bickered for a while - and when two people have ridden eight hours that can be some mighty bickering - we found a national forest road that would take us to our intended campsite.

It was real nice for the first mile but then the following eight were gravel. Eight miles at 15mph, carefully picking a path through the only packed portion (car tracks), on a narrow wheeled street bike with smooth tires, made for one cranky me. The campsite was nice but around 4am a series of powerful thunderstorms rolled through the area and didn't quit until 11am. That was kind of boring but the tent was made of win. I should have brought a book.

( Six photos and a map. )

I really dislike textbook companies.  So much.

I've been busy lately, and had some technical difficulties, so I've missed a bit, and I'll be catching up with comments and such.

It's one of those days when the ratio of metawork to work at my job is mindnumbingly high. (Actual work = writing content; metawork = trying to find out who can move the content I've uploaded to the VPN to the other server I can't access, so that someone else who only has access to that server can upload it to the FTP site, which I can't access either.)

Must have some source of entertainment. Or will die of bored.

Poll #1244711
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Penknife should write:

Because I was incredibly bored yesterday, and this has been floating around...

We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about each other. I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me, something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Ahem. I've been meaning to watch Farscape. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have it anymore because of some highly delayed re-release shtick. It's probably cheap to buy used but I would prefer a sample, first. *looks at the flist meaningfully*

On the newly discovered comet near Neptune:

"The object is not a threat to Earth, which is good."

LOL. Glad you could clear up the significance of that non-threat for us, Space.com!

Then there's this less LOL-worthy and more annoying article from "LiveScience": The Pill Makes Women Pick Bad Mates. There are several layers of fail at work here, starting with the very misleading headline--"bad" here means "(possibly, sometimes) less likely to be genetically compatible for reproductive purposes," "make" means "may (possibly, sometimes) influence," and who the fuck knows what "the Pill" means, because apparently hormonal contraceptives are a) all alike and b) affect all women in exactly the same ways. Then, reading a bit farther down, it's revealed that the study was led by an evolutionary psychologist, which tells me most of what I need to know about the ideology at work: heteronormative, gender essentialist, and reductionist. A glance at the abstract of the research article is even more revealing: "single women preferred odours of [genetically] similar men" (who are the supposed "bad" mates) and paired women had some preference for the dissimilar men. So going back to the hypothesis, it seems that single women are more likely to choose a "bad" mate; once coupled up, they are better able to sniff out a "good" mate (apparently unlikely to be their current partner, unless they cheated on their last partner with him). Okay!

( Cut for tl;dr dissection of full article, with ranting )

Whew! I feel better now. But srsly, how the fuck did that nullity of a scientific study (actual conclusion: "er, we have proved exactly nothing") become a concern-troll article about how the Pill is destroying women's "natural" good judgment?

On a lighter note, you've also gotta love the quality of editing at LiveScience, on an article about the interaction of visual and auditory pathways in the brain:

"The discovery is likely unrelated to the rare experience of synesthesia, a bizarre condition experienced by a few people who can feel, here and taste colors."

LITERACY. Can we have some, plz?

Clearly, English grammar, journalism, and particularly "science" is hard work...

One thing I've missed a lot at university is baking- I've lacked either the facilities or the equipment for the last two years- so I've been trying to make time for it now I'm at home and have the full resources of my parents' lovely kitchen. This is one of my absolute favourite cakes in the world; it comes out very soft and light but beautifully moist, and it stays fresh for days (not that it normally has to, because anyone in its vicinity will gobble it up). I made it today because my parents came back from holiday in Cornwall, and I thought I would share!

( Velvet Cake )

Since it is so hot most of the time here that it's hard to imagine cooking, or even eating anything heavy, I have been craving smoothies. But our flaketastic ex-roommate took her blender with her when she moved out, so I have taken to improvising with a sort-of-parfait using similar ingredients:

1 cup plain organic yogurt
1 tbsp pure brown sugar (honey or agave nectar would work just as well)
1/2 cup frozen fruit (I've been using raspberries, as they're a good size and nummy.)
1 banana, chopped (optional)

Mix...eat. All measures are approximate. The sugar cuts the tang of the yogurt just a bit, because I'm not so hardcore as to eat plain plain yogurt. If it was a smoothie, the banana and fruit juice would do the trick; I'm guessing the sugar content ends up being about the same. I could just buy vanilla yogurt, of course, but I'm trying to avoid all that extra stuff they put in it. Obviously, I have nothing against refined sugar in itself. High fructose corn syrup, on the other hand, is nasty, and in everything. Pure ingredients = yay! And tasty.

This is good after-gym food. I'm eating it after having just got back from my first yoga class in a couple of months. Must have been a bit ambitious with my back bends, though, because my lower back is like, WHY YOU DO THIS? And it wasn't even a tough class by my standards. I hate how quickly my body gets out of shape. :-( It better kick back into gear right quick because I plan to be dancing with it again this semester.

And that's coming up fast, maybe too fast. My vacation is rapidly shrinking, or at least being filled with tasks rather than free time. For one thing, my waffling roommate (the one with the dogs) got a new job in the Bay Area, so rather than taking on a new lease here and having to find two new roommates, I am moving in with elucidar. Which is (at least) two parts awesome but one part argh-I-have-to-move, with all the tasks that entails.

I chose my username/email address because I'm a klutz and tend to fall over and rip my jeans, plus I've always like the look of torn/ripped jeans. I love wearing jeans and 19 came into cos its my fave number.

Several months ago the grocery store within walking distance closed. We've been waiting since then for the fabled Fresh World Super Mercado to open. The first day it opened, there was a ridiculous mass of cars and traffic jam in the area. We walked over there today and I am pleased to report that it is just like H-Mart, only with more food from the rest of the Americas. There is truly a boggling array of food made with mangoes (not that I mind). You can also buy ice cream in bon bon form, if you like red beans, green tea, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or mango. Since I can't pass up a five dollar carton of mangoes or lobster at $7/lb, I've had a fine dinner.

Title: Abrogate
Author: shiegra
Fandom: Sleepy Hollow (movie)
Rating: PG13
Summary: Katrina Van Tassel. Returning to Sleepy Hollow, as she will one day to death.

( Read more... )

here are 45 Underworld icons!

{9}sonja/lucian:Underworld rise of the lycans
{6}lucian:Underworld
{11}sonja:Underworld
{19}Amelia:underworld/underworld evolution


please comment/credit
no hotlinking!




( rise of the lycans )

"Familiar Spirits," PotC, Teague and Jack, gen, rated PG mainly on account of all the opium. Teague's gotten used to being visited by ghosts. ~3500 words.

All resemblances to the backstory in artaxastra's Outlaws and Inlaws series are intentional, as she has kindly let me borrow some of her toys.

( Familiar Spirits )

Rachel500 has once again written the perfect missing scene over on fanfiction.net, this time for Continuum.


( Summary includes spoilers for Continuum )

Find it here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4480143/1/Five_Minutes


xxx

Beware, incoherent emo entry ahead.

It's only appropriate, you know, that something that can make you happy like nothing else can (and usually will) also break your heart like nothing else. Change feels like dying because it is.

No, no. Nothing radical has happened in my life, really. I am in fact once again crying about fictional stuff.
But you see, the thing is: it's never only fictional.

I may never have, say, lost my love forever to a parallel universe. But believe me, I still know how it must feel.
Change feels like dying because it is. And I know change, even though it sometimes can feel like nothing ever changes. But eventually everything will. And I bet it will feel like dying.

Funny thing, by the way: in the Doctor Who (for how could I be talking about anything else?) universe, the Eternals call Void (or as we might call it, Hell) "The Howling". And the heart of the cosmic energy, the infinity and the eternity, the divine Mother Goddess, if you will? Bad Wolf.
Someone knows their irony.

And what of Love?
It will kill and save you, take your heart that's barely beating and fill it with hope beyond the stars. It is beautiful and terrifying because it always walks hand in hand with Loss, the thing every human being fears the most.
Are you afraid of the big Bad Wolf? If you keep running from her, you will never truly know Love. But you will never truly know Loss either. So are you?

I am.
But the Doctor has taught me that sometimes it's worth it to just let go of your fear and just... love.

Ah, anyway... There are two absolutely beautiful songs I've discovered recently and have wanted to share with you for a while now. You can either just listen to them or download them if you wish:

Trading Yesterday - The Beauty & the Tragedy
Trading Yesterday - She Is The Sunlight (and the slightly alternative album version).

Let me know if the links don't work and I'll fix them because I'd really like all of you to have a chance to hear those songs.

Title: Fortuitous Fate
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Disney's. I don't own it. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Summary: Elizabeth runs into Jack in a tavern. Set at some undetermined post-AWE time.
Author's note: A decidedly non-angsty J/E ficlet for geekmama and the prompt "destiny". Thanks to jenthegypsy for looking it over for me. Only one more request to go now!

( Fortuitous Fate )

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3069650/1/In_the_Library

"[completed] The purpose of this fic is to make readers feel better about Professor Zei's suicidal!decision to stay behind in the library with a murderous all knowing Spirit Being."

I actually hoped besides a larger return of Koh, we'd see that Owl Spirit again, because he was that cool.

Title: A Slipping Knot
Author: shiegra
Rating: R
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin
Pairing: Kenshin/Kaoru, ensemble
Summary: AU. In a world where witches are hunted down and rounded up to be used like cattle, Kaoru and Misao have managed to create a haven for their kind. But after all their cautious years, something happens to make their plans go up in smoke.

Pt 4

I went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet last night, an event I’ve been anticipating for months and months (the one that’s been tagged on to various LJ posts as OMG DAVID TENNANT IN 5,4,3,2,1 WEEKS/DAYS TIME!) and it proved to be so worth the wait.

We met up in the café with the friends who had found us the tickets beforehand and all headed into the theatre together. They had been in before, so knew what the theatre looked like, but my sister and I had no idea. Cue tinylittleorgasm when we realised how close we were to, not only the stage, but the walkway that ran off to the side. The seats came up all the way to the edge of an apron stage, and we were row B, in the corner between stage and runway. So basically…a lot of the action was right next to us. David Tennant. Right. There.

( To be or not to be... )

x