Strangeria Beach

I miss living on the same planet as Terry Pratchett.

I spent the weekend at Escapade. princessofgeeks was there with her awesome brain, which aided and abetted my "all meta, all the time, meta is my drug of choice" mindset.

The last two panels I went to included this and "Who Are We?" (see adjacent post).

FANDOM IS FIC
Escapade 2016 panel, 1 pm Sunday
Moderators: Rache, Katie
Description: From paper through usenet to LJ, text was king. On tumblr, it's an imposition, or is it? Has fic been dethroned and fic-writing BNFs with it? How do we define "fandom" itself? ( Things people said )

Mods, summing up: there's a separation of fan productions, the stories and vids and whatever, from the conversations about them. AO3 hopes to improve on this, to provide some kind of forum, in future.

Audience contribution to summing up: Could there be a "Goodreads" for AO3 now that Goodreads itself has imploded? We as a community want to talk about fanfiction as well as read it. We need a platform for that.

I was pretty grumpy about it, and refused to go to a 3D showing, but they took me to a 2D one.

And...

I was carried away by it. It has the elusive quality of StarWarsiness we have all missed since 1983. (Prequels? What prequels?) It's fast-paced and action-packed and all that, and it still has the mythic baseline and characters.( SPOILERS EVERYWHERE )

Taking off on Sapphire and Steel, a British late-70s show about fixing the holes in timey-wimey stuff, in rather cerebral fashion, although everyone I knew who watched the show was looking at David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. While time-fixing agencies are an SF staple, the "elemental" agents Sapphire and Steel being neither of them actual elements always amused me. Meanwhile, there have been a great many things on television that could use some fixing, such as:

Gabrielle and Xena walked away from the seven hills of Rome, limestone villas twinkling behind them in the Italian spring sunshine. They passed into a cloud-shadow as Gabrielle reached into her hair and withdrew a topaz-jewelled comb.

Xena, after checking the increasingly gloomy shadow landscape in all directions, glanced at the comb. "What's the next thing?"

"There's a time disturbance on this same planet, only a few centuries retrograde."

"Does the Director of Elements ever say why is this dimension is such a hotbed of timeslips?"

"It's the conscious life-forms. Lots of inverted entropy."

"Whatever. I take it Bronze" -- she shook her generously studded leather armor, various metal implements clinking -- "and Topaz have been assigned. What's it about?"

"Someone remembers forward instead of backward."

"Oooh, that's a recipe for trouble."

The two Elementals emerged from shadow onto an Aegean beach. Topaz added, "They call her Cassandra."

A Merlin Fix-it for Morgana. Sort of.

Suppose, somewhere in the early second season of the show that re-wrote Arthurian legend (again), Morgana woke up from one of those troubling dreams and consciously realized that dreaming prophecies is magic. In Uther's court, she's in trouble the moment anyone realizes or even suspects it. Perhaps, after various dreams or just careful observation of certain events, she concludes that Merlin shares her problem. Merlin, however, is loyal to Arthur first, and Arthur is loyal to Uther. Consulting with him will not solve her problem. What can she do?

She waits for the next inevitable visit to Camelot of a trade delegation or diplomatic mission that includes a personable young nobleman checking out Camelot for... alliances. Said nobleman, say, a Count Guilliam of Gal, is to be entertained by hunts with Arthur and the knights, feasting, and discussions of relations between Gal and Camelot. Morgana notices that Guilliam and his sister and their companions and advisors tactfully fail to mention magic at any point, although the Lady Clovine of Gal possesses a scrying-glass and an interesting collection of perfumes and possets.

Morgana makes sure to be invited along on the most elaborate hunt, for she has dreamed that the attractive Count Guilliam will suffer a disastrous wounding. And so he does, but Morgana, on the alert, adds a swift and effective sword to his defense and summons Merlin, as Gaius' apprentice healer, to tend him. The dreamt-of bloodshed when it happens is dramatic rather than lethal, and Guilliam then has good reason to prolong his visit and seek Morgana's further company. They have time for many discussions about their respective homes, customs and childhoods.

It surprises no one when Count Guilliam and Lady Clovine invite Morgana to accompany their party on its return to Gal, in a reciprocal visit with her attendants and a seasoned councillor or two for, it is said, discussions of reciprocal treaties. Once Uther allows this arrangement, Morgana speaks with Merlin and asks him if he would prefer to be one of the party to Gal, where he, ahem, might further study the art of healing.

Merlin declines, saying his destiny lies with Arthur. Morgana points out that it may be a very short destiny if Uther sees him too clearly. She feels that she and Merlin might have a great destiny of their own as allies rather than enemies, creating a future where sorcerers rather than kings and knights decide the fate of the world, where knowledge and creation overrule main force, to the benefit of all. But, Merlin cannot see himself apart from Arthur, and wishes to remain in Camelot.

Morgana leaves him behind and journeys to Gal, and later to Lothian, and marries a king who believes magic can be used for his own ends. She becomes a great witch and is given all the names of dark magic. She and Merlin work apart, and often in opposition, and at the end of their Age are driven into the West, leaving the world to those who rule by arms.

Orpheus had thought, when he met Euridice, that he would never love anyone else. Their wedding day was his happiest moment, unfortunately, since Euridice died shortly afterward.

Orpheus' mourning was epic, rivalling that of a sullen Danish prince. When his cries to Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld were answered by a divine messenger, Orpheus did not hesitate to seek entrance to Hades' realm to bring back Euridice, although he risked both his own life and hers.

Orpheus arrived at the Styx and his singing succeeded in charming Cerebus into sleep, so that Orpheus could cross the river. He expected Hades himself to be less unwary about letting anyone leave the Underworld, and so it proved. He flattered the God of the Underworld in song, he serenaded, he cajoled with trills and seduced with the tuning of his breath.

And Hades answered. The whole of the World and Underworld, said the god, could not fail to respond to such melting tones, such sublime pleading. Orpheus might choose any boon and Hades would grant it, for Hades heard beauty itself in Orpheus' voice. Would the bravest of mortals not linger a moment to sing once more?

A god's request was, surely, reason enough to sing again, to earn Hades' pleasure. Orpheus sang and sang yet again, and, unwisely, he sat at the god's feet and tasted a divine kiss. Just one, before he might gaze upon his Euridice. He lavished grace-notes and tremolos upon the god. He sang even his own song, his love lost on Earth and and regained in the Underworld.

Orpheus cannot leave. He sings there forever.

The Blakes 7 cast had, in the Liberator crew at various times, four women who were introduced as pilot, guerilla, weapons tech, and gunslinger, but who tended to fade into the background, into incidental supporting roles or in need of rescue. If their initial skills and backgrounds were more played up, one story might be:

B7 introduced Jenna Stannis as a smuggler pilot. She was the one who first connected with Zen, the computer controlling Liberator. After the episode Redemption, Jenna knew there were more ships like it, most probably left abandoned when Blake's crew trashed the computer-controlled space station that produced them. She knew from Zen that the abandoned ships would close themselves down unless boarded and would be hostile toward entities who couldn't communicate with them.

When Jenna and Blake left Liberator at the battle of Star One, she carried knowledge or memory devices that allowed her to find and gain access to the abandoned ships. Jenna could leave Blake with his own new ship to carry on fighting the Federation, and if she wanted she could take a ship for herself, to travel the galaxy, free-trading and exploring.

She still remembered how Zen first greeted her, as though it knew her already. After working with Zen's sister, she knew how to pilot another Liberator look-alike back in time and leave it near Cygnus Alpha for the younger Roj Blake and Jenna Stannis to find. She left that ship waiting for them, and took her own back out into the galaxy for further adventures.

"Five Times There Was Magic in the West Wing, and One Time There Wasn't"

1. Abbey as Mother (of her Country, and she's amused as hell about *that*), Zoe as Maiden and a natural prophetess, CJ as crone. "She's been predicting Jed's election results since she was four," says Abbey. "Weren't those kind of easy to predict then?" asked CJ. "She's still getting better." Zoe puts on fake glazed-eyes-into-distance. "Dad's next poll will show point-four drop in the Midwest and..." her voice shifted lower "...the Hanes-Merrill bill will pass by twelve votes." CJ said, "Oh." Abbey said, "That's good to know, dear. What's the vote date?"

2. White House basement incorporates a circle of stones as holding a piece of each incumbent's soul. The more ensouled stones, the stronger the land. Lincoln's and Kennedy's are bound with blood, even stronger, but all Presidents give up a bit of their souls. Grover Cleveland had to give up two pieces, and his stones are still annoyed.

3. Leo's AA meetings are actually for wizards who crack in muggledom. "I can't exactly disappear when I want to go home!" "Sure you can. Party leader in drink and drug scandal goes for rest cure in clinic, followed by indefinite vacation. 'Spending time with your family'." "Great. Do I get my wand back now?"

4. Leo, wondering if he'll ever use his wand again, sees Margaret happily getting results just by scrunching her nose on her hands-free phone line.

5. Ainsley Hayes, as vampire liaison, and Sam Seaborne, for werewolves, are consulted about the undead vote and deny that it's a coherent bloc. They get on very well with each other, though.

6. The White House holds a 4th of July birthday party for a hundred kids with birthdays on that day. Jed Bartlett does card tricks, but the costumed clown, a secret service agent, does better ones.

For a good time, click on Google for 6 September.

Aren't these archived somewhere, so I can go see Google logos past?

I've loved Regency romances since I discovered a Georgette Heyer book in the back layer of my college roommate's mother's bookcase, and subsequently bought every single one of them on sight, plus anything else that looked vaguely similar. In the 70s there wasn't very much. (Yes, children, I went to college when dinosaurs -- otherwise known as Chevy Vegas -- stalked the Earth.) If the standard is Heyer, there *still* isn't all that much, and that's a whole discussion in itself.

It seems that Heyer-style Regencies are an interest common to a number of fans, for most slash fandoms eventually acquired at least a few AU stories set in something like Heyer's idealized Regency. (I've written a couple of these myself, most recently a reworking of parts of Torchwood's first season, now posted here on AO3.) The recent growth of gay romances with a very slashy feel has also produced a few examples in Regency and Regency-esque settings. I'd also be delighted to hear of other titles, if anyone else is researching this particular sub-genre. For my purposes, Age of Sail is not quite the same as Regency, although the time periods overlap a great deal and it's possible for a given story to tickle both fancies.

( The Great, the Good, the Highly Amusing )