Dear Iron Man,

I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER FANDOM. GO AWAY.

No love,
Rex


Dear Iron Man fandom,

Anyone got any recs?

Sheepishly,
Rex


I've now seen the movie three times. But despite this sudden new fixation, I'm actually making more progress on the POTC novel than I have in weeks. I guess if you call a thousand words in two days progress. But it's moving again. This happens sometimes - I get hung up on a research question and I dance around unable to write because of it - and then I say "fuck it" and write the scene without the research and it's basically okay. Nothing I can't fix in a revision.

My real problem is that Jack Sparrow is a difficult character to write. I don't do whimsy and non sequitur well. Norrington is repressed and methodical and I can get behind that. I have trouble identifying with unfettered id. By the way, I've decided that Norrington's head is shaved under that wig. Just as a counterpoint to all those flowing chestnut locks I've read about.

Still left to write: the rest of a battle, a clever escape scene (we'll see), another battle, a torture scene, a court-martial and a duel. Yeah, that's like nothing. I think I need one more sex scene too, to make this thing worth the price of admission. THIS STORY NEEDS TO BE DONE ALREADY.

In non-fannish news, I am rapid-cycling like crazy. One day I'm cleaning my house from top to bottom, the next I can't get out of bed. My doctor recommended a way of spreading out my medication dosage which seems to be helping, though. And it's nice to have a clean house.

And finally: posting for the fest at raise_the_dead starts soon, YAY.

Title: Lost Weekend
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Iron Man
Pairing: Pre-Tony/Pepper, kind of, but mostly gen
Word count: 1,200
Notes: I wrote this in one sitting. I don't like it. It's barely even a story. I am not writing anything else in this fandom, I swear. Oh and by the way, I meant this to be set before the film, but it could just as easily be after, I suppose.
Summary: Pepper turns her head for one second, and look what happens.

( Lost Weekend )

Tony Stark icons for you. Not my best work, but oh well.

1	2	3	4
5	6	7

Seven Norrington icons for you, mostly from AWE.

1	2	3	4
5	6	7

I'm having kind of a rough time these days, so naturally, I've seen a lot of movies and read a lot of fanfic. Spoilers ahead:

( Iron Man )

( Wall-E )

( Snarry )

( My POTC story )

All written for potc100.

Title: Never Shall We Die
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Pairing: Jack/Norrington

Title: Anesthesia
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Character: Norrington
Notes: For the Uncharted Territory challenge.

Title: Dark Water
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington, Elizabeth
Notes: For the Uncharted Territory challenge.

Title: If You Believe the Stories
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Character: Norrington
Notes: For the Uncharted Territory challenge.

Title: Deep Thoughts
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Murtogg and Mullroy
Notes: For the Singapore challenge.

Title: Posthumous
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Character: Elizabeth
Notes: For the Message in a Bottle challenge.

Title: Ransom
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Pairing: Jack/Norrington
Notes: For the Theft challenge.

Title: Ancient History
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Pairing: Jack/Norrington
Notes: For the History challenge.

Title: The Visitor
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Groves, Norrington
Notes: For the Sea Shanties challenge.

Sparrington people: would anyone be interested in beta-reading at 4,300 word story? It would probably be best if you're not involved in the raise_the_dead swag swap.

Watched "There Will Be Blood" and liked it. I was going to say loved, but it's a film that demands admiration, not love.

"DRRRRRRRRAINAGE!"

Like David Denby, I had trouble with the final scene, but I think I got what it was trying to do, even if it didn't quite work.

Also, I kind of want this.

Today I burst into tears because my cat was crying over his absent food bowl. I'm not allowed to feed him since he's getting his teeth cleaned tomorrow. I feel like a bastard.

I think I'm going to ease myself back into working by volunteering. I am thinking tutoring. It's the only thing I feel remotely qualified for, but I've never done it.

I'm well into The Surgeon's Mate. I want to write this well. The big story is up to 73K words and the little story for the new raise_the_dead fest is up to 1,300. I like it.

You know, as delightful as it was to hear Jack Davenport use the words "cunt" and "prick" and to see Johnny Depp leer at his "middle", that can only get a film so far. I actually had to fast-forward Johnny's opening monologue to preserve my good opinion of him. I learned belatedly that this film was originally a play, which would explain how it came to be so overwritten and dull, but does not excuse it. This film had writing coming out its ears. This film vomited writing into my lap. And usually I like that.

I'm sorry, Jack Davenport, I'm afraid I can go no further, even for you. Next on my Netflix queue is "There Will Be Blood", and if the previous film had a surfeit of writing, I'm told this one has more acting than all the other films of its year combined. I can't wait.

On my flist, a while ago, I saw some kind of file sharing service designed for "mix tape" use. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Okay, this appeals way too much to my deep egotism not to do:

Ask me a question about one of my stories. It can be absolutely anything in any fic and I will tell you the honest-to-god answer. Don’t hold back.

I'm back. Suffice it to say it was a good trip. I attempted to write about it, but it didn't really work. I watched three movies on the plane and each was more trite than the last. They probably would have been even more trite with sound. I read The Shadow-Line by Conrad, and remembered how much I love him, so I got Chance out of the library, along with a stack of research material. I even did some writing on the trip, though it was longhand and meager. I wrote a little bit of something original, which will probably be my next project after I finish this fanfic novel.

Yesterday I started watching The X-Files from the beginning again. God, that was an amazing show at the start. I think it lost me around season five. But before the conspiracy mythology grew reified and mundane, it was really powerful. I wonder if there could have been a way to complete the story without making it so byzantine and ultimately dull. Without "showing the monster", as it were. Not on network television, I suppose. That show produced some amazing fanfic, too. Someday I'm going to post a retrospective of my favorite X-Files fanfic - some of it was so terrific, and so much better than where the series eventually went.

Having developed a nasty, rubbernecking fascination with this book Twilight, I found a PDF copy of it online and started reading. To begin with, it's virtually unreadable. It doesn't compare well to most of FF.net. I know we like to joke about JKR not being a great prose stylist, but no, you have no idea - I was writing better than this when I was fourteen.

So I started skimming. The main character, who narrates, is one of the most insipid, unlikeable characters I've ever read, and her baseless contempt for everyone and everything around her makes her impossible to stomach for more than a few sentences at time. I think we're supposed to infer from this how special she is, but all we really get is that she's snobby, ungrateful and self-absorbed. Again, these values are understandable if you're fourteen, but I assume the author isn't.

Our heroine is the new girl at school. It's not spoiling much to say that she eventually meets the beautiful vampire boy that the back cover copy tells us she's destined to fall in love with. She's immediately drawn to him, to the exclusion of the genuinely nice kids who are trying to make her feel welcome, for no other reason than that he's beautiful. They sit next to each other in biology (God, I lost interest in this kind of drama fifteen years ago), and he's incredibly mean and cold to her. OMG how could he???

But you know what the bitch of it is? I wanted to know why. And so I kept reading.

You see the problem here? I am reading this barely literate drivel because I need to know what happens. It's like my lizard brain has taken over.

My own writing, while not likely to win me the Booker Prize, is pretty good. It's certainly more beautiful and evocative than this shit. But you know what I have yet to learn how to do? To make my reader want - need - to turn the page. Because if you have your reader by the balls like that, you barely need to be able to spell beyond the sixth grade level to have an audience. To me, that ability looks like magic. And it's worth mentioning that this book Twilight doesn't even rate all that high on the list of great page-turners. But it seems to have that primal quality hiding under a layer of polluted, uninspired dreck. I remember thinking the same thing about The DaVinci Code. Oh, to have that ability.

All things considered, though, I wouldn't trade places with Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown. Because, ew.

More Andreas Scholl for you.

"Agnus Dei" from Bach's Mass in b minor (blackletter, minor key!)

"Sei gegrüsset, Maria" from Schütz's Christmas Story (with a boy soprano, I believe)

Story up to seventy fucking thousand words. Going to die now.

Title: Backlit
Author: rexluscus
Rating: G
Word count: 670
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Characters: Elizabeth and Norrington, pre-CotBP
Notes: For the "One More Day" prompt Amber at raise_the_dead.

Backlit

Here, have some baroque opera:

"Va Tacito" from Handel's Giulio Cesare (7.24 MB)

concertigrossi was talking about it, and now I can't stop listening to it. Countertenor ahoy!

I just wrote my first full-on complete sex scene in months yesterday. I feel like a hen that has laid an egg.

I can't remember where I got this meme, but I wrote the post ages ago and never put it up, for some reason. Anyway:

( Fandom Q&A: Pirates of the Caribbean )

Moar iconz! Lots of Bootstrap.



( Twelve More )

Again, all written for potc100.

Title: Sailor Take Warning
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Gibbs
Notes: For the Childhood challenge.

Title: Compromise
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the Childhood challenge.

Title: Crossing Wakes
Rating: R, for adolescent sexuality
Word count: 100
Pairing: Elizabeth/Norrington
Notes: For the Childhood challenge.

Title: Master and Commander
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the First Time challenge.

Title: Language Lessons
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the First Time challenge.

Title: Kill-Devil
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the First Time challenge.

Title: Ladies of Spain
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the Last Time challenge.

Title: Mice and Men
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Norrington
Notes: For the Last Time challenge.

Title: From the Bottom
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Elizabeth, Norrington
Notes: For the Loyalty challenge.

Title: Every Man For Himself
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Characters: Jack, Gibbs
Notes: For the Loyalty challenge.

Here's the rest of Ligature.

( Mostly fragments )