there will be a fish

I LOVE YULETIDE.

My story has gone over well with my recipient, and the treat I wrote also went over well, so I'm happy as a clam in that regard.

I received an awesome, AWESOME gift. I'd asked for In Treatment, and hardly expected to match on it, because there were only three fics on the archive for it before this one, and one of those was a crossover, and I'd requested a character that didn't even have a tag before I asked for her. But no! I got it!

I've wanted good post-S1 Sophie-centric fic for ages, because damn if that girl wasn't fantastic, and this sticks her in college and watches her roll. It is -- as will surprise no one who watched this show -- heartbreaking and frequently very difficult to experience, but so warm with empathy for Sophie, in all her arrogant, sharp-edged, vulnerable, ballsy glory, and gives her not a happy ending but an beginning where she finds happiness but earns it. God, I love Sophie, and this author just nailed her, and I am so amazingly happy with the story:

Ten Point Oh (3885 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: In Treatment
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sophie (In Treatment)
Additional Tags: Eating Disorders, Suicidal Thoughts, Past Sexual Abuse
Summary: Sophie has her answer all prepared: it is a total smug asshole answer, full of phrases like the joy of the sport. But no-one ever asks.
(**Definitely heed the tags and warnings in the note! Especially if you share any issues with the character. Like I said -- difficult.)

I haven't read a ton of other fic, but I've definitely been enjoying all the wacky creativity that comes out of this challenge. I mean, I love that there's now piles of fic to read for Arrow and SHIELD and so on, but it just isn't Yuletide unless people are pulling off:
1. Ryan Stone from Gravity picking up hitchhikers who happen to be awesome ladies from other fandoms while coping after her ordeal in the movie;
or
2. making a high fantasy femslash story with assassins out of "Jolene" (the Dolly Parton song);
or
3. my personal favorite so far -- the medieval ballad version of how Han and Gisele get together in Fast Five. I felt obligated to read it out loud for proper effect, and it had my sister and I in delighted stitches.

YULETIDE! \o/

HEE. I am really unholy amounts of amused by the titles of the songs on the Mission Impossible 4 soundtrack, because it is full of horrible jokes and wordplay. A selection of the track listing, for your enjoyment:

1 Give Her My Budapest
3 Knife To A Gun Fight
4 In Russia, Phone Dials You
5 Kremlin With Anticipation
6 From Russia With Shove
10 Man, a Plan, a Code, Dubai
11 Love the Glove
12 Express Elevator
13 Mission Impersonatable
14 Moreau Trouble Than She's Worth
15 Out For a Run
16 Eye of the Wistrom
17 Mood India
18 Mumbai's the Word
19 Launch is On Hendricks
20 World's Worst Parking Valet
21 Putting the Miss In Mission

It's even funnier if you've seen the movie, and know which scenes they refer to. :)

...hi, welcome to my brain right now. It has apparently decided to get obsessed with spy things again, and has been (a) re-reading (and compulsively editing) my senior thesis on science fiction in spy films/TV, (b) going to seen M:I4 four times in theaters, (c) watching all the rest of the Mission: Impossible movies possibly also multiple times, I admit nothing (d) watching the old Mission: Impossible TV show (which I have discovered is enormous amounts of fun, and not dated much at all, because the screenwriters were apparently fellow fans of David Maurer's The Big Con, and the characters basically pull off an awesome con job/heist every episode), (e) thinking about buying soundtracks for various spy films on Amazon, and (f) adding any spy films that weren't already on my Netflix queue to my Netflix queue -- at least, as many as I can fit before it hits 500 again, which is sadly only about 15 more, and (g) trying to telepathically make someone write good Ethan/Brandt fic.

I am also writing up my thoughts on the Mission: Impossible films, and trying to resist the urge to edit my thesis into something the internet might read and I might not be ashamed of, and posting it. Because no one wants to read that, I don't think, whereas I am a giant nerd who is barely resisting telling you all the origin of the quote in the subject line.

(ugh, LJ just did an obnoxious thing and stripped out all my coding, and I'm too tired to go back and fix all the italics tags, so just imagine they're there making my prose even more flaily, okay?)
(also whoops, I posted this last night and then private-locked it because LJ fucked up my cuts and I didn't want to spoil anyone, and then of course I forgot to make it public again. SIGH.)

1. The Hobbit trailer! I'm sure you have all seen it by now. I've seen it many times, including in 3D, because my place of employment is awesome. The song gives me the shivers every time, and MARTIN FREEMAN'S EVERYTHING makes me happy, and god it looks gorgeous. I AM EXCITE.

2. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING ABOUT IT, OKAY. This is sort of like when Live Free Or Die Hard came out, and it was a huge shock when it was actively good. I want to go back and see it again! Brad Bird's direction is excellent; the action sequences were tight as anything (like, he doesn't just planting Chekhov's gun and then fire it, he shows you the gun and fires it, and then uses it as a hammer, and then five minutes later as a doorstop, and then... and it's all unexpected and realistic and creative), and marvelously innovative. But I love that he's kept the Pixar tendency to keep everything character-based, and character-driven; even when the characters are fighting people in Big Fight Scenes, it's still about them. And I really loved the team! Jane was awesome: kick-ass, vulnerable when she should be and competent when she needed to be, smart and funny and good at being a spy. I want her to come back! Which is entirely possible, since they also brought back Simon Pegg's Benji from #3, and his face is worth the price of admission alone. God, I love Simon Pegg, and the man is a genius comedian. And then there's Brandt, who was awesome (more on him later). It just had such a sense of fun to it, which is what I want in my action movies. I mean, I want be thrilled, too -- and let me tell you, I was clutching Katie's hand until it lost circulation during ( that one sequence, you know the one ) -- but I want it to be in a fun way; I want breathless joy from people throwing themselves through the air in unbelievable ways, and adrenaline-inducing explosions, and fighting people who need to be fought with a team of decent people, and winning. And I think Brad Bird is in agreement with me, and J.J. Abrams as well, so this was just really good for me. ( spoilers! )

3. Jamie Bell. There was a trailer for Man on a Ledge before MI4, and basically Jamie Bell + heist = key to my heart (with bonus Sam Worthington and apparently them being brothers). But then it also appears that he's going to be in a movie with James McAvoy in which they will both be Scottish and cops (and, in James McAvoy's case, batshit crazy) in a story written by the same guy who did Trainspotting. All this in addition to Tintin, which I am super duper excited about. WIN ALL OVER.

Speaking of, Tintin was excellent! It's very much a Stephen Spielberg movie, if you know what I mean -- in the 'teenage boy (and his dog) fight evil-doers and have wacky adventures while uncovering a sekrit treasure!' sense, complete with Rube-Goldberg-like chase scenes and plenty of swashbuckling slapstick. I personally really enjoy that, in moderation, so I had a great time. The animation/motion-capture stuff turned out very nicely, IMO, and it let them do some really cool stuff with the camera (or, "camera") during action sequences; there's one long chase that is entirely one shot, which would've been completely impossible in live-action, and makes for a really awesome effect. Jamie Bell is marvelous as Tintin; I love the "intrepid reporter" character type almost as much as con men and thieves/rogues with a heart of gold, AND the Tintin books were childhood favorites of mine, so it was just really delightful to see. And they curse like The Middleman ("Great snakes!" LOL) and Tintin nerdily talks to himself Snowy while investigating things and being a giant geek, and Haddock is a big, drunk-ass teddy bear of hilarity. Basically, I had a lot of fun. :)

4. Also Michael Fassbender. Is the man in every movie that's coming out? It's like I turn around, and he's in yet another trailer. Or article. Or something. AND he's getting to play with all the cool kids, it's awesome.

For the record, I am totally okay with this state of affairs. :D

THINGS STILL TO SEE (when I am not working and/or staring in despair at my Yuletide story and/or not working opposite schedule to Katie):
- Sherlock Holmes (I KNOW OMG)
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (once I read the book...)
- Hugo (I hear it's adorbs, plus Martin Scorcese does 3D, I am intrigued)
- Shame (HI MICHAEL FASSBENDER)
- Arthur Christmas (MAYBE. This has nothing to do with me realizing James McAvoy voices the main character, nope...)
- Young Adult (because Charlize Theron. Don't judge me.)

5. ...Okay, and also some fanfic things! Nine Eleven Ten updated yesterday, so I feel a great need to press it upon everyone again. But if you like The Dresden Files (or even if you don't; it's a pretty accessible AU, now that I think about it), and have somehow missed the Stars & Scones Bakery AU, hie thee over there now, because she just finished! AND IT IS DELIGHTFUL. The whole wacky ensemble is there, and Harry is faily and damaged and utterly endearing, and Marcone is delightful, and basically it will make you want to curl up with a cup of tea and some spice cookies and sigh happily. It's perfect for cold weather and the holidays, is what I'm saying. GO. READ. *shoos*

Have I mentioned that I'm really excited about The Adventures of Tintin? I mean, I loved the books as a kid, for starters. Then, Steven Spielberg is directing. Also, the voice cast includes Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Cary Elwes, and about half a dozen other people that I know and love. AND, the screenplay was written by Steven Moffat, and Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish.

Okay, a quick lesson for those who might not know: in screenwriting credits, when a pair or team of writers works together on a script, their names are joined by an ampersand (&). When two writers or groups of writers work successively on a script, their names are joined by an "and". This means that Steven Moffat likely wrote the main draft (hopefully with all his usual wacky-adventures-with-devastatingly-creepy-undertones style firmly in place), and from what I know of Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish -- who have worked on Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Attack The Block, and, to my great delight, apparently will be doing the Ant-Man movie together -- they were likely given the script afterwards to punch up the humor.

I think this sounds completely excellent all around. I mean, they could still fuck it up, but with that much awesome hanging around, they would have to work really really hard to manage it.

Sooo...have you guys heard about that new Steven Soderbergh project? Not the one with the epidemiology and apocalyptic disease (Contagion). No, I'm talking about the one which already has Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey and Joe Manganiello signed up to play strippers, and apparently has some basis in Channing Tatum's real life experiences as a male stripper.

I can't decide if I want to giggle for the rest of my life, or be REALLY REALLY EXCITED about this. (I'll be honest, I read an interview where Channing Tatum was talking about always having wanted to make his experiences into a movie, and I thought that was a cool idea, but would sadly probably turn into a really terrible Lifetime-movie-quality type thing if it ever got made, but...Soderbergh! Should be good.)

I'm going to split the difference, and go play AfterElton's Match The Abs game. (ETA: I got 3/5! Whoo!)

In other news, I've been profitably wasting my time this morning by plotting out a Lord Peter Wimsey AU for The Eagle. *facepalm*

So, Katie and I spent our afternoon and evening after work in a worthwhile pursuit -- by which I mean to say, we watched the first four The Fast and the Furious movies back to back, in preparation for going to see the fifth on opening weekend.

We may have consumed large numbers of Coronas in the process. (It was only appropriate. And at times, necessary.)

( my thoughts, such as they are )

...what. You expected those thoughts to be deep?

You want to know a guilty pleasure movie of mine?

The Replacements.

I just caught the end of it again on TV, and I still love it. It's utterly ridiculous, but I love Keanu Reeves as a professional quarterback. I love Gene Hackman as the wise old coach in his absurd hat. I love the football-nerding, bar-owning head cheerleader. I love the wacky cast of players. I crack up at the former-stripper cheerleader squad, even though my feminist side sends up tiny flags of protest. It's like someone took every underdog-sports-movie cliche and stuffed it into one screenplay, and I know that. I enjoy the shit out of it anyway.

Anyway. Yeah. Guilty pleasure, right there. :D

We went to a Hitchcock serial killer double feature tonight (Frenzy and Psycho). I found myself thinking of this Sherlock Holmes quote a lot during Psycho. Also, weirdly enough, during the old trailer for Alien they played, because the "In space, no one can hear you scream" tagline is rather bizarrely appropriate:

By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.

"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.

But Holmes shook his head gravely.

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."

"Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?"

"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

"You horrify me!"

"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger."

— The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Doyle could really bring the creepy when he wanted, huh? I remember it quite caught my attention. It's such an interesting inversion of the usual way people view crime in cities vs. suburban/rural areas – basically, that cities are wretched hives of scum and villainy, and the countryside is peaceful and quaint and polite. I prefer Holmes' view; human nature is human nature, good and bad, wherever you are, which means human crime doesn't go away when you add more trees. ( this became a much longer piece of meta; I went into this just planning to post the quote, but my brain just won't shut up... )

Comments and debate welcome! It's so boring to be completely agreed with, don't you think? ;)

Katie and I were talking about "Patient Zero"-type author influences earlier re: Georgette Heyer and every Regency romance written after. Influences in general are something I always enjoy speculating on whenever a connection occurs to me.

You know the game: you read Dorothy L. Sayers and go "This Bunter character...she was totally a fan of P.G. Wodehouse, wasn't she?" Or you read Lois McMaster Bujold; in the early books, you think "Yep, she's a Star Trek fan," and in the later ones (particularly of A Civil Campaign), it's "Wow, she is a fan of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, AND Dorothy Sayers, isn't she? And The Man From U.N.C.L.E., for good measure." Or maybe it's Naomi Novik, being a fan of the Master & Commander series. Or Stephanie Meyer and The Book of Mormon. :D Or, going off books and into film, Quentin Tarantino fanboying Sam Fuller, or a million and one people loving Hitchcock.

I don't really have anything insightful to say, I suppose. I just enjoy finding connections between things, especially in reverse – like being massively in love with Casablanca for years before I saw La Grande Illusion and realized hey, Jean Renoir did the whole La Marsellaise scene concept years before Michael Curtiz.

Anyway. Surely I'm not the only person to do this. Y'all have any favorite connections of your own?

It's really easy for me to judge my own focus level, sometimes. I generally end up cleaning my room, which is some kind of subconscious acknowledgement of the non-focus and an attempt to streamline distractions. It works out pretty well, because cleaning is one of those things where you kinda pick at different parts of the problem until the whole thing gradually progresses. So it's not as much a problem when I'm folding clothes and then suddenly decide I need to open the window and then wander into the other room to get the vacuum and then end up straightening a stack of books instead...you get the idea.

(I also go on long tangents. In case that wasn't evident.)

Anyway. I currently have about 40 tabs open. About 10 of these are Life-inspired (research on solitary confinement in US prisons, etc); a half-dozen about Dorothy Sayers (I'm in the middle of writing a post on her essay on feminism from 1938, which is brilliant); another half-dozen plus that are something to do with Sherlock Holmes and/or Victorian England; and the rest about film stuff. And I keep flitting between tabs, so they're all about halfway-read/dealt with, so I just keep opening more tabs and not closing any that are already up.

I'm sure this is as interesting to everyone else as it is to me...

[Poll #1543035]