Today at work I was going through massive stacks of books, seeing which ones were published by AAR (which we therefore have to keep), and which can be given away. And I stumbled across a book about my great-great-grandfather, Henry Steel Olcott.

He's an odd case in our family history. A national hero in Sri Lanka (apparently he's even been called a Bodhisattva?) and the founder of a branch of Buddhist thought that's been instrumental in changing Sri Lankan society. (The Wikipedia article is fairly decent on this: check it out if you're interested.) And yet on this side of the pond, there's still a fair amount of passed-on bitterness, because he abandoned his wife and children to do all this.

Here, have a picture:



So, needless to say, I took the book. Should be interesting reading.

Happy Independence Day to my American friends. I hope you have some plans for fun. :) I'm going to be heading down to Olympic Centennial Park to catch some bands and fireworks.

Last night's movie was...interesting. I guess you all probably know that I'm not really one for patriotic, heroic accounts of history. The attitude that seems to be prevalent among many fundamentalist Christians (and yeah, I say this from long experience) that the "Founding Fathers" are practically saints or gods really troubles me. They weren't. They were very flawed men. (In point of fact they were flawed rich white men who didn't really give a lot of thought to people who weren't rich white men, or at the very least white men.)

Anyway, I was surprised and glad that the movie actually addressed some of these things. Probably the best song in the musical was "Molasses to Rum to Slaves," partly because it's just the best musically, but mostly because it packs quite a punch. There's more than a little irony to the fact that the Declaration of Independence was written by a slave owner and signed by representatives of a country that made its wealth on the triangle trade. Of course the villain had to be the one to point it out, but at least someone said it straight. Here's the relevant clip on YouTube.

I'm thinking of hunting down Iron Jawed Angels for a movie night now. I could use a movie about ladies being awesome and demanding the right to vote.

But anyway, tonight there is fireworks and good friends and music and cake, so! Have fun, y'all.

But apparently I was deceived!

Yes, this is another "sorry I've been gone forever" post. Things have been mad crazy at work: we had to let several people go, and now everyone's moving offices so that they'll all be on one floor. So I've spent most of this week packing and moving boxes, cataloging records, and doing massive amounts of recycling. It was fairly exhausting work, and there was a lot of dust involved (as often happens in moving). Now, I'm pretty allergic to dust, and I now have a mild, allergy-induced sinus infection. Ugh.

I watched The Sound of Music last night with my friends, because Crystal had never seen it, either. And I realized that I kind of ship Maria with the Baroness. Um... But seriously, they're both awesome, and they'd be awesome together and probably help each other grow, and besides, none of the men in this movie are awesome enough for either of them. So it's only logical.

And tonight I'm going to watch 1776. I decided to go because my mom loves this movie, and because Lea's going, but I'm a bit apprehensive, because it's her Christian singles group that's showing it. And, well, I am very wary of Christian singles groups!

I'm a firm believer that there should be more singles groups that exist to enable people to just hang out with friends and have fun without the occasional awkwardness that comes from being the only single in a group of people with romantic relationships. However, it's been my experience that singles groups really aren't like this. In fact, "singles group" seems to be code for "let's get together and see if we can all pair off!"

So I am apprehensive. Because I do not actually want to pair off! But I figure I can survive going once, and hopefully nothing too horrible or ridiculous will happen. We'll see. I have already had enough hurtful and/or awkward experiences with sexual people being ignorant this week, and I don't really need more!

And now to round out this thoroughly ridiculous post, a poll!

Poll #1424785
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which Katabasis story would you like to see first?

Happy birthday to my dear leia_naberrie! I hope you've had a wonderful day, dear.

In honor of your birthday, I decided to post some icons of awesome ladies.

[4] Avatar (the Dangerous Ladies)
[18] Star Wars

Rules:
[x] Comments are nice. :)
[x] Credit fialleril.
[x] No hotlinking!
[x] Textless icons are not bases. Please do not alter.
[x] Resources are here.

Samples:
1. 2. 3.

( the rest under here )

Snagged this from lexy_opal. I've done a similar one for pairings, but this one seems more fun. ;)

List 15 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

1. Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov [The Brothers Karmazov] | Shut up. It's a fandom if I say it is.
2. Frodo Baggins [The Lord of the Rings]
3. Luke Skywalker [Star Wars Original Trilogy]
4. Shmi Skywalker [Star Wars Prequel Trilogy]
5. Aang and Mai [Avatar: The Last Airbender] | I really can't decide between them, so they're both here.
6. Ba'el [Star Trek: The Next Generation] | Though if I had to pick a series regular, it would be Worf.
7. Evey Hammond [V for Vendetta]
8. Lúthien Tinúviel [The Silmarillion]
9. Nyota Uhura and T'Pring [Star Trek: The Original Series] | No, seriously. I can only conclude that so many people hate T'Pring because they're jealous of her flawless logic. And her awesome.
10. Edmund Pevensie [The Chronicles of Narnia]
11. Persephone [Greek Mythology] | Totally a fandom. It has a section on FFN and everything.
12. Nightcrawler [X-Men movieverse]
13. Cham Syndulla [Star Wars: The Clone Wars]
14. Paikea [Whale Rider]
15. Kiowa [The Things They Carried]

There's no Star Trek XI character here because I am completely incapable of narrowing it down to even two. It's a seven-way tie between Chekov, Gaila, McCoy, Sarek, Spock, Sulu, and Uhura. (And see, I have even alphabetized them because I couldn't decide what order to write them in!)

Just so you know. Though once JVC starts in August, I will probably become very scarce, as one of the tenets of the JV year is a limited use of technology. On that note, is anyone here interested in being a co-mod for neu_beginning? I know I haven't been much of a mod anyway.

I dropped my sister off at the airport today, so now I'll just be hanging out in Atlanta for another month before I take a short visit home, and then it's on to Chicago. We had a pretty great time on her visit, mostly doing geeky things. ;) Although there was that one time where my computer decided to die, and we had to go on an epic search for a new laptop. I was tempted to name my new computer Spock because the search was just that epic, but ultimately I named it Rowena instead. What? I like the name Rowena.

After the Great Computer Fiasco there was the con, which was actually a pretty minor affair, and not terribly exciting. It was a very small and low-key con. But we had fun all the same. I got to wear my Vulcan ears, and I put a couple strands of hair in front of them this time. The president of the Atlanta Star Trek fanclub told me I looked like T'Pring, which I took as the highest of compliments. ;) (Yes, really. I am a T'Pring fangirl. I don't get why everyone hates her - perhaps because she's just too awesome? Someday, there will probably be meta. Also, anyone know where I can find some good icons of her? I'd make some myself, but I have to get photoshop set up on the new computer first. Ugh.)

We also visited the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, of which pictures later (along with a few con pics), once I figure this thing out. Other than that we mostly just had a lot of fun hanging out. Oh, and we did a marathon of pretty much every Worf-centric episode in The Next Generation. It was epic.

I guess I've never mentioned it before on this LJ, but Worf was basically my first character crush. I was very pleased to discover that, 12 years later, he is still one of my character crushes. Ninja!Worf is the best. Also, I now have a rather impressive girl crush on Ba'el (and yeah, there will probably be icons). I mean, I am pretty certain that a half-Vulcan, half-Klingon would be the awesomest thing in the universe, but a half-Romulan, half-Klingon is the next best thing, and it's canon, so I'll take it. (If y'all are confused, you should go watch the TNG episode "Birthright" (parts 1 and 2) right now. It is awesome, I promise.)

And to round out our week of epic geekery, yesterday my sister and I went to see the new Trek movie again. Upon reflection, I think it's now safe to say that the scene between Spock and Sarek towards the end is my favorite scene, although it's a near thing. Clearly, I need a Sarek icon as well.

It's probably unsurprising that, after a week or so of Worf marathon, seeing this movie made us both long for some TNG in Reboot universe. We've even got the story all figured out. Here's how it would go: In Reboot 'verse, the Khitomer massacre would never happen. In fact, let's take it further and say that the Khitomer Accords would never happen, either, so in TNG time in Reboot 'verse, the Klingon Empire and the Federation are still at war. Worf grew up with his parents in the Empire, and is now an officer aboard a Klingon ship, fighting against the Federation. Most of the rest of the Enterprise crew could end up being the same, I suppose. Except that the Enterprise would chiefly be a battleship in this 'verse, so no families. Which means Wesley Crusher stays on Earth. Darn. ;)

K'Ehleyr could still be a diplomat working for the Federation. She could have plenty of conflict because of her dual heritage, particularly since humans and Klingons are at war. (Don't ask me how her parents got together in this universe, but clearly they should, because she is too awesome not to exist.)

And when the Borg invade, the Federation and the Klingons would have to forge a shaky alliance in order to defeat them. K'Ehleyr should be instrumental in forming this alliance, and Worf, of course, would be one of the main players once the alliance was formed. He'd probably end up on the Enterprise somehow.

Also, Ba'el should exist in this universe. How, you say? Well, I kind of like the idea that in Reboot 'verse, the Klingons and the Romulans are actually allies. Crazy, I know. But this universe needs to shake more things up. Also, somehow Ba'el and K'Ehleyr should meet and become friends and do awesome things together. Worf can come too.

Why yes, this hypothetical movie is all about the Klingons.

Last night my computer decided to give up the ghost. Just lay down and die. The motherboard is toast.

Luckily, I'd just purchased an external hard drive, so my entire computer is backed up and in continued existence. So today my sister and I (she's visiting, by the way?) are going to go on an epic search for a mini laptop. I've decided to get an ultra cheap mini laptop rather than a full-fledged computer because my JV year is going to be mostly technology-light anyway. I really just need something I can access the internet with for a month, and then use as a word processor during JVC.

But ugh, this is annoying.

Sorry for my absence lately. It seems that after graduation I've finally developed a social life. ;)

But I know what y'all really want to hear about is movie night on Saturday, and Crystal's reaction to the Big Reveal in ESB. It has taken me this long to post about it because it was just that epic.

There was literally a full minute of silence following Darth Vader's revelation, during which her mouth was kind of gaping open, and then she sputtered, "Is he serious?" And then she just kept repeating, "What? What? Oh my God what just happened?" I don't think she even processed anything that happened in the movie after that. Neither did I, because I was too busy asphyxiating from sheer joy.

So then the movie ended, and I said, "Well guys, we can schedule another movie night to watch the third one, or..." And Crystal said, "Oh no. We are watching it now." And so we did.

She was similarly shocked by the revelation concerning Leia, and also by the ending. And now she's declared herself whole-heartedly a fan, and wants to watch the prequels for our next couple of movie nights. LOL.

Other geeky things that happened on movie night: We made some delicious stir fry (if I do say so myself, and I do) and had dinner before the movies, during which we discussed everything from climate change to Star Trek. And somehow this ended in John asking me to give a dissertation on Vulcans. And so, naturally, I told them about pon farr.

It was only as I was driving back home that I realized I've told about five people about pon farr in the last week. In real life. I don't know what's become of me.

Well the Star Wars showing was apparently a great success. Crystal and Lea are both fans now. :D And, even better, Crystal has no idea about the big secret that comes out in ESB. We're going to watch that one on Saturday, and I'm awaiting her reaction like a kid at Christmas.

See, back in the day my dad actually spoiled the whole thing for me before I ever saw the movies, so it was never a surprise. I've always kind of wanted to see someone react cold to the "big reveal," and it seems I will finally get my chance. :D

She's actually seen the new Trek movie, though, so a great deal of hilarity ensued when the Death Star was introduced and then Alderaan was destroyed, and she was like, "Wait, what? Is this deja vu?"

Speaking of Trek, gonna see it again tonight with Lea.

And also, I have this idea. Let me share it with you.

So trisfic has already written the definitive fic about Kirk and Uhura becoming BFFs. I figure she's the one woman who's completely uninterested in him, but whom he still very much respects and likes, and once he realizes that fact, she'll probably be his first ever female friend. And, okay, I admit I have a weakness for opposite gender friendship fic.

So it occurred to me that there should really be a similar thing for Gaila and Spock. I mean, think about it. Would they not make the greatest BFFs? She would be always accusing him of being sexually repressed, and he would be always refuting her with something logical, until she catches him making out with Uhura in the turbolift, after which point denying the facts becomes illogical. And they would get together and talk about how ridiculous humans can be, and inevitably these conversations would devolve into discussing ways to prank Kirk. And then Gaila would start an organization for the non-human members of the crew, which Spock would think was frivolous, so Uhura and Gaila would have to hatch a plot to make him show up to the meetings. And Gaila would be always telling Spock ribald stories to see if she could get a rise out of him, but when that gets boring they'd spend hours talking about complex equations, which would end up becoming a conversation about humans and their propensity to the ridiculous, Captain Kirk in particular. And someone write me this fic, please, or I may have to write it myself.

I find it ironic but not terribly surprising that I seem to have more of a social life with other Candler people now that I've graduated. I suppose it comes of having no school work to get in the way. But whatever the case may be, last night I went out for karaoke. I was actually talked into singing some Bon Jovi as a group song. ("You Give Love a Bad Name" - a great song for karaoke.) And it was a lot of fun.

It's also come to my attention that I have a number of friends who are otherwise geeky, but who have never seen Star Wars! So we are going to remedy that tonight. Or start to, anyway. Naturally, we're starting with ANH.

And then tomorrow Lea and I are going to see Star Trek. I conned her into watching some TOS first, and I think I've already got her hooked on Spock/Uhura before she's even seen the movie. LOL. I am such a horrible influence, but I'm not ashamed.

I'm back from the renaissance festival, and I bring pictures!

Things turned out to be even more geekily fun than I was expecting, and I ended up having a blast despite the fact that I went by myself. I met a lot of interesting people, and am now cursing the fact that I lived in Atlanta for two years and blew both of my chances to go to Dragon Con.

Also I...may have bought some Vulcan ears. And there may be pictorial evidence. Oh dear, oh dear.

( Here there be photos )

So I was sitting around my house today feeling intensely bored and thinking that I simply must get out of Atlanta this weekend, or I will go insane. And as I was pondering the various places I could go for a day trip, suddenly I remembered that there is a renaissance festival on!

And as it turns out, this weekend is pirates weekend! Y'all know that pirates make everything better.

We'll see if I can get any decent pictures.

So I'm on Dreamwidth now. I'm fialleril over there as well. Any of you who are over there, let me know what you're going by these days!

I'm keeping my DW journal fandom only: there's nothing there but meta, fic, and graphics. LJ is definitely still my base of operations, but there's enough people posting fic on DW that I thought it might be worth it to join.

For those of you on my f-list who haven't already seen this announcement on rawles' journal, I direct your attention to this fic, which urgently needs to be read by everyone.

Title: Four Consequences of the Unexpected and Unlikely Friendship Between James T. Kirk and Nyota Uhura
Author: trisfic
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters/Pairing: Jim & Nyota; Spock/Uhura; Kirk/McCoy implied
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~2700
Summary: Boys. Girls. Clothes. Pon Farr.

It is here. Go read it now.

That is all. Carry on.

gen_ficathon 2009 is getting underway, so I thought I'd spread the word. Some of y'all should definitely think about getting involved!

Voting for fandoms is currently up here.

Go vote for some Trek and Wars, huh? ;)

I'm hoping that some good prompts will inspire the random gen muse to return to me. *crosses fingers*

Yeah, I still don't have the meta done. It's...proving harder to write than I expected. But it will be written. At this point it almost feels like I need to write it.

Anyway, I thought I'd do that one OTP meme that's been going around, mostly because I'm in a weird mood and thought it would be hilarious. We'll see if I can even manage to find 10 OTPs.

It's maybe worth pointing out that I have a pretty strict definition of OTP: it means both that I can't imagine the two people with anyone but each other, and also that I have some interest in their relationship. (So, for example, I can't really imagine Aang ever loving anyone but Katara, but I also am not terribly interested in their relationship. It's just something that's there for me, so I wouldn't call them an OTP.)

Name your 10 absolutely favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms:

01. Owen/Beru, Star Wars
02. Bail/Breha, Star Wars
03. Mai/Zuko, Avatar: The Last Airbender
04. Spock/Uhura, Star Trek XI (Only XI, though. I honestly can't imagine TOS Spock with anyone.)
05. Azula/Ty Lee, Avatar: The Last Airbender (Well, okay, I can imagine Ty Lee with other people, but Azula's the one she always comes back to.)
06. Galadriel/Celeborn, The Silmarillion / The Lord of the Rings
07. Anabasis Anakin/Padmé, my Star Wars fanfic, LOL (They're only OTP for Anabasis, though. In canon and in other AUs, not necessarily, but Anabasis Anakin and Padmé survived the storm together.)
08. Obi-Wan/Jedi Code, Star Wars (It's canon, kids.)
09. Uh... Hermes/your mom, Greek mythology (Yeah, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now...)
10. Sly Moore/Taun We, Star Wars (Because...why not?)

So because it's Memorial Day I was going to try to post the meta about my grandfather and Anakin Skywalker today. But it's taking longer than I expected to put together, so it will have to wait for tomorrow. In any case I hope you all had a good Memorial Day.

In the mean time, have a meme that's been going around:

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So 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.

My review of Angels and Demons is brief and non-spoilery, mostly because it was as bad as I predicted and doesn't deserve much comment. In fact, Ewan McGregor's acting was practically the only thing that saved it from being unwatchable. But even he couldn't manage to make his character's closing scene anything less than ridiculous.

But my favorite parts had to be these:

1. It involves the Large Hadron Collider. The moment I saw that appear on screen, I knew that ridiculous, pseudo-scientific doomsday plots were about to ensue.

2. Dr. Langdon (aka Tom Hanks) is supposedly a professor of semiotics and symbology at Harvard. He spends a great deal of time studying Galileo. He also, apparently, can't read either Latin or Italian.

I found this utterly hilarious. It was pretty much all I talked about after the movie was over. I mean, seriously. He's a Harvard professor of semiotics, and he doesn't know Latin. Of course.

3. The secret poem that tells how to find the Church of the Illuminati, a poem supposedly contained in Galileo's manuscript, is written in English. Modern English. With exact and uniform spelling. Because the form of English hasn't changed at all since Galileo's day.

These two moments of supreme language fail were what got me through the movie. I spent the whole time trying not to snicker. I did not always succeed!

(Icon somewhat related, because new!Spock is a language professor. He disapproves of Langdon's failtastic shenanigans.)

It seems I'm going to be seeing Angels and Demons tonight. I can't say I have any interest at all in the movie, really, but a group of really awesome people are going, and so I'm going with. I might let y'all know how awful it is. ;)

And while I'm here, please have some new!Trek genfic recs!

Title: The Unveiled Secret
Author: Laura JV
Rating: Upset Vulcans
Main characters: Sarek, Spock Prime
Summary: "What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father."
Link: The Unveiled Secret

Title: The Word for World Is --
Author: Laura JV
Rating: Baffling Vulcans
Main characters: Kirk, Spock, Uhura, some extremely baffling Vulcans
Summary: Vulcans do not grieve as humans would. Nor do they rebuild as humans would.
Link: The Word for World Is --

They're both over on Dreamwidth, which I'm not a member of. But these are very much worth reading. Very evocative, and the author really expresses the alien otherness of the Vulcans well.

I wrote a Star Trek fic! (Oh noes!)

I loved Chekov for his exuberance and adorableness, and so, of course, the first fic I write in this fandom is Chekov angst. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Except that in this case I do. I realized the other day that new!Chekov reminds me to a startling degree of the way I've always pictured Alyosha Karamazov. The moment I realized this, I was doomed, and this fic became pretty much inevitable.

SPOILERS for the new movie.

Title: Dormition
Word Count: 880
Characters: Chekov, OC mama Chekov, background Spock and Amanda
Rating: PG
Warnings: This fic basically revolves around Eastern Orthodox iconography. Also, I...may have compared Amanda to Mary and Spock to Jesus? So perhaps I should be warning for blasphemy? LOL.
Summary: Following the events above Vulcan, Chekov finds himself contemplating the icon his mother gave him when he left for Starfleet.
Notes: I'm always pretty nervous about posting fic in a new fandom, so any concrit is very appreciated!

ETA: Forgot to mention: starfoozle, this is for you. Written to U2's God Part II. I don't think you were expecting Trek fic, but there it is.

( Dormition )