DS9 6x19: In The Pale Moonlight

Yes, it's rewatch time. Don't judge me; do you really think I'd be doing this if there were anything else good to watch on TV?

Anyway.

O my frelling gods. Now this is why DS9 was the best balls-out fucking godsdamned genius Star Trek series EVER.

It dispenses with the ‘road to hell paved with good intentions’ stuff early on; good move. Now we’re primed and ready for a story that gels with the above, and we kind of know what's coming next.

Sisko: “That was my first moment of real doubt, when I started to wonder if this whole thing was a mistake. So I went back to my office and there was a new casualty list, waiting for me. People are dying out there every day! Entire worlds are struggling for their freedom! And here I am, still worrying about the finer points of morality! No! I had to keep my eye on the ball; winning the war, stopping the bloodshed - those were my priorities. So I pushed on. And every time another doubt appeared before me, I found another way to shove it aside."

Sisko: "Who's watching Tolar?"
Garak: "I've locked him in his quarters. I've also left him with the distinct impression that if he attempts to force the door open, it may explode."
Sisko: "I hope that's just an impression."
Garak: "It's best not to dwell on such minutiae."

And then their dirty back-street dealer won't sell for money, only biomimetic gel. Nice touch, writers. Oh the inhumanity!

And Garak goes: "All I had to do was add some petty bickering and mutual loathing" -- and in my head there's Data going: "Could you please continue the petty bickering; I find it most intriguing."

Garak: "That's why you came to me - isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing. Well it worked! And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant - and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal… and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I call that - a bargain."

Sisko: "So. I lied. I cheated. I bribed a man to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all… I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again… I would."

Now this is real sci-fi. The whole 'measure of a man' idea, the 'what a piece of work is man; so noble in faculty', the guilt and turmoil and angst but THERE'S NO COSMIC ANGST because people accept that a Captain's gotta do what a Captain's gotta do - and bloody well get on with it. Sisko knows it’s wrong - but he goes with it because it might be the right thing to do in a whole universe of wrong. What's WRONG is seeing his friends and friends of friends on fucking casualty lists; what's NOT wrong is getting an entire race of people dragged into a war a year or two before they would do the self-same thing anyway.

When I was younger and I saw this for the first time? Altered my reality. Made me more charitable toward a certain shift in moral flexibility. I don't think it made me a bad person - but sure as whisky makes me find my true core and therefore fight like a klingon, it made me aware of wartime shit that before meant nothing.

Good writing? Goes without saying. Questionable content? People, THAT'S WHAT STAR TREK IS ALL ABOUT. It made me think, it made me alter my perception, for just a little bit, so I understood why and how good people do bad things for good reasons. Or are they really bad things anyway? Another mind-frelling rant for another mind-frelling day.

For now? Peach and lube, people. Peach and goddamned lube.


Tags:
~ Star Trek ~ DS9

Towel Day 2012

25 + 5 + 12 = 42.

I have neophob --SQUIRREL!

According to the socially-edited Wikipedia, Neophobia is:

“the persistent and abnormal fear of anything new. In its milder form, it can manifest as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine”

This just about sums up my life. I develop habits very slowly or not at all; I go from work to home and back again. Occasionally I’ll go to the pub quiz of a Sunday. More recently, Thursday nights have turned into my Saturday Big Night Out. And that’s about it.

I have a very hard time keeping up any habits. I frequently forget to put a ring on my finger that I’ve worn for ten years, or have to go back into the flat to pick up my glasses - things I need every day, and use every day, and notice are missing just as I’m waiting for the lift to open its doors. There are a few constants in my life that I can stick to without thinking; writing, my flat being home, and drinking. But even then: when there’s no more whisky in the freezer, I cannot make myself put shoes on and go out of the building to find the nearest bottle shop. I used to think it was laziness. Now I’m not so sure.

So how did I get any of these habits in the first place? Through sheer bloody ignorance or distraction. One of them worked a treat this morning, when struggling to get to my pilates class. I’ve been a member of a new (and expensive) private gym for three weeks, and I’ve only managed to attend three classes. Two of those were back to back on a Sunday. The other was this morning. So I’m sat there, my mind already racing on and deciding I didn’t really need to go, that I could put it off and go for a double whammy on Sunday, because hey, it’s a change to my day and it is clearly Not Right because of that, but another part of my brain is shouting OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WOMAN. JUST GO AND STOP GREETING ABOUT IT. After what was literally ten minutes of wandering and wondering, I finally decided to put my fingers actually in my ears and refuse to think about anything but Jeremy Renner. And I’m not even close to joking. Picture me standing by the lift with my fingers pushing my ear-buds blasting music into my ears, going LA LA LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING - OOH JEREMY RENNER SQUIRREL on the inside, and you’ll have a good idea.

It didn’t have to be Jeremy Renner. It could have been Christian Bale, or a fresh breakfast barm with bacon and brown sauce, or upgrades for Billy my MacBook Air, or a holiday to Honolulu next April. As long as it was loud and all-encompassing, it drowned out both my iPhone music and my neophobia and I could get to the gym without turning around and going straight home.

Now I know what to do, I hope it works a second time. Like tomorrow morning, when it’s Bootcamp for thirty minutes. If it doesn’t, I’m wasting my time. The classes I really want, Wing Chun, are not a problem - I’m too distracted by attraction of slapping elbows or protective pads about to not want to step out of my routine. I look forward to these hours of physical concentration - having to pay attention to how to move your limbs and NOT how people speak is so refreshing.

That’s about it. The mystery of why I can’t sleep for more than three hours at a time goes on. But hey, I don’t even care. There are other things more important to worry about - like trying to finish a book and also a Supernatural fanfic. For now, though, I’m taking today as a victory.

SQUIRREL!

Soopytwist.



Tags:
~ neophobia ~ fitness ~ OCD ~ Jeremy Renner

OK vs okay: I’m so tired of this war, it’s not even funny

Many people write. Many people use their favourite version of this word. I’m constantly told that I’m wrong, using ‘OK’ (or ‘ok’) instead of ‘okay’. 

Three words: FUCK. RIGHT. OFF.

Reason? When I was small and I went to school, it was only ever ‘ok’. Having grown up and continued writing stories, and then going into fan fiction - and now trying journalism - I’ve stayed with ‘ok’. Why? Because, like everyone will tell you, you CHOOSE ONE SPELLING SYSTEM AND STICK TO IT.

I favour the OED. I make no apologies; I’m English and I’m probably one of the few people who regard it as the last bastion of standard, regular, proper British English. Everyone else can use what they want; it doesn’t matter to me how other people spell it, because they’re from a different background or upbringing or education system or continent. It’s completely fine, whatever they choose to use.

But do not tell ME what I should use. I’ve chosen to keep with (my own country’s) English spelling system and there’s not a single thing you can do about it. Telling me I’m wrong whilst trying to make me change to YOUR idea of what’s ‘right’ is about as effective as trying to tell me atheism is bad for me because I’m going to burn in Hell. Yeah, think about THAT statement for a moment. Because yes, people have actually said that to me. You can imagine my pithy response.

That is all.

Tags:
~ writing ~ grammar

Balls

Q: What do you do with an elephant with three balls?
A: Walk him and pitch to the rhino.

Childish, I know. But seeing as you read the title and immediately expected the worst - and, to be honest, with the track record of this blog I wouldn’t blame you - I thought I’d get the smut out of the way with a quick baseball joke. Job done.

So. Balls. Three of. Y’know, I didn’t sign up for this juggling business. I don’t do carny-arts for the life-impaired. Well, I didn’t. I had a simple life that went something like this:

1. Writing.
2. Friends.
(Granted, these change places on a regular basis.)
3. Work.

Three balls. Easy. Not so much juggled as Shell Gamed about each time I woke up. Simple: writing was whatever I was working on, friends was meeting up, cinema, Sherlock blu-ray nights, dinner now and again, and work was pretty much painting by numbers and ignoring how much I don’t want to be there.

And then comes Change. Something I’ve always had a problem with. Not in a fear kind of way - most people fear what they don’t know, and that’s natural. Stops you getting your head bitten off or your fingers being caught in machinery. I think my resistance to change - because that’s what it is, really - is more to do with an OCD regarding everything being where I can find and count it. So finding that I really want to drop one ball (but can’t; it's work) and inadvertently making another ball cosmically heavy (writing) hasn’t helped. On top of that I’ve gone and added a whole new ball: fitness.

The problems I have are, one, too many balls that are, two, getting so vast as to interfere with each other. Something will have to give - but which one? Well maybe this is the reason I haven’t had a fitness ball in over ten years. So what do I do about it? Changing the nature of the writing element was already a break from my comfort zone in a way I floundered over and tore strips off my logical thinking for. It hurt. Not in a good way. I’m struggling to keep that one going as it is: you’re reading the blog of someone who has I-can’t-write-anywhere-nearly-as-good-as-I-used-to issues, coupled with DON’T-INTERRUPT-ME-WHEN-I’M-ONTO-SOMETHING--ooh, squirrel! problems. My writing has always been the most important thing to me, and when I just can’t seem to pull a good, satisfying story out of the bag? I may as well jump in the harbour. It used to just come out of the characters’ mouths, it used to just be there. Now it’s harder and harder to find, like I’ve lived my whole bloody life in this city but suddenly I can’t find the library.

And now there's this whole new addition to get over. I had no idea what I was doing when I decided to take on this fitness thing: add a whole new thing to my life, a thing that hasn’t been there in so long that obviously I’ve never needed it? It may well die a death if I can’t break two levels of OCD at the same time.

Apparently, people will tell you, it comes down to personal choice and willpower. Really? Don’t accept the fact that I have a raging OCD about my routine and then act like I have a say in how I follow it. It’s basically on a switch - flick it one way on any day of the week and I can do it (as long as I can do it before I realise I have). Flick it the other way and I can’t change a single thing for the next 24 hours. And that’s just how it is.

So what have I learnt? That I’m intolerant of change? That I can’t juggle four balls?

Screw it. I’m going to struggle on with a fan-fic and cast around for something to do my writing assignment on - 1,500 words that I could send to a magazine of my choice, to be published, if you please. Not exactly hard, is it? It is if you can’t find a magazine that doesn’t make you want to burn down Hong Kong publishing houses.

That’s it. No peach and lube for anyone. I’m going to go pretend to write something.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
~ fan-fic ~ fitness ~ writing ~ OCD

Writing and stuff

For those of you just joining us, I write quite a bit. Right now, I’ve got five books of a space opera / sci-fi saga written, one of which is completely sorted and in the hands of a few agents, in the hopes that someone will want to sell it to publishers for me. I’ve also got another sci-fi book going on, but that’s nothing at all to do with spaceships and planets and new languages and cultures and dead people and bad guys and such. Well alright, it has one bad guy, obviously. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a book. But when that stalls and I just can’t get anything done on it, it’s fan fiction I play with. Right now I’m in the middle of a ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Sherlock’ crossover. It’s actually going pretty well, although I’m not too impressed with chapters five or six - they need overhauling. I’ve already done a ‘Supernatural’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Torchwood’ threesome (oh no, people, no! I don’t do slash!), and a ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Doctor Who’ crossover, so this seemed like a proper giggle.

Aside from this, and taking into account that I can’t seem to make an agent want my stuff so far, I’ve just started a course with The Writers Bureau. Hopefully, this will eventually get me work as a freelance article writer. From there, apart from giving up my day job in time, it might help me get an agent. That’s the plan, anyway.

It’s kind of making me rethink everything I expected of my life. I always knew I’d never have a ‘normal’ job - routines and habits are really hard to keep. I can’t even be arsed to keep smoking. But a freelance writer? Finding jobs and submitting stuff and keeping myself in jobs that way? Risky, obviously. It’s not guaranteed work and it’s not guaranteed money. But hey, if I can sell a few books too, maybe it’d be ok. And to be a freelance person, you have to pretty much go out and see stuff - coffee shops don’t cut it. Trips across the harbour even (gasp!), concerts, films, restaurants - activity type stuff. Which means I’ll have to leave the house, but then again, it’s going out to do all the things I really want to do anyway. So it’s all good.

Apart from writing, I’ve also had a stonking good time with a ‘Supernatural’ rewatch - starting with the pilot. At time of writing, I’m up to 2x10 (Croatoan). Bloody good fun all round. It was season seven that reminded me how good the series could be, after season six was distinctly lacking. Anyway, the blow-by-blow account of the rewatch is here.


What else? Or yes. I’ve decided that Life never stops long enough for me to make the changes I want, so I’m giving Life two fingers and doing what I want anyway - i.e., joining a proper gym and getting back into some martial arts. Wing Chun, to be exact. I cannot wait - and I don’t say that about a lot of things that don’t include Christian Bale or Jeremy Renner. I have a kind of induction to get through and then it’s boot camp/pilates/Wing Chun time. In a word: HUUURRGH.

That’s pretty much it. It looks like I’m back to blogging after all. I’ve been having so much fun on tumblr it’s unreal, but sometimes you want a proper bit of text, rather than sixteen million snippets and half-sentences and amusing dancing gifs.

So there we have it. Soopytwist.

Tags:

fan-fic ~ Supernatural ~ Sherlock ~ writing

Running for your life from Shia LeBeouf!

If you haven't got this song, or you're not humming it round and round, then you're missing out:

'Shia LeBeouf' by Rob Cantor


You can actually buy the entire song for a single, solitary one US dollar by going to Rob Cantor's website. It's that easy. And it makes him money for coming up with such a twistedly funny viral song.

I'm sorry, Mr LeBeouf, but it's funny and it's all in jest. It's so random and odd that it's made my top ten songs lists this week, alongside The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails. I'm not even going to attempt to work that out.

Tags:

Shia LeBeouf

How to crack open a coconut

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Olympic Games. This year it will be in London village, that little hamlet in the south of England. One sport I feel deserves inclusion in this mammoth odd-game-fest is coconut cracking. You mean don’t already play this sport? We do. It’s easy to get into: let me tell you how.

When opening an actual, real live coconut, there are only three things you need: hands, a hammer, and an audience. And when I say ‘audience’, I mean someone standing by with a Dust Buster and a towel.

First, it’s time to fulfil a life-long dream: stabbing something in the eye. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe and will not incur any unfortunate ethical or, more importantly, police entanglements. Take a Philips screwdriver and find the ‘eyes’ on the underside of the coconut - the dark coloured circles, at the more pointed end. Hold the point of the screwdriver to one of these and tap it in. No, don’t go at it like Jack Nicholson with a fire axe. Just tap it a few times to make sure it’s safely anchored, then a bit harder to get through the shell. Make another hole in the other ‘eye’ - people will tell you this is to allow air to get in, rather like leaving the driver’s window open a crack on a VW Beetle so you can actually shut the door. They’re not wrong.

Upend the coconut to drain - I recommend sitting it in a colander or large sieve so it can drip into a large bowl underneath. This could take ten minutes so give it its well-deserved hammock time and go make a cup of tea.

Once it’s drained of milk, you need to hold the coconut in one hand - do not rest it on the countertop or you might shake your fixings loose - and aim for the rounder end, far from the two holes you just made. Use the hammer to assert Newton’s third law of motion with a few smart smacks. If the coconut’s a little old, parts of the outer shell might well fly off, so choose between ducking and making a hasty optician’s appointment. If all goes to plan, the palm seed will crack like the San Andreas fault. All you need do is pull it open with your hands; victory. However, if, like the one I tackled this afternoon, it decides to go to pieces like a stressed-out Humpty Dumpty, you’ll just have to keep strategically hammering until you’re left with enough of a straight line that you can lever open.

And there we have it: coconut opening and stress alleviation, all in one operation. This is where your audience steps in and clears up the hairy fall-out and cracked carnage, with a view to getting some of the fresh coconut as a reward. Which kind of makes the sound of hammering less of a football ref’s full-time whistle and more of a Pavlov’s bell.

Enjoy.