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The Little Girl Recovers

Ros seems to be over whatever nastiness she's had the last three days, and is now down for her bedtime. Which is awesome. I don't think any of us was looking forward to another night like last night. (At the worst, Ros was waking up about every 2 minutes, wimpering and crying in utter misery.

It was difficult, but at least she never hit the go straight to Emerg, do not pass go warning signs that the Telehealth gave us. Which was an axillary (armpit) temp that hits 104 or a dose of Tylenol that doesn't bring down the fever at all. Her axillary temp peaked around 103.4, and the last Tylenol took the fever down a grand total of 0.5 degrees, so we came close to throwing her in the car and running to the hospital, but we held off.

Now I just have to convince myself to go to bed early. We didn't get much sleep at all until 3 a.m., and not much quality sleep after that. Not with a thrashing, feverish little girl between us. (We don't usually let her sleep with us, because she usually takes that to mean it's playtime and why aren't we getting up to play with her.) Though I've been extraordinarily alert considering just how little sleep I've had the last two nights.

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who's not prone to behaving like a twelve-year-old girl. Aaaah... so you know what I mean. *g*

I haven't read your MFU fic yet -- *rubs paws together* -- and I thought I'd read one of Taliesin's where Illya burst in to tears... but it sounds like I'm mistaken. I've read so many stories, got a few paragraphs in and backed out hastily that I've sort of lost track of them. I've read at all the archives linked by MUNCLE.

Yeah! I noticed that you've done 110 so the reading will have to wait until I've caught you up. As you're not supposed to look at the prompt words until you're ready to write it basically means you can't read someone else's story until you've tried the prompts on for size yourself. *g* I hope you enjoyed the experience. It is oddly liberating and often leads to ideas for longer stories.

Taliesin might, at some point, have written a crying Illya, but I can't think of where. She has, however, written incredibly smutty stories, and really gritty, nasty ones. Give me 'til tonight and I'll put together a starting MFU rec list.

The flashslash prompt was oddly liberating. (*Don't think, just write!*) Shall have to make a point of trying it regularly.

Erm... just how gritty and nasty? I'm not in to BDSM and death fic for the most part leaves me cold.

A list would be fantastic -- I have a couple of mates too that I've pimped into an interest in MFU, ND's even started making icons -- but PLEASE don't rush on my account. You have a little girl who is just recovering and sleep deprivation to deal with. ♥

As said, I rec flashslash to people for those days when you really *have* to write something or your head will explode but you just don't have time. You are of course always free to use older prompts too. *g*

More gritty than nasty, really. No deathfic, and only the occasional more playful BDSM. I know just the stories I want to recommend, but I'll need to pull titles and links from home. Shouldn't take me too long.

I'm definitely thinking of going back and trying a few older prompts. I need something fun to do on the coffee breaks I don't usually take. *g*

Well as long as there's clear consent and it doesn't get much beyond the handcuffs sort of stage I'm not a complete wimp. *g* Once you write confessional box sex you can't really claim to have a case of the vapours. *g*

Thanks, that would be lovely.

I usually end up writing them while on a coffee break, in a looooooong meeting where there's no good reason for me to be there or while I'm waiting for dinner to cook. *g*

Here's a few MFU stories to get you started:

To Live in Interesting Times, a near-future AU, and my favourite of Taliesin's stories. There's a lovely follow-up called Sufficient Unto the Day.

The Ties That Bind, Napoleon and Illya, handcuffed together and on the run from Thrush. Long and lovely.

Joust, fencing and sexual innuendo, my favourite things.

As for my stories, it's at the very end of my cycle, but I think Los Vivos y los muertos is one of my very best. You should be able to follow it without having read the stories that precede it.

Thank you very much for the recs and I'll be sure to pass them on to my mates as well. I never read AU myself but one of them might well like it and the rest look promising. *g*

You don't read AUs? I know it's a cliche to say this, but there are some really prime Pros AUs out there.

I'll go trolling through my MFU zines and see what other stuff I can find that might be available online.

Erm... I've tried. There are apparently some excellent ones and very well written they are too, but most of them read as OF to me and that's not what I come to fandom land for... My OF reading time is already too small for all of the books I'm always piling up to read. About 80% of my reading time is spent on novels and the other 20% on fan fiction... rather like my writing time.

I've also often found that the plotting goes horribly wrong in a lot of longer fan fiction stories, the AU ones in particular. The editor in me is often struck by how I could cut 20-30,000 words out and have it be a much stronger story. Just a personal opinion and one that's got me in to a lot of trouble. I've been around in fandom for long enough to learn the hard way that sacred cows must *not* be tipped not unless you want to see a lot of torches and pitchforks so I usually stay out of story discussions. I passed a comment on plot structure in an Ellis Ward story once while saying how much I'd enjoyed it anyway and received PMs that were awfully polite but basically told me to mind my Ps and Qs.

I don't mind the occasional divergent storyline type of thing quite so much, y'know, the sort of thing where one of the lads is still in CI5, but still, not really my thing.

Thank you for your MFU fandom pimping efforts. *g*

Ya know, you might want to give Taliesin's story a try anyway. It's sort of a mutant AU. They're still in UNCLE, not a Regency romance or an elven wood or anything. She's created a dystopic version of our world, where an undisclosed catastrophe has redrawn the world map and UNCLE is a more ambiguous force than good it was in the show. Plus it has the virtue of being short-ish, and strongly plotted.

That said, I know what you mean about certain works in Pros. While there are AU novels I adore (Ellis Ward's Harlequin Airs, I know, I konw) and others I enjoy (Meg Lewton's Regencies, which are outrageous romps), there are others I just want to take a blue editorial pencil to and carve up.

I didn't participate in the recent discussion of The Cook and the Warehouseman on account of I would have absolutely nothing good to say about it. I read the whole damn thing, but more with the slack-jawed amazement one generally reserves for train wrecks and particularly awful car crashes. And do not get me started on Larton. Or Master of the Revels. I've kept my copy of that because the art is outstanding, but after many attempts, I'd rather watch paint dry than have to read it.

Hmmm... It does sound like Taliesin's story is the sort of AU I can sometimes roll with so I'll keep it on the list and give it a whirl. I read very fast and retain most of what I read -- yeah I was a mutant child, thanks for noticing -- so when I was younger I felt compelled to finish anything I started just because I was "thirsty" to read everything and anything. One of the blessings of age is the realization that I can't possibly live long enough to read everything I want to read so if I get a few chapters in and can't stand it, it's gone. *g* There's an occasional (painful) exception when I'm trying to understand why everyone loves something so much but it usually doesn't turn out well. Dan Brown owes me for the couple of hours I'll never get back reading that *thing* he calls a book. Egads!

No "I know, I know" about it, not at least where I'm concerned. Some things we just like/love and that's all there is to it. I did my post-grad work in Popular Culture in large part because I was fascinated by the allure of things my critical reasoning told me were... well, not very good. When someone tells me they like or love something that's fantastic. When they tell me it's the "best thing ever written" or "no other writer can compare" then I want/hope for a critical explanation to back that up.

I think you and I have very similar tastes. I was going to respond to the CATW post but as I only made it about a third of the way in before I was bleeding from the eyeballs and stopped I didn't think it was fair to join in the discussion.

I always feel a little flat footed in such discussions anyway due to the fact that I write and post fan fiction stories myself and fully understand the nature of my own work so I'm well aware that sometimes fen are thinking "who are you to take a swipe at our fandom's great novels when you just write short comedy/smutty bits?" It's a fair enough POV for them to have. I only started writing fan fiction in order to "communicate" with my peers and perhaps entertain them a little along the way... Well that and improve my comic and smut skills. *g*

My natural inclination in always to write plotty, angsty or odd little homage pieces which I haven't really done in fan fiction land since my early days so there's very little evidence of it where people might see it. It broke out a little at last year's LoM ficathon I'm a Stranger Here Myself (http://community.livejournal.com/lifein1973/1413746.html). Oh and please, feel free not to follow the link. I've never really got comfortable with the self-pimpage thing. *g*

It took me a long time to learn the "you don't always have to finish a book" lesson. I think I was in my late-twenties before I figured it out. I was talking to my GP, and he was asking me about what I was reading, as he often does. I happened to be reading a novel that had won the Booker and that I hated, hated, hated. And he said "well, why don't you stop reading it?" Epiphany! These days I give most fanfic a page or two at most. If it hasn't grabbed me by that point, or it I see egregious problems with it, then I'm outta there. (And I think Dan Brown owes me the same couple of hours back. Oy. At least I got a few laughs out of it. I was reading it at night, and I'd read some of the stupider passages out loud to the Sweetie. He was also appalled. And amused.)

I try not to be too judgmental either about Pop Culture. My grad work is in film, and I'm fond of a lot of what is generally considered low brow culture. (I convinced my entire graduate class that Point Break is a masterpiece.) But yeah, there is a difference between "I love this" and "I think this is the best book ever written." I worked at a bookshop in high school and very quickly developed immunity to the customers who kept insisting that Danielle Steele is the Best Writer Ever!

I'm still not sure why I finished CATW. Morbid curiousity, I suppose. I was more travelogue of the alien world than actual story. And I could see the twist ending coming a mile away and it took a bigger suspension of disbelief pill than I could possibly swallow.

I shall definitely follow your link, since I'm partial to plotty angsty pieces myself, not to mention odd homage.

I was 30... 30 was a big year for me. *g*

I was working at a book shop on Sundays when The D'oh Vinci Code first exploded and I got sooooo tired of hearing about how it was the greatest book ever written. C'mon, the world's greatest authorities on Da Vinci can't spot that the clue is written backwards for a WHOLE chapter? Egads! I knew about Da Vinci's mirror writing journals when I was a little kid.

My undergraduate work is in film, drama and English literature. My film degree was taught by very left-y leaning radical film maker profs so we tended to study Jean Luc Godard rather than Point Break... although we did study Saturday Night Fever and Debbie Does Dallas... interesting programme it was. *g*

The piece in question is more odd homage than anything. I really didn't think anyone in my fandom would roll with it... and they surprised me yet again. The older LoM fandom was really something to hug to one's bosom. *g*

I think my undergrad was possibly a bit more radical that my grad work. In undergrad I did an auteurist course that covered Peter Greenaway as well as Howard Hawks. My grad degree was done at Wisconsin under David Bordwell, and he was all about Classical Hollywood Cinema. Though I did do an avante-garde cinema class there that was painful at the time (I wrote a brutal essay on structuralist film) but brilliant in retrospect. Before-kidlet, me and the Sweetie would go to the local cinematheque to see the filmmakers that perplexed me in grad school and I lurved them. I still like Point Break, though. *g* And I have never seen as much porn as I did during my M.A. (Porn studies were very big back in the early '90s.)

I'm definitely checking out your LoM piece now. I'm always in for work that breaks down borders and does the unexpected. I wish more fandoms were open to that sort of play.

Studying drama and lit at the same time -- triple major, who needs sleep? -- really provided an interesting experience too as I was studying and acting in Brecht plays at the same time as looking at film.

I can roll through anti-illusionism but the with the movements after that I get less and less... civil, critically speaking. When *reading* about what a film maker intended is more interesting than watching the film I can't really see the point.

I love classic cinema. I used to torment my film profs by writing papers on things like Busby Berkeley's musicals. *eg*

Oh I hope you're not disappointed. It was more an odd topic in that it wasn't the "obvious" choice for the prompt in terms of the fandom's "norms" -- the fandom has a tendency to overlap with Doctor Who given Simm and the timey wimey bit -- and that it crossed it with a novel. Egads!

I'll see that triple major and raise you one. My undergrad degree was astrophysics, English and film. I only dropped the astrophys part when I hit third year quantum mechanics. (This probably explains why my current job is explaining computer applications to humanities grads.)

I did my M.A. when Lacanian psychoanalysis was in vogue in film criticism. I am far from civil when talking about that sort of bilge. I was always far more interested cultural history than crazy French theory.

Busby Berkeley is AWESOME! (I tended to favour Hawks' westerns and Hong Kong action films myself.)

And the LoM piece is lovely. Have commented on the post.

Oooh I'm a big fan of Hawks... I'm also very fond of Anthony Mann's rather unorthodox takes on Westerns... and yeah, I have a soft spot for John Ford, so sue me! *g* I'm particularly fond of The Quiet Man, not a western of course but who can resist his vision of an Ireland that never was?

Oooh... Erm... HUGE Jackie Chan fan.

Thank you. ♥

Anthony Mann is also a favourite of mine. I love how he mines the vein of nastiness that lurks within Jimmy Stewart. (My favourite moment in It's a Wonderful Life is where Jimmy loses it and turns on friends and family.) And Ford's The Searchers is what turned me around on Westerns. (As a kid I was never fond of the genre. I was friends with too many kids from the local Ojibway reserve for the Cowboys & Indians thing to work for me.)

Have you seen any of Budd Boetticher's westerns? He made a number of films in the '50s with Randolph Scott and they are a revelation. Definitely in the same key as Mann.

I'm also a huge Jackie Chan fan. (I've got a framed insert from the Drunken Master 2 soundtrack hanging in our living room.) Also Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat. And Lau Ching Wan. (Lau Ching Wan is a genius!)

I think Mann and Boetticher are the origins of the Spaghetti westerns. I obviously didn't grow up near a reservation -- not unless there was one on Clapham Common that nobody told me about -- but even as a small child I refused to join in games of cowboys and indians as it just struck me as wrong.

I love Chan, Li and Yun Fat... I'm much less familiar with Lau Ching Wan. The Hong Kong action film isn't as popular in the South as it is with me. *g*

I'm also a big fan of film noir and recently while watching Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid I was laughing twice as hard as my mates because unlike them I was very familiar with all of the original films as well. *g*

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The Little Girl Recovers

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