"You cannot put one jet in a line. If MJN is anything, it is an airdot."

[raven]

So ages ago I meant to rec the Damn, Fandom Is Good At What You Do fest, because I love that: one of my biggest narrative kinks is competence (and, now that I mention it, probably something that attracts me to people, as well). People just getting on with things that are difficult and vital because they love them and were born to do them - yes.

The thing is, I have tried to write my own version, and just cannot. What I do - and what, it becomes increasingly and embarrassingly obvious, I was meant to do - is too awful even for fanfic. It just is. I had a work experience kid following me around today (and I try not to be dismissive in that way, I try not to say "kid" and "girl" of grown women, but seriously) and I tried and tried to explain what I do - and just couldn't. It all turned into "my office is full of lollipops and I know a lot about sewers", in other words things that are true but not exactly helpful. I don't think I could have the Doctor and May or Charles and Erik or Hermione and Luna do what I do. (Wait, maybe Hermione and Luna. But not the others.)

So. Lollipops. Design infringement. Land registration. Life, as ever, goes on.

(My supervisor, today, sounding totally outraged: "I spoke to the woman on the other side of the lollipops thing, and she's YOUNGER THAN YOU!"

I said, "My work experience girl is ten years younger than I am."

We left each other disturbed.)

In other news there is no other news. The weather is godawful. Some of you may have noticed peripherally that I watched the second series of Sherlock and fell hard for it; the fandom is one of the massive ridiculous kink-memes-get-filled ones I haven't been in a while and I'm having a lovely time. I'm also, weirdly, enjoying having a teenage crush on Benedict Cumberbatch. Because the thing is I never did have harmless crushes on famous people when I was a teenager, except when I did and it was awful. If he'd been a famous person in a very popular show when I was, say, fourteen, I'd have had a crush on him secretly and guiltily and then worried and worried and worried: about his eyelashes and high cheekbones and longish hair and fabulously femme way of sweeping out of a room. About being, as we say, one of them.

(Hello, my name is raven and I'm queer, who knew. Strictly speaking I'm pansexual, a term I avoid on the grounds I am not exclusively sexually attracted to goat-tailed demigods playing the pipes. I don't think I articulated it until I was in my twenties, but my type is femme: femme women and men and genderqueer people. God, it's so hard, isn't it? You all know. I'll stop talking. I noticed the other day that I am absolutely incapable of understanding the world as though I were straight or gay; I mean, I can't even write a tight-third gay-or-straight POV, which is odd when you consider I can write white guys. Okay, now I'll stop talking.)

So now I have a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock on my desktop, and I quite like looking at it, and that's okay, self. tau_sigma and petra told me to listen to Cabin Pressure on Radio 4, and I'm doing that, and cackling. It's adorable and ridiculous and has that Radio 4 thing of not being funny in the slightest bit except it's TOTALLY HILARIOUS. It's a half-hour comedy show about a one-aircraft airline, and it has Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephanie Cole in it. It's lovely.

(Speaking of queerness, today is almost the last day to respond to the equal marriage consultation setting out the Home Office plans for for civil marriage and civil partnerships. It's very much worth doing. I speak as someone who finally got around to it today.)

In other other news the weather really is awful. I seem to spend all day at work with rainwater in my ears. I no longer have terrible migraines, thanks to the new meds, but have bizarre side-effect of being eerily calm about everything. Tomorrow I have a pub quiz in which the Caped Crusader and I have been split up by executive decree. The world spins madly on.

Comments

[paean]

Strictly speaking I'm pansexual, a term I avoid on the grounds I am not exclusively sexually attracted to goat-tailed demigods playing the pipes.

I was fortunately between bites when I read this sentence, because... well, dinner-on-laptop would have been rather messy. I have actually had almost identical thoughts about the term, but thought I was being ridiculous, so it was delightfully surprising to read it here. Personally, I always liked queer, because all it means (to me) is other-than-heteronormative. Which is broadly inclusive without boxing one into someone else's preconception of who one will be attracted to based on a label.

[raven]

*grins* Absolutely. I've been happy with "queer" for years, even if other terms are more technically accurate. Hurrah for queer!

[petra]

Hurray for finding words that don't chafe *too* much most of the time.

And--I told you to listen to Cabin Pressure? Well, I approve of it deeply, but I didn't mean to start a trend. Even if it does make me cackle until my stomach hurts.

[raven]

Isn't it awesome? I keep laughing with a sort of ridiculous gasping laugh. 97 otters on the flight deck! Against the spirit of surprising rice!

[petra]

I find myself terribly fond of ALL of them against my better judgment. ALL of them.

[raven]

Me too, me too! Martin is so adorably hapless - and so utterly unlike Sherlock and Peter Guillam, I do think Cumberbatch is an excellent actor - and Douglas so ridiculously, hysterically funny, and Carolyn is so hard-headedly wonderful, and Arthur! Oh they give me feelings, they do.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

iI noticed the other day that I am absolutely incapable of understanding the world as though I were straight or gay; I mean, I can't even write a tight-third gay-or-straight POV, which is odd when you consider I can write white guys.

I love this paragraph beyond all telling.

Glad to hear the migraines have abated. I suppose eerily calm is an okay trade-off? I seem to recall one of the drugs I took that made me feel as though I were notthereatall and the bottle said very sternly not to take more than the prescribed amount or I would probably die horribly and suddenly. The pills had to be taken in varying numbers at 20-minute intervals for 2 hours except that the pills made me forget how many of them I'd taken. We had to erect a chalkboard with a chart on it so I could check off my doses. Every 20 minutes it was like starting the first chapter of a mystery novel, with all these clues and no sense of context whatsoever, and for some reason the victim was expected to solve the crime herself. That's when I decided to just be in pain and count myself lucky.

But that's not what I meant to tell you (I don't know why I do that. Misery loves its own story, I guess, and I'm NOT saying, "Well, just be glad you're feeling eerily calm and not like you've been knocked out of time, is all I can say! And back in my day we had to walk uphill to school both ways and our ergot-based narcotics had to be recorded in analogue because there was no ap for that. Kids these days mumblegrumble," although in retrospect it probably looks that way. Okay, stopping now omfg.).

What I meant to tell you is that I'm very, very glad you're feeling better and that you have lollipops. And also, I for one am happy if you feel you have to express your new-found love of Sherlock in fics of all kinds, seeing as how we all benefit, and I need more fic and, as this entire comment demonstrates, it's all about me.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Eeerily calm is okay most of the time! Just not when I have to do stuff to a deadline and have no pricks of conscience. So I have, um, kinda, sorta, taken to missing my pills, by accident, every few days. That way I have a day or two of productivity a week. That said, I would take that over pills-like-mystery-novels! That sounds terrible, my dear, and I'm so glad you have better management methods than that now!

You are lovely, btw. My piece of Sherlock fic in progress features ergot based drugs, entirely coincidentally, and also I keep forgetting to tell you so shall tell you here that I LOVE your hair. It is fierce.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Yes, competence! It's one of my favourite things, too (primarily in fiction, but I like it a lot in real life as well).

Strictly speaking I'm pansexual, a term I avoid on the grounds I am not exclusively sexually attracted to goat-tailed demigods playing the pipes.

Or pans (http://doctorwhy.livejournal.com/15814.html)? ;)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! Perfect.

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

OO that fest is interesting! Only I possibly already did it when I turned Sidney Freedman into a mildly depressed gay activist :-/

Next up: Richard Smith-Jones learns how to send spammy fundraising emails! For Justice!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! Perfect. :) The problem is imagining Richard as competent at anything!

(I tried, today, to write a fic with Hermione and Luna and Land Registry. It was a resounding failure.)

[spiffynamehere.livejournal.com]

Just dropping in to say that Cabin Pressure is A+++++. I bought the first two series and have no regrets.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Isn't it AWESOME. I cackle with the most embarrassing delight.

[fyrdrakken]

Competence is a lovely thing, isn't it? Congrats on the new fandoms -- I need to rewatch Sherlock s2 with my mother (who was waiting for it to air on our local PBS station -- I already torrented all three when they aired in the UK months ago), and get around to finding the time to listen to s3 of Cabin Pressure.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

s3 of Cabin Pressure is very much worth it! "Ottery St Mary" is the only thing recently that has made me hurt from laughing.