thefourthvine | 162: Love Is Better Late Than Never

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162: Love Is Better Late Than Never

First, thank you so very much, kind anonymous gift-leaver and equally kind non-anonymous gift-leaver. (

maygra, you are wonderful.) It makes me ludicrously thrilled to see the prettiness on my user info page right now.

So, I spent the last week frantically acquiring data and then writing a whole bunch of crap about anime music vids, and the feedback thereof. And as I did this, I was getting presents, and getting love anonymously, and it made me a happy data mistress, let me tell you. So I was trying to think of a way to say thank you to you sweet and wonderful people. All of you, I mean. Yes, even including you. (And I was also thinking, oh god, I cannot wait to get back to talking about something I actually know something about. Like, anything. You'd think, with what I do for a living, I'd be better at writing in a total knowledge vacuum, but it's still hard.) And it is the time and the season for loving, even if I'm a little behind the times with that.

So I put all those things together - Valentine's gifts for me! Love for all friendkind! Fan fiction! - and came up with the obvious answer. Which is that I should rec some gen.

(Later: stories containing actual sex. I haven't forgotten that the word "porn" is right in the mission statement of this LJ, I swear.)

The One That Proves That You Can't Trust a Man Who Can't Trust a Herring. The Colbert Report - Lost Episode - December 2006, by

scrunchy. The Colbert Report, gen.

Okay. Here's the thing, and I want certain people out there on my friends list to take a deep, deep breath, because I know what I'm about to say will upset them. I've never seen an episode of the Colbert Report. Or the Daily Show, for that matter. We don't have cable - we don't even have broadcast television - and I understand these magical works appear on a thing called the "comedy channel," which is a cable dealywhop. So, while I approve of the concept, I won't be experiencing it directly any time soon.

However. I have seen some clips from both shows on YouTube, that great leveler of - well, basically all playing fields, until we're all frolicking about in knee-deep pixel mud on a infinite plain filled mostly with shaky webcam footage. But my point is, YouTube makes it possible for those of us without cable to see small snippets of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart doing that thing they do. (At least, it used to be possible. If it isn't anymore, then Viacom has a personal hate note coming from me.) So I know just enough to know that the shows can be quite funny.

But I don't think they can possibly be as funny as

scrunchy's script for a lost episode. No show could consistently be this good and awesome and grand and not cause spontaneous deaths from joy in viewers. I mean, the FDA would be looking into the Colbert Report if it was as good as this. There's Jon Stewart! Stephen Colbert! Furry crabs! David Duchovny! And just - really, I cannot convey in words how wonderful this transcript is, except that I want to read several dozen more of these, right now, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get them. (Oh, by the way - does anyone know how to feed and care for the wild

scrunchy when she is removed from her native habitat? I'm, um. Asking purely out of curiosity.) And I am speaking as someone who normally reads script format works only if a) they are written by Tom Stoppard or b) I'm being paid to read them. And yet - well, I guess I have to add a third category to my list, because I love this, and I love it in part because of the script format. It is delightful, gleaming perfection. With crabs.

The One That Should Be Subtitled "And Teen Angst Is the Same Every Damn Where." Singapore Standard Time Is the Same as Australian Western Standard Time, by Punk, aka

runpunkrun. Katamari Damacy, gen.

Oh, the Prince. You have a father who is simultaneously awesome and totally insane. You are only two centimeters tall, but the weight of the universe rests on your tiny green - well, you don't seem to have actual shoulders. Your tiny green cylindrical head, then. No wonder you have angst.

Really, I'm surprised you haven't already formed an emo band called Katamari Sadnessy.

In this story, Punk manages to convey - no, to capture, as if on archival quality film - the Trauma of Being the Prince, and she does it so very perfectly that I want to hug her. (Truth be told, I want to hug the Prince, too. But I'd squish him, and anyway he seems to be in something of a mood right now. Getting stuck under that dresser will do that to you. And those damn pencils. They can cost you critical seconds, I'm here to tell you.) See, it turns out that the Prince is Everyteen.

I tell you, I cannot wait for the inevitable sequel, in which the Prince is sent to earth to roll up enough family therapists to create a Therapy Katamari, which will then help the Prince and the King (and the Queen) work through their issues, probably by saying things like, "And how does that make you feel?" and "But what is the origin of your need for crabs?" and "I feel it! I feel the Cosmos!"

The One That Makes Me Want to Write a Dissertation on the Anthropology of Board Games. (And Pretty Much Proves That Daniel Jackson Already Has.) Teal'c's Five Favorite Board Games, by Komos, aka

paian. Stargate: SG-1, gen.

I love this so very, very much. I mean, we all know of my unhealthy love of Five Things stories. And some of you know of my entirely healthy and balanced love of Teal'c. I think a few of you may even know of my profound love of board games, although in that case I will have to look at you squintily and ask why, precisely, you've been poking through my closets. But even so, I could never have predicted that the combination of the three would be this wonderful.

One tiny warning, though: after you read this, you will never look at the classic board games of your childhood the same way again. Like, I enjoyed Life when I was a kid. (Although, you know, the signs of how I would turn out were there even then; I always insisted on having two blue pegs or two pink pegs as my married couple. In other words, I slashed plastic pegs at the age of six. Obviously, I was Born to Slash, and should consider getting that tattooed on my bicep.)

(Slightly more disturbing is that I also tended to bite the heads off the little pegs, rendering them no longer miniature people substitutes but rather sad, truncated sticks with a squished part at one end. That is a little less easy to interpret, at least in terms that will keep me out of a mental hospital, but I want you to know: I haven't bitten anyone's head off. Yet.) Anyway, my point is, I loved the game. But after reading this story, well, I love it even more, but I think that if I ever play it again, I'll probably get a severe case of the sniffles.

But the one of this set that kills me (in the good way, the way that has absolutely nothing to do with biting off my little plastic head) is the last one. I won't even name what game it is, for fear of spoiling you, but I will say: if you miss this - well, I will pity you. (And I won't let you play any of my board games. So there. Nyah nyah nyah.)

The One That Could Easily Replace Three Full Units of Psych 101. Although, in All Honesty, That Might Be Harder on the Students Than Just Reading about the Milgram Experiments Again. Matter, Form, and Privation, by Domenika Marzione, aka

miss_porcupine. Stargate: Atlantis, gen.

I've been waiting a long time to recommend this one, because I wanted to do it justice. I wanted to tell you how beautiful it was, how perfect, how utterly inevitable, how necessary.

But I've come to the conclusion that I'll never write well enough to do that, to explain to you why you should read this story. I'll never write well enough to do give it the summary it deserves. So instead I will just say - read this. Read it even if you don't read SGA. Read it even if you think original female characters are a sure sign of bad fan fiction. (And if you can read this (and my other surefire disproof of that faulty theorem) and still say that, well, you may wish to check your ability to read English.) Read it even if you think, from this recommendation, that it sounds depressing.

Yeah, okay, it is depressing. But it's also a story that I wish could be canon, that I wish the SGA writers had the balls to write, because this is what life in Pegasus must actually be like. (And for me, that provides a whole key to understanding Teyla and Ronon, and how they must view the people from earth - So lucky! So innocent! So very much in need of protection! - but that's a whole other essay that I am quite sure you don't want to read, so I will stop this summary here and spare you. No, really, no need for thanks - the look of silent wonder on your shining faces is enough)

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Therapy Katamari! Excellent idea! You have to roll up all the shrinks and couches you can find! Points deducted for every time you roll up Freud.

Damn you, Sigmund. Father of modern psychology, my sweet ass.

Whoops! Somehow my hate for Freud has hijacked this comment. Anyway, thanks for the rec. It always makes me grin to see I've made one of your posts.

Therapy Katamari! Excellent idea! You have to roll up all the shrinks and couches you can find!

Also, obviously there would be gold busts of great therapists. And you'd start out at a size where you could only roll up psychology books.

I can even see the intro text (it'd be from the second one, of course). "Your Highness! I am a counselor, and I love Katamari Damacy. But I think you and your family need more help than one therapist can provide." "Nonsense. The King is the model of mental health! We are the standard by which others are measured!" "Your Highness, you are clearly the smartest man I have ever met." "...Smartest man...Okay. Prince, get therapists!"

I love reading your commentary on these fic so, so much, even if I'm not always in the fandom. (In this case, I am. THERAPY KATAMARI.)

Thank you! (And, yes, THERAPY KATAMARI. I cannot begin to understand why we haven't already had the opportunity to roll up as many shrinks as possible. It is a NEED for me now.)

You should write the SGA essays! Yes! :) I would read them, and probably comment profusely.

And, yes, Matter, Form, and Privation is awesome. I think the hardest thing about it, for me, was being forced into a place where I had to agree that what John did was the best solution, despite the myriad ways in which I disagreed with his actions. Holy ethical dilemma, Atlantis!

You should write the SGA essays! Yes! :) I would read them, and probably comment profusely.

I try to leave character meta to, you know, people who actually know the canon. As in, all of the canon. But I truly do believe that John and Rodney see the Atlantis population as sheep, and themselves as sheepdogs. And that Ronon and Teyla see the earth people as adorably naive people who will inevitably learn the way the world really works, and be destroyed by it. (And they are trying to stave that day off for as long as they can.)

Holy ethical dilemma, Atlantis!

That is precisely what is so awesome about that story. Because there's just no good way out of that situation, and Domenika makes us see that there isn't, that you can only be bad or worse. It's just - if you look long enough into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you. And, really, the abyss in Pegasus is deep and horrible.

You'll have to visit Comedy Central itself for tCR-tDS clips. Viacom has completed the Great YouTube Purge of '07 (no, seriously, that's what they're calling it). From what I heard, over a billion videos were lost, including a lot of things that did not belong to Viacom (public appearances, Stephen's university speeches, etc). *awaiting legal action*

*sad*

Comedy Central, huh?

*considers whether she is ready to take this alarming plunge into a new website*

*shakes fist at Viacom, the bastards*

I second, third and fourth that recommendation for Matter, Form and Privation. Why can't

miss_porcupine write for SGA? I think you should use your awesome rec-fu to find all the great authors for several fandoms and point the TV people at them, saying "Here! People! This is how you do it! We have the technology..!"

Speaking of your rec-fu, thanks for wielding it again. You make my online experience so much easier with all your effort ;)

I think you should use your awesome rec-fu to find all the great authors for several fandoms and point the TV people at them, saying "Here! People! This is how you do it! We have the technology..!"

If I could, I so totally would. Why can't I have that superpower? Curse my non-mutated genes! If only my parents had thought to expose me to toxic radio waves or radioactive TV shows, the world of entertainment would be a very different one today.

You make my online experience so much easier with all your effort ;)

*beams*

Thank you!

In terms of seeing TCR or TDS, there's http://www.ifilm.com/show/17677 and http://www.ifilm.com/show/17676 - they might help!

(Where the heck is my Jon Stewart icon?)

Oooo, thank you!

(And, really, I think we all need a Stewart or Colbert icon.)

On a day that started far too early, involved the unhappy realization that Ann Taylor does, in fact, make hobble skirts and that more freedom of movement is required to look graceful hopping from ice berm to ice berm (or, Why Shackleton Didn't Wear Dress Boots)... this was most welcome. And so extremely gratifying. Thank you. :)

(I'm starting the next story for the challenge community that spawned this and if I didn't already know that I had nowhere to go but down... No pressure.)

I haven't read the SG-1 story yet, but your rec makes me want to put aside the pile of work left on my desk (sadly, Boss would not get SG-1) and it shall be consumed at earliest convenience.

And I, too, would read your essays on Stargate. From a purely surrealist angle, applying Earth logic to a place where Earth logic does not factor...

On a day that started far too early, involved the unhappy realization that Ann Taylor does, in fact, make hobble skirts and that more freedom of movement is required to look graceful hopping from ice berm to ice berm

Yeesh. I send you sympathies. Also some of our warm weather.

Why Shackleton Didn't Wear Dress Boots

Clearly, it's because he was insufficiently awesome. I am disappointed in the man. Endurance in dress boots is a far more impressive feat.

I haven't read the SG-1 story yet, but your rec makes me want to put aside the pile of work left on my desk (sadly, Boss would not get SG-1) and it shall be consumed at earliest convenience.

Did I mention that it's short as well as incredibly good? Also, Boss is clearly a person who needs to be educated. You are the person on the spot. I think your duties are clear. *firm*

From a purely surrealist angle, applying Earth logic to a place where Earth logic does not factor.

Well, that's been the problem all along, hasn't it? They veer between applying extremely localized Milky Way morals and - going off the map, basically.

But I love them anyway. (It'd just be easier to love them if they truly were separated from earth, somehow.)

I'm so glad you're recommending fics again.
The Colbert one, in particular, is gold.
Then again, "Stephen Colbert" is practically a fanon character himself.

I'm so glad you're recommending fics again.

Well, it is nice to be back on my familiar stomping grounds.

The Colbert one, in particular, is gold.

scrunchy is made of awesome, is she not?

Ah-hah, so this is where all those lovely commenting people are coming from! Delightful -- thank you so much.

And for the belly laugh. I slashed plastic pegs at the age of six delighted me, but then I got to the part about you biting the heads off and I was half on the floor. So funny ... and I did stuff like that too, so I'm there with you.

Have 'Matter, Form, and Privation' open in another tab now. Thank you for that as well. :-)

Ah-hah, so this is where all those lovely commenting people are coming from! Delightful -- thank you so much.

Yay, people are commenting! (Um, did I remember to comment? I'm trying to get better about that, but mostly I still suck at it. If I didn't - hey, guess what? I loved the story!)

And for the belly laugh. I slashed plastic pegs at the age of six delighted me, but then I got to the part about you biting the heads off and I was half on the floor. So funny ... and I did stuff like that too, so I'm there with you.

Oh, thank god. I'm not alone. (I mean, I know I wasn't totally alone, since the friend I played with did the slashing plastic pegs thing and I taught my sister the head biting routine, but it's nice to know that it went beyond my little circle.)

Have 'Matter, Form, and Privation' open in another tab now.

Ooo. That's a must-read. Enjoy!

www.comedycentral.com

You do not need a cable subscription to watch the Daily Show or the Colbert Report: just visit the above website to watch recent and classic episodes for free. And yes, most of them are better than this fic.

*speaking as a non-cable subscriber myself*

Wow. I must try that. Thank you!

You've never seen an episode of TDS or TCR? Oh, I am so sad for you! :P

(Heeeee. Good rec, though!)

Sadly, no. I spent years wondering who this "Jon Stewart" person was that everyone on my friends list raved about, and eventually I figured it out through sheer persistence, but I still haven't seen an episode. I have seen clips, though. And they were very funny clips.

Oh, Matter Form and Privation is one of my favorite SGA stories; I'm so glad you recced it, as it deserves all the accolades and then some.

Oh, it does indeed. I just could not even stand to do another gen set and not include it, even if I couldn't find the words to convey quite how wonderful it is, because - wow.

Yarrrrrrrgh! You made me read gen!

Where by "made me" I should probably use the more accurate "recommended gen, which because I am a loser for your recs led me to." But who cares for accuracy? This is the internets, after all.

And the Board Games story was pretty intense for me, perhaps because I am too attached to board games. Especially number 5, even though you gave ample warning that it was a killer. I got a little teary-eyed.

*offers you kissy icon to up this post's overall low sex quotient*

Where by "made me" I should probably use the more accurate "recommended gen, which because I am a loser for your recs led me to."

I choose to believe that this is a sign of your excellent taste, actually. And these are great stories, every one. *places entirely imaginary TFV Seal of Approval on them*

But who cares for accuracy? This is the internets, after all.

Isn't there a law against internet accuracy? I thought it was on the DMCA somewhere. Must check that out, and then scrutinize this journal for potential fact liabilities.

And the Board Games story was pretty intense for me, perhaps because I am too attached to board games. Especially number 5, even though you gave ample warning that it was a killer. I got a little teary-eyed.

I am also greatly attached to board games - well, I mean, pathetically attached might be a better way to put it - and it made me snuffly, too. Some day we should play a sentimental game of Candy Land and weep quietly into the Lollipop Woods together. (But, really, even a non-board-game enthusiast would get teary over that story. It's not just those of us who haunt the Games 100 every year. I think.)

I can't remember exactly how I came across your recs, but I love them andhaven't checked back for a while and now here \i am, and youre giving me GEN! WOOOO! I can't wait til I have time to actually read them!

Thank you! (And I'm glad to hear that there are folks who are made happy by gen recs.)

I can't wait til I have time to actually read them!

*nods*

Time is an issue for us all. Reading as procrastination has always worked well for me; so has missing sleep. (It only seems necessary. Unless you value coherent thought or something.) Just, you know, a helpful tip! (For, um, certain values of "helpful.")

TFV! I can't tell you how flattered I am by this rec. Just -- honestly, humbled by your description and just am blushing and happy enough to TOTALLY overlook the part where you might be planning on kidnapping me in order to make me your comedy!slave.

happy enough to TOTALLY overlook the part where you might be planning on kidnapping me in order to make me your comedy!slave.

Ah. My plan is working. Soon you will be complacent, trusting - possibly even asleep - and then I will strike.

Note: I will also expect a large number of Sports Night stories. You may wish to review the canon now, and perhaps even begin writing stories, so as to minimize your overall time of toil in TFV's Comedy Mines.

I always love your gen recs so, so much -- the recs as much as the stories. Thank you and yay! Off to keep reading.

*beams*

Thank you! And happy reading. Um, except for the parts that are not so very happy. Perhaps I should've said satisfying reading.

I love the title you give for 'Matter, Form, and Privation.' I read this post a while ago (as well as the story) and it interestd me, but in no spectacular way, until I started uni. I do a behavioural science course and when flicking through my text book I read the Milgram Experiments (as well as the bystnader something or another, the story about Kitty Genovese? Reeeeeealy interesting) ut the story somehow stayed in my mind and when going over your site to find it, as well as new and interesting posts I reread the title and it made me laugh, and I laugh really physically (a bit like a jack on the box, where I do it silently becasue I cant get breath into my lungs). My room mate is now looking at me strangely, thanks for the laugh, and the connection to Stargate Atlantis everytime I open my psych book, it will doubtless make learning interesting!
Judith

I'd like to thank you for writing these recs! I adore seeing new recs from you on my flist, even if they're in a fandom I've never heard of, because I always know they're going to make me laugh :)

I have been remiss. I have not told you how awesome you are. I may, once, have mentioned something to this effect, but that was probably long ago, and possibly in another country. Which is simply not good enough. Your awesomeness should be remarked upon! Possibly with a little interpretive dance number, but I haven't trained my computer to do that yet.

It may take Fandom Appreciation Week (http://china-shop.livejournal.com/223965.html) to give me the motivating kick in the rear I so badly need, but that does not diminish the depth of my feeling. You rock my fannish little world. I love reading your recs; not just for the information contained, but for your inimitable way with words, which makes something look effortless which is more akin to yoga on stilts. They are art in themselves -- who can forget the doomed yet yard-spanning love of Bird and Friend? Verily a modern-day avian Romeo and Juliet! Or Juliet and Romeo. Or Romeo and Romeo; no-one's judging, here.

When I have read and savoured to the full your timeless prose, I know that if I read a story you have recommended, it will be good. It will be the grain of fictional wheat plucked from the bushel of internetly chaff, without me having to do any of the heavy lifting. It will not cause disbelieving queries of, "Wait, what?" It will at no point have me making high-pitched noises of distress, desperately covering my eyes and stabbing blindly for the Back button to escape a painfully embarrassing scene. This is a good thing.

You have expanded my horizons; you have opened my eyes to the wonder and intense shininess of many (many many) new fandoms; you have given me polls, with ticky boxes, even. And if that weren't enough, you tagged it all, with amazing organisational powers that must have something to do with Kryptonite, so that if I, of a lonely 3 a.m., find myself in desperate need of stories involving teapots, I know where to go.

Please understand that if I am silent in my praise of your awesomeness, it is not that I have no awe; it is that the brain-circuitry needed to remind me to tell you about this is also Full Of Awe. (And mothballs, but we're not talking about that.) This sudden outburst might seem over the top -- it is! But it is every word true.

Yours in fannish adoration,
Chalcopyrite

Thanks for making fandom an even cooler place to be. :)

Just popping in to say I love your rec posts! I never have anything to say so I hardly even comment, but I read them all and find them vastly entertaining. I especially enjoyed the recent anime vid feedback project post. It was quite fascinating. I'm not even a vid fan (regular vids, much less anime), but I downloaded all your anime vid suggestions to watch. I hope you keep up the good work! Your recs/reviews are always smart and witty and just FUN to read.

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162: Love Is Better Late Than Never

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Dear TFV,

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