After watching the entire first Season of Sense8 I need to gush. So I sat down to write this little essay. It contains only very mild spoilers. Oh, and I haven't gone meta in a while, so my essay writing skills are a bit rusty, but I hope you'll enjoy my thoughts, anyway.

BTW, we took out a free Netflix test-account to watch this, but will continue to subscribe simply because I expect great things from a network that had the foresight to snatch this show up without much pondering.

<lj-cut>Sense8 isn’t just a story about 8 people who are suddenly telepathically connected. It is a story about all of us.

The internet has turned us all into sensates, we are all connected. Even the Syrian fugitives aboard the rusty old ships in the Mediterranean own smartphones and are connected to us via an electronic network that more and more resembles a biological nervous system. The internet has given us the whole world to walk in. If we want, we can take a google street view stroll through Bombay, Berlin, Mexico City … We can stream music and Jean-Claude van Damme-movies. If we wanted to, we could find out how to build a bomb, or how to disable a Porsche, anything we want – it merely takes us internet users longer than a sensate.

People on Facebook, tumbler, livejournal, Dreamweaver et al know this: The internet allows us to connect with people elsewhere, with people whose upbringing, education, religion or sexual orientation is not our own. Not just to connect. To bond with them, cry with them when they are sad, laugh with them when they are happy, to metaphorically hold their hand when they go through a hard time, or be angry on their behalf, when someone belittles them or tries to hurt them. The internet allows us to experience kinship with human beings on the other side of the planet, people whom we’ve never met face to face.

This connectivity is like a sociological mutation, an amazing gift that no one could have envisioned thirty years ago, not even Sci-fi-authors like Gibson. In many ways the grim Cyberpunk-future that these authors predicted has come to pass: high-tech is used not to make life better for the majority of mankind but perverted to remotely kill human targets with drones, to spy on friends and enemies, to send viruses to disable technology in other countries, to analyze and predict not just our shopping preferences but also our voting habits. There are those for whom we are just pawns, bugs they can step on, cannon fodder, voting cattle, consumers. People like Whispers.

Sense8 tells us that this connectivity is a double-edged sword. And that the war over who gets to control the internet is being fought right now.

But mostly, Sense8 makes us fall in love with 8 strangers. We don’t care whether they are black or white, gay or straight, believers or atheists. We just want them to be safe, all 8 of them, and, amazingly, we even have room in our hearts for their family and friends and loved ones. And that is a wonderful feeling!
</lj-cut>

The familiy is off to Stuttgart to dance in a competition. Yay! I grabbed the opportunity to get my nails done, eat out at the steakhouse and spend a free movie ticket on Life of Pi.
Have to say the steak was expensive but not very good. When I order a large rumpsteak I don't expect about a third of the steak to consist of fat. I know, rumpsteaks come with fat on one side, but this one had fat on three. :( And I had been looking forward to my steak for weeks!
Luckily, Life of Pi was worth watching. I never knew what would happen next - which is a rare treat. Beautiful cinematography, very clever story with a neat twist that I honestly didn't see coming, but which made total sense with hindsight. Also, Depardieu's brief cameo was brilliant. Gee, he was revolting! I have a few issues with some of the dialogue which sometimes sounded pompous, but that may have been the synchronization.
We had a really mild day today, even some sunshine. The city was packed with people. Everybody seemed so happy that finally the snow is gone...

As for the rest of the weekend... well, some Fringe, some tidying up, and, hopefully some writing tomorrow. :)

I haven't recced fic in ages, because there was a time when I didn't read a lot of fanifc. I' missed a lot of good stories that way and am only now catching up.
This is an old hat for some of you, I know, but there are other drive-by lj-readers out there, and if only one or two of them catch this fabulous story, then it's worth my while pimping this story.

Title: It Never Happened
Author: Shadowscast
Fandom/Timeline: BtVS - Set during Buffy's death between S5 and S6. Fits very neatly into canon.
Genre: Slash-with-plot; hurt/comfort
Pairing: Giles/Spike; Giles/Ethan as past lovers
Rating: R - Mature
Summary: It's the summer of 2001. Buffy is buried under a stone that says "She saved the world. A lot."
Giles and the others are struggling to figure out how to live in a world without her, and how to continue to protect it. An encounter with a strange demon turns Spike into an ordinary human, which complicates matters. Meanwhile, a curious new camera shop has opened up in Sunnydale...

It Never Happened (LJ version at Summer_of_Giles)
It Never Happened (Archive of our Own)

Why I love this story: It's plotty, with a distinct gen-fic feel in that all the character voices ring true; also I can literally see all the characters; it's like watching an episode of the show - only with genuine slash. The sex scene are well-written but never gratuitous. Giles acts like a grown-up, and the hurt/comfort pushes all my buttons. Even Ethan has a cameo (I truly love his prank) and sounds as though Jane Espenson wrote him. A truly brilliant story!
If you haven't read it, do so now! If you have, well, maybe it's time to read it again.

Drum roll. Here it is, the final part of my WIP of many years. Can't tell you how relieved I am. I think I may have had problems letting go (stories are so like children), because the chapter got longer and longer. Ordinarily, I'd say "murder your darlings", but I think in fanfic it's okay if there's a lot of angsty dialogue and not much else. ;) So, yeah, this could have been shorter, but I have to go with Mark Twain here: I honestly don't have the two years it would take to make this shorter. :D

Anyway, if you've been reading this from the beginning (and are still here): Thank you for your patience. If you're new to this: Fasten your seatbelt for a little roadtrip.

ENJOY!

TITLE: Broken English Part 18
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: R (finally!)
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics) - vaguely references the arc of the comics but goes AU; set in Germany
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
Sorry, unbeta'd.
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17


( Part 18 )

This is the penultimate chapter. Yay!

TITLE: Broken English Part 17
PAIRING: Giles/Ethan
RATING: R (finally!)
SPOILERS: Set after 8x04 The Long Way Home (comics); set in Germany, btw
PROMPT: a vacation or roadtrip, magic, slash
WRITTEN FOR: spikendru
Sorry, unbeta'd.
PREVIOUS PARTS: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16

( Part 17 )

For some reason LJ wouldn't let me post yesterday.
Anyway, I wish all my friends on LJ a very happy and successful new year. May your writing projets come to fruition!
*hug*

Squeeee! Tomorrow is the day. And we have tickets. Yes! Unfortunately, we won't see it at 48 f/s, because our cinema isn't equipped for it. I guess we ought to try to find a theatre that is.... But I'm sure we'll enjoy it anyway. *bounce bounce bounce*

Hopelessly behind on nanowrimo :(
18,260 words vs the 25,000 that I need to be on par.
Suffering from acute side-track-eritis doesn't help. *headdesk*
I'm trying to set myself manageable tasks. Obviously I can't catch up in one go, but if I get 2000 done today, I'm on the right track.
I wrote 250 words at work - in 15 minutes, with the help of Write or Die. Yay!

Unfortunately, work left me knackered. How to recharge my batteries?

Maybe I should do some singing exercises. Hubby bought me 3 lessons with a vocal coach, because he thinks I should sing more. :) Except that I feel silly standing in my living room going naaa-neee-nooo ...

Sorry, I never got round to wishing you guys a Happy Halloween - because I had my own Halloween party to handle. Viktoria hat a late b-day/Halloween party, and since hubby and daughter #1 are currently in Ireland for dance practice/vacation I had to do the preparations on my own. I had very nice decorations and the party was a success. *breathes sigh of relief*

A while ago I asked my flist for Halloween film recs. Thank you for your recs. I let Vicky decide and we ended up watching Addams Family 2 and Scary House 2, plus Scared Shreckless and Monster vs Aliens and the mutant pumpkins from outer space. :)

I meant to finish Broken English before NaNoWriMo, alas, I'm still stuck in the dream-sex scene. ^^
At least I managed to watch all episodes of Person of Interest before the start of NaNoWriMo. :)

Yes, I signed up. Again. Although I have no idea when I'm supposed to get all the words done. I work too many hours to have more than a couple of hours for writing every day, but I'm not working until Tuesday. I will try to write slightly larger chunks on work-free days. The last time I tried NaNoWriMo I didn't finish, but I got 15,000 words done, which is better than nothing.
Today's word count is currently at 1,700 words - but I'll put in another hour later. I am writing in German.

I had 2 possible NaNoWriMo projects - and decided to go with the one that I feel more hazy about. Go figure. So when I sit down to write I have no clue whatsoever where the story is taking me. I hope that's a good thing. *crosses fingers*

Anyway, good luck to anyone else who is doing NaNoWriMo!!!

I am working on my Giles/Ethan fic. I may need a beta later(say in 6 hours), because nothing kills the mood faster than garbled grammar.... m/m scene, rated R to NC17, nothing really squicky, nothing fancy, you wouldn't need to know the context (I think), I just want to make sure that my characters don't have 3 hands...

Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo? I'm thinking of tackeling a children's book that I had a handful of ideas for. I'd write in German, though.
Also, is anyone organizing a secret slasha?

In a bout of insanity, I bought a replica of Snape's magic wand yesterday. I even have an "official" excuse: on November 16th Writers Ink (my local creative writing club) are doing an English reading of Harry Potter I (abbridged) - and we are to do it in costume. So there. *smirks*