| As another year draws to a close, it's a great time to curl up with some of the best Criminal Minds fanfiction the year had to offer. Yes, it's the return of the 2009 Criminal Minds Fan Fic Awards (CMFFA's)! A way of celebrating the very best fiction in our ever-growing fandom, as well as the authors who lovingly write it.
Starting January 8th, nominations will be open, and people will be encouraged to nominate and vote for their favourite C.M. fics from the past year. Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in each category, and when it's all said and done, we'll have a list of the very best fics 2008 had to offer!
This event continues until February 21st, 2010, so even if you don't have time to participate in the nominating, there's plenty of opportunity to take part in the voting. Obviously, this is a fan-run competition, so the more people who get involved, the better!
Head on over to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) cmfanficawards to learn more!
Happy holidays!
Posted with permission from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) a_blackpanther
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| This was over on Fancast
This season on ‘Criminal Minds,’ it appears that JJ and Emily have switched roles in regards to how they’re responding to the cases they’re taking. In the past, Emily was more controlled/compartmentalized and JJ more emotional. Is the switching of roles intentional or perceived? – Shawn
Responding on behalf of the show he created, Ed Bernero says, “I’m not sure we agree that their roles have changed. JJ, though she has always been ‘tougher’ than anyone else, was always the character more apt to display compassion, because it is part of her job to do the most interaction with family and with stressed cops. As far as Emily, we think she’s still the tough, controlled cop she always was, though as an only child she’s becoming much more used to operating within the family and caring about other people – i.e. the team.” Sounds like “perceived” to me, Shawn.
I'd have to agree on 'perceived'. I haven't seen a switching of roles. In fact, I've seen a lot of similarities among the ladies for some time now, unlike the fellas on the team. I think both women have had a lot happen on the job. Emily was probably a lot better at compartmentalization in the beginning (Revelations) because she didn't go through half the stuff she's been through since joining the team.
And hey, that answers any question about whether Emily has any siblings! =) | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
|
TUESDAY TOY STORY POST!
Because it made me snort drink out of my nose, here is a picture from the 'show us your Christmas goodies' post, courtesy of tripperfunster.
Also quite appropriate, the Gorn owning Kirk, given the latest Mythbuster news, re: whether the infamous Gorn cannon would have actually worked.
Here is the weekly post where members can post links to their own Trek-themed action figure/toy story posts. Now I know you all got figures for Christmas, so get 'em out, and make us laugh!
We recommend that you comment with a link to your journal, as opposed to posting all the pictures in a single comment. One picture as a preview is fine, though, as long as it's small.
Have fun! ♥
OFF-TOPIC NOTE: Also, because several people have mentioned it/hinted less than subtly to me, keep your eyes peeled for a Special Surprise Post appearing sometime on New Year's Eve, that may be of interest to those of you not going out to party in RL. Oooh, cryptic. Or not so, given that what I'm talking about is painfully obvious. BUT ANYWAY. :D | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Really being into alot reading about classic literature for plays and theater I thought about doing some book reviews which are connected in a way with ST, their actors or their work. However, and hand on heart, right now I`m reading again for the 25th time a very well known story Karl Urbans Vaako is based on for 100% (confirmed) and some % of the Riddick Movies spirit and flair. Once again inhaling with the movie in the head it is SO MUCH BETTER!
I even can hear the staff voices reading those lines.
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
About what I am talking?
( Read more )
| | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| You may remember back in July it was announced that that amazing show Mythbusters was going to test the Gorn Cannon from the episode "Arena". The premise, if you for whatever reason are not privy, was that Kirk fashioned a cannon out of bamboo while crushing potassium nitrate, sodium, and charcoal (all on the planet's surface) to make gun powder. He used his cannon to destroy the Gorn and safely returned to the Enterprise.
The results behind the cut (as not to spoil you).
( so would it work? )
Discuss? | | comments: 31 comments or Leave a comment |
| Fandom: Kamen Rider, Sentai, Power Rangers
Vidder: 1aurien / heropower
Song: "I Will Not Bow"
Artist: Breaking Benjamin
Genre: Drama, Action
Rating: PG
Summary: A tribute to the toku heroes of 2009.
I WILL NOT BOW
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| www.facebook.com/home.php
Hey Everyone,
Since Wellington is so small and all, and pretty much we all know each other one way or another I though it might be helpful to post the details of my Leaving Party here. Im off to Canada soon having lived in Wellington my entire adult life I reckon theres a few people out there that might wanna say good bye or maybe have some scores to settle. Perhaps you just wanna come down and have a party, I have many fingers in many different pies so Im hoping its going to be a super diverse group, so far there have been offers off fire dancers, drag shows, kapa haka, DJ's, and strangely a mime.
so heres the details-
Max Prendergast- Finally Going Away
January 9th from 8pm Houghton Bay Beach
Max is making the big JUMP not just across the ditch though all the way around the world!!
This will be your last chance to tell me you secretly loved me all these years.
I thought about secretly slinking off (for about 5 seconds) but true to form I decided to GO OUT WITH A BANG!
I'm thinking perhaps this can be a super epic party- the best possible memory to take away with me.
EVERYONE IS WELCOME. I MEAN THAT SERIOUSLY.
The party will be held at HOUGHTON BAY BEACH and since we have the correct permits the following will be avaliable
BARBEQUE
BONFIRE
'SOCIAL DRINKING'
And since I believe there is nothing anti-social about drinking competitions and beer bongs all tastes will be catered to!
and you can RSVP at the facebook page if you want regular updates etc...
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/event.php?eid=228300006287&ref=nf
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| Title: Shaman King
Author: Mitsui Hideki
Number of Pages: 220 pages
My Rating: 1.5/5
Wow, what a waste of time this book was. It is basically a retelling of the early volumes of Shaman King with a tiny bit of new content tacked on at the end. Seriously, while the jacket flap promised a new character exclusive to the novelisation (which is why I bought it, because I only wanted to read it if it was an original story, not a retelling of the manga), it was only about the last twenty pages that contained any new content.
I'm not sure who would be a good audience for this book, because it ends with a "to be continued" sort of vibe that means you're going to have to go read the manga to find out what happens to Yoh and Amidamaru and Manta and Anna and Ren and the whole Shaman Fight thing, but when you do, you'll be retreading old ground if you start from the beginning of the manga. And yet as a fan of the manga, it's really redundant.
I do, however, highly recommend the manga of Shaman King, which unlike this book has actually been released in English and is therefore more accessible to readers of this comm, I'm sure. Even though it has a non-ending ending, it's still worth it, IMO. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| So Kirsten and I went to Sherlock Holmes last night (which, by the way, was excellent, mostly because of the banter between Holmes and Watson) and when we were in town there was an unusual number of unicycles.
"Is this a new trend?" Kirsten asked me, as we walked along the waterfront in the early evening sunshine. "Like, are unicycles the new Miley Cyrus?" I told her I thought it must be a convention of some kind. "You could go and ask one of them," I suggested. "There are many unicyclists around." But Kirsten was too embarrassed. "What if it is the new trend in transport?"
Turns out the unicycling world champs are in Wellington at the moment. Good times.
There are many things I don't understand about customers who come into my work. However, number one of my list is customers who come in to buy curtains without having actually measured their windows properly. How is this actually possible? Because I know that people don't have such a high opinion of retail workers to think that they are mind-readers. Do we even have minds?
"Oh, the window is about this wide," they'll say, while I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "It's just a standard size window," they continue. "There is no such thing as a standard size window," I respond. "Maybe about six feet?" I smile politely, greasily, and try not to tell them that New Zealand converted to the metric system over thirty years ago. And then they get snarky when we can't actually help them.
Christmas was very nice. I am the proud owner of a Penguins Classics Pride and Prejudice mug, because my family know me far too well. Also, books and teapots and soap. My family are pretty neat really.
I have read many books in the past few days, including Nation by Terry Pratchett, Just Henry by Michelle Magorian and The Lost Island of Tamarind by Nadia Aquiar. Michelle Magorian has taught me everything I know about World War II (which, disturbingly, may come in handy next year) and I cried reading Just Henry. Curse you, Michelle Magorian, and your loveable, flawed characters who get everything they want at the end but have such a tragic path to take. And I will NEVER forgive you for Zach.
Perhaps because I had just read Nation, where the treatment of gender and colonialism was so excellent, but I didn't enjoy Aquiar's novel as much as I had been lead to believe I would. It just wasn't as smart and there were aspects of the depiction of characters like Helix and the Cloud People that I found slightly troubling. Also, I thought some of the gender stuff (you can tell I have a first class honours degree) was problematic. I am so sick of motherly girls and actually thought Penny (the baby) was pretty much unnecessary to the story. There were some comments characters made that were never problematised about girls and their ability to do things, which I felt Maya could have maybe struggled with. Also, it was very episodic and a lot of plot points weren't resolved by the end, which I thought needed to be. Even if it's sequel bait, I don't think the appropriate ground was laid for any sort of resolution.
Anyway, enough of that. The weather outside is frightful but I'm about to curl up in bed with a good book (potentially with The Hunger Games, which I haven't started yet as I was told that once I started I would not be able to stop and all my reading is happening in fifteen minute breaks) and drink tea.
NEXT WEEK ON AIMEESWORLD: Anne Bronte and my big, embarrassing crush on Mr Weston from Agnes Grey.
PS Liz and Lee game me a 'Grow Your Own Unicorn' for Christmas. My plans for sparkly world domination continue apace. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Having watched Nimoy's episodes of "Sea Hunt" (a.k.a. "Men in Speedos and Latex" show) I had to capture the best moments with Leonard and share them with you.
Some of the gifs were posted in comments elsewhere but most are brand new.
Badass Leonard invites you in!
( Lots of gifs under the cut ) | | comments: 53 comments or Leave a comment |
| Zachary Quinto keeps fit and in balance with a special yoga class on Sunday afternoon (December 27) in Los Angeles.
The 32-year-old Star Trek star kept hydrated with a SIGG water bottle, which was manufactured in an ecologically-friendly environment and is 100% recyclable.
These are Pap pics BTW
( Read more... ) | | comments: 105 comments or Leave a comment |
| Title: Enough
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Spencer Reid
Rating: M, language/content
Spoilers for Minimal Loss
*This part is from Emily's P.O.V., there will be another through Reid's P.O.V.*
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or is characters.
Link to my journal: http://kristen1097.livejournal.com/
[cross posted to fanfiction.net, baufic, emilyreid]
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| 13. Walter Dean Myers, Riot.
Yanno, when I heard Myers was going to do a YA about the 1863 Draft Riots, I had a hard time waiting for it, I was so excited. Myers! 1863 Draft Riots! When it finally came out and started getting poor reviews, my faith was still unshaken. They just don't get Myers, I told myself.
But now that I've read it? I should have had more faith in the other reviewers.
The screenplay format didn't work at all for me -- not enough characterization, not enough information. A screenplay is such an unfinished presentation of a story, and without the additional creativity of a director and actors, I struggled to know what I was supposed to be getting out any given scene. Mind you, I was a huge fan of the way Myers used the screenplay within Monster (as one of two contrasting and deeply flawed documentary sources). But here? I continually fought the format.
(Also, this was not convincing as a screenplay, either. The soliloquizing -- oh, the soliloquizing! -- seemed far more like a stage script than a screenplay. )
It may be that my antipathy for Claire -- our light-skinned, biracial Black and Irish heroine, who has close emotional ties to both aggressors and victims of the riot -- can be attributed solely to the format, but I found her characterization wholly unconvincing, and her "dilemma" uninteresting. I kept wanting Priscilla -- Claire's dark-skinned best friend, who works at the Colored Orphan Asylum -- to take over the role of POV character. Like Claire, Priscilla has plot-drivingly-useful emotional ties to the rioters, but unlike Claire, Priscilla does things; she doesn't spend the "movie" standing around gasping about how shocking, shocking it all is. (Shocking!)
I would have liked better historical notes in the back, too. They conclude with a reference to how "far-reaching" the effects of the riots are, and how they were a part of shaping NYC into the city we see today, but there's not enough information in either the screenplay nor the historical notes to know what Myers is referring to in those lines. (It wouldn't have needed much more explanation, either: the link I dropped above concludes, "Many blacks fled Manhattan, and the riots drove a wedge between black and white workers that lasted through the civil rights movement of the 1960s." Just a sentence like that would have been helpful.)
In all, eh. I hope that there's someone out there that loves this book, but it isn't me.
14. Zetta Elliott, A Wish After Midnight.
This has been getting buzz forever, but I was dragging my feet because it was self-published (which too often corresponds to an obvious lack of professional editing), and because the library didn't have it. But then I heard that Wish After Midnight was about the Draft Riots, too...
Oh, but I loved this. It's well-written (I need not have worried about it being self-published) and utterly engrossing. The usual one-line summary is about a black girl in contemporary Brooklyn who tosses a penny into a fountain to wish for a different life, and gets transported to 1863 Brooklyn. The wish, it turns out, doesn't happen until seventy pages in, and I did not mind one bit. Genna is lovely and awesome and there are so many perfect little moments where the Genna-ness of Genna shines through. I adore Elliott's characterizations, most especially how much she can communicate in a single vignette. Some characters are on-page for only a page or two, but still I know (or can guess!) enough about them to make my heart squeeze tight. (But I do not wish for more page-time for those characters: Elliott gives me enough that I am content to let these bit players go, when it is time for letting them go.)
When the big time-swap finally happened, I fought it. I was attached to the story we had been reading. But then I turned a page, and another page, and another page after that, and it turned out that Genna-in-1863 was almost as engrossing as Genna in contemporary Brooklyn.
And frankly, being attached to the before-shift story? Syncs us up emotionally with Genna, which is a useful thing. When she misses her brother, we have fond memories of him, too. The lack of that syncing is often a problem I have with "loss" stories -- we, the readers/viewers, haven't seen enough of what was lost to have any attachment to it.
During the 1863 section, Kindred kept batting around in the back of my mind -- there are obvious comparisons between two contemporary black women being dropped, without preparation or warning, into slavery-era U.S. and what they have to do to survive there -- but that comparison was not a distraction, nor did it detract from my enjoyment of Wish After Midnight. Genna is not Dana, Brooklyn is not Maryland, and (skip spoiler)
Judah is most certainly not Kevin.
My one complaint about the book? Cliffhanger ending. (Okay, not as cliff-hangery as it could be, but still.) I don't know how fast Elliott has been writing Judah's Tale, but I would like it very much if she would please write faster. And re that spoiler on that final page? Yes, she's sold me. I very much want to see where she's going to go with this. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| A writer named Meg White has written this incisive analysis regarding the next act in the fight for healthcare reform that points out a nasty abscess in the whole thing and points out that when our elected officials negotiates deals with the pro-choice right they are, in effect, negotiating with terrorists. But it seems that when it comes to women's healthcare, it's okay, because we don't matter as much as men.
I've included excerpts here, or you can use the link above to read the whole article:
Just when we thought American women would be spared the indecency of the House's Stupak-Pitts Amendment, expected to make abortion functionally unavailable by prohibiting women from using their private plans to pay for their own abortions, the Senate came up with a "compromise" that appears to be nothing but a poison pill.
The compromise would enact a kind of kabuki theater not yet seen in this already stylized drama. Under the proposal, anyone who wanted to enroll in a private insurance plan that would provide healthcare coverage for abortions (be they men, post-menopausal women, etc.) would be required to pay their monthly premiums twice: one check would go to pay the premium itself, and another smaller amount would go to a separate premium account within the plan that would be used to provide for abortion claims.
The "compromise" was billed as a deal with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the man who, along with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) tried and failed to incorporate the Stupak-Pitts language into the Senate bill. Indications are that it may have been more about covering for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's purchase of Nelson's vote with the promise of state subsidies for Nebraska.
. . .
Furthermore, this whole segregation of funds idea only applies to those who are lucky enough to live in a state where officials decide that insurance companies and consumers even get to make that choice. The Senate bill allows any nanny state in the union to outlaw abortion coverage outright. So those of us who "get" to write out those separate checks could end up being few and far between.
And lest you think me an extremist for framing this in the heavy terms of "separate but not equal," know that I am not alone. For example, read this assessment from Lauren Simonds, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington:
If it wasn’t clear before the health care battle of 2009 that women’s reproductive
health care is viewed as separate and unequal to other types of basic health care,
it is now. No other medical procedure is singled out and stigmatized like abortion.
Even a proposed tax on elective cosmetic surgery was eliminated after public outcry.
Simonds' point about the attempt at a so-called "Botax" leads me to another inequality inherent in this argument. Why should I be forced to pay for the continued availability of elective plastic surgery, something I find at times stretches into the realm of moral reprehension, while common reproductive procedures are virtually outlawed?
Not only are women's healthcare needs being "segregated" out of mainstream funding, but there is an inequality of morals here as well. While the desires of pro-life America are being catapulted to the very top of the list in Washington, the rest of us must wait for our concerns over virtue to be heard.
What about those of us who oppose the notion of our money being spent on what we see as unjust wars? One abortion may indeed be a tragic procedure resulting in the termination of potential life, and even perhaps the scarring of another. At the same time, one war kills, maims and psychologically damages untold millions around the world. Oh, and it costs a whole hell of a lot more than any medical procedure. I have a feeling that if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had to be paid for with separate checks, things would look very different abroad.
. . .
And that brings me back to what I was saying last month about negotiating with terrorists on healthcare reform:
The anti-choice lobby is not satisfied to keep the status quo afforded by the Hyde Amendment. Instead, they're willing to sink healthcare reform in the effort to remove any and all coverage, public or private, for the legally-available medical service of abortion...
Yes, it is still wrong to trade women's reproductive rights so that the rest of the population can have decent healthcare. The only new item we've learned is that not only is it wrong, but it doesn't work.
What is far worse than being seen as a bargaining chip worth expending is to be seen as a bargaining chip to be given away for free. Now that the bargaining chip of women's reproductive rights is in the hands of the pro-life community, they plan to use healthcare reform to take away the rights we still have.
So much for negotiating with the choice terrorists.
So, in the interest of again trying to learn something from the mistakes of the false promise of bipartisanship in this Congress, I suppose we can guess why these "choice terrorists" are so eager to sink the average American woman's chances at getting adequate access to healthcare: They see us as second-class citizens.
Would somebody please tell me what the FUCK is wrong with Congress? Since when did the Catholic Bishops dictate new law in this country? Since when has the right to birth control and abortion become the business of anyone but the woman needing it? It's okay to have poison shot into your face, but a raped 12-year-old can't be mercifully relieved of one concrete effect of her experience?
Maybe it's time to get us some guns and take us out some trash. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| | So I was watching Outfoxed last night and I kind of squeed when they went to Red Onion State prison because that is fairly close to where I live (in the same county as me.) It got me wondering if anybody else has ever had a reaction to something like that in the show. Ever had an episode set in your hometown? Did they get the geography all wrong? | | comments: 61 comments or Leave a comment |
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