Weekend Recap, Causality Loops, and Rec

Changed my journal name from "Postmodern Crisis" to "The Tradescan Codex" in honor of my favourite leitmotif/macguffin, that prophetic text that seems to affect every aspect of the Scoobies' lives in my Watcher!verse (and even some of my non-Watcher!verse fics). I love it, for the damned book brings them all so much pain, yet none of them can bring themselves to stop reading, knowing they need to prepare for the next tragedy. Hopefuly my journal won't be like that for you.

iluvmycaptain seems to be in business *knock on wood*, steady but surely. I know there's not a huge output of Mal/Kaylee or a huge number of Mal/Kaylee shippers, but those who existed seem to know about and be using the comm as a resource, and that makes me happy. Mal/Kaylee now has an entrenched position on the web and, if I may be egotistical for a second, it's all because of me.

I've certainly been busy this weekend. For those who didn't notice, I've joined fanfic100 with Lydia from Buffy as my character. I love seeing her name up there next to the main characters and the major recurring characters, as if she had been in more than two episodes. Anyway, I've reclassified Shopping on Oxford Street and Watcher's Burden as part of what I've already begun to call The Watcher's Diary of Lydia Chalmers.

I've already begun to cannibalize my Drusilla WIP Windows of My Soul to create a couple of Lydia ficlets: The End of an Age and Critique of Judgment I. The former of these made it onto su_herald without my self-pimping it; I don't know what that means (probably nothing), but it made me smile.

Speaking of cannibalizing Windows of My Soul (it'll be stronger for it in the end, I promise!) I also posted A History of Violence, a Spike/Dru piece set in 1942 Germany, after Spike leaves the submarine from "Why We Fight." The fic seems to have been very warmly received--who could complain about these especially warm reviews over at the Slayer's Fanfic Archive?

I feel better for "wasting" my weekend online. I've been feeling listless lately, overcome by paralyzing fear as regards both my academic work and even more so my graduate applications. So I haven't been able to write fic, but somehow I now feel even more directionless without fanfiction. You guys might just be keeping me sane right now, and I joined fanfic100 with that in mind. Hopefully the next round of femslash_minis will center on a character I can actually write.

And I didn't spend my entire weekend online, I went to see 12 Monkeys with the campus philosophy club. It took me almost an hour afterwards to explain why there is no logical error involved in the concept of a causality loop (the "T1" scenario). The causality loop itself is uncaused (or rather caused by itself), but all of its component elements are causally co-determined; it's a feature of the universe. And I'm sure I don't need to explain my reasoning to y'all, many of whom are hardly science fiction neophytes, but it annoyed me that we ended up getting so caught up in what to me seems so elementary. I've revised my notion that discussion of causal loops isn't "real" philosophy--there are a lot of metaphysical assumptions that inevitably come into play--but still, there were other philosophical places we could have went, like the epistemological issues. (It's difficult for a movie to raise real metaphysical issues. Movies like The Matrix and The Truman Show gesture in the direction, but they can't really problematize reality itself--because one cannot cinematically show non-reality. What they can do, however, and do well is problematize our knowledge of reality, without ever really managing to challenge our conviction that some type of noumenal or "objective" reality undergirds it all.) Or I could throw out some real temporal paradoxes, instead of the pseudoparadox presented by a causality loop. Equally, there's no reason "why" temporal paradoxes don't exist--why we don't kill our grandparents--but we can tell from the fact that we exist that they don't. It's simply a feature of the universe.

And speaking of causality loops, if any of my flisters haven't read Robert A. Heinlein's "--All You Zombies--" do so. Now. There's an online version at the link. Not exactly easy on the eyes, but it's so worth it. All hail the dean of science fiction.

Trust me. And if one needs it, or even if one doesn't (it's cool) there's an explanatory graphic "timeline" here.

ETA: Okay, whoever transcribed that story? Really needs to learn how to use quotation marks. *shudder* This story is just as good as the second time I read it (nothing ever competes with the first), but reading it through slash goggles is amusing. I mean, come on, it's time-travelling mpreg! (Well, not really.)

But this line?: He had a lethal style of infighting, like a female cop - reason I wanted him. Not the only one. Slashtastic.

Yeah. He has the hots for ( spoiler )

BtVS: Critique of Judgment II

Title: Critique of Judgment II
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Lydia Chalmers, Quentin Travers
Timeline/Spoilers: Set during “Checkpoint.” Spoilers for that episode.
Word Count: 1500ish
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Direct sequel (although able to be read on its own) to my Critique of Judgment I and part of The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers, my serious of fic(lets) for fanfic100. This one is for prompt #030, “Death.” Here we have not only references to the deaths of John and Maggie Walsh, but more importantly (and less obviously) Quentin Travers preparing for his own death. John Walsh is from my fic A History of Violence. The title is from Immanuel Kant.

( Critique of Judgment II )

Go to “Critique of Judgment I.”

Go to The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers masterlist.