kathleen_dailey

I've been thinking about the forthcoming halfamoon, celebrating female characters in fandom, and as always I'm looking forward to reading the contributors' fic and recs.

I've reconciled myself (mostly) to the idea that I'm unlikely to be writing any more fiction; but if a Muse of Stories should ever condescend to visit me again in this lifetime, I'd ask for her help in writing three works:

( Possible spoilers for decades-old source material )

Huh. There might be a bit of a theme discernible in both my actual and hypothetical fic.

I still haven't seen Heated Rivalry, but I feel that I already know a reasonable amount about the series and the characters from reading so much fic and meta. Personally, I just want to find a Shoresy/Heated Rivalry crossover whose author really, truly, deeply gets both shows (if such a person even exists) and has the near-supernatural writing chops (ditto) necessary to pull off a very unlikely crack-treated-seriously meld.

While I'm waiting, here are some thoughts from Canadian media on HR:

The Tyee: There are now two types of people in the world: those who spent the final days of 2025 rapt in the clutches of Heated Rivalry ... and those who didn’t.

The Walrus: An interview with Rachel Reid: "I kind of do approach the hockey and the sex exactly the same way."

The Currrent: Matt Galloway looks at whether Heated Rivalry can change hockey culture.

CP24: A Montreal bookshop hosts a Heated Rivalry rewatch

Get up and dance.

I don't think about my old neighbourhood very often, but today I received a message that mentioned the imminent sale of the Beacher Café (or maybe it's already sold--the website is gone), which triggered a frisson of nostalgia.

I remember the many fannish conversations I had at that café, a place that I still associate with an otherworldly, altered-state-of-consciousness period of intense reading and writing and imagining and analyzing (just like what I'm seeing now with friends who are immersed in Heated Rivalry creativity). For some reason--its lighting, its layout, the artwork on the walls, the general ambience--that particular café felt like a portal that, if entered at the right moment and in the right mood, might transport us to a dimension where we could catch a real-time glimpse of the universe and characters that preoccupied us so strongly.

It's been decades since I've lived in that time-forgotten lakeside neighbourhood, but I'll never forget the irreproducible synergy of people, ideas, and passionate inspiration of those days.

"No nation in the world could achieve what America has achieved yesterday or frankly in a short period of time," [Trump] said of his administration's actions. "We are going to run the country."

The international rule of law is clearly no longer a foundational system. Next thing we know, Canada, Mexico, Greenland, and jurisdictions yet to be named--along with all their resources--will be (or may already be) action items on this demented criminal's agenda.

And we're not even a week into the new year. May the Goddess or her equivalent help our poor world.

I'm drawn back at intervals to Dante's Prayer by killabeez, and I rewatched it repeatedly this weekend. I've seen many, many Trekvids over the years, and I still feel that this is the best of all of them. Its impact is immense. (And for some reason, I'd forgotten all about the adepts levitating Spock's catafalque until I saw the split-second shot in the vid. Shivery.)




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Because I've read the Murderbot books but haven't seen the TV version, I watched MB fanvids this weekend just to see what the characters and setting might look like off the page. I especially liked This Is Shit and RADIOACTIVE by Murderbot. Now I'm really looking forward to seeing the series onscreen.






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A reminder that Memory Lane has many trails and byways running off it: Joan Baez's 1966 version of Dylan's "Farewell, Angelina."



And here she is, with Rosanne Cash, in 2025:

Last year I posted an entry titled "The Whole Point of Fanfic." I've been waiting for a story to come along that I could include under that same heading, and here it is--stylistically sophisticated, canonically consistent, and extraordinary in its creative scope. The author has taken a leap of imagination that weaves together character arcs and story lines in a way that pays off dramatically and believably.

"After All This Time, a Beginning, Real and True" by Curator

Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Rating: Teen and Up
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lwaxana Troi/Christopher Pike, Lwaxana Troi/Ian Andrew Troi

Author's Summary: Lwaxana grew up in a nearly silent home, her father rarely speaking and her mother keeping Lwaxana from what Lwaxana wanted most. Chris grew up in a home full of yelling, windows rattling from shouted arguments. Yet, when they meet as adults, the quiet and the conversation and the laughter and the pain all coalesce to allow Chris and Lwaxana to hear the love that pulls them together.

( The Trek rec )

( The trivia )

Endless summer? The temperature in Toronto reached 27 degrees Celsius yesterday. I had a late brunch on a neighbourhood patio, and my companion and I had to move to a shady table because the sun was SO HOT. I can't help but enjoy the warm weather, but it is very unsettling to be wearing shorts and a T-shirt in October.

- It's a glorious day in Toronto--warm and sunny, with a luminous pre-autumn haze visible when you look toward the lake. I wish this weather would go on for weeks and weeks.

- We're off to visit an open house in our building today. The unit that's for sale is identical to ours (one of 15 out of 104 with this layout and square footage). A unit like ours hasn't been for sale since long before the pandemic began, so we're curious to see how it's been tarted up and whether it might be likely to sell for anything close to the asking price.

- Season 8 of Hudson and Rex starts a week from Monday, but it's going to seem like a different show. ( Read more... )

- The season finale of Strange New Worlds left me puzzled and disheartened. ( Read more... )

- I was supposed to visit my former neighbours yesterday and pay overdue homage to the kitties that I used to watch for them when they were out of town. Sadly, one of the humans was sick, so we had to postpone. While I'm happy to have three lovely, friendly dogs living on my floor, I do miss the knowledge that at 7 p.m. every day the two cats from unit 903 would be taking their evening stroll up and down the hallway, and that if I contrived to open my door at just the right time I might--might, no guarantees, these are cats we're talking about--be granted a head butt or an ankle rub.