Month: June 2021

Thorfinn’s Song – Dunnett filk from King Hereafter

CW SPOILERS FOR KING HEREAFTER

This is also called ‘The Standard of a Crow’ but GOSH it really should be a raven. The novel this comes from is King Hereafter, and it’s her take on Macbeth. It is a f)cking amazing novel; Viking and Christian life is shown in detail, and there are so many amazing battle sequences… it’s a lively book, with a love story at its heart and a really interesting and quiet depiction of the friendship between men as one of its many pleasures.

You don’t want to have find rhymes for raven. that’s why it’s a crow. AND FILK.

Please note that the previously published lyrics for this have been superseded by the lyrics shown below. OBVIOUSLY THESE ARE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK

The MP3 file is for the first two verses and choruses.

When you’re deep down in it       (Note: battle rage)
As deep as you know how to go
There’s no end, once you begin it
Your foster father taught you so
It’s a dream, it’s a trap
For no matter how far down you go
You must rise up for the next battle
And stand under the standard of a crow

Pull the axe from my battered hands (forty miles a day, o!)
There was a lot of blood, not all of it mine (ridin’ in the rain, o!)
I am good at killing men (make a joke, run him through, o!)
If you would follow me, now you must ride (ride, ride, ride)

It isn’t wise to ask them  (note: seers and fortune tellers)
Folks seeking comfort are rarely wise
The seer said I’d take half the battle
And mocked me for the doubt in my eyes
It’s a dream, my heart rattled
I saw her eyes, like oxblood on snow
Hers the first face that I am seeking
Standing on my stirrups, underneath the standard of a crow

Pull the axe from my battered hands (forty miles a day, o!)
There was a lot of blood, not all of it mine (ridin’ in the rain, o!)
I am good at killing men (make a joke, run him through, o!)
If you would follow me, now you must ride (ride, ride, ride)

She has an errand, seaward (note, he asks her to say goodbye to the sea for him, because he was a frickin’ Viking after all)
I die on land an aged fool
She’ll make my goodbye for me
make herself a young king’s school
It’s a dream, it’s a trap
Knowing that life goes on, just so
But she made it through one last battle
Still stands under the standard of the crow

Still stands under the standard of the crow

I am comfortably lazy

So much so that I’m wondering why I agreed to a father’s day hike with Paul. It’s supposed to be unbelievably hot today and I am still in spring mode.

Yesterday Jeff and I ate in a restaurant (last time we went out we ate outside) at IHOP and said HI to Lorna since it’s been a year and then we ran some errands since the ants are back and we needed ant traps.

I’ve been opening Scrivener files that aren’t finished and fixing typos and sentences in a desultory way.

We’re watching an Icelandic supernatural noir called Katla. It’s very creepy, without being full of jump scares, which I loathe.

I get my molar crown stuck on tomorrow.

Today I think I’m going to make a big pot of spaghetti.

It’s possible this mood is migraine related. I just feel kind of stunned and obtunded.

no song today

I’ll get my shit together later, or maybe tomorrow.

Lovely… and I mean absolutely life-affirming and beautiful …. walk in Fraser Foreshore yesterday. We took it easy and stopped at every bench to look at the trees and the water. SO MANY songbirds, the forest just rang with their voices.

Fed Paul homemade greek salad, the last of the garbanzo stew and homemade lemonade for lunch, also got a financial errand run.

Katie DROPPED BY AFTER WORK yesterday, I felt like a celebrity was stopping by. Love her so much. She’s just starting to show, she should be off work by Jeff’s birthday.

Live your life like this internet toddler:

Today is Juneteenth. Do not be fooled. As long as Black and racialized people are being shot, unjustly imprisoned and deported in such horrifying numbers in the US, it doesn’t matter what feel-good holidays are signed into law. It’s just more Martin Luther King Day: white people get the day off and Black people get to work two shifts, while the Republicans are doing everything possible to remove their voting rights.

Current political positions

  1. restoration of all Indigenous lands. I’d rather pay rent to the Indigenous than taxes to a colonial government
  2. Churchill was a brilliant leader and orator who was first and foremost a colonizing bastard with deep disrespect to many of the conquered peoples of the British Empire. He was responsible for the death by starvation of many Bengalis.
  3. The Israelis WANT to be on a permanent war footing with the Palestinians. They want this unequal battle to go on. They just bombed Gaza AGAIN. The Palestinians had their own land before the state of Israel came into being and they will have it again or die trying, it’s that simple
  4. Tim Horton coffee is better than McDonalds coffee.
  5. KFC has the best cheap poutine; Spud Shack the best high end.
  6. The Communist Party of China has way too much pull in Vancouver and all the cities and municipalities surrounding this and I also mean in Victoria.
  7. C19 did NOT start from a lab leak; and even if it can be proven that it did I am still impressed at the defence the Chinese mounted.
  8. I’m going to keep wearing masks.

Destiel filk – Spread ’em up to Heaven

So Supernatural is a show that ran 15 LONG years, interrupted by the writers’ strike and the pandemic, and it introduced Destiel, the fan pairing of the characters of supernatural creature hunter Dean Winchester and the Seraph (always referred to as an angel) Castiel, played by Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins.

The chemistry was instant and obvious to most fans. The writers encouraged it over 11 seasons. There’s no reason to believe that a sexual relationship between the two was ever really contemplated, but a platonic relationship as committed and lasting as a marriage was MORE than hinted at, and I would have been happy with that, and in the end, the fans got fucking burned in a pile of queerbaiting exec notes. We got a love confession out of Castiel WHO PROMPTLY WENT TO THE BLACK EMPTINESS OF OBLIVION and nothing out of Dean, and I was so angry I didn’t watch the last episode, because I knew I’d be disappointed, and when I heard the shrieking of the fans, I knew I’d saved myself a lot of grief.

I believe, and it will never be proved, that they shitcanned anything the slightest bit gay out of Dean because the CW was rolling out a hypermasculinist cop show for Jared Padalecki and the execs didn’t want to piss off potential viewers. That show, a reboot of the ‘Walker’ franchise, has been renewed for a second season but it’s on shaky ground – a lot of the SPN fans I follow have no interest in it and its numbers aren’t great. It seems a shitty deal to me, but as long as ‘the right people’ are making money I guess I have nothing to add.

I’ve written about 400K  fanfic words in about 30 stories

and ten more in the hopper waiting to be finished/polished

some of the published stuff I’ve since deleted

for that particular pairing, and so

of course

could a song be far off? I wrote it before the last episode was in the can, and I’m sorry, because the execs fucked this one up hard. The fans didn’t get our HEA (Happy ever after)although the writers did their best.

I have many strong opinions, but since I mouth off about it almost daily, I put them on twitter, not here. Strongest opinion: leave the actors, their wives, friends, children and agents alone. I don’t want them to see my fanfic because that shit’s weird and scary for the actors; it’s not for them, it’s for me and about a thousand other fans, nobody else. Second: Jensen Ackles is a better actor than both Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins. Put together. Third: Dean was bisexual before Castiel showed up. I will fucking fight you over that, the textual and video evidence is compelling.

If you want to know my moniker on AO3 DM me. The genre is AU (alternate universe; same characters in different occupations, ages, etc) fluff, gay smut, domestic banter and the one time I actually did a supernatural destiel fanfic (I have since pulled it down, it got such terrible numbers, despite being fantastic, I got pissed and said yoink) it had little girl hunters who try to stab the King of Hell and magical fucking talking cats in it WHO ENDED UP EATING CROWLEY’S HELL HOUND so yeah, I try to stick to fluff, banter, communication, pining and smut, with HEA…. since that’s less realistic than magical cats. Also most of the time I don’t use OC (Original Characters…. you know, Mary Sue), I just repurpose the same 15 characters from the show over and over again in different ways.

Spread em up to Heaven

(Castiel is singing)

Angels in their true form are big and stern and feathered
to gaze upon one in this form makes humans come untethered
and gender’s not an issue (much) for Heaven’s fighting squad
Taking orders, smiting demons, ever faithful to my God who……
(brief pause to be very confused)
Then gave me Dean Winchester to reconstruct from Hell
God Spake: Start with his mouth! you’ll get to know it well!
And please don’t ever worry about anything I’m plannin’
Gay love saves the day you know, It’s ABSOLUTELY CANON

Heaven, Heaven, spread em up to Heaven
I’m going to spread my great big wings for you
Heaven, Heaven, spread em up to Heaven
I’m going to spread my wings for you
I bet you’ll like most everything they do

Interspecies romances are always such a trial
I don’t know just what to feel and Dean’s good with denial
And yes I worry constantly about what Chuck (note, aka ‘God’) may plan
And so should all of you till the very last episode’s in the can!

Heaven, Heaven, spread em up to Heaven
I’m going to spread my great big wings for you
Heaven, Heaven, spread em up to Heaven
I’m going to spread my wings for you
I bet you’ll like most everything they do

 

 

Yesterday and today

Yesterday I ran four loads of laundry

did the May monthly numbers for household expenses

practiced (actually twice)

had homemade chicken fried rice for breakfast

Watched some more Sweet Tooth and Duckman and Homicide

RIP NED BEATTY AS BOLANDER

Read about 200 pages of Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers

Got most of ‘Spread ‘Em up to Heaven’ in Finale (my ghastly tongue in cheek Destiel filk, unforgiveable, rallllllly.)

Today I’m going to go into New West and do a small shop as I need to get more ant poison, the scouts are back.

Dr. Who?

Lyrics available upon request… but why

The song ends in the same key as the Dr. Who Theme so at the end you’re supposed to vamp the theme to a fadeout. It’s actually quite effective but I’m not taking on the fucking Beeb with IP issues. LOL. No, I’ll just mock them and their works, haw haw.

I don’t repudiate the song, but I should. It wormed its way into a Conflikt songbook before I realized that the entire song is antithetical to filk fandom in a number of strong and structural ways. It is a problematic song. It is a difficult song. It is a very self-centred and elitist song.

“50 years just makes it old, it doesn’t make it fine.”

Of course that’s all you need to say to get Dr. Who fans (who are…. engaged) to start beating on you verbally. Next time somebody does I’m going to compare their vigour in defending it to colonialism and then the fur can really fly.

the errand hang

Apparently running errands with your friends is the new hanging out… So that is me and Paul yesterday; two turns around the schoolyard park and a trip to Peggy’s to return cooking containers and a trip to the library to pick up, among other things, Chuck Wendig’s ‘Wanderers’, a book of women’s short SF, local Indigenous legends and organizing for people with ADD. I can just imagine Jeff’s snort as he reads that.

Made chicken fried rice yesterday, it was nom.

Gave Paul some chickpea curry and rice pudding yesterday as well.

Every time I try to write – even letters, I find rage and ennui flatten me out. I have no wish to reveal what is in me; it is all rotten and horrifying. This too shall pass; it always has before. It’s the pandemic talking, as far as I can see.

Fraser Foreshore

Paul and I went for a lovely walk at Fraser Foreshore yesterday.  I finally remembered to take peanuts, and was rewarded by two separate encounters with Bold as Brass Crows. They never got closer than about five meters, but they didn’t wait to come towards me, either, once they saw the peanut bag.

I’m pretty sure, mOm, that the duck we saw was a female widgeon. Also, we saw a killdeer. No hummingbirds; heard a pileated woodpecker as we passed.

There were what seemed like dozens of herons, they were flying so much. Most people were not wearing masks, which isn’t a problem, and we saw SO many honey bees it made my heart glad.

Then we came back here and ate pizza.

I made a really nice chickpea curry. I started with a bag of dried chickpeas, soaked them in four changes of water, cooked them slowly for hours with vegetarian broth, drained and rinsed them thoroughly, and then threw in a can of diced tomatoes. While that continued to simmer, I fried half a purple onion and four cloves of garlic in some butter, and threw  that and a couple of tablespoons of curry powder, pepper, extra turmeric, lots of Realime juice, two teaspoons of sugar and then two teaspoons of maple syrup into the pot and let simmer for a while. Then I added coconut milk.

 

O MY

It’s really really tasty. I think I’m going to run some over to Paul today.