missizzy

I've often shyed away from writing autistic characters, despite being autistic myself. Maybe it's because I'm on the high-functioning end of the spectrum, which does often make me feel like a fraud. When I typed the title for this one, I wasn't even sure what it would end up being about; I knew I wanted Amy to live, but I didn't know what I'd do with her. Then suddenly the little girl in it turned out to be autistic, and I'm glad to have written and posted it now.

( Amy Bendix, Ten Months Later )

I finished The Punisher today, finishing episode 11 before heading off to work, and getting through the rest on the way there, on the treadmill in the gym, and then on the way home, watching the final scene literally as I walked up the block to my house, through more snow on the ground than there was Wednesday morning. That also meant that this morning I said farewell to Karen Page, whom I believe is the third character in my life where I just got immersed in her mind as I wrote her, the first two being Stephen Maturin and Padme Amidala. I've got more ideas floating around in my head right now.
It didn't feel real, when the credits for episode 11 rolled. It feels like she should stride out of that hospital and go on to do more. But she’s a loss in the way most of the other characters aren’t. We can still get similar versions of Matt and Foggy and Fisk and all the other on the comic book page. Karen’s comic equivalent wasn’t much like her and has been dead 20 years.
So goodbye, the woman who wouldn’t stick her hand in the sand and let it happen to somebody else just because she was scared. Goodbye, the damsel who didn’t get in distress so much as stride furiously into it. Goodbye, the woman who was allowed to be angry, and reckless, and idiotic, without her story condemning her for it. Who didn’t have superpowers, but could get by on smarts and sheer nerve. Who is haunted by the mistakes of her youth, but hopefully will do more good than harm in the world. Who loved her vigilantes fiercely and loyally, but wouldn’t sacrifice her soul or her self-respect for them.
And who, to the end, was willing to sacrifice her shoes for a good cause. I don’t like everything about her final appearance, but that was a great note to end on. Goodbye, Karen Page. I’m rooting for you to get your happy ending, even if we don’t see it.

Outside the house we are slowly getting blanketed in snow, which may be cold, but remains one of the pleasanter things to be blanketing DC lately. Since it didn't really start falling until after dark I haven't had a good view of much yet, but I'll see what I wake up to tomorrow morning.
I'm starting to think I might have to replace my keyboard. I pretty much confirmed today that the sound gets buzzy and unpleasant when I try to play certain keys, which can't be a good sign on a keyboard that's now over twenty years old. Still, I'd rather not spend too much money right now. DoD might be good for money until September, but who knows what will be inflicted on us before this calendar year is over. Since I don't really have to have it sounding good until I'm ready to record the next song, there's time to figure it out. Don't know how much I'll be practicing that during the next two weeks anyway, when I'll have too much to watch. Skating and tennis always overload these next two weeks, but once again The Punisher is dropping at a very inconvenient time.
At least this one I won't have to hurry through like I did Daredevil and Runaways. I've already got an idea how who are going to be in my next ficlets, so I don't have to rush through it to write an Amy one, if I decide to have her in the series. And right now, I'm thinking less about the rest of it and more about how strange it'll be that the apparent Karen cameo may well be the last we ever see of that character.

Wrote most of this in Milan, but only finished it this week.

Title: A Miracle, Ongoing
Fandom: The Punisher
Characters: Sarah/David
Disclaimer: Now Disney owns them.
Warning: Sex, references to violence
Note: Takes place about a month after the first season.

( Read more... )

Just another platonic Kastle piece.

( Fast Forward a Thousand Days )

At least last night I went to bed happy. I admit, a Democrat winning in Alabama kind of is enough to indicate that maybe this country's not beyond redemption after all. Yet I'm still not sure about much of its white population, given how many of them voted for a guy about as bad as Trump. (Two thirds of you, my fellow white women? Really?) But now the FCC's still going to destroy net neutrality and noone's going to stop them, even with evidence of a blatant conflict of interest hanging around, and I'm not relying on this tax bill to be stopped either. I'm still only just finished the second episode of Runaways and wondering if it'll be worth it to stay subscribed to Hulu for much longer.
And when Netflix must be pretty confident it'll be allowed to continue its own Marvel series, if they greenlit a second season of The Punisher. Not sure how I feel about that itself coming about.
Bought all the Christmas gifts, including some pretty geeky ones for my sister and brother-in-law. I had to sign up for a lamp website to order my gift for the latter, and now I wonder if I could find an excuse to order something from them for myself at some point. I know I'm getting a pair of books from my mother, though I've got no idea which ones.
Also, finally got the some detector batteries replaced. No more chirping to drive me crazy. This week has definitely had highlights.

Got the first batch of books we had GPO do new binding from back from their bindery. It turned out to be less dramatic than picking them up had been, even though the truck driver still didn't follow our instructions, because now we knew to look for him in the visitor's kiosk right outside the Conference Center, plus the guards seemed to remember him and realize the boxes he had with him had books in them, and at any rate didn't mind letting him bring them in. The books themselves were elegantly done. Now they're holding our old and rare War Department reports, and I'm anxiously waiting to receive word that those can even be restored when some of them are not far off two centuries old.
Kind of weird watching the reviews for The Punisher come in, especially since now my sister is among those they send advance screeners too, her review was up on our blog Monday, and she was scathing. Of course I pretty much have to sit through it, no matter how unpleasant. I hope there's plenty of Karen. Also, I kind of dig how much Frank is shown to care about her in the preview clips, at least since it doesn't sound like they're turning things outright romantic. That's how I like those two best. Then I'll probably give in and buy Hulu to watch Runaways. Three streaming subscriptions, and if Disney has one big one for all their things, I'll almost certainly end up getting that one too sooner or later. When am I going to find the time to watch them all??? Also, will the fight over their joint series with Netflix lead to everything getting canceled? Hopefully we'll get the third season of Daredevil first, with the second seasons of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones safely out before that. I can do without the second season of Iron Fist.

Mom has officially gotten permission to do a "literary biography" of Winston Graham. It'll be heavy of the "literary" and light on the "biography," but his writings have always been her interest. She read and blogged about the Poldark books long before this new TV series came out. This also means she'll be spending a month in Britain sometime this summer reading up on the relevant documents. I'm not sure she's been away from home for that long since she and dad were married. That'll be an interesting month for the both of us.
For some reason I'm getting a bunch of messages from OkCupid tonight, including a rude one, one from a guy a little too far south, and one from a guy in India! Does anyone ever seriously manage to form anything through OkCupid with anyone who lives on the other side of the planet? Not something I'm up to, I'm afraid. I also got one from a guy who spends most of his time in Dubai, but at least he spoke of traveling to DC occasionally (I wrote a response, but I think my opinion on Dubai offended him, because he hasn't written since).
Now that I'm done with Iron Fist, I'm all ready for The Defenders to come out. Or maybe it can wait until I finish that Karen writing obituaries fic I've been working on. Looking forward way too much to The Punisher too, although at least, unlike Iron Fist it's not pushing any new seasons of the other four series back to a later premiere date than they'd otherwise have. Seriously, do we have to have a second season of that one?