Ruth Sadelle Alderson

I saw my first movie in a theater since before the pandemic. Yes, that's right, I went to see F9: The Fast Saga in theaters on opening day. I went to an 11am showing. There were only about 15 other people there. I was one of the few people wearing a mask. Anyway, I was so happy to see it in a theater!

( Spoilers )

Perhaps you're stressed about Yuletide. Perhaps you're worried about those last few holiday gifts you still haven't bought. Perhaps you hate LJ's newest "improvement." Perhaps your office was eighty degrees in the middle of winter. I am here to tell you: you can put all that aside and enjoy the following links.

Good News 1
The first queer Navy homecoming kiss involves lesbians. Both of whom are in the Navy. Original (now overloaded) link courtesy of j_crew_guy.

Good News 2
There isn't just going to be a Fast and the Furious six. There's going to be six and seven. (Spoilers at the link for Fast Five.) Link courtesy of chainsawkatana.

Rec
The Art of Seduction (John/Sherlock) by flawedamythyst is a Sherlock AU where instead of The Science of Deduction, Sherlock's website is The Science of Seduction. It's essentially a Queer As Folk UK AU (and it's very much making me want to rewatch that), and it's fantastic. It's funny, it's romantic, and it has the same kind of urgency as QAF UK. I meant to stop reading and finish up my Yuletide story hours ago, but I couldn't tear myself away. Although it's on AO3 as a series of three stories, the first two both end at places where you'll want to keep reading, so keep its length in mind when you start reading. There is some graphic violence in part two; if that sort of thing is tough for you to read, you can skip the details and still get the idea of the story.

We went to see Babylon A.D. today. One of the trailers was for Fast & Furious, which was awesome. I don't know if I can wait for next summer! The one thing I would change about the trailer would be to show the "New Model Original Parts" tagline first, and the actor names second.

( Babylon A.D. spoilers )

I've been posting some snippets to royalfic, and it has me thinking again about posting some of my never finished fic. Maybe you'll enjoy it. Maybe it'll inspire you. Maybe it'll just fill up your friends page.

These are not things I ever expect to work on again, and I'll be moving them into a my permanently unfinished fic folder once they're posted here.

( Dom in Jail )

Riddick

I mentioned some inappropriate het sex in that last entry about Riddick. I was only saying it would be hot, not "rec me some of that," and yet vic_ramsey did rec me some of that. The fic is sixty parts of out of character melodrama, although there is some improvement in her character after they have sex. Overall, though, he's too soft and she's too weak, plus she inexplicably has blond hair. The plot's actually not bad if you think of it as original fic and just let go of any irritation regarding people in the far future still watching Little Shop of Horrors. It did, despite its flaws, keep me reading through all sixty parts.

I probably should have learned my lesson about Vin Diesel movie het fic back when I read a whole lot of parts of a Dom/Letty fic waiting for them to have sex. It was actually pretty sexy, and it kept building and building and building and then I knew that they were going to have sex in the next part, and I got to the next part--and they'd already had sex.

Generally speaking, Vin Diesel movie het writers need to learn how to write a strong woman character. I get it, okay? Vin Diesel's a giant guy and if you're involved with him or some character he plays, chances are that he's going to do some kind of taking care of you. But he has to be used to that, right? How much more impressed would he be with a woman who can take care of herself?

More Riddick

It was in the middle of this story that I went to Barnes and Noble. As I was browsing the sci fi section, I came across the novelization of The Chronicles of Riddick. I didn't have anything else to do this morning (I'd already been to the infamous book sale), so I sat down and skimmed through reading ( minor spoilers ). It was actually surprisingly good for a movie novelization, and I might try reading some of Alan Dean Foster's other work now.

On Writing: Voice

This week's New Yorker has a review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I haven't read the book, but I've been annoyed by all of the hullabaloo surrounding it, and so it was with some amount of glee that I read Louis Menard's critique of Lynne Truss's incorrect and inconsistent use of punctuation.

Once he gets through panning the book, however, he moves on to the question of voice. "Writers often claim that they never write something that they would not say," he says. I have to wonder what kind of writers he's talking about. Because I rarely, if ever, write about characters who are anything like me, I make a conscious effort to make sure that the things I would say don't come out of my character's mouths. This is one of those things I could never get through to one bad writer I know. Just because you would say it doesn't mean your character would. And conversely, just because your character would say it doesn't mean you would.

On Not Writing

A previous New Yorker issue had an article about writer's block. I didn't read it, but you might be interested.

Gay Marriage (Again)

In case you can't tell by the previous two entries, I read The New Yorker every week. I once linked to a previous New Yorker commentary on age as a determining factor for support for gay marriage. A more recent New Yorker article takes a deeper look at the whole idea of gay marriage. It takes Adam Haslett a while to get there, but he eventually makes the point that I've yet to see anyone else get to:

Despite comparisons to the repeal of miscegenation laws, no other expansion of the marriage franchise--to the sterile, to slaves, or to interracial couples--has required an alteration in the basic definition of the term: the union of a man and woman as husband and wife. To discount this as mere semantics misses what the definition points up: that marriage, through all its incarnations, has been a procedure that assigns people a new identity based on their gender. For centuries, it has been the ceremony that makes males into husbands and females into wives. Until very recently, this meant a lifetime commitment to both the security and the constriction of a well-defined social role. The symbolic danger that gay marriage poses to such an arrangement is obvious. It alters the public meaning of the word by further draining it of its power to reinforce traditional expectations of behavior. What does it mean to be a husband in a world where a man could have one of his own?

I went to see The Fast and the Furious for the fourth time tonight. On the big screen for free again. I didn't take many notes because I wanted to just watch and try to get a feel for Letty's character, but I did write down a few numbers.

--Brian's green car has Arizona plates, number RNO263.

--Dom's red car has California plates, number 4CBO626.

--At Race Wars, Jesse's number is 208, and Johnny Tran's is 433.

And a few other observations. Spoilers as usual.

--I checked out Mia's books again. I think she's probably working on her general ed requirements. The book she's working from in the store looks like a math or science book of some sort, while the book she's reading when Dom and Brian come back to the house looks more like a literature anthology.

--I had Leon and Jesse's conversation about Brian backwards. It's Jesse who says, "He's beautiful," and Leon who says, "I like his haircut." Remember that Jesse and Leon "just showed up one night and never left."

--Letty really gets off on racing, as you can see when she beats the asshole at Race Wars.

--It is at the post-race party that Jesse's arms are around Vince.

--As he gets ready to leave on the last job, Dom tells Mia, "I'm doing this for the both of us."

--I swear Brian says that Vince has been shot in the left leg, but it's really higher than that, so maybe what he says is "the left flank" and it's that Keanu surfer drawl thing Paul Walker has going on that makes it sound like "left leg." It's the only thing I can think of that makes sense.

--A lot of the cars only have plates on the back. In California, you have to have plates on the front and the back.

--Dom tells Brian that the bathroom is "upstairs, first door on the right."

--If Vince is about 24, and he and Dom "grew up together" and "were friends as kids," then Dom's probably also 24 or so. He has to have been out of jail long enough to establish his dominance in the street racing world, plus they've been jacking trucks for three months, so that's at least a bit more than a year. Which means that Dom was no older than about 21 when his dad died and he beat up Linder. The way Mia talks about the relationship between Dom and Letty makes it sound like Letty's at least a few years younger than him. Jesse looks about 19, and Leon's probably 22 or 23. The only one I really can't figure out is Mia. The way Dom acts about her--not listening to her, being very protective in respect to her love life--seems to indicate that she's younger than him, but by how much? Are we meant to assume that she didn't go to school until Dom got out of prison, so maybe she's not the same age as your usual college sophomore (I'm guessing on her year in school using the assumption that she is working on general ed classes)? Or is she really only 19 or 20? If she's that young, wouldn't everyone else be a bit worried about her getting involved with Brian, who's probably 25 or so? Or is it okay because of the age difference between Dom and Letty?

--Dom does what Letty tells him to. When Mia tries to get him to break up the fight between Brian and Vince, he doesn't really go do anything until Letty insists. Back at the house after the race, it takes a repetition of the command, but he does give in to her request to "go upstairs" and "give me a massage."

--I'm fascinated by the relationship between Letty and Mia. When Letty shows up at the store, she says to Mia, "How you livin', girl?" Then, when Mia asks Dom to break up the fight between Vince and Brian, Letty takes her side and pushes Dom to get out there. Mia rides home from the race with Letty, and we do get a shot of them standing next to Letty's car together.

--Mia's supposed to be the nearly perfect one, but she shows an awful lot of resentment. When Brian says, "Where I come from, the cook doesn't do the dishes," she replies, "I'd like to go there," and you can hear the bitterness in her voice. There's also the way she tells Brian that it's nice to be first for once.

--Letty laughs a lot more than I think. She also tries to help make peace when Vince returns.

--Dom and Mia are definitely Catholic. When Jesse says grace, Mia crosses herself.

I found the crowd reactions very interesting. Last night's crowd thought the whole movie was hilarious. Tonight's was more responsive to the moments of action and suspense. Last night's crowd murmured, either in surprise or disapproval, when Vince kissed Dom's head, and was pretty much silent about the two girls kissing at the house. Tonight's crowd was silent about Vince and Dom, but there were some approving sounds for the girls kissing. Last night's crowd was mostly women. Tonight's had a higher percentage of men.

Mid-movie Mia musings: I go out with Brian, and he tells me I come first, that being friends with Dom is "just a bonus." I know they're out jacking trucks tonight, and I know that as soon as they get back, Dom'll take Letty upstairs and they'll fuck and I'll have to listen to him making her come. So I go home with Brian. If she's going to sleep with Dom instead of me, I'm going to sleep with Brian. We have sex in his bed tucked away in the corner of a little room at Harry's. It's good, but it's not the way it is with Letty. We sleep, but then his phone rings, waking us up, and we make love again. I try not to think about Dom touching Letty the way Brian's touching me.

Mia was looking smug. Mia never looked smug. She was happy a lot, and triumphant sometimes when she won a race or got the highest grade in the class, but never smug. She never walked around with this little smirk on her face.

And Letty was acting strange too. She shied away from his kisses and flushed and just shook her head when he suggested they go up to his room for a while.

Then he figured it out. Or rather, he found out. Letty helped Mia carry groceries into the kitchen. When neither one of them came out with the beer, Dom went to follow them in. He stopped in the doorway and watched his sister trap his girlfriend against the counter.

"One kiss," Mia was saying as she sidled closer.

Letty retreated as far back against the counter as she could. "Mia, no."

"I know you want it," Mia breathed just loud enough that Dom could hear her from the doorway.

"I don't--"

Dom turned away and went back out onto the front porch before their lips met. Letty came out a few minutes later and brought him a beer. She didn't resist when he pulled her down onto his lap, but her cheek was flushed and warm when he kissed her. He didn't protest when she got up and went home. He finished his beer and watched the sun set, then went back into the house. He found Mia in the kitchen making dinner.

"Pasta okay?"

"Sure." He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "Why are you fucking my girlfriend?"

Mia glanced up from where she was sautéing onions for sauce. "I don't have a cock. I can't fuck anybody."

"Don't be so literal. You know what I mean."

Mia added mushrooms to the onions. "What makes you think I'm fucking your girlfriend?" She popped a slice of mushroom into her mouth.

"I saw you kissing her."

Mia shrugged. "And Vince goes down on you all the time. So what?"

I can drive, and I've got my own car that I put together myself--Dom taught me that much--but I'm not like them. Letty and Dom, all there is for them is cars. I remember Letty, fourteen, oil covering her hands, leaning over the engine of some car when Dom let her fix something all on her own. She barely even glanced up when I brought her a Coke.

I was always the girly girl, and none of them wanted that. None of them except Vince, and I didn't want anyone who wanted the girly girl type.

I remember her at sixteen, back up against the door of a car, Dom kissing and kissing and kissing her, their hands leaving streaks down the back of each other's coveralls, me watching for long, long moments and sliding back out the door before they could notice me. Later, hearing them in his room, small murmurs and moans that I could never be a part of.

After that, I could never have her, and in a way, I could never have Dom either. Sure, he was still my brother, and he still watched out for me and took care of me and taught me what I needed to know, but I couldn't go to him in the middle of the night anymore when I was sad or missing mom and dad or just needing the comfort of another person's arms.

I knew Letty and I would never be best girlfriends the way you read about in books, but I wanted something. A friend who understood cramps and multiple orgasms and boyfriends. But Dom was my brother, and we didn't talk about it.

So I cooked and washed dishes and kept the house clean and the refrigerator full of beer and food and soda. So Letty wouldn't have to. So Dom wouldn't have to. So they could concentrate on cars and sex and racing.

And sometimes one of them noticed. Dom would wrap his arm around my waist and kiss my cheek and tell me how great I am. Letty would smile at me and raise her beer and say thanks. But mostly, mostly it was just the way we lived.