Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

BBC reported this awesome finding regarding great bowerbirds and that males use the concept of forced perspective (think of those scenes with Gandalf and hobbits in LOTR) to make themselves appear larger to prospective mates.  The birds studied here are different from the satin bowerbirds in TSG Part 1 who use bits of blue to decorate their bowers for wooing.


Also, festivids has gone live and omg what a delightful time suck, including an awesome video of Maru the cat (yes, Maru has his own fandom now).  Though if the octopus that stole the camera can have his own Yuletide fic, why not, right?

Work on Big Bang proceeds ever so slowly though I finally broke 20,000.  I'm swimming in background material and leave a trail of World War 2 texts in my wake.   I've been in a funk and have considered and rejected overly dramatic expressions. 

Two things, so help me F-list, you are my only hope.  First, I need original poetry, such as what, theoretically, Wing Commander Tebbitt might write to Susan.  I've commissioned the Susan/Tebbitt shippers LARM and Metonomia, but if you are interested in contributing, I could use it. 

As inspiration, this poem was written by SOE codemaster Leo Marks for spy Violette Szabo who was killed at the Ravensbrück concentration camp:

The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have,
Yet death will be but a pause,
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Second, what do you when writing a point of view character and how he or she refers to himself or herself?  I've stumbled over this before with certain characters.  I don't have a problem with any of the canon characters and most of my OCs.  However, with both Tebbitt and with Col. Walker Smythe, I have difficulty with them thinking of themselves by their first names.  For example, from Walker-Smythe's pov:

 He summoned Major al-Masri from Bletchley Park and the man arrived so promptly, George concluded the impatience to meet was mutual.  He’d sent Tebbitt off to Thame Park for a refresher in wireless training and that would keep him occupied for a week – two if the latest agents there for training were attractive, which they invariably were.  He did have to wonder if striking looks and trim figure where on the intake sheets Selwyn Jepson used when interviewing female candidates for insertion into France.

Instead of "he," could/should it be George?  Or Walker-Smythe?  Same thing with Tebbitt:

Tebbitt knew the origins of Jean-Louise.  The Shoemaker, the master forger at the British Embassy in Washington, had gifted her with two beautiful sets of shoes – fake identities.  She had lived one of them, assuming the identity of Mrs. Susan Caspian, for the last year.  The other she would trot out and take for a spin occasionally and so he’d come to know Mrs. Jane Louise Ellis pretty well.  Mrs. Ellis was from Leeds, younger than Mrs. Caspian, and her dress – usually red –cut low.  She was a flirt and looked smashing on a man’s arm.    Jane Louise Ellis had become Jean-Louise Lambert.

Where the surname Lambert had come from, he didn’t know, but as Colonel Walker-Smythe was fond of saying, the Queen of Pentacles that was Mrs. Susan Caspian knew how to keep her own counsel.

If not "he," should it be "Tebbitt"  or "Reg?"  This has really stumped me.

Last there has been an update in the vanity project, Girl Falls Into rth-verse Narnia story that greaves is undertaking and she had Jalur make a wonderful, wry appearance here.