I've been awake three and a half hours and I've managed to feed myself.

[derien]

Well, I've also balanced my checkbook (which I should have done last week) and read a healthy chunk of "No Touch Monkey" (Ayun Halliday), our bookclub choice for this month.  We all bought it literally just because of the name, because "Don't touch the monkey!" has become one of those odd catch phrases at work.  There is actually instruction in our Standard Operating Procedure on how to screen a service monkey, which in itself we find amusing, particularly as it goes into details - have the monkey handler remove the monkey's diaper, etc - and it does say that at no time should we touch the monkey.  The first time this all came out one of my co-workers asked, "If the monkey has a hat, do we have to offer it a private screening if we want it to remove the hat?" (Because, of course, to take religious restrictions into account, we're not allowed to ask someone to remove their hat without offering them a private place to do so.) 

So, anyway, "No Touch Monkey."  I have to finish it quickly and hand it on to someone else, so I'm trying to sock in all the reading time I can toward it.  But I also read My Hereness, Your Thereness, by penelope_z in order to read daegaer's My Hereness, Your Thereness (The Fractured Reflection Remix), and, although I still maintain that Weiss fic is not really my cup of tea (even though I keep reading it because daegaer writes it), both stories were very well written, pointing up how rather mediocre the writing of "No Touch Monkey" is. 

 

Comments

[slicesmissus.livejournal.com]

there are actually service monkeys? Like seeing eye dogs?

[derien.livejournal.com]

Yes! But there are also monkey handlers, and I don't know if maybe they only help out for traveling. If they were there all the time I'd have to wonder what the point would be of having the monkey. I mean... just cut out the middle man.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

No touch monkey!

I'm really touched that you read my Weiss fic, you know :-)

I sometimes - more in the past than now - feel very apologetic about the way WK ate my brain, and wonder if people are sitting back rolling their eyes and wishing I'd get back to/move on to a worthwhile fandom. People both inside and outside the fandom talk about the cheesiness of the storyline, its plotholes and general nonsensical nature, low production values and so on. I've done that myself, and felt quite defensive about loving something so "bad". Which is, I've decided, stupid. It's no cheesier or more filled with plot holes than the canon of any other series-fandom, and does some of the stuff it sets out to do very well (the introduction of the characters I like most is done in a very restrained manner, with no attempt to fling the coolest villains at the heroes, and for the first viewers it must have come as a gradual dawning realisation/unpleasant shock to understand that the villains had paranormal abilities). It's as "worthwhile" as any other fandom and I'm going to try to remember that (because it really has eaten my brain for a long time and doesn't show any signs of stopping - I'm not entirely sure why it has, though).

Did I send you any WK? I have the OVAs (set between the two series) and the second series, Gluhen as .avi files. Not that I want you to feel obligated to watch it :-) But it's not as bad as both its detractors and sometimes its fans feel constrained to say!

[derien.livejournal.com]

I really don't feel as though WK is less worthwhile fandom. It's just not particularly what I'm into. It's what you're into, and you do a really good job with it. And yeah, you did send me some WK, and I haven't watched it, yet. That's not because I have any huge aversion to trying it out, I just don't watch anything. I've only just gotten around to watching the first two Dr. Whoes which you sent, and I was DYING to watch those. Although I can't imagine that I'd find the original WK anywhere near as interesting as what you write off of it.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean you to think that was directed at you (for a start, it'd be a very rude comment to have left you!), I know it's just not one of your fandoms (the feeling was caused by some things that I'll, er, tell you about in email rather than an open comment. . .)

I know what you mean about having stuff and then not getting round to watching it - I have so much stuff people have kindly sent me, and I just never seem to have the time or energy to sit back and simply watch it.