Dhae's devilish distractions

Dear Scrivener

2012-06-03T13:38:55Z

Dear Scrivener.

This 'interactive tutorial' you purport to have crafted is, in fact, neither interactive nor particularly tutorial'y. It is, to put it bluntly, a wall of text disguised as several piles of bricks, with a few 'exercises' tossed in for, what appears, shits'n'giggles.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but for the price you charge for your product, I would expect a little more... professionalism with regards to said 'tutorial'.

I accept this kind of thing from software like yWriter, because it's free. It does, however, not incite me to either sit through the last two parts of your 'interactive tutorial', nor to pay good money for your product when money's tight.

No love right now,

Dhae

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Thesis, car and fever (the a.k.a. 'I'm not dead, yet, post)

2012-05-31T20:39:11Z

So... Today was the day of turning in my thesis. Which I have to drive to the nearby town to do. I had no stress, because I finished everything on Tuesday, so I was golden.

Right up until the point I get in my car, turn the key, and nothing happens. At 11. And we have to turn them in by 12 at the latest. Straight off, there are two choices; taking the bus (which has its closest stop about 10 minutes walk from the office where we have to deliver them at, you guessed it!, 10 minutes to12). Or take a chance that my local mechanic would help a panicked student and lend me some power.

Thankfully, he did, and I turned in my thesis with a whole 10 minutes to spare!

Afterwards, a flock of us went out to eat lunch, which was really nice, but afterwards I kinda wanted to go home. Which turned out to be a good idea since I have, at current, a temperature of 39 celsius (102.2 fahrenheit) so I feel utterly crappy.

Anyway. Just wanted y'all to know that with my thesis done I might get to do some fun stuff once again... ;-)

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Catalyst - new fic! (Hotch/Reid pre-slash)

2012-04-22T21:32:39Z

Title: Catalyst 1/5
Author: Dhae Knight
Word count: 1,287
Pairing or featured character: Hotch/Reid pre-slash. Hotch/Beth established. Jack Hotchner
Rating: PG
Warnings and/or spoilers: You know about Beth? Good. Angst ahoy!
Author's notes: I've done my very best to not make Beth a bad person in this one (yes, I do feel slightly guilty for turning her into a crazed serial-killer in the last one), but my dislike for her might shine through. Unbetaed in the extreme. I'll post over the next five days, so check in again on Thursday, if you want to read it all in one sitting.
Summary: Jack has a secret, and he tells Reid. How will Reid handle said secret?

Catalyst 1/5

Please note the Author's notes! This is only the first part - the others are written and will be posted over the next five days.

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Well, fuck

2012-04-17T17:52:23Z

So... Over the past month I've suffered two weeks of total and utter writer's block. Nothing. i couldn't even edit my thesis, so I'm woefully behind on my schedule and not really sure how I'm going to make it. Well. I'm going to have to, one way or another.

Then I've just been sick. I still have a cold, but for the first two days I ran a fever and litterally couldn't think. Again; not really the kind of thing I need right now.

Also, I've found an amazing house, which I really, really want, so I mailed my bank. Well. One of my banks. The lady who replied was... Less than informative, and I couldn't get a clear answer one way or another besides; 'get a job, and then we'll maybe look'. Cue me being pissed off. Not for getting a 'no', but for getting a; 'I think you should wait'. That's not as useful as a no, with an explanation of why not.

Fortunately, my second bank was vastly more helpful, and willing to at least look at my economy in combination with the price on the house.

And then, of course, I went and looked for a job (again), and found... pretty much the job I want. Doing marketing for the museums in the city the house I was looking at is 3 miles outside. This is what I've been working on with my master's, just... This plus knowledge about how to design and attract and evolve museums to bring them into Century of the Fruitbat without losing the thing that makes museums special.

So... Now I know what I'm going for. Kind thoughts, please! :-)

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Meme - seven random things.

2012-03-22T08:54:16Z

roane was kind enough to give me seven things to ramble about. Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

I will spare my f-list lengthy rambling and hide the whole thing( behind a cut )

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Career, car and clothes.

2012-03-06T13:13:43Z

It's all about the C's today. It was career-day at the university, and since I haven't actually bought any clothes for about two years, I needed to start out the day buying something a little more... professional than was in my closet. And considering I'm plus-sized, that's a whole lot harder than I think it ought to be. Apparently plus-sized women don't have jobs where they need to look smart.

Then on to the career-day. Too many people for my tastes, by far. And since my education is both tiny and mostly unknown, nobody are really interested. Plus... I can smalltalk with the best of them, but low self-esteem and anxiety-issues means that making contact with complete strangers is a huge deal for me. Also... I'm very uncomfortable just hanging around, waiting for someone to have time. And given the number of people, that was pretty much all there was to do.

Lastly; car. My car is from '92, and I've had a lot of issues with it. It's cost me more in repairs over the past six years than I bought it for, 6 years ago. And now it's time for the bi-annual checkup, required by the state, and I'm not going to go through with that. What I am going to do... is try to make up my mind to buy my first-ever new car. I'm kind of keen on the new VW up!, but it's a big decision...

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Hotch's ruin

2012-03-01T20:57:51Z

Title: Hotch's ruin
Author: Dhae Knight
Word count: 5,641
Pairing or featured character: Hotch/Reid pre-slash. Hotch/Beth established. Kevin/Garcia established.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings and/or spoilers: You know about Beth? Good. Also, character death, heavy angst, killing of animals and breaking of various characters.
Author's notes: Well. This was supposed to be a short little thing, inspired by this house. I took liberties with... a whole lot of things, actually, but it's a pretty house.
Summary: Hotch has bought a ruined house in Kentucky and sets out to repair it. Why? Read the story and find out!

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White collar, season end

2012-03-01T14:10:13Z

I forsee an avalanche of angsty fic until next season starts.

This is all.

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Criminal Minds - 7x16

2012-03-01T12:41:18Z

First of all. Show, please stop giving so much screen-time to the unsub's fucked-up family. If I wanted to see a serial-killer at work, I would watch Dexter. Also, it makes it seem like the team is pretty much just flailing around until they stumble on the right combination of traits which is a)insulting to professional profilers, b) boring and pointless and c) not why I began watching CM.

Secondly; Hotch, I love you a lot, but if you want your girlfriend to meet your son, maybe you should be a little proactive in that direction. I know they're trying to portray you as adorably awkward, but they're going to end up making you seem like you're incapable of making adult, considered decisions on behalf of yourself and your son. Please break up with whatever writers thinks it's okay to push you in that direction.

Thirdly; Spencer, seriously, keep changing the way you have. The words; "What could possibly go wrong," ought to make any mother twitch (also - who the heck had Henry on race day?).

Lastly; RACE DAY! Weirdly, totally saved by the hung-over girls. Almost utterly borked by the appearance of Beth. Girl, you call your boyfriend for Hotchner? Oh, yeah. I feel the intimacy just sneaking up on me. Also... Am I weird for kinda wanting that scene to have been long enough to have seen her introduced to the team?

In summary; I'll go back to breaking Hotch and doing nasty, nasty things to Beth, now... *evil laughter*

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Thesis-work

2012-02-25T10:18:10Z

I've been walking around in a total daze these past few days, head buzzing with theories on learning, games, behaviorism, memory... Well. Pretty much, you name it, I've worked to absorb it.

Yesterday I felt like the whole thing was an absolute mess, but, just possibly a mess about to coalesce into something useful.

This morning... It kinda did! I'll have to chuck a few of the theories I've been working on, and rework *everything* to make it fit, but there's a grander purose to it all, now, and to top it off, I think it will help me formulate my own theory (which, really, was the point of this whole thesis). So... Yay!

Oh, BTW, I'm working on figuring out how places like museums can disseminate information to their visitors and give the visitors a good experience doing it. Interesting (and necessary!) work, but jeez I'm pulling from a lot of fields I know absolutely nothing about. Still... I feel like this will be good! Today, at least, I'm downright optimistic! :-D

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Criminal Minds - Closing time

2012-02-19T08:33:40Z

Yes, yes. I admit it. Hotch is cute (if, yes Hotch, you called it yourself), and Beth is... well. Beth.

But please, please, for the love of every deity in existence, please tell me that I'm not the only woman who calls foul on Beth's dress at the end there? Who the heck dresses like that for a quiet night at home? If she hadn't been surprised at Hotch's appearance, if he'd called ahead or something, yes. But on an average night when your might-be-boyfriend is ostensibly at the other end of the country chasing a serial-killer? Really?

So... I see only two options. Either the serial killer's capture was national news (which, yeah. No, I don't buy that), or Beth is keeping an eye on Californian news to keep track of her man and dressed up on the off chance that a) they flew back that evening and b) he'd move up their date.

Which, really? Brings me back to scary near-stalker status. I mean, I get being in love and finding every little thing he does absolutely fascinating, but... yeah. It still bugs me.

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Criminal minds - Hotch and Beth

2012-02-17T14:40:36Z

So... I'm not a huge fan of Hotch and Beth. And then I thought, after watching the latest episode - hey, what if Jack doesn't like Beth? And because we can't have Jack talking to Hotch about it, let's stuff in Spencer as the middle-man.

Cue some 1200 words of angst and heartbreak between Jack and Spencer. And an ending that kind of begs for a second story.

Really, CM? Really? I should just take the plunge and rename you Criminal Plotbunnies! :-D

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Criminal minds fic - Reid's High-school Reunion

2012-02-15T19:07:26Z

Reid gets an invitation to his 20th high-school reunion. Given his history he isn't so sure he wants to go. His lover helps him make up his mind.

Read it at my fic journal here.

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Stargate Universe

2012-02-11T13:34:16Z

Well. This is the third time I try to watch SG-U, and to my great surprise it's actually not as terrible as I remembered.

Okay. It's still terrible, just not unwatchable any more. And I've just had a couple of eps where Daniel and Jack guests, so that helped. Damn, I've missed RDA's ability to do some small thing, completely unrelated to the scene, that makes it all about 15 times more enjoyable to watch.

If there's one thing about SG-U, it is that it's so God damned predictable. Every single time something unexpected happens, it's bad. Every single time something new happens, it's worse. Every episode is pretty much a compilation of; "Okay, they're screwed. How can we make it worse?"

It gets pretty tiresome over time. :-/

ETA: I also suspect I woukd care more about the big season 1 cliffhanger where everyone's in peril, if this hadn't been standard fare in every freaking episode all season through. Really.

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Homeland, NCIS, White collar and Grimm

2012-02-08T21:17:56Z

Yep. That's a mouthful.

Homeland first. I would like to like the show. There are some really good actors, and the story is mildly interesting, but I'm not far enough removed from discovering just how Mandy Patinkin walked out on Criminal Minds that I can be even remotely sanguine about his presence in Homeland. He's good. He's really, really good, but how any showrunner can take a chance on him after pulling something like that not once, but twice in his career? Yeah. I don't get it.

NCIS. I expected to like '200', and I suppose I did. Sure, it felt unbalanced, and every time we cut back to the case of the day, I needed a minute to reorient myself. And a couple of scenes were complete letdowns, as far as I was concerned. But... there was good stuff, as well, and Mark Harmon is an amazing actor.

White Collar. My new crack. I adore that show so much, and it's brilliant antidote to the darkness of Criminal Minds. Also? Neal and Peter are probably the gayest leading men I've seen since SG-A. Seriously. And El. Oh, how I adore El. El and Peter is a thing of beauty. A functional marriage between two strong, smart adults. So awesome it hurts.

Grimm. Yeah. I like it; I like the style, I like the banter, I like the poor sergeant who is their snarky go-to-guy. I love the even more snarky blutbad go-to-guy. But, dear God, 10 episodes in and I'm wondering if Portland Oregon is seriously the city with no professional women. The main characters are all guys. Pretty much the only woman you see on a semi-permanent basis is the girlfriend. And you don't see her a lot, and she hardly ever gets to be awesome. I miss women!

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The Incredible Hulk

2012-02-01T13:11:04Z

Wow. I feel like I need to get a testosterone-antidote or something. Especially after seeing Captain America, who excelled by actually having a non-alpha male as the super-powered hero. Banner is Alpha. The General is Alpha. His nemesis, Blonsky, is Alpha. It's a freaking testosterone-battle to see who has the biggest balls. Blech!

In related news, I just could *not* look at Blonsky pre-Hulking and not see that guy from Lie To Me. Made for a rather... surreal introduction.

Pretty much I feel the same as I did after watching the first Hulk. As if the fact that 'hulk' in my native language means 'sob'. Yes. I do want to cry about how bad that was... :-(

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Criminal minds

2012-01-29T22:32:01Z

I don't like Beth. There. I said it. I don't like Beth. I find her slightly creepy and utterly unneeded. I would have far preferred a different way of getting Hotch 'back on the horse', so to speak.

... and, basically, I don't really see why we need Hotch to have an on-screen girlfriend?

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White Collar 3x12

2012-01-28T11:01:40Z

AKA - the 'Oh Boys!'-episde.

( Don't read on if you don't want spoilers! )

... I mentioned that I love this show, right?

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Pegasister and crossover-shipper

2012-01-20T11:56:08Z

Yes. I'm a PegaSis. Yes, I enjoy My Little Pony.

Now I want to ship Night Mare Moon with Bad Horse from Doctor Horrible... XD

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Fever? And exam tomorrow?

2012-01-16T20:09:40Z

Oh, that'll end well, I'm sure.

I have my second-to-last exam tomorrow, and I expected to do some preparations this afternoon and evening. In stead, I had a car that wouldn't start, and honked, without reprieve, for 20 minutes until the battery finally drained totally. So I spent 25 minutes waiting for the equivalent of AAA, then 15 minutes while the guy tried to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it so I could actually start and drive again. And since it's right around freezing, here, and there was a pretty strong wind blowing... well. I can guess why I have a fever, now.

Well. As long as I can wake up tomorrow and not feel too miserable, I'll call that a win. Oh, and my car will start. Oh, and I actually pass this exam.

... jeez. I don't ask for much, do I? ;-)

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Feeling like a total failure

2012-01-10T11:59:51Z

Yeah. This is what happens when my negative thoughts get fed. I end up feeling like a total failure even though I missed one damn reminder and, subsequently, the class-meeting concerning our thesis(es?).

Then, all of a sudden, I can think of absolutely nothing positive about myself. I feel fat and useless and, yes, like a complete failure in every aspect of life. And then. Then the thoughts about how I'm never going to get a job or a boyfriend or friends start up, and that's when I'm about to pack it in.

Jeez. Sometimes I wish those thought-patterns weren't quite so deeply grooved.

BRB - siccing a pride of lions on those pesky rottweilers of negativity.

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Slash fic misogynistic? WTH?

2012-01-09T15:45:37Z

I really didn't think it was possible that a slash fic involving only two guys that didn't even mention any women could be misogynistic. I now know better. Also, said fic contained violent abuse (as in; beating your partner purple (yes, that was the description of the bruises covering his *entire* backside)) with no better warning that BDSM.

Fandom, I am disappoint... :-(

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Category 6 - part deux

2012-01-08T19:19:02Z

Okay, so this thing actually sucked me in during the second part. Not least helped by a Hotchalanche byt not-Hotch.

Seriously, it was surprisingly good. The characters had agency, the plot twists didn't feel contrived, and I didn't feel that the big tie-up between the characters was out of the realm of the possible (yes, 2012, I'm looking at you!).

And, y'know, I got a soaking, dripping wet TG, changing a tyre in a rainstorm, so... I'm good *is shallow*. ;-)

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Category 6 - or, what I will do to watch my favorite actors.

2012-01-08T10:50:16Z

Watched part one of Category 6 (a SyFy "original" from 2004), solely for the pleasure of watching Thomas Gibson in something other than CM.

I went into it, expecting the worst (yes, I've previously watched Boa vs.Python for David Hewlett, let us never speak of it again!), but was actually pleasantly surprised! The only anvil-like cliches takes place in the weather-office, but I didn't see the adultery in the happy family coming from a mile away, nor did I spot the daughter's criminal boyfriend. Even the overblown storm-chaser has redeeming qualities!

And, okay, so the last 10 minutes of the first part wasn't exactly stuff of shock. Of course everybody we've met, who are even remotely weak, ends up trapped somewhere without power and a mega-storm heading their way. Of course they do! But I'm actually kind of curious as to where they're going with some of the stuff they've introduced, as well as the whole infidelity-thing.

In short: Not as bad as expected, and Gibson, for some reason, actually looks older than he does in first-season CM?

ETA: OMG it's funny to see a Hotchalanche in a different character. Part 2 just got a hundred times better! XD

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Apparently, I'm an idiot

2012-01-06T11:34:19Z

So I'm watching 3x15 A Higher Power for, like, the 15th time because I'm writing fic about it, and I think, yet again, that mrs. Baleman seems incredibly familiar, and I finally think, hey, I've got my iPad at hand, I might as well just check. Cue a painfully hard *facepalm* when I look her up and realize she's Gabrielle from Xena. You know, that TV-show I bought recently because I had a craving for re-watching? Yeah... that.

My idiot-being cred? Just rose by about a million, didn't it?

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