throbbing light machine

On Major and Minor (2017 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Charles Wallace Murry/Joshua Archer, Meg Murry O'Keefe & Calvin O'Keefe, Charles Wallace Murry & Meg Murry O'Keefe
Characters: Meg Murry O'Keefe, Charles Wallace Murry, Calvin O'Keefe, Joshua Archer
Additional Tags: Conversations, Plans For The Future, Book: The Arm of the Starfish, Book: A Wind in the Door, Pregnancy, Mathematics, First Love
Series: Part 4 of Start over at the wires, use lions! use thunder!
Summary:

Major things are wind, evil, a good fighting horse, prepositions, inexhaustible love, the way people choose their king. Minor things include dirt, the names of schools of philosophy, mood and not having a mood, the correct time.

Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings (4198 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Alex Murry/Kate Murry, Meg Murry/Calvin O'Keefe
Characters: Kate Murry, Alex Murry, Sandy Murry, Meg Murry | Meg O'Keefe, Calvin O'Keefe, Charles Wallace Murry
Additional Tags: post-A Wrinkle in Time, Reunion Sex, Married Couple, Feminist Themes, Loneliness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Summary:

It had given her such a turn, the night before, when Charles Wallace's unusual guest had talked of the tesseract. Would all the wonders of the universe turn out to be horrors? Nevertheless, she turned from her abandoned hopeless writing back to the electron microscope, deliberately shaking off her brooding reverie to watch the unfolding patterns of the little lives of the sub-microscopic world a while longer.

Hallo, fellow yuletider! Thank you for writing me a story!

I like emotionally intense reading experiences, family stories, passion, complexity, stories about good problem-solving and communication skills that nevertheless don't save you from life's complications, and stories about people trying. I'll give fandom-specific wants/dnws beneath; I don't have broad squicks to speak of, but some canons work for me in different ways than other ones do. I tend to gravitate to happy-ending stories, but I also enjoy fiction that is elegant, ironic, gothicized, or kinky in its cruelty.

specific fandom/request deets:

( Hamilton, Hamilton/Washington )
( Earthsea, a story about Tenar's life as a young woman on Gont )
( Sleepy Hollow, Ichabbie competence shipping )
( Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Cimorene/Mendanbar reunionating )
( Madeleine L'Engle - Kairos Series, Meg and Calvin when their family was young )

It got so cold these last few days that I ended up turning back to Susan Cooper to cope with it! And oh dear me, I do love her books. The Dark is Rising books are sweet as honey, and I get all heart-clenchy over them. They're the sort of books that have me gasping out characters' names in peak narrative moments, just to somehow give voice to the abundance of love I end up feeling for them.

Question: did anyone else ever read Cooper's book Seaward? It was one of my best beloveds as a kid, and I haven't seen nor touched in for years, now - it tends to be hard to find. I remember that it was one of those books that were a big deal for me in early adolescence: the ones that were still pretty much children's lit, not YA - classic high fantasy, not hip or modern or anything like that - but that had sex bits in them. And not porn or anything, but just sort of an awareness of the body as a subject. Seaward and Many Waters and Tehanu, and Freckles. Before Song of the Lioness and Mists of Avalon. I loved those books so very very much.

On Fandom's Topic of the Moment:

There's a tension inherent in discourses of queerness and gayness, because gayness is a politicized thing. You need to have a *community* before you can have the power to make things better, to fight for your right to party and so on. You have to have an "us".

But gender and sex are terribly fluid things, and I think that the more we poke at them the more we find we don't have the slightest idea what we've talking about. Sex and gender intersect. What do you call butch!girls who like femmey boys? Or girls like me, who are into just about everything except really butch guys? Someone gets left outside the tent.

But if everyone's queer then no one is, and political action stalls. It's a tension. Both are right, and we just have to negotiate as best we can. I have no thoughts on Bandom, as I don't like any of the music. Cool name smush, though.


And in Mourning:

Madeleine L'Engle passed today. I loved her books so much as a little girl - they gave me a girl hero who was insecure and lovable and capable and messed up and who got the guy, not because he tolerated her flakiness but because he saw the real her, the one who grew up into a strong, beautiful woman. Meg Murray gave me hope. I wish we could tell more stories about girls like her, with both real strengths and real vulnerabilities. Also, who aren't totally gorgeous underneath their glasses and bad hair.

Title: Sometimes
Rating: G
Summary: Sometimes Meg O'Keefe feels that the world is reproaching her.
( Read more... )