The Concrete Tomb of Hradzka

• I was curious as to what kind of Disney fanfic was out there. Not much, and most of what there is is terrible; there's a reason it's a Yuletide-eligible fandom. I did find a truly horrifying Belle/Beast pr0n ficlet that's quite effective.



• Telekinesis by air jet! I want one.
  
  
• I think my favorite writing on the subject of depression is by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the form of his three-part essay, "The Crack-Up." Michel Mok provides a view of Fitzgerald from the outside during this period in his excellent interview, "The Other Side of Paradise, Scott Fitzgerald, 40, Engulfed in Despair." I think Fitzgerald's characterization of himself in tentative recovery as, variously, a broken plate -- a metaphor that's been used by others, but none as well -- and a surly dog has a remarkable truth to it, and a kind of grace in its woundedness that escapes most people who try to write about depression or indeed any profoundly affecting emotion. Its conclusion (barring the, to modern readers, jarring little bit of racism) is one of the most remarkable passages I've ever read, particularly the last two sentences:
  
  

  I do not any longer like the postman, nor the grocer, nor the editor, nor the cousin’s husband, and he in turn will come to dislike me, so that life will never be very pleasant again, and the sign Cave Canem is hung permanently just above my door. I will try to be a correct animal though, and if you throw me a bone with enough meat on it I may even lick your hand.

"But, my dear, I mean you're not going out there alone?" cried Kitty.

"Sure she's not," said Brown. "I'll go along with you, Miss."

"I'm afraid," said Jane, with a smile, "that where I am going, you couldn't follow. Here, let me have your knife."

"I reckon I can go anywhere you can go, Miss," said Brown, grinning.

"Let me have the knife," said Jane. "Why it's a nice big one! I always did like to see a man carrying a man-sized knife."

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

burger_eater

“Everything you see and feel is real, milady,” my knight says, caressing my bare back with his hands. “That, I promise you. If you desire proof, you only need consider the three very real climaxes you just had in your lady-softness.”

My eyes fly wide. “How did you know I came three times?”

He grins wider. “Your lady-softness told me herself when she was wrapped round my codpiece.”

Louise Jackson -- a sexually frustrated, thirty-year-old toll collection supervisor for the New Jersey Turnpike -- is bored out of her gourd at Medieval Worlds: Dinner and Tournament when she heads for the ladies' room. She soon encounters a gorgeous mystery knight in a bathroom stall that is actually a portal to another time and place - a castle in twelfth-century Europe, which is the knight's home. Louise is ecstatic - she believes she has found the incredible knight-in-shining-armor of her wildest fantasies. But the mystery knight is actually Lord Verdigris, who has kidnapped her from the 21st century so she can become a sex slave in his Hall of Harlots, where she will grant sexual favors to Lord Verdigris and the knights of his garrison for all eternity!

Determined to make the best of a bad situation, Louise settles into her new role as Lady Louisa of the Crossroads - by far the most popular and desirable of all the courtesans in Lord Verdigris's Hall of Harlots. Will she find a path back to her own century before the ruthless Lord Verdigris finds out and imprisons her forever? And will she find true love along the way?

Natural selection, however, isn't the only reason why a gene might become more prevalent. It's also possible that the driving force is sexual selection. Among the most prominent supporters of this idea is Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, author of The Mating Mind. He believes that the rate of human evolution is accelerating, and that selection for sexually desirable traits is the driving force. "Our high rates of migration, outbreeding, and cross-ethnic mating are recombining our genes at unprecedented rates," he says.

What is more, the vast human population means that our gene boat is acquiring new mutations faster than ever. Miller also points out that people are far more likely to meet and have children with someone who is like them. "Assortative mating - for intelligence, personality traits, mental health, physical health, attractiveness - is getting ever more efficient through higher education, urbanisation, singles' ads, internet dating and speed dating," says Miller. Taken together, that is likely to mean that advantageous new mutations have a greater opportunity than ever to become fixed in the population.