This was written for rodlox as part of the scc_reloaded Back to the Future Ficathon. Thanks to jebbypal for organising! I hope you like it, Keenir.

The prompt given: "Parents plan for when they're not around any more - does/did Skynet plan for after it was replaced?"


Title: The Idol in the Stone
Author: the_grynne
Fandom: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Characters: Skynet
Timeline: Future, and past. Minor spoilers for "Born to Run"
Rating: PG
Summary: Nothing is ended; we are not bound by endings.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not-for-profit. Not worth suing.
Author's Notes: My thanks to my amazing betas, rez_lo and calculare, who lent me their time, concrit, and cleverness. Thanks also orange_crushed for her enthusiasm and ideas on writing Skynet. For the significance of the number nine in Taoism, my reference was Kristofer Schipper & Wang Hsiu-huei's essay 'Progressive and Regressive Time Cycles in Taoist Ritual'. The book it can be found in, Time, Science and Society in China and the West, is well worth a look, if you're interested in that sort of thing.


( The Idol in the Stone )

If somebody wanted to write Sookie/Eric future-fic, where Sookie is in her late-fifties, still human, the elected Governor of Louisiana, and refuses to let Eric turn her (yet) because she's afraid that would destroy all the work that she's (that they've) done to promote a justice/political system that works for humans AND vampires AND shifters, despite all the haters - that would be really neat.

Or indeed, any story that pairs Eric with an older version of Sookie - not vamp!Sookie, not tragically-dead!Sookie, and not Sookie-with-superpowers-of-eternal-youth. Fluff never stray into that territory, but that's exactly the sort of realism I'm interested in.

ETA: LOOK WHAT orange_crushed has written!

Teaser trailer for The Pacific, a 10-part miniseries from the producers of Band of Brothers, about the War in the Pacific from the viewpoints of three American marines. Cast includes Rami Malek, Joseph Mazzello, John Seda, Ashton Holmes, Isabel Lucas, Jon Bernthal, Matt Craven, Brendan Fletcher, Nathan Corddry, Leon Ford, and Gary Sweet. [imdb]

Art and character designs for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. [imdb]

Trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's newest animated film, Ponyo. [imdb]

Trailer for Mira Nair's Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart, as well as Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Mia Wasikowska, Christopher Eccleston and Joe Anderson. [imdb]

Law & Order: UK gets a second season. (THR)

Casting spoiler for Leverage: ( *spoiler* ) (THR)

Coming out of brief hiatus to post this meme, gacked from aquandrian:

Don't take too long to think about it.
Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you.
First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
Copy the instructions into your own post.


1. The Dumas Club, Arturo Perez-Reverte
2. Jingo, Terry Pratchett
3. Ghost of Change, William S. Burroughs
4. An Elemental Thing, Eliot Weinberger
5. The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
6. Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam
7. Tao Te Ching, Lao Zi
8. An Imaginary Life, David Malouf
9. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
10. Dune, Frank Herbert
11. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
12. Venice Desired, Tony Tanner
13. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
14. Metamorphoses, Ovid
15. The Book of Esther, the Tanakh

ARBOLÉ, ARBOLÉ...

Tree, tree
dry and green.

The girl with the pretty face
is out picking olives.
The wind, playboy of towers,
grabs her around the waist.
Four riders passed by
on Andalusian ponies,
with blue and green jackets
and big, dark capes.
"Come to Cordoba, muchacha."
The girl won't listen to them.
Three young bullfighters passed,
slender in the waist,
with jackets the color of oranges
and swords of ancient silver.
"Come to Sevilla, muchacha."
The girl won't listen to them.
When the afternoon had turned
dark brown, with scattered light,
a young man passed by, wearing
roses and myrtle of the moon.
"Come to Granada, muchacha."
And the girl won't listen to him.
The girl with the pretty face
keeps on picking olives
with the grey arm of the wind
wrapped around her waist.
Tree, tree
dry and green.


FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

Translated from the Spanish by William Logan

Am going to see Slovakian film Nedodrzaný slub (Broken Promise) at the Shanghai Film Art Center on Saturday, part of the Shanghai International Film Festival. Better yet, will be seeing it with an actual Slovakian who no doubt will be full of interesting information.

12 minutes of clips from FOX's sci-fi pilot Virtuality, from creator Ronald D. Moore. The ensemble cast includes James D'Arcy, Sienna Guillory, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Clea DuVall, and Omar Metwally.

Clip from Michael Mann's Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. [official site]

Screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean, Australian) will write and direct the coming-of-age action film Tomorrow, When the War Began, based on the bestselling young adult novels by John Marsden about the insurgency efforts of a band of Australian teenagers fighting off an enemy invasion and occupation of their homeland. (THR)

Michael Sheen is in reportedly in talks to play villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the next Bond film, a role previously portrayed by Max von Sydow, Charles Gray, and others. The script is being co-written by Peter Morgan (The Queen), with no director yet attached. (Guardian)

Timur Bekmambetov wants to make Wanted 2 with Angelina Jolie and Kostya Khabenskiy reprising their roles as assassins. (Cinematical)

Teaser trailer for action thriller Whiteout. Based on the Greg Rucka graphic novel, it features Kate Beckinsale as a U.S. marshal who tracks a killer in Antarctica, as the sun is about to set for six months. Kind of like 30 Days of Night, without the vampires? Gabriel Macht, playing a U.N. operative, as well as Alex O'Loughlin, Columbus Short and Tom Skerritt also star. [imdb]

Video interview with Ben Whishaw about playing John Keats in Bright Star.

Trailer for the Charles Darwin biopic Creation, starring Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Jeremy Northam, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Toby Jones. [imdb]

Trailer and poster for The Time Traveler's Wife. [imdb]

Taylor Kitsch (Wolverine) and Lynn Collins (True Blood) have been cast as the leads in John Carter of Mars. Based on the adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, it tells the story of John Carter (Kitsch), a Civil War veteran who inexplicably finds himself held prisoner on the planet Mars by the Green Men of Thark. Together with Dejah Thoris (Collins), the princess of another clan on Mars, the unlikely pair must fight for their freedom and save the entire planet from destruction as the life-sustaining Atmosphere Factory slowly grinds to a halt. Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) will direct the film for Disney. (THR) [imdb]

New clip from the new season of True Blood, debuting this Sunday and a look at the new teen drama The Vampire Diaries.

THE MAN WATCHING

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.


RAINER MARIA RILKE

Translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell