#stephen stickler

[ruinedholograms]

Björk | Radiohead (1998)

[eroticlamb]

Jeff Buckley photographed in Los Angeles, July 30, 1994 ♡ Photographed by Stephen Stickler

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Image by Stephen Stickler

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Jeff Buckley photographed by Stephen Stickler, 1994

[youjustdontunderstandmymusic]

jeff buckley photographed by stephen stickler (1994)

[fionaapplerocks]

Fiona Apple // photo: Stephen Stickler, 1996

[dreamsister81]

📷 Stephen Stickler

[deelaundry]

May Prompts #2 - Box

Another update to The Private Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson, posted on AO3 as Chapter 24 in the fic.

WARNING for implied homophobia, and intense swearing in response.

Prompt 2: Box

Voicemail from Bill. Fucking Christ, I’ll box his ears next time I see him. Fucking cunt, fuck him and his bigoted fiancee!

John, it’s Bill. Super quick, I talked to Deborah, told her about you and Sherlock, and she was furious with me, that I hadn’t told her that you and him were, yeah, together. She said to tell you to throw the invitation right in the rubbish bin. Oh shit, gotta go, talk to you later.

...

In the category of things not being what they seem:

John had been stomping through the flat for more than a day, ever since that voicemail from Bill Murray. He hadn’t played it for Sherlock, naturally – who needs that in their ears? – but had let Sherlock know that Bill was right off their Christmas list. If they’d had one, which they didn’t, and it had taken a while to convey to Sherlock why anyone would have a Christmas list, and then that got the two of them off onto the subject of the varying levels of “friends” and why people didn’t say “acquaintances” and then how “network” was an appropriate term for people you knew as a noun but appalling as a verb that meant accumulating more people to know, and then Mrs. H popped in holding the post.

“Lovely thick ivory envelope for you; bet it’s a wedding invitation.”

Sherlock took the envelope and sliced it with the letter opener (actually a dagger, “but considerably dulled, John; repeated contact with bone does that”).

“It’s nice when couples take that step,” Mrs. H continued as she headed into the kitchen. “It’s all right, you know, when you’re just living together. I don’t mind, as the two of you well know.”

She re-entered the lounge, cup of steeping tea in hand. “But there’s just something about that solemnisation. Who is it, dear?”

Sherlock recited, somehow managing to convey the formatting through verbal tone alone:

Mr and Mrs Stephen R. Faustus request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Helen Deborah to Mr. Wilberforce Murray

“Bill? What’s that ffff” – he held the letter, teeth against lips, as his brain scrambled to come up with a less sweary word to use around Mrs. Hudson, ah, yes – “fellow doing sending me another invite?”

“It’s not just you,” Mrs. Hudson pointed out, holding up the smaller envelope that’d been in the larger one. “Dr. John Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock turned the invitation over and read, “Looking forward to meeting Sherlock and having the both of you there as we celebrate. Hugs.” He over-articulated that word, his voice dripping with his customary disdain for sentiment, especially informal sentiment, but he was able to finish reading: “Deborah.”

“But.” John was thoroughly perplexed. “But Bill said Deborah said to bin the invite.”

“How odd,” Mrs. Hudson commented, “to tell you to throw out something already in the post to you.”

“It wasn’t in the post,” replied Sherlock, ever the stickler for detail. “This is the second invitation John’s received for the same event; John was instructed to bin the first one.”

John told Mrs. Hudson the rest of the story, how Bill had given him the invite in person and then left the voicemail. He could feel his head filling up with steam as he relayed Deborah’s anger at them being a couple.

“Well, no, dear,” Mrs. H replied. “She wasn’t angry at you being a couple; she was angry at Bill not telling her you were a couple.” Seeing John’s scepticism, she shook her head. “Who was the first invitation addressed to?”

“Me.”

“And?”

“And, um, Guest.”

Mrs. Hudson nodded again. “There you go, love.”

She seemed to think everything was now clear.

It wasn’t.

After a light sigh, Mrs. H went on. “The etiquette for addressing invitations is that writing ‘and guest’ is only for single people; with a couple, both people should be named. She wasn’t upset about you being together; she was upset that she’d mistakenly implied that you weren’t together.”

A mystery solved by Mrs. H! Score one for her, and one for me and Sherlock who’ll be going to Bill and Deborah’s wedding.

(And thank god I’d decided to give Bill the silent treatment after the voicemail instead of shouting at him. How awkward would that have been? Bill’s seen the ol’ Watson temper but that doesn’t mean he would’ve liked it aimed at him.)

[gargusscp]

Decalog 1: Enigma - "Fallen Angel" by Andy Lane

Cracking through the utter avalanche of Doctor Who books in my backlog and rambling about them on tumblr because this site deserves someone who cares to post about the short story anthologies.

The first of Virgin's anthologies uses a pretty standard set-up for its wrap-around segments, entitled "Playback": Seven has lost his memories, stumbled into a private eye's office in the mid-1940s, and together they seek out the help of a psychometrist, whose visions sparked by assorted objects in the Doctor's coat serve as glimpses into interrelated stories from his past. Obviously I can't judge the thing until through with the book, but Stephen James Walker seems to have an alright imitation of period detective novel descriptive language, and it's neat seeing a guileless Seven when one knows a Virgin-era story means there's some overly-convoluted plan in the wings once his memories return.

As to "Fallen Angel" itself, we kick off with as close a crossover as Lane and Virgin can publish without a lawsuit. The narration most commonly sticks to the thoughts and experiences of one Lucas Seyton, a gentleman thief whose shady family history compels him to give back by robbing the world's rich criminality their ill-gotten gains, for both justice and the fun of it. He aliases under the story's title, leaves a calling card with a little stick figure doodle of himself, brushes elbows with working-class friends who enable his adventures, and lives life to the fullest with no apology for his criminality or compunctions as to its righteousness. His voice is also described in tones evoking Roger Moore. In other words, he's a thinly-veiled analog for Leslie Charteris' popular hero Simon Templar, alias The Saint, and the story is basically Lane bumping him against a fellow 60s British telly alumni so they can exchange banter, save each other's bacon, and generally compliment how brilliant they find the other despite differences in philosophy.

S'not a bad thing by any shot. Seyton's an amiably-written perspective character whose blase attitude and observations about the Doctor's eccentricities are amusing, especially opposite so disheveled an incarnation as Two, and Lane uses the homage as excuse for all the classic pulp adventure staples. Rough alleyway encounters, morning after recuperation and pleasantries, high-flying biplane dogfights, desperate manor-bound shoot-outs, the works. Highly amusing to imagine Troughton bumbling and panicking through the best realizations a mid-60s ITV budget could manage, or exchanging quotations from Winnie the Pooh opposite Moore.

The actual plot of the thing is deliberately incomplete, as you're supposed to piece things together through the whole anthology, though I've a complaint all the same. The Doctor accidentally lands the TARDIS in a manor house that's secretly a Time Lord prison for warmongering aliens whose punishment after defeat was confinement in a convincingly faked forever war, and barely escapes the automated security on his lonesome. All the business with Seyton goes down, the Doctor revealing little details all the while, they bust into the manor, and find the prisoners dead, having killed each other over some petty dispute long ago, their robotic guards still viciously attacking any intruders because the Doctor forgot to program their deactivation if their charges died. It's always irksome to me when Wilderness Era stories decide the increased focus on Seven's machiavellian tendencies means all prior incarnations were equally duplicitous and scheming, cause it never fits how One was written or played to imply he was some brilliant Time Lord mastermind with fingers in all their devious little projects. I know we're stuck with it because "Remembrance of the Daleks" is a classic and the Hand of Omega plot point is super memorable, but I'm a stickler for Doctors feeling right, and this bit ain't it.

(Also it's a Jamie and Zoe-era story in which they barely feature, so boo on that too.)

Beyond a bother introduced by the frame story's needs, I'm happy with this self-indulgent fannish runaround. Nice tribute to the then-recently deceased Charteris. I'd say it's pretty solidly...

GOOD

[stellaroasis]

Photo by Stephen Stickler

[alucardstears]

Chris Cornell photographed by Stephen Stickler, 1999

[bcbdrums]

How old is Shego?

I’ve heard different things through the years, the Bible says she was supposed to be on her early twenties, in an interview way back in the day it was said she was in her middle/late twenties, Stephen silver says he thinks she is in her 30s and Bob Schooley said in a recent AMA that she was in her late twenties.

The fact she has a fully credential teaching degree points out to her being at least in her Mid twenties, but is the world of Kp where a genius kid graduated college (Wade). So, how old do you think she truly is?

there was a recent post on this topic by @coolcollectorofobservations that was pretty good.

and I've linked to my own post about this many times and they do as well, so I won't link it again.

what I will say however, what I just noticed from your ask...is we all tend to pick and choose what sources we decide to believe on various topics. and this is common in all of fandom, anywhere, not just here in KP land. if we like something we see somewhere, like the series bible, we'll decide to accept it. if we don't like it, we reject it. I used to be an utter stickler for...if it's onscreen, it's canon, and you can't reject it. of course, I break my own rule by refusing to watch Star Trek Generations. (if I don't see Kirk die, he didn't die! I refuse!)

but, some parameters here... if it's onscreen...it's canon. that's the basis I'm going to work from. how fans interpret what's onscreen is up to them. for the sake of this post, I'm going to ignore any of my own...so-and-so said such-and-such in this obscure convention interview, opinions. those aren't canon. plus, we've gotten so many mixed reports from the creators themselves who honestly don't seem to care. on the surface, they seem to have bigger passions than the type of deep fandom experience that people who are into Star Wars for example get into, and we get the same type of passion back from Dave Filoni and others.

all that said.... the only examples we get onscreen?

"Luckily I have my degree in child development to fall back on." Ron: "Then the teaching thing?" "Oh, fully credentialed."

also Ron's claim in Clean Slate that she's a "lot older" and Shego's protesting she likes the sun.

the only real evidence we can go on is that credential and college degree. and we have to make some assumptions here. we have to assume this is the USA (easy). we have to assume she progressed through primary/secondary school at a typical pace (easy enough). we have to assume Shego completed her bachelor's degree in four years (also pretty easy - if she was busy with hero work then she could have done her degree in longer than four years, but that goes more toward headcanon assumptions).

to get a teaching credential (more commonly called a certificate nowadays, but called a credential when KP was airing) you must complete at least one year of student teaching/relevant graduate-level classes. also, to keep your credential you have to complete a certain number of years of teaching, being professionally evaluated, and then depending on the school district/state you're in...then it's considered cleared and you don't have to renew for a number of years. but you do have to be actively teaching to keep your credential valid after said period of years expires. this fact lends us to a Shego somewhere in her twenties.

it's starting to get messy. some places allow just anybody to be a substitute. some places require a college degree. some places require a degree and a teaching certificate, just to be a sub. if we look at what was common during the time period KP aired and the decade-ish prior to that, the likely times she would have been getting that credential... we are looking at at least two years after her student teaching year that she was actively in school teaching. at least two years.

okayyy I'm linking it again, read this post for more detail about the credential process, etc.

we also have to remember...to be a sub, she'd have to be fingerprinted. which won't work for a criminal. so, based SOLELY on the canon and agreeable real-world facts, and not headcanon extrapolation or extra-canon comments and rhetoric, we're left with a couple of options.

either she is in fact credentialed, or she's lying. if she IS credentialed, to have completed all the requirements to get one, the absolute bare minimum age she could be in season one is 25. if she somehow finagled her way into that sub position through a bunch of very quick deceit, forgeries, fake fingerprints...that would be impressive. I favor her statement that she is credentialed, but folks are free to headcanon what they wish. I also favor a headcanon that it took her longer to get through school because she was busy with hero-work.

so the long and short of it.... assuming she is telling the truth, which she likely would be under the effects of the reverse polarizer... assuming a typical timeline for her education... bare minimum season 1 age of 25, if we are shooting for youngest possible age. oldest possible can't possibly be determined. personally i think she's late twenties, but that's including headcanon ideas.

hope this helps, and thanks for the ask!

[pepperbag76]

“ Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1989. Photo by Stephen Stickler. “

Source: @crockpics

[bechnokid]

4, 5, and 15 for the artist asks!

[Weirdly Specific Artist Ask Game]

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

DOCTOR STEPHEN MOTHEREFFING STRANGE. I love his outfits, and since I'm such a stickler for details, I always have to make sure I get every detail right, which means he's often very hard for me to draw! I still love him, tho lol

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

I'd say about 75% of my art is posted online!

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

I usually draw in my office during my breaks (in my sketchbook), and my desktop when I'm at home.

[sublimeobservationarcade]

Qantas Upgrade Palm Greasing Of Politicians

The recent political kerfuffle over politicians getting free upgrades on Qantas flights misses the point somewhat, I think. It is the corrupt and odious practices of Qantas management which should be called out rather than merely berating the politicians, in my view. Qantas upgrade palm greasing of politicians. Alan Joyce was one of, if not, the most ruthless CEOs in Australian corporate history. This chief executive of our defacto national carrier for more than a decade, instigated repeated purges of the Qantas workforce. These were undertaken whilst simultaneously currying favour with the political movers and shakers by making them and their families feel special in the air and within the infamous Qantas Chairman’s lounge. Old fashioned graft and palm greasing really. “Qantas employees have been expressly warned over potential “bribery” risks and reputational damage when offering “gifts” to Australian politicians worth more than $200 in a new all-staff training module. News.com.au has confirmed that the training was rolled out by the airline on Monday and it urges employees to run any “gifts” to public officials and politicians past Qantas’ legal department.” (Samantha Maiden, 5 November 2024)

Joyce & Qantas Graft Merchants For Political Power

It is the elite looking after their own while the workers cop it in the neck. The mass sackings of Qantas workers happened repeatedly over the 15 years the diminutive Irishman stood tall in Australian aviation. We now know why little was ever said by politicians, even on the Labor side, as they were too busy taking backhanders  in the form of pampered treatment aboard the Qantas juggernaut. Human beings are simple social animals at heart and few are immune from deferential behaviour, especially in the rarified atmosphere way up there and at the airport.

Aussie Politicians Trade Their Integrity For Qantas Upgrades

Yes, the politicians should have resisted it if they were sticklers for integrity but few are in reality. I would like to see corporations prosecuted for this kind of thing – graft and bribery. The media is focusing on the tit for tat political spats, as they always do – with the ABC being the worst offender. It is the private sector initiating this kind of thing and seemingly getting away with it scot-free. A ‘scot’ was an arcane term for a tax. This is a good segway to the fact that some 42% of corporations doing business in Australia paid no corporate tax at all in the most recent financial year. This is a growing number every year of tax avoiders. What is the government doing about this since the infamous PwC betrayal under the LNP Coalition federal governments of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison? We, the people, have heard little about this since it broke news several years ago.

Neoliberal champions who led us where we find ourselves - ripped off by our own economy! National Corruption Watchdog Rolling Over & Playing Dead The NACC or the SNACC, as some pundits call it because it is so secret that nobody ever hears about it, has been a total failure and embarrassment. It reaffirms the mutual complicities of both main political parties in avoiding accountability at the federal level. We have just seen the conflict of interest at play between the head of the NACC and senior bureaucrat Kathryn Campbell, who has been under investigation for her major role in the Robodebt illegal scandal. Both are active old fellows of Sydney University involved in shared pursuits pertaining to that organisation. “The decision by the National Anti-Corruption Commission not to investigate the six public servants over the Robodebt scandal appears to have been “infected by the bias of Commissioner Justice Paul Brereton and, if so, should now be disregarded”, says Stephen Charles AO KC, a former judge at the Victorian Court of Appeal and a former board member of the Centre of Public Integrity.” (https://michaelwest.com.au/why-did-nacc-decline-to-pursue-the-robodebt-scandal-conflicts-of-interests-revealed/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb

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[fionaapplerocks]

Fiona Apple in Central Park, photo: Stephen Stickler