rose_griffes

TV: I rewatched "33", the first episode after the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. Sure, the miniseries is good: a solid introduction to the premise for the whole show. But "33" is stellar--one of the best episodes of any sci-fi television, period.

When did I last (re)watch any of the show? The last time I even mentioned it was in 2013; in 2012 I briefly mentioned rewatching something from seaon four. So I'm willing to bet that it's been at least nine years since I last watched anything from season one--maybe longer.

For those newer around here: Battlestar Galactica was THE show. The one that led me to finding online fandom, and fanfiction, and livejournal--and eventually, to me participating in all of those things.

I didn't watch from the beginning. Remember back when we had things like cable TV or satellite dishes? And we watched things live, with all of those commercials. Yeah... funny how life changes. I was channel-surfing--remember channel-surfing?!--and stumbled across a season one episode on rerun (remember reruns?!).

There was Katee Sackhoff playing Kara Thrace (Starbuck), with her short hair and pilot uniform, in a full-on fight for survival with a blonde robot cylon, and then she finds out that her BFF Karl has been having sex with another robot cylon--a copy of someone Kara thought of as another friend--and Starbuck lets out this anguished scream, still bleeding from the fight, complete with a blood-formed mustache, and I WAS HOOKED. Went and bought the miniseries and season one on DVD. (Remember DVDs?!)

I caught up to the show's schedule by season three and was engaged in online fandom by episode... eight? nine? Something like that. October or November 2006 was the "read ALL of the fanfiction" time, and I made my own livejournal by December and started writing my own fanfic at the same time.

So. I might be rewatching BSG. Certainly "33" was a positive trip down memory lane, and I can't say that for plenty of other shows that I've tried to rewatch later.

Books! The Girl with All the Gifts was an interesting and well-written book--and probably NOT the thing to be reading in the middle of a world-wide pandemic. Any post-apocalyptic story is going to be difficult, and this one focused on children, and... anyway. Yeah. Also, zombies are still not my thing. (I say that. And yet I've read all of Mira Grant's Parasitology series, and her Newsflesh series as well.)

Meagan Spooner's Hunted was lovely; a Beauty and the Beast retelling that really went for the fairy-tale elements. (I think that's part of why I struggled with Kemmerer's adaptation of the tale: a modern-day setting makes the whole "abduct the future bride" more fraught. Also, Hunted didn't really have an abduction scene; it was--well. Spoiler territory, but I wasn't bothered by it in the way that Kemmerer's A Curse So Dark and Lonely bothered me.)

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine: dystopian steampunk librarian-run dictatorship. If that sounds like your thing, yay! I struggled with this book; to be honest, the reason I finished is directly related to insomnia. I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to go to the trouble of finding something else to read in the middle of the night.

The worldbuilding was solid enough; I found the premise itself not very plausible, but Caine fills in the blanks just fine. Her prose needs polishing; she falls back too often on telling rather than showing.

Ilona Andrews has a book series called The Inkeeper Chronicles; the first three books were sold together at a greatly discounted price, and they were fun! The equivalent of a summer blockbuster: not deep, but a cheesy good time. Imagine if, instead of Hogwarts, there was a magical inn. And instead of students, there were innkeeper who can draw on the magic of their homes, and their clients are often intergalactic travelers. So: thumbs up for the diversion factor, and the "not going to make my brain overthink things in the middle of a pandemic" factor.

(I tried another book series by Andrews once before, but didn't enjoy it enough to read past the first novel. I think the silliness factor of these books made a difference; the other book took itself more seriously.)

Didn't finish: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. Lovely prose, a compelling cast of characters, a fairy-tale Russia setting... and a fanatical priest character that was introduced later. Killed my interest right there; I'm just not in the mood for religious fanaticism in my fiction. I'll have to check if Arden has other books to try, though.

I'm reposting some tiny fic from Tumblr, written from requests. First up, something from BSG. I know, I was shocked at writing it as well. The prompt asked for Kara and Jean, which is like dangling catnip in front of a cat. ( Kara Thrace and Jean Barolay, bonding )

Person of Interest, Carter POV about Fusco and the other 'boys' ( sideways from the prompt, but oh well )

Another for PoI, Zoe Morgan interacting with Carter. ( this is NOT a bonding moment )

As for other stuff written lately, I posted chapter eight of "Nowhere Left to Run" just over a week ago. Currently about halfway through with chapter nine, and I need to get that finished this week. (I keep getting more ideas for what to do in chapter ten, which is great... but I sorta need to get nine done? Like, soonish? Okay, muse?)

Had a (brief) discussion on another LJ about my religion and politics, so I'll link to this recent article: A Female Episcopal Priest Visits a Mormon Temple. I thought it was an interesting (although brief) perspective on my religion from an outside perspective.

fic for Person of Interest: I'm still planning Carter/Reese post-season one plotty fic. I've managed to come up with some workable ideas about, uh, stuff (plot-related stuff! motivation and character stuff!), so now I'm worried that the finale is going to throw all of my plans into chaos with some sort of difficult-to-work-around cliffhanger.

I never posted a link on LJ (though I did on Tumblr) for a Zoe Morgan/John Reese fic that wasn't written by me (I know!): A kiss can be even deadlier, if you mean it. PG, no real spoilers. It's funny and there's the tango.

fic for Battlestar Galactica: I'll post the author reveals tomorrow afternoon for the BSG remix. In the meantime, in addition to the remix written for me, y'all should read Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix). It's a remix of Nicole's Give You All. (My summary for Nicole's story: it's like Joss Whedon decided to write Kara/Lee fanfic. Everything you wanted in the worst possible way.) The remix still has the same dark premise--Lee has been taken captive on New Caprica by a Six--but now we see not only the Six's POV, but also Dee's. And it's fascinating and heartbreaking and a wee bit hopeful at the end. It's also long--about 30,000 words--but totally worth it.

livejournal stuff: Ugh, apparently they're redoing the scrapbook feature. And reducing how much memory we get, which isn't really an issue at this point (I'm waaaaaaaaaay below their old and new limits), but uploading pictures is currently not so easy. How am I supposed to have more pictures of pulchritudinous Jim Caviezel in my LJ if I'm having trouble uploading more than one picture at a time?

Yay, fun weekend! I'm behind on nearly everything now, but I enjoyed it. Oh, and I finally saw The Hunger Games, which was very well done.

It's a bad idea to take a look at Tumblr when you're behind on TV shows. Alas, I'm not going to catch up today, since, uh... I haven't done my taxes yet. So: five more minutes and then time to figure out how small my refund will be this year. (Unless I finish those tax forms a lot faster than I think I will, the last Ultraviolet recap won't be posted until tomorrow.)

Hey, Battlestar Galactica fans, we've started posting remix stories at BSG remix, so go read and comment.

Eh, as long as I'm here I'll repost something I put on Tumblr the other day. ( Person of Interest, spoiler for 1.08 'Foe' and one small casting spoiler for 1.20 )

Lalalala, Spring Break! That's why I'm commenting everywhere! And posting excessive stuff!

Just rewatched Battlestar Galactica 4.15 "No Exit." One of the best season four episodes. ( spoilers )

Trying to get back in to BSG mindset so I can write my remix fic. What I really want to write instead: shippy Carter/Reese not-fix-it fic. Because writing the gen version apparently wasn't enough. I... honestly, I think I'm willing to (deliberately) include a few plot-holes in order to make this version work. *facepalm*

Instead of writing either of those things, I think I'll go scrub wallpaper glue off that wall so I can paint it. Fun times!

Christmas! It's really fun to think of things to post for my LJ Christmas list, and even more fun (and unexpected!) when someone makes me a gift from it. rirenec took my prompt for more Sam/Jean fic and wrote What Was Needed. Probably doesn't fit canon from BSG's "The Plan" but it's a plausible scenario for what could have happened on Caprica after the destruction.

Yuletide recs! The story written for me is from Bend It Like Beckham, and it's Jess and Jules friendship while away at school in the US. Just the kind of story I had in mind when I made the request: You and I.

Since I started by reccing female character centered fics, I think I'll use that for the theme of these other recs today: a female character must be prominent in the story.
( Yuletide story recs (more to come??) )

It feels like suddenly everybody on my reading list has posted wish lists.

Baaa-baaaaa-baah. ( my hastily created wish list )

Sam fic is posted! Here: Closer to the Sun. Warnings and disclaimers at the link.

I keep eating the leftover Halloween candy. Except the Milk Duds. At some point I'll either get desperate and eat them, or find a way to dispose of them. Like giving them to students I don't like.
Kidding. I like all of my students! Equally! And am always scrupulously fair! And... yeah. Heh.

So we had twelve new written for the Kara/Sam fic exchange. You can guess who wrote what here. My guesses... it's funny, but I had a harder time trying to assign authors to fics when I knew the author's work fairly well. Maybe because I'm over-analyzing, whereas with the writers I don't know as well, I just went with my first instinct. We'll see how well that strategy worked.

I'll screen comments on this post if you want to guess mine. You'll win a comment fic if you want one! (Possibly I should ban Deborah from guessing, since I already owe her two ficlets for correctly guessing other stuff I wrote.)
You're not banned from guessing, Deborah. *grins*

Speaking of Deborah and comment-fics, I wrote her a Halloween trick treat: Ben Conoy, gumshoe, in which I embraced as many ridiculous Noir Detective clichés as I could fit into less than six hundred words. (Alas, there's at least one misspelled word, which is why I don't often put "comment" fics in the comments anymore. 'Cause then I can't fix them.)

IMPORTANT STUFF: If you want to encourage more Battlestar Galactica fanfic and feel like donating to a good cause as well, head over here and make a pledge! I'm trying to decide what I want to put on my wishlist. There's a post for questions, if you're not sure about something after reading through the sign-up post.

At work I used to use Windows Media Player for audio clips, mostly because 1) the program was there and 2) on occasion I would use the variable speed slider bar to slow the audio just a bit.

Unfortunately this summer's round of computer updates seems to have eliminated that option with WMP. I can play clips at normal speed or (too) fast or (too) slow--just three pre-set speeds, no slider bar any more. Aaaaaand the campus tech "expert" doesn't know anything about why it doesn't have that option anymore, and the district "expert" said "Ask your campus tech."

EVER SO HELPFUL, Y'ALL. THANKS SO MUCH. *grumpyface*

So now I need to find a program that I can download to let me choose variable speed settings. And it needs to be free, easy to download, and not mess up the other stuff on the computer that doesn't actually belong to me, yeah. Feel free to throw any suggestions, if this happens to be something you have experience with.

Moving on to Battlestar Galactica stuff: THERE ARE STILL KARA/SAM FICS BEING POSTED AT pyramidofdreams! Eeee!

Yesterday I posted two ficlets (anonymously) at bsg epics: Jean, Caprica resistance, doing recon, and Laura Roslin interviewing a Two (late season three-ish).

(I mostly failed at guessing who had posted other ficlets there. Hmph.)