rose_griffes: (breakable)
Thursday, April 23rd, 2020 06:39 pm
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.
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rose_griffes: (Default)
Thursday, June 6th, 2013 06:38 am
[livejournal.com profile] sabaceanbabe recently made this post with a list of what she viewed as her best works in fic-writing. It was interesting, the trends I spotted in her favorite stories that match trends in mine as well, such as lots of minor characters getting major roles in fic. That and not usually writing fandom's preferred pairing, whatever pair that may be. I was already inclined in that direction, but S'babe's stories were an influence in those earliest months.

So since I started off following her, I decided to make a similar post with stories I've written. some of my favorite fanfics back here )

Seven years of fic-writing summed up there. I still wish I wrote faster; stories that are started and done within two days are emphatically the exception.
rose_griffes: (Default)
Sunday, October 21st, 2012 04:21 pm
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?)
rose_griffes: batman: "Despite all my rage, I'm still just a bat in a cave" (bat in a cave)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012 06:14 pm
BSG remix reveals have been posted. I wrote The Hour Is Getting Late, a tiny fic with Tory's POV during the season three finale. Tory/Sam, PG-13.

While I think the end result is fine, I sort of wish I could ask for a do-over. It was incredibly frustrating trying to write Battlestar Galactica fanfic when my brain was wanting to focus on new show. Apparently I'm a serial fandom monogamist, and BSG is no longer in dominant position. It was only a matter of time; other than one exception, every story I've written for other fandoms was done after the BSG finale in 2009.

That made me start thinking about what factors lead to me writing fic )

*laughs* Apparently number three proves I'm just stubborn and perverse. This isn't news to me.
rose_griffes: John Reese from Person of Interest on CBS (reese (the *other* messed-up Reese))
Sunday, April 29th, 2012 08:30 pm
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?
rose_griffes: Person of Interest on CBS (person of interest)
Monday, April 23rd, 2012 04:00 pm
Person of Interest fic: I posted Finch-Carter-Reese genfic yesterday: Three Sides, written for Liz for the We Get Carter mini-gift exchange.

Also, I added some more fic to my Person of Interest bookmarks. Some of them are only on AO3 and ff.net, so they might be new to you. I've been keeping up with character tags as well as fandom and rating. (Go me.) And wow, delicious.com has been like a desert lately. That "update" last summer lost them a lot of fandom-related users.

Battlestar Galactica fic: Someone remixed my very first story! Words is a remix of Prophecy with some post-finale Settlement-verse details instead of a modern world. I mentioned in my comment that it's like my brain blew up and threw all of the things I'm fascinated by into one story.

There are still stories being posted at BSG remix, by the way. We're almost done, so it's time to start the guessing games of who wrote what.

Hm, I wonder if there are any BSG fics in the multi-fandom remix this year? That went live either yesterday or today, I'm not sure which.

still TV-related, but not fanfic: short reactions to Missing, Fringe, Parks and Recreation--not spoilery, but I'll put it back here anyway )

Finally, Tumblr! *shakes fist* It is the worst place ever when it comes to spoilers. I'm now just tracking Person of Interest, Missing and Martha Jones. And Jean Barolay, because angry red-heads with guns are awesome. (I may have learned something about Doctor Who and the plan for next season. I'm not certain. Oh, and I know Fringe spoilers for the episode I haven't watched yet.)
rose_griffes: (fangirls)
Monday, April 16th, 2012 04:02 pm
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 )
rose_griffes: (Default)
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 08:43 pm
Someday I'll write up my thoughts on how John Reese is not an alpha male (although he is a creepy stalker), but today isn't that day. Instead, here's a ramble about POV characters while I'm watching TV. ramble Doctor Who ramble Person of Interest ramble Battlestar Galactica ramble )

So what about you? Do you tend to stay focused on one or two characters, or are you an ensemble viewer, or something else?
rose_griffes: (Default)
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 11:02 am
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!
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rose_griffes: Wonder-Woman carries Batman (wonderwoman-batman)
Monday, March 5th, 2012 06:22 pm
Since bsg_epics was asking about fandom pairs we like and why, here, have a post I started a few weeks ago and then forgot about. Probably because I was writing Zoe Morgan/John Reese fic again. (Heh.)

TV shows I've loved and the ships I've, er, sailed )
rose_griffes: Martha Jones, storyteller who saved the world (story)
Monday, December 26th, 2011 10:54 pm
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??) )
rose_griffes: Sarah Connor and her knife (no fate)
Monday, December 26th, 2011 09:22 pm
Your main fandom of the year?
I guess I'd say Battlestar Galactica still, although that's dwindling and a couple of fandoms seem poised to knock it out of first place. BSG will probably always be my show, though.

Your favorite film you watched this year?
Wow, I haven't seen many movies this year. At this point I'd say Tangled beats both The King's Speech and The Muppets.

Your favorite book read this year?
I didn't read as much as I'd like, although I did read more than what I posted about on LJ. I just finished The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold and she has lovely, clear prose and good voices for her characters. I didn't love this book as much as Paladin of Souls (both Chalion stories), but I quite liked it.

I also liked Zahrah the Windseeker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Oh, and I read two or three Pratchett novels, and those are always delightful.

Your favorite tv show of the year?
New: Person of Interest. Returning: Parks and Recreation.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
If you like Leslie/Ben on Parks and Recreation (and I do, lots) the fanfic writers are an amazing group; such quality writing in this fandom. I've signed up to do a rec list for het_reccers.

While it wasn't a new discovery, I'm a huge admirer of the writers and actors for Parks and Recreation and what they have done with the character of Leslie Knope. (And Ben. But mostly Leslie.)

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Right now I'm still NOT OVER the idea that a significant, or at least vociferous, part of Person of Interest fandom is so unappreciative of Detective Carter, so I'm not feeling the "Yay, new fandom!" love that I want to feel. *sigh*
really, really not over it

That's probably not the kind of thing that was meant by this category, haha. Oops.

Your fiction boyfriend of the year?
Since we're going with fictional? Ben Wyatt; he's an awesome fictional boyfriend. (If I went with just looks, I'd pick Jim Caviezel. His John Reese would make a horrible boyfriend, though.)

Your fiction girlfriend of the year?
Oh, let's make it a matched set. Leslie Knope. She's awesome.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Hm. Probably the rewatch of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, because I got to appreciate how well the show worked even/especially knowing what was coming. (I'll admit, doing the fill-in recaps was a bit of a pain, but the rewatching itself was fantastic.)

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?
The Hunger Games movie. Doctor Who coming back for season 7.
rose_griffes: image from the Charlie Brown Christmas specials. (christmas)
Sunday, December 4th, 2011 06:02 pm
It feels like suddenly everybody on my reading list has posted wish lists.

Baaa-baaaaa-baah. my hastily created wish list )
rose_griffes: Caprica Six with Athena visiting her in brig (cylons - six and eight)
Monday, November 14th, 2011 08:23 pm
1. Copying half of my LJ reading list by linking to this: TRAILER FOR THE HUNGER GAMES MOVIE. Aaaah, can't wait!

2. BSG stuff: Do you like those cylons? Love those cylons? Come hang out with Humanity's Children.

3. I am an evil author. Mwah hah hah hah! (You'll just have to wait and see. Past 7000 words on Sammy's story right now.)

4. Um... tv? Oh yeah, I didn't miss Revenge last week. Which is to say, there was no new episode and I didn't get annoyed by that. I did wish for new Person of Interest. Batman wins, I guess. Heh.

5. Time to watch last night's Once Upon a Time.
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rose_griffes: Gilderoy Lockhart, Hogwarts' worst teacher. (bad teacher)
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 06:20 pm
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.
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rose_griffes: Sam Anders, Battlestar Galactica (anders)
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 03:15 pm
Why can't I just write some Sam Anders angst with a side of angsty Sam/Jean? Why does my brain have to know things like When and where did the resistance find those military transport trucks? and Who died because of the meds Doc Simon tampered with?

Why must I include gratuitous mythology references in nearly every BSG fic I write? And why isn't my prose like Mia's? She got me to read an epic AU with Roslin/Adama (and bonus Kara/Lee), when I don't even care much about those pairings or that kind of setting. (It starts here: The Book of Pythia, five parts, complete.)

Dear Mia's writing muse, feel free to make a visit to me anytime.

And why am I reading someone else's fic rather than writing my own? Oh yeah, procrastination techniques. Heh.

Speaking of procrastination techniques and angsty cylons, I was thinking about making a Sam Anders picspam, but then I found Twenty-Five Reasons To Love Samuel T. Anders. Yay, Sammy!
rose_griffes: (fangirls)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 08:12 pm
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.)
rose_griffes: Kara Thrace, Sam Anders, Battlestar Galactica finale (wake)
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 05:53 pm
The Kara/Sam fic exchange has started posting, and the story written for me was one of the two posted today! This Could Take All Night. My prompt was post-poof Kara going to find Sam and teaching him how to be physically solid at will, and I love how this story takes that idea and DOES AWESOME THINGS WITH IT!

Y'know, I liked participating in Yuletide and getting a story (actually two), but getting a story written as a present for me with my favorite couple FILLS ME WITH GLEE! (Also, since I know many of the Kara/Sam writers on LJ, I can start guessing who wrote my story and have a reasonable chance of being right. Heh.)

a few more recs back here: BSG, Firefly, Harry Potter and Doctor Who )

One last rec, for Tangled fic: dark come soon (I'm almost there), G. Rapunzel and Mother Gothel. *shivers*

I have a few other fics for Tangled bookmarked under misc-fic. Lots of other fandom fic there as well.