Date: 2008-06-04 19:23 Subject: and which companion is k-9 most associated with, anyway? Security: Public Tags: apparently i really like the master, doctor who, ramblings, yes i am really very odd

A question of sorts, for the few Whofans over here: if a companion goes through more than one Doctor, which Doctor do you associate them with? I, having just watched a few New Who vids featuring Rose, realized that I associate her more with Nine than with Ten; Ten, for me, is more Martha. And then I associate Sarah Jane much more with Four than with Three, although I think I've actually seen more of her episodes with the latter. Jack indisputably goes with Nine in my mind; from what I can tell, Tegan and Nyssa, despite having originated with Four, are very associated with Five, and the same goes for Adric. What about Peri and Mel? All I've heard indicates that Peri is seen as Six's girl, but Seven's is Ace, so does Mel get anyone at all? Do I associate Ben and Polly with Two merely because he's the only one I've seen them with (and even then, not much; just a very crackly audio-and-stills of The Highlanders), or are they actually considered to be more part of One's massive entourage?

(And when we consider the companions who have seen many Doctors--the Brig and Sarah Jane, namely--do we associate them with that at all, or do we still think of them with their primary Doctors, e.g. Three and Four?)

...and is the Master more associated with Three, Five, or Ten?

SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Date: 2008-04-19 15:01 Subject: the power actually went out last night; everything started beeping, and I used my DS as a flashlight Security: Public Tags: college is a mad mad world, comicon, doctor who, i like theatre, i like writers, my life and welcome to it, ramblings, torchwood, yes i am really very odd

RAMBLE TIME.

I keep having these moments where, say, I'll be making lunch, and it will suddenly occur to me: in five months, I'll be doing this with food I paid for myself, or I read a fic that mentions a routine of a morning run, and I think: in five months, I'll have access to a fitness center I can use any damn time I want, or I look at an action figure in my room, and I decide: in five months, I'm going to take that with me, because it's cool and I want to have a tangible representation of who I am, and it's getting to the point where this is a near-constant buzz under my skin: Savannah, Savannah, sun and mid-day classes and East Coast TV feeds and auditioning for plays that PAY and more people with dyed hair than you could shake a stick at. Five months. Two months--less than, now--until I graduate, and then (less than) three months until I hop a cross-country plane and move in in a state I've been to once, a state where I don't know anybody (except the endless hordes of other people's relatives who, as they have been telling me, apparently live there, not that I would care, because I don't know them), a state where my mom says she's going to get me my own credit card, a state where I'll have to fill in an absentee ballot in November because my vote belongs here, dammit, a state where it won't be cold when you step outside at night, a state where it will not snow four inches in April, WTF. (It's mostly melting now.)

I can feel the slightest little bits of panic starting to creep in around the edges; none of my RL friends will be there, I won't be able to talk to my journalism teacher about Torchwood and Doctor Who, I won't be--in applied production any more, fuck, I'm actually crying now. My life is going to change. Sure, I'll keep in touch, there's email and I'm going to come back and see at least the spring show next year, drop by some old classes during my (rather long) winter break, but I won't be here. No more Lynnwood High School, no more Little Theatre, no more inexplicable ostrich in the long, fenced-up yard next to the school (there's a llama too, and a goat, and a donkey; nobody knows for sure why), no more sweet Jesus it's hailing again, I swear to God, the weather here is desperately trying to get in as much as possible before I abandon it for muggy heat in Georgia. Thunder, too. I like the sound of thunder, and, it occurs to me, I like being able to watch and listen to extreme weather from the comfort of a house; snow, windstorms, truly epic rain, what-have-you. Savannah gets rain, doesn't it? Sometimes?

Everything's going to change. Well, maybe 75%. I am pretty sure you lot will remain about the same, which is, believe me, a comfort. No matter where I go, the gay sex people will always be there! ...that's Doris Egan's phrase, not mine. No, seriously. She used it once in a Comicon panel I had the luck of going to. Although actually she ascribed it to one of her fellow writers on Smallville. The point is, life is weird, but kind of awesome, and so are you guys. Hugs all around, y'all.

...and I'm going to have to actually get a job there at some point, ye gods...

Date: 2008-04-07 21:44 Subject: i'm still waiting for an explanation on the bracelet, by the way Security: Public Tags: due south, heroes, i like actors, i like television, life on mars, omg i can write fanfiction, omg other characters, omg petrellis, psych, ramblings, star trek, torchwood

I realize most of you are probably sick of my endlessly talking about Due South--and yes, I realize I haven't talked about Heroes, since, oh, January, what with my sudden obsessions with, respectively, Torchwood, Psych, and Life on Mars, so maybe some of you have been skipping past my posts lately, which is fine, 'cause I do that too; I just want to make some vague acknowledgment that I am aware of how increasingly off-topic I've become. I have no doubt that the Heroes mojo will return in full force once the show does, it's just that there's so much other shiny stuff I've never seen before, and, well, shiny.

I could get all flaily plot-wise with Life on Mars, which is nice, because, y'know, it's cohesively good, and Heroes...somewhat less so. Psych was just fun, and Heroes never really was, except for the odd Hiro moment. (I miss those moments.) Torchwood had both fun and some surprising awesome character stuff, even if overall I think Heroes is the stronger show. Due South is fun, pretty (CKR and Paul Gross for the win, of course, but I'm kind of grooving on Ramona Milano too), and has moments that just make you stare and go "okay, I am 95% positive they would have made out in the next scene if they hadn't gotten distracted", and also it has scarily huge amounts of really great fanfiction all over the internets, which does not help at all. There's nothing quite like a ten-year-old fandom for accumulating stories. (Except, of course, for a fandom that's been around even longer than that; I'm kind of afraid of classic Trek fandom in that regard. I mean, I bet they could fill libraries.) Whereas I have read pretty much 80% of all the Heroes fanfiction I would be interested in. Also, Due South stories are happy and largely angst-free (although I have read a couple short, excellent and rather similar stories that made me want to 1. cry my eyes out and 2. write my own story along those lines, horrible person that I am), without all the problems that come from incest and all that. Why can't Heroes be happy? Oh, right. Drama. We've discussed that.

So, uh, this is my obligatory late-night rambling post; join me next time, when I dive fully over the cliff and post a comprehensive character analysis of Ray Kowalski. What, you think I'm kidding? I'm not kidding. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. *hangs head*

Date: 2008-04-04 22:41 Subject: possibly my previous post may provide elaboration--hey, alliteration! and rhyme! Security: Public Tags: all things joss whedon, battlestar galactica, deadwood, doctor who, due south, good god that's a lot of tags, heroes, house, i like television, i like writers, lost, omg i can write fanfiction, pushing daisies, ramblings, rome, sarah jane adventures, stargates of one kind or another, supernatural, torchwood, vids, yes i am really very odd

It gets easier.

Well--sort of. There's a reason I find it hard to read Buffy or Angel stories; even if they're happy, they make me think about things, and maybe it's been months since I saw their respective finales but I still don't want to think about those things. I downloaded an Angel vid, an absolutely brilliant one that summed up the whole series, that made me cry my eyes out, and I kept it on my hard drive but I don't think I'll be watching it again any time soon. And I can't really think of Firefly the same way after I saw Serenity. Joss, honey, you're brilliant, but you frequently make me want to curl up in a corner. Thankfully, you're probably one of a kind. I sure as hell hope so.

I've told you all my story about the two hours between hearing about the second season finale of Heroes and seeing the second season finale of Heroes, and it's actually quite a good story, but unfortunately it does not really apply in this case, because, y'know, the reason it's a good story is because I explained some very good reasons as to why the Heroes writing staff could not possibly be that stupid. Which is great and all if you're talking about Heroes, but I'm not actually talking about Heroes, and, unfortunately, the show that induced me to talk about this...well, it doesn't have that great a track record of "not being stupid". Alas.

It is a well-documented fact that it is a peril to watch a currently-running TV show if the show is prone to large amounts of drama. Again, see Heroes. And Lost, and Battlestar Galactica, and anything by HBO or Joss Whedon. (He's got a new show in development, did you hear? I'm already afraid.) At least with shows that have already ended, well, you know, or you have some idea; you don't live quite on the same edge of your seat. Although I did mention the Buffy and Angel thing. Okay, so it's kind of crap whether or not the show is still running; my point is, you love drama, you have to be prepared to get burned, because drama does not love you. Drama likes to watch you suffer. Sometimes, of course, it makes you ecstatically happy, and sometimes it's so jaw-droppingly brilliant that you know you could never stop watching, but one must always be aware that loving a dramatic TV show is akin to an abusive relationship. And you can't distance yourself from it to numb the pain, either; if you do, you've missed the entire point of a drama. Drama should affect you. If it doesn't, why watch? And if it does, why can't you stop?

Then, of course, there is the quiet joy of watching a show you know will not break your heart; casting shake-ups aside, nobody's ever going to die on House, and while Pushing Daisies may be entirely about death, it's never actually going to kill anyone we care about. In Chuck, the only actual hey-this-character-is-intriguing death, well, he's feeling better, he thinks he'll go for a walk...the Winchester brothers are proven to be immune from permanently kicking it, soul-selling aside (and what, you think that's actually going to do the trick?). I'm not even going to mention the Stargate universe. How high's the count on Daniel again? Seven? Eight? One of the best things about watching Due South is that, well, it's been over for over a decade, I already know how it ends, and I already know it's basically the happiest, slashiest ending ever. Although Due South actually does have its moments of drama and did kill a character and kick two other characters out, but I didn't really care about the dead guy, both of the absentees got appropriate send-offs, and one of the absentees actually came back, so basically I'm just rambling at this point.

And since I'm rambling, I'd like to point out that Doctor Who is starting up again this week, and that is possibly the show most notorious for ripping your heart out without actually killing anyone, which is surprising given the sheer amount of NPC deaths it manages to rack up every episode. Stupid Whoniverse. At least the Sarah Jane Adventures isn't ever going to go dramatic, right? Right? Oh god please tell me I'm right, I don't think I could handle it if I'm not. They're kids, for Christ's sake! Keep your melodramatic claws off them, Russell T Davies!

Anyway, to get back to the very original point of this post: it gets easier. Well--sort of. Rambling helps, actually. Why else did you think I was doing this? To entertain you lot? Yeah, right. I wanted to do that, I'd get back to writing lots of Heroes fic again. Or writing at all again. No, it's my journal, its contents are subject to my whims. So I don't actually need to have a point to all this, because it's late and I'm not sure I've entirely processed some stuff yet and I'd like to get back to my Canadian happy place. So goodnight, y'all, and if you still have no idea what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky, you bastard. futuresoon out.

Date: 2008-01-10 21:25 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: enchanted, i like movies, i like technology, i like theatre, juno, my life and welcome to it, online dating, ramblings, sweeney todd, vids

The great eHarmony experiment is over; I got kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing, but it's nice to know that several guys were intrigued enough by me to nudge me for a photo and a few guys were so interested they tried to start the communication process regardless of that; who knows, maybe I'll try this out again in college, when I am actually capable of doing things with it. Of course, Georgia may not be the best place to find the kind of guy I'd like...

The vid goes. I found a way to circumvent the re-clipping problem--by which I mean, I found a way to circumvent it and then I decided I didn't like that after all so I am actually going to reclip, but whatever, at least I know what to look for. (Also, said way involved saving the file as an actual video, allowing me to view my work so far without the WMM bugginess--and this makes me happy. Man, I think I've improved since Not Dead Yet--not a quarter-second cut to another scene secretly tacked on to the beginning or end of a clip in sight. And that's a very complicated way of saying it, but trust me that not having that is a good thing.)

...I sort of feel like I should talk about RL stuff, but nothing's going wrong, exactly; life is just...weird. Homework. (Homework I'm not doing right now, and maybe I should, but it's really just research right now and I can do it tomorrow, but it still feels weird to know that I'm slacking off.) The play. (The cast did well in today's rehearsal, and we've got the first half of the painting done for the set. We'll pull it together. It's what we do. But there are so many things, so many little things, and I kind of want to just curl up and hide until it goes away.) Social stuff. (Today, I learned some things about a particular group of kids within the drama class, in regards to some unfortunate dating-type-things, and now I have to think about some of my friends in a different light. Sex makes people weird. Even when they're not actually having it. My god, I hope they never actually had it.) You know what? The only thing in my life that is currently 100% absolutely and totally stress-free with no complications or weirdness whatsoever is my AP Literature class. The only thing. And that's because I'm ahead on the reading material. Everything else has at least one thing going on.

Weekends. I like weekends. I'm crazy about weekends. Weekends give me time. Homework, vids, writing, whatever. Time. Sunday, I have a rehearsal from 12 to 4 so we can finish up the set stuff. Saturday, well, I just have to meet with a girl from my history class to go over a project we're doing together, but I don't know how long that will take, and it sort of itches to know that my weekend isn't a big long stretch of time like it should be. And then we have play week, where for two days I have no idea what time I'll get home and for three days I only get a couple hours at home each and Saturday I lose almost all of my evening--and Monday's a non-school day, thank god, so I'm having a cast party, which will of course be fun, but it will also be time. I hoard my time like rubies and emeralds; an extra half-hour means I can work on the vid (which takes at least ten minutes to get started, because the program hates me and my laptop is indifferent), and I pour all the time I can get into the vid, and I think I look forward to it more than I do anything when it comes to the day-to-day. It's relaxing, to be able to just...work, and watch it unfold, seconds at a time. (This is another place where time comes in--I now know the value of a second, a half-second, the tiniest flash of a facial expression that in any other clip would be useless but comes as a godsend for someone who only needs a tiny flash.) In many ways, vids are easier and more rewarding than writing. I should probably be worried about this.

That Sunday, though, after closing night and before the cast party, is my birthday, and I'll get to force my parents into seeing a movie in the actual theaters. (We don't do this very often, because dad thinks the projection quality of every movie theater there is is so bad that we absolutely must wait for the DVD. Picture quality be damned, man--sometimes, I just want to see a movie. This insistence is pretty much the only reason we got to see Enchanted and Sweeney Todd, the proximity of which is rarer than something that is really rare.) I'm thinking Juno. It'd be nice to watch something other kids have watched. There was something else, too, but I can't quite remember it.

Eighteen. Huh. That's weird. And now I have to go to bed.

Date: 2007-08-03 18:33 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: all things joss whedon, life on mars, ramblings, top gear

Assorted things:

1. I'm getting wary of talking about things nobody else is really interested in.
2. But I need an outlet for this pent-up fannish flailing, so I'm going to keep doing it.
3. Out of deference to the rest of you, I'm going to consolidate all of the latest of it into one post, and behind a cut, so it may easily be skipped.
4. The numbers continue behind said cut. 

Date: 2007-08-02 15:29 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: doctor who, my life and welcome to it, ramblings

The thing about having an epic Doctor Who marathon with two girls who are both very 1) enthusiastic about Doctor Who and 2) very vocally enthusiastic about Doctor Who is that while it makes you ridiculously happy while it is going on, it just leaves you feeling sort of empty when the girls have gone home the following morning and you have no idea what to do next. (Other than make plans for another one--we'd need two more to catch them up through the third season. Wednesdays are the only days that work, ever. But not next Wednesday, because Halley's going to a camp. And not the 22nd, because I think I have to go to some senior-year thingy. Thus: I am fully determined that both the 15th and the 29th will be days in which nothing must be done. I will use all the power available to me. I have instructed them to do the same. It is, perhaps, noticeable that I really like these marathons.) 

There is a certain kind of wonderful, amazing joy to be had when one may discuss fannish things with real people and flesh-and-blood conversations, and moreso when you get the feeling you are not the most obsessed person in the room--it is perhaps worth mentioning that Halley spasmed and flailed about wildly when Nine and Rose kissed, and throughout the night and into the following morning she would periodically cry about the loss of, as she refers to him, "Christopher". It's a peculiar thrill to talk to actual people about whether or not Jack would have sex with a wall, or how much of a whore Madame de Pompadour is; it is doubly thrilling when you are not the one who initiated these conversations. It is amazing to hear, when Ten is going through the TARDIS wardrobe to find his new outfit, "Look, it's the scarf!", or, after the aforementioned kiss, "So, Rose is pregnant now, right?" I can refer to Nine and Ten as Nine and Ten, rather than Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant or the Ninth Doctor and the Tenth Doctor; I can talk about Three and Four and Jo and Sarah Jane at all. (Granted, they don't know Three or Jo particularly well, but they listen, and they ask.) They remember things, not just the big things, but the little things--they remember Ten complaining about not being ginger, they remember what the Krillitaine are called, they usually call the psychic paper slightly psychic paper. It's difficult to imagine that people outside the Internet know these things and, indeed, want to know these things; in truth, it isn't always easy to find people on the Internet who do.

So it just leaves you feeling sort of empty, really, when that's over, and you have to go back to being the only person for miles around who will always view gas masks with suspicion, or uses "fantastic!" in everyday conversation, or wants desperately to get a TARDIS ringtone.

But by God, I wouldn't change it for the world.

Date: 2007-05-26 21:23 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: heroes, ramblings, sga

I don't belong to any of the non-slash Heroes communities; partly this is because I find het to be a very dangerous ground to tread, and partly because many of the people involved with that scare me. Slash is a safe little haven where everyone mostly agrees with what I think the characters want and are like. (While not having really experienced it, I find it very easy to believe that Nathan would be an extremely unpopular character outside of the Petrellicesters--hell, even the Plaude community tends to be rather cool towards him, so I can hardly imagine what the Paire people think of him. Not everybody is big on characters who aren't obviously one thing or the other.) So almost everything I read is slash, and even if it isn't, it's only about Peter and Nathan or Sylar and Mohinder or Peter and Claude. Which, you know, obviously I enjoy reading about them, but I kinda think it'd be nice to read about Hiro for once.

One of the things I love most about the SGA fandom is the amazing gen it can produce. Yes, it's got a huge slash population, and I love quite a bit of that, but then someone goes and writes something quiet and beautiful and not about sex at all--love, yes, often it's about love, but not the kind of love you normally find. The SGA fandom's primary pairing is massively popular and I'm happy with that, but then there's the other pairing, the one nearly everybody ships without realizing it, which is anyone/Atlantis (usually John, but I've seen McKay and Zelenka and Ronon and almost everybody and it always works). Atlantis symbolizes all the best aspects of the show--the sense of wonder, the thrill of exploration, the overwhelming sensation of this is our home. In many ways, this is what makes the fanfiction better than the actual show--the fandom knows what the city really means to the characters. And that's what gen is all about.

There's definitely potential for that in Heroes, especially with Hiro--you get that much canonical joy, you can turn it into something amazing and touching and really beautiful, the kind of story that just hits you hard. You could write about what Isaac really thinks about his ability. You could write about what happened between the time Molly Walker was taken into police custody and when she got sick. You could write about Mr. Bennet's slow transformation from heartless company man to protector of all things good--there's so much you could write about. And people do, I'm sure of it, because that's what fandom's like.

But I only read the slash communities, so I don't get to see any of that.

I don't want to tread through endless Paire and inexplicable Niki (there are people who actually like her? well, before she got kinda cool in the finale, anyway), and I really don't want to have to sift through mountains of things I won't read for the things I will, so because I'm lazy and stubborn and set in my ways, I'm cut off from anything to do with people who aren't sleeping with other guys. 

I don't regret for a minute my involvement in the Heroes slash community, but sometimes I wonder what the rest of the world is like.

ADDENDUM: Okay, so, the minute after I post this, I go out and find a link to this really awesome and funny and in-character Matt/Ted story which, admittedly, is still slash, but it's Matt and Ted and Bennet's in there too and it's like a breath of fresh air. Angst gone now. Mmm.

Date: 2007-02-10 21:59 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Tags: all things joss whedon, my life and welcome to it, ramblings

Today I took the ACTs, and they were easy (as easy goes), and then I watched a Buffy, and then I watched another Buffy, and then I settled down and watched another episode of Buffy, which was Once More With Feeling, which was a glorious thing. Glorious. It could have used a tango--and the beginning did not transition well, I thought--but nevertheless it was a thing of glory. Musicals just make me happy. Let us be honest here, folks, I am no dancer, but afterwards, where no one could see me, I danced like a crazy mofo and damned if for the first time in my life it actually felt okay, not like a guilty pleasure where you dance like an idiot because no one's watching and you, yes, feel a little guilty because you suck at dancing but you still feel good because you did it anyway--no, it felt like it was a shame that nobody would ever see it, because it was the only time I knew I wouldn't be ashamed of it. Glorious.

And later, during dinner, my parents asked me why I looked so happy, so I told them and they asked questions and I answered them and I watched it again, with them. I explained the few plot points they really needed to know beforehand and they watched it and they thought it was brilliant. Dad asked me which season it was. I said the sixth, of course. He said, they managed to have that much energy after six seasons? I said, well, apparently it kind of dies down afterwards. He said, well, of course, they burned it all up with this one.

It was a good day.