Random randomness

[wiseheart]

Cos I'm on sick leave, although the sickness has passed, and feel like babbling a bit, yo!

The telly - or why I might end up spend my hard-earned cash on shows that I cannot watch, even though everyone says they're rubbish.

I heard really, really bad things about Starz' Camelot. So I googled a bit, and what I saw confirmed my worst fears. Come on, guys, WTF, Arthur a girl??? Okay, I know he technically isn't a girl, but he looks like one. Imagining him having sex with the actual girls on the show is... off-putting, to say the least. No offence against anyone, but if I wanna watch femslash, the least I could demand would be that both participants be real girls, right? At least Bradley James looks like a knight who would be capable of raising his sword without collapsing under its weight.

But... the show stars Eva Green as Morgan, and she looks absolutely stunning. I could never warm up to Katie McGrath's Morgana, so perhaps I should give "Camelot" a chance, after all. Plus, it has Sean Pertwee, with whom I've been in selfless love ever since I saw him as Hugh Beringar. And Clive Standen! *flails* Granted, I only saw him in Dr. Who, where he had a total of about three seconds of screen time, but I'm so totally fangirling him. Embarrassing, really, considering that I could be his mother. Ah, well. I might even buy some random Robin Hood episodes to watch him. I'm shallow that way. I like me some ruggedly handsome men from time to time.


Procrastinating - or the pain of too many choices after finishing a story.

Now that I've finally gotten "Eye Witness" out of my hair (not that anybody but artemis10002000 would give a rat's arse about my Torchwood fic), I've taken a good hard look of my unfinished WIPs - and blanched. There are too many, in too many different fandoms!

My best candidates to be finished in the foreseeable future would be "Vox Angelica" in the Cadfael fandom, "Brothers-in-Arms" (also in the Cadfael fandom) and "A Visitor from Avalon", my Merlin-Torchwood crossover. Consequently, what have I done all day? Background work on "Sea-Flower", a pre-Ring-War Tolkienfic taking place in Umbar.

Yeah, right. That's me, doing the least logical thing. But at least I've figured out how to include the bull games and cast some of the characters. Not surprisingly, Princess Ivriniel will be played by Eva Green and Lord Caliondo of Umbar will be played by Clive Standen. What? I told you I'm shallow! And I need my visuals. I'm seriously considering having Colin Morgan play the Dark Elf assassin, but I'm not sure I can pull that one out. Although he'd be creepy. Oh, and the malicious Haradric slave girl is played by Indira Varma.


Baking - yep, I did some of that, too!

Not much; we won't dare eating anything with cream in the next few days, so I made some Ischler and a small lamb out of almond biscuit. And I hung up the decorated eggshells in the living room. Mum is pleased with the results, so I'm pleased, too.


Other than that, I'm lazing around and wishing I had people I could discuss silly fannish things with. But you can't have everything.

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Oh that sounds like great fun! I do have serious difficulties stopping once I have started reading a book though; I always want to know what happens next! When I was an undergraduate at university this sometimes meant that I didn't go to bed until 7 or 8 in the morning. Of course when you are a student, at a university that doesn't generally require you to nor check if you attend lectures/tutorials you can do that; when you are actually employed to do a job, it doesn't work as well... For this reason I don't read much before going to sleep these last few years, just to keep myself away from temptation, which unfortunately means I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to. I miss it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling. :(

Nowadays, I mostly read online, because fanfiction is often a lot better than whatever official novels are released in my fandoms (not to mention cheaper!) but I do miss the feel of a real book in my hands. I even miss the way books smell. Especially new ones.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am lucky that there are a lot of charity shops where I live that sell second-hand books; it makes acquiring new reading material cheap(er) and I can always count the money I spend in my 'helping others' account, which makes it (sometimes too easy) to justify the expense.

Also: Look, we have collapsing threads and it isn't even your birthday! :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Look, we have collapsing threads and it isn't even your birthday! :-)

Yup! Though it does make it harder to discuss! I think we've managed to provide fen to discuss silly fannish things with. Perhaps you can have everything after all :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am inclined to argue with the use of the word "silly", but indeed most of my discussions of fannish things take place on Livejournal. It is one of the great things about the internet to me: that we can connect with people and share our love for strange things even though we have never met in person and indeed live in different countries or even on different continents.

The collapsing threads do indeed make it harder to discuss things, but I take them as a sign of depth of discussion -- numbers of backs-and-forths -- which is a very good thing. :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's also nice to meet someone like-minded in someone else's journal :) Though perhaps Wiseheart wishes we'd shut up now!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is indeed always nice to meet someone like-minded. I suppose the fact that it doesn't happen every day makes it the joy sharper when it does.

wiseheart is usually a very generous host, so I am hoping she doesn't mind us hi-jacking her journal. :-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I friended you? Though I must admit I don't talk a lot about Tolkien these days.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I will add you to my friends list now. Though I too should admit I don't talk about Tolkien very much. Indeed I am rather bad at posting to my Livejournal in general.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Me too! But I can easily be drawn into DS9 discussions, which I see is another active interest of yours :) (Though perhaps we really should do that elsewhere!)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Don't you dare to leave me out of that! I'm a devout DS9 fan, too!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

DS9 discussions are very welcome in my journal, as are you of course! I am debating what television series to watch next, now that I have finished DS9. There is the option of Voyager, but a) I saw most of the episodes of that as it was broadcast on Swedish television and b) I don't like it nearly as much as I like DS9. Other possibilities include rewatching favourite/pivotal episodes of DS9, rewatching due South or Firefly (I have the first season of due South on DVD but haven't watched all discs; I have watched all of the episodes, several times though). I think the likeliest candidate is Dollhouse, though. My friend K lent me the DVD box set of the first season (some time last year) so I should probably get on with watching that, and I quite fancy seeing some new Joss Whedon.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I commented earlier on your recent DS9 post with some random character wurblings. I'm much less into other Trek incarnations. I've watched some Voyager but on the whole like it less than TNG.

I don't know Dollhouse at all, to my shame, as in general I like Whedon's stuff a great deal. (I used to be a huge Angel fan.) I find most of the Firefly eps stand up quite well to rewatching, though I do get a bit fed up of Morena Baccarin. In fact one thing I don't like about Whedon's work is that he almost exclusively employs very beautiful women.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am a great fan of Spock and Uhura, though I find actually watching a lot of the original series episodes can be rather embarrassing. I do really like TNG, perhaps partly because Swedish television deigned to broadcast that series -- and re-run them quite frequently as well -- so that it is the series I know the best. Having watched DS9 on DVD it is fast becoming a favourite as well. I might have to rewatch some TNG to decide which I like better, though I suspect the answer might be it varies from episode to episode and between characters. There are certainly some great stand-alone episodes in TNG; one of the great things to me in DS9 is the story arcs. TNG has my favourite captain, but DS9 has my favourite medical officer. No, I really can't choose!

Yes, it is a problem with Whedon's work that the women are all beautiful. However, I am not sure it is just the women and not just Whedon. At least the actresses he picks to appear in his work tend to be able to act, and if you look at Firefly, I can't think of any of the characters being non good-looking.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm a die-hard fan of the original series, especially Spock and Uhura, too, but I basically like everyone of the main cast, with the marked exception of Kirk. I absolutely loathe him, and it led to me loathing all similar characters of other shows, like Riker, Sheridan of B5, Dylan Hunt of Andromeda and Sheppard of Atlantis.

Picard is definitely the best captain, although I must disagree with you about the CMO: for me, it's "Bones" McCoy, forever. But I'm biased. In any case, what I love in DS9 is the profoundly different concept: they don't just ride in on their shiny starship, mess the place up and then leave like the Doctor. They have to stay there and deal with the consequences. Voyager, IMO, was a huge step backwards, aside from other really big problems that it had. They tried to recreate the original series (or TNG) at a time when that concept was already outdated.

I must admit that I could never really get into Firefly. I find the whole western/sci-fi combination very stupid. Starting with the fact that using projectile weapons on a spaceship would be suicidal, because hey, accidental holes in the hull? Not such a good idea. I liked Nathan Fillion... sort of, which is why I started watching Castle, but my favourite was Simon. All the other charcters just got on my nerves. The idea of a different future would have been excellent, but the execution was just blah, IMO.

However, I read an interesting Torchwood/Firefly crossover, where the author came up with the idea that the species invading and destroying Jack's childhood home were actually the Reapers. Or Reavers? Or what the heck were they called again?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Oh Kirk gives me goose-bumps and not in a good way! I can't tell now how much of this is because the character and how much is because I can't stand the man after reading Nichelle Nichols wonderful 'Beyond Uhura' many years ago.

While I can definitely see your point about a Western in space being a bit silly, I just liked the characters -- all of them, to varying extents -- so much that I was willing to suspend my disbelief. While I definitely identify most with Kaylee, I can't decide who is my favourite character.

Torchwood on the other hand is one of those series I found really annoying: I am not a particular fan of Captain Jack Harkness, so I guess I the series was never aimed at me in the first place. However, there is something about each and every one of the other characters that I find annoying, so while I did watch Torchwood it wasn't something I really enjoyed and I don't miss it now that it is not on.

And yes, they are called Reavers.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I adore Kaylee, Book & Wash, and find Mal interesting if a little annoying at times. Many of the minors were wonderful too. I did end up disliking the focus on the Tams' story. I don't know if you've seen the film, but I didn't like that nearly as much partly for that reason.

And I'm with you on Torchwood. I tried & tried, but just couldn't get into it. I did quite like what they showed of Owen in the early eps, but mainly because I think Burn Gorman is fantastic.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

mr_ea & I used to disagree over which was better, TNG or DS9, but we recently purchased some TNG boxsets and haven't been able to force ourselves to plough through them, so we're now both agreed that DS9 stands up better to rewatching, at least. I liked DS9 for boldly standing still, exploring the situation on Bajor and the clash between Federation & Bajoran values, especially over religion, and for exploring the Cardassian culture in detail. (Have you read altariel's wonderful Cardassian post-series novel, The Never-ending Sacrifice? Heavily recommended, and not just because she's my friend.) I was less keen on the war arc than many.

I'd agree there are a few interesting TNG standalone episodes, but many I'd liked on television on rewatch turned out to be a bit hammy in execution. And of course Picard is a superb character, and so well acted. (I've seen Patrick Stewart on the stage twice now and he's brilliant.) And I really didn't like Baccarin's work, though I gather she's less stilted in other things.

if you look at Firefly, I can't think of any of the characters being non good-looking.

This might just be my bias, because there are certainly plenty of people who did find them attractive, but Wash, Jayne and Book all appeared much more normal in looks to me.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

No, I have quite deliberately not read any of the post-series DS9 novels, since I hadn't finished watching it until this week. I do know of altariel's book though, and I am intrigued by it. There is only the small matter of finding time to read...

I haven't re-watched any TNG in the last few years so I can't say if I would find them badly executed now. I do think TNG will always have a special place in my heart though, because it was my Star Trek: the first Trek series I watched. And as you say, Patrick Stewart is brilliant! I have had the good fortune of seeing him in two plays at the RSC and I loved it.

This might just be my bias, because there are certainly plenty of people who did find them attractive, but Wash, Jayne and Book all appeared much more normal in looks to me.
I have seen the actor playing Jayne in other things and he definitely rates quite high on my good-looking scale. When it comes to Wash I am prepared to admit that he may just be attractive to me due to my inherent love of geeks; I wouldn't want to get in a fight with Zoe -- she would quite easily kick my butt, for one thing -- I think the character I fancy the most is Wash. As for Book, he is a bit too old for me (at the moment) to fancy but I think his looks are definitely striking. Something I meant to say, but realize I somehow left out, is that I don't think picking good-looking women to work for him is a problem inherent to Whedon. It seems to me that to actually get to the point were you would have a chance to be noticed by a guy like him you have to be good-locking if you are female. For male actors I think it also helps them succeed, but it doesn't seem to be such a strong requirement to get any role as it is for women.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I wrote some random wurblings on DS9 characters chez Solanpolarn in response to this post.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

and I have added to the random DS9 character rambings -- you are both most welcome to continue the discussion there! :-)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, feel free to hijack my journal every time you feel like discussing LOTR, or indeed anything Tolkien-related. Or Dr. Who-related. Or Merlin-related.

As for collapsing threads making discussion difficult: we can always hit Expand and be back to the entire conversation.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

:) I don't think I've ever had such an active discussion before! You must be getting your inbox pinging every other second.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, and it's great fun! I haven't had the chance to discuss LOTR for a very long time, and I missed it terribly.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am certainly enjoying it too! :-)