dangerously overeducated

Because I want to sign up for bsg_remix and the mods are SOO DEMANDING. ;)

( All my fic in one handy post )

I finally, finally watched Twilight last night, in preparation for going to see New Moon this afternoon with some school friends. We had originally planned to go on opening night, but decided after the week we had, Chinese food and hard liquor were more appropriate outlets than a theater full of bouncing, sugared-up teen girls. ;) My thoughts:

- Ahaha, it's awesome. Though possibly more fun to watch at home where I can laugh openly at certain ~very serious~ moments, like any of the introductory scenes between Bella and Edward with the INTENSE LOOKS and DRAMATIC MUSIC.

- I can totally understand why so many people love this series. In fact, if R. Patz were even mildly attractive or had any acting ability whatsoever, I might be susceptible myself. *g* (OMG Sorry! But no one reading this likes him, right? I gotta call 'em like I see 'em.) Edward is classic female fantasy; unfathomably powerful and in love with Bella, and yet he must resist! for her own protection! His love for her is stronger even than his overpowering (blood)-lust for her! He is her protecter and also her greatest source of danger! Oooooh.

-Sadly, R.Patz is does nothing for me and has no acting ability whatsoever. :/ The way his face contorts when he's trying to convey emotion kind of kills the swoon, alas.

- Bella is such an emo goth kid, yet I find her strangely endearing. It's probably the clumsiness. ;) Ice is not good for the un-coordinated, indeed. Though, hey, I don't recall hitting people on my own volleyball team leading to wild popularity in MY high-school experience. WTF? :/

- That said, I was quite pleasantly surprised by her genuinely friendly-friends and her loving, if flakey/emotionally constipated parents. I kept waiting for her to be persecuted-by-the-world, and the fact that she wasn't was quite refreshing. Her unbearable, age-appropriately intense grand passion for Edward is not the stuff of which feminist dreams are made, but that doesn't mean it couldn't make for highly compelling drama, if I had SOME idea of what she saw in him. I mean, I get why the type is attractive, but apart from constantly saving her life, what does she see in him?

... Oh, fine. ;)

In summary, I'm totally looking forward to seeing New Moon. If it's half as adorably cheesy as the first, it'll be fantastic.

On to fic commentaries! Narcissism, whee! For emmiere, from Against All Others:

( And then the Cylons had done in a few hours what fate and nature on their own could never have managed )

And for rose_griffes, from Happened Before:

( Happened Before )

Okay, must get a few hours of work done before I indulge in more sparkly vampires. :DDD

For merrykk and taragel, from "Light at the End":

I promised these were coming, though it's taking me longer than expected! Sorry about that. Okay, I'm excited to talk about these two passages, because they both deal with the theme of false memories, which is something I stumbled on more or less by accident, but once I did, the story took shape around that.

Going in chronological order, I'll do taragel's request first.

( Though each time she dreamt of what happened next it was different, her waking memory never changed or faded.  )

And for merrykk:

( The cylons claimed to have perfect memories. )

I love my newest icon. In fact, if I start making a lot more bitchy posts/comments, please don't take it personally. ;)

Fic commentaries are forthcoming! I was hoping to get them done last night (I have a very strong resistance to working on Friday nights, something that makes me kind of the pothead-slacker of my group of friends), but I... fell asleep. And now I should be working... I have yet another hellish challenging week coming up, and then a relatively relaxing one before the finals crunch happens. Which will hopefully give me time to freak out about accomplish my story for the karathracelives exchange. Whining about that undoubtedly forthcoming too. ;)

But a couple of cool things while I have you here. Salt Lake City approves gay rights measures after historic Mormon church backing. Andrew Sullivan, whom I Don't Always Agree With but is kind of my go-to blogger for gays rights issues, points out that this places the LDS church in a "far more positive and pro-gay position" than, say, Catholics* and mainstream fundamentalist Protestant groups. His analysis here. Um, has Orson Scott Card been informed yet? Did his head actually explode?. Okay, meanness towards OSC aside, this comes (to me who knows nothing of LDS church politics whatsover) as a surprise, but a very good one.
*I know, I know, the hierarchy. I have a lot of liberal Catholics in my life so I get that. Politically though, the hierarchy has the influence.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous - look what I found on Clairvoyant Wank while Not Working last night. So apparently that mildly hot actor who plays one of the Supernatural brothers got engaged to his long-time girlfriend recently. Which can mean only one thing - massive wank in a fandom I have no connection to! (The best kind.) First comment:

Well congrats and all that! I hope they have many pretty babies, and a really happy life together

First reply:

Good luck with that, asshole. If his career continues on its current trajectory, he'll be the hottest closeted gay guy on the cul-de-sac doing community theater.

And it just gets better from there. This thread is a high-point. Oh, internet.

Ficlet

So I wrote femslash! Very short, G-rated, implied femslash. ;) I really have no excuse for myself here: I blame the porn battle for putting the idea in my head and twelvecolonies for making me write it.

Relief, Cally Henderson/Tory Foster (yup, for real!), rated E for everyone:

( Suicide had been her first thought, but Cylons were hard to kill. )

Fic Meme

Snerched from about a quarter of my flist, most recently taragel

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

All my stories are archived here.


And speaking of fic, am I just lazy, or is three weeks to write a 25,000 word story from scratch a little - what's the word - IMPOSSIBLE?? Sigh. :(((

Real Life Rant: In truly frightening news, I have at least 50 pages of writing due at various points next week. F UUUUUU, Lawschool! Happy Halloween indeed. Hee. I'll be okay, though. I have bubble-bath. Also, spending Halloween in the law-library means that at least someone is apt to laugh at my costume! I'm dressing in all black, with a little name-tag that says "Acre." Geddit? Black-Acre? Anyone? Bueller? chaila43? ;)

Some cool things though. queenofthorns is hosting a Love Meme, which seems quite well-timed for a lot of folks. Put your name down so we can tell you how awesome you are. Also my thread is here.

In addition, I don't know how many of you are familiar with crack_van, but it's a pretty well-established multi-fandom fic-rec community (can I use any more hyphens in this sentence?) I've recced there twice, and it's always fun to rec your favorite stories and maybe get a little extra feedback for writers you respect. Anyway, they've been short of BSG reccers for a couple of months now. I'm planning to sign up again, but am holding off just because there's so much on my plate right now. But I thought I'd mention it, in case any of you were interested. You can sign up here.

And in closing! Very happy belated-birthday wishes to bonita_chica71 and rogueavanger007. Hope you both had a fabulous time, and that the year brings you good things. *resolves to get better at the birthday thing*

YOU GUYS, YOU GUYS. STEP AWAY FROM THE SHIPPER-DRAMA FOR JUST A MINUTE. I GIVE YOU... EJO ON "THE PLAN."

( I guess this could still be considered spoilery )

In other events, you all need to go read nicole_anell's vidder-commentary on her already brain-breakingly awesome vid "Jolene" (all about my favorite misunderstood girlfriend-shooting baby-killing woobie, Cally Henderson-[Redacted]. I'm only halfway through reading it and I'm already having a faneurysm. :):):)

I was SO TEMPTED to say "I hope it was Epic," but that would be inappropriate. ;) But I hope it was fun! And if I had the time or the spare brain-power or the knowledge of Sarah Connor, I would totally write you a ficlet - but it's the thought that counts, right?? *hopes*

So, all sanctimony aside: eeeeeeee! My bitterness is apparently over, because I seriously enjoyed that. Obviously, spoilers inside. ( not much deep analysis, just quick reactions and squee )

Yes, I've seen "The Plan" (more on that later.) I knew there was no way I could wait to read all the spoilery commentary. But I also pre-ordered the DVD immediately to assuage my conscience. Think about it: how many of us supported the writers' strike? Wasn't the whole point of the writers' strike that the writers deserved to be paid residuals from DVDs and online viewing, and moreover, needed them in order to keep afloat now that reruns have become largely a thing of the past? It makes no sense to support the writers' strike and then essentially take it all back by stealing the DVDS. Even if you hate Ron Moore, you're also depriving Jane Espenson... okay, bad example. ;) You're also depriving Jane Espenson's lowly staff-writer and her eight starving cats! Won't someone please think of the cats? And the actors! They get residuals too! Trucco's a large dude: he needs to eat! And we've all seen the Maxim photos. Do you really want to be responsible for taking food away from Grace Park? I think you don't! So yeah, download away but buy the DVDs, you dirty whores. Said with affection. ;)

And because I just forced my co-maintainer to do it: quick reminder to PLEEEEEEASE, please go sign up for the karathracelives ficathon. I hear turnout is low, or something? D: But I'm sure that's 'cause you're all just putting off signing up to the last-minute, right? LOOK AT KARA. Look. Those hearts? They're for YOU. Yes you. Because she knows you're going to go sign up to write her awesome fic. Don't make me bust out the emo-Kara icon. Or worse, the emoDama. I'll do it too!

Remember, just because it's a gen-ficathon, doesn't mean you can't include other characters, including your Male Character of Choice. From the Rules:

General fanfiction may include allusions to romantic relationships, maybe even employ romance as an element to illustrate a larger theme, but, romance, or the lack of it, should not be the point of focus for the story. Action-Adventure, Friendship, Humor, Angst, Comfort, all of these are good categories to explore. Kara could lead a mission, make a sacrifice, exact revenge, solve a mystery, confess a secret, come to a decision, teach a student, go on a quest, reflect on a mistake, celebrate a victory, learn a lesson, question an order, save a life, or roll the hard six (just to name a few options). The possibilities are endless.

Do it. Do it now.

- Cool Thing One: I spent the afternoon with beccatoria yesterday, which was lovely! :) So I can now confirm that she really exists, and is very mature for 19.

- I was embarrassingly happy to (belatedly) realize that teambasestar won the twelvecolonies team challenge, considering I had to all but drop out at the end there, up 'till the Epic Battle at least. Still though! If you haven't joined twelvecolonies yet, consider this my official pimp; it's lots of fun! You pick a team (Basestar, Galactica or Colonial One), and engage in friendly competition with the other teams in different events. There are vidding challenges, writing challenges, graphics challenges, games that test your level of galatican dorkery - all sorts of things. Don't worry if some of that sounds like not-your-thing; I shied away from any and all graphics-related challenges, for example, and I still was able to do a lot. It's fun! You can apply here. And if you apply and tell them I sent you so I get points, that would be awesome too. :DDDD

- For example, one of the recent challenges was to write a drabble. I take back all my disparaging comments about drabble-writers, y'all. Not that I ever made disparaging comments about drabble-writers! But if I had, I would take them back, because it's harder than it looks to write to such narrow specifications. ( Here's the one I wrote (Kara/Flying, Rated G): )

- Fic Rec: If you haven't seen this already, you need to: merrykk finished her Kara/Caprica almost-crack, almost-not-crack epic. Insanity Has Us United. People. Kara and Caprica frak and then, through the ~miracle of god's love~ (because Kara is the perfect combination of the two men Caprica has loved, Tigh and Baltar), Kara ends up pregnant. (!) I think I like f-preg; you get all the gender-bending awesomeness of m-preg, without the overwhelming ew ew EWWWWW of m-preg. ;) There's non-traditional family awesomeness with Baltar and Sam too and... oh, you really just need to see for yourselves. *flails*

It's BSG wank week over at Fandom!Secrets. First there was a secret about how the poster loves Kara/Leoben "because he fucked up her mind and broke her." Me: your shipping preferences are bad and you should feel bad. :( [I did not actually say this, of course!] Then there was one about how Kara is Sam's abusive boyfriend (but using really weird/ineffective arguments to prove the point) and fandom would never tolerate such a relationship if the gender roles were reversed. Me: *points at secret #1*

And I was meta-ing in my head about how much I hate it when people need to see strong female characters "broken" and how so many people people will say that they like Kara/Leoben because he's the only one who "knows how to handle" her and how much I ... try not to judge them and fail. :P

And so I was actually thinking to myself "I wish someone would post a secret about how Lee abuses Kara, just to see the explosion." And Someone Did!

... Which, un/fortunately, probably means it was the same troll all along. Although (sorry, Lee fans!) I did feel the need to stick up for he/she/it a little bit, just because I knew they were about to get dogpiled, and I've spent so much time hearing about how awful and horrible Kara is to Lee and thinking "hey, wait a minute!!" that I can't help but love anyone willing to state the other side. I'm sorry!

But it ... kind of thrills me that someone is trying to stir up trouble amongst all the Kara shippers. I mean, I'm almost touched! Fandom! You haven't forsaken me!

*I'll feel really bad if any of these are not trolls, obviously. I guess it's possible that #3 could have been inspired by the first two?

** Next, someone obviously needs to make a secret about how Kara/Gaius was an abusive relationship. We can't let Baltar get the win by default. :P

- Still kind of suffering from being up until 4am playing battleship with teambasestar. Okay, so technically the game only went on until 1. Those Cylons sure know how to party. ;)

- lyssie and I had a mis-communication, and I ended up initially posting the HBIC results without her fabulous Aeryn Sun appreciation post, so do check that out if you missed it. Also, Kara fans, if you haven't been following the poll, you might still want to check out my Starbuck appreciation post; it's not that deep but there are lots of pretty pictures. I'm a little sad that it's over! It's going to feel strange not posting a poll every week. I hope other people enjoyed it as much as I did. (And no one is too upset if the order wasn't exactly what they would have chosen. I'm sure there's a Kanye joke in here somewhere. *g*) It was definitely gratifying to get so much participation!

- Meant to watch Dollhouse last night, but wound up taking a nap before Cylon battleship instead. Maybe I'll catch it on Hulu.

- I had a weird stream-crossing real-life experience when I went out for a friend's birthday last Saturday and the conversation turned to Twilight. The one guy in our group and I were the only ones who hadn't read the series. My friends all loved the books - which is not to say considered them great literature - and started talking about whether they were "team Edward" or "team Jacob" and it was very surreal for me. Non-internet people aren't supposed to know those terms! Somehow, all of this ended in me promising to read all the books by the time the next movie comes out in November so we can go to the midnight showing. o_O I've since bargained my way down to just the first movie. *relieved*

-Real-life continues to kick my ass in all sorts of new and exciting ways, some of them good. I do wish I had just a bit more time to spend on LJ though; I miss fandom! Will have to try to work just a little more quality internet time in as I get settled into a routine.

Happy (slightly!) belated birthday to pellucid and happy on time birthday to urbaninja! Hope you guys have had/are having/will have splendid celebrations!

Finally, we've reached the end. Huge thanks to all who've participated, and an extra huge thanks to those who took the time to write up appreciation posts for your favorite characters. It's been a lot of fun for me to read the 23 posts I didn't write myself, some for characters I'd never even heard of before, but hopefully haven't heard the last of yet.

( Final top three winners under the cut )

This is it, you guys! I will post the results next Friday, September 25th, life permitting. Don't forget the rules:

1. No sockpuppeting! It's obvious, and I will discount your vote if I catch you. Please don't make me waste my time?

2. As I mentioned in my previous entry, please keep in mind that this poll is strictly a popularity contest, not a referendum on which character is really the best. See the nomination post for my Thoughts On This Subject. ;)

3. To that end, no disparaging comments about any of the nominees! No "how can SHE still be on the list if SHE got kicked off," no nothing.

--> If you want to help your favorite in a constructive way, might I suggest advertising this poll? :D?

4. Please also refrain from making negative comments about the actresses who portray any of these characters in the comments. I prefer to keep this space as positive as possible.

5. Also, no feeling sad if your favorite gets eliminated? doesn't come in first? Remember, they wouldn't be on here in the first place if multiple people didn't think they were totally kickass.

I know that all sounds very "everybody gets a trophy," but seriously, with this list? Everybody gets a frakking trophy. :D

( This week's HBIC's and poll under the cut )

Dear flist: I've been away, (mostly) without internet access for the past two weekends. (I know! I don't know how ever I survived either!) And as a result, when I have been around, I've been consumed by a hysteria-inducing amount of make-up work. (Hysteria-inducing if you're, well, me. *g*) I'm going to check the last couple of galacticanews entries for stuff I might have missed -and yes, I actually need to check the one that I did, because I have no idea - but if there's anything in particular you've posted in the last, oh, three weeks that you like me to see, please let me know. I'm screening comments, because that's what rose_griffes does when she does these things. ;) Maybe people will be more comfortable being self-promoting if I do. So, please be self-promoting!

At long last, round #10. Thanks for putting up with the delay and for checking back in!

Radio Buttons,, you guys! Meep.

The rules:

1. No sockpuppeting! It's obvious, and I will discount your vote if I catch you. Please don't make me waste my time?

2. As I mentioned in my previous entry, please keep in mind that this poll is strictly a popularity contest, not a referendum on which character is really the best. See the nomination post for my Thoughts On This Subject. ;)

3. To that end, no disparaging comments about any of the nominees! No "how can SHE still be on the list if SHE got kicked off," no nothing.

4. Please also refrain from making negative comments about the actresses who portray any of these characters in the comments. I prefer to keep this space as positive as possible.

5. Also, no feeling sad if your favorite gets eliminated? Remember, they wouldn't be on here in the first place if multiple people didn't think they were totally kickass.

I know that all sounds very "everybody gets a trophy," but seriously, with this list? Everybody gets a frakking trophy. :D

( this week's HBIC's and poll under the cut )

Still not fully recovered from this one! It was amazing, and I want to get some stuff down before it all blurs together. Though it'll probably take me until tomorrow to really get caught up on my flist; stupid deadline, having the nerve to fall right after D*C! Anyway, some highlights:

( click me )