Fic recs: mostly long-form
Jul. 16th, 2012 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raspberryhunter*SGU: So I recently discovered the whole SGU show/fandom (uh, obviously), and the huge freakily amazing thing going on in that fandom is CleanWhiteRoom's fics, especially Force Over Distance. This is a master of the long-form, here. (395k!) I must append here that I'm a bit of a comma stickler, and I'm of the camp that does not accept that "alright" is a word (though I am informed that The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style says it is fine ;) ), and even though CWR and I have agreed to disagree on "alright" I am still super-recommending this fic (and this gives you an idea of how amazing it must be, because usually that kind of thing makes me stop reading the fic, and what actually happened is that I dropped everything to read 395k). In fact, even if you don't know the SGU show, I'm informed that it's still possible to read this and enjoy it. It's got it all -- a tight plot, humor, worldbuilding, awesome characters. IT EVEN HAS A TIME LOOP CHAPTER. I am also so psyched by CWR's clear love of and knowledge of the hard sciences (D-branes! YANG-MILLS THEORY. "The universe doesn't have an edge that one can travel to. It's spatially infinite." YES). There are also two other AUs in the works (EDIT 7-31-12: THIS MEANS THEY ARE WIPs. Sorry!): Ad Noctum (which I love) and Mathematique (which is a huge crossover with SG-1 and SG-A, and which I like very much but will probably like more once I watch those).
*In Once Upon a Time, there are two major things going on in that fandom on AO3:
-Fyre is writing the heck out of it. My favorite is her Home Before Midnight, which has two sequels. This was the one that started it all, I believe. It focuses on and has a deep compassion for all the characters, like OUAT itself. She's currently writing a season 1 AU WIP that is rather interesting.
-THE Rumpel/Belle-AU fic, and I say this as someone who maxed out on Rumpel/Belle quite a long time ago, is a WIP, A Bed of Thorns. It is quite possibly the only explicit fic I will ever rec, because it is that rare beast: a fic where the sex is actually there as character development. (Okay, honestly, it's a bit more indulgent than that, and I've started skipping some of the sex parts, but it's way better about it than most of the explicit stuff I read.) It is also an extremely rare beast in that it doesn't gloss over Rumpel's evil side. As an AU, this is very possible to read even if you know nothing about canon.
*I recommended this a while back on my media-rant journal before I got this one, but since I'm talking about the long form, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, alas, another WIP, but worth every chapter even if he never does finish it, is flipping fantastic. From my rec there:
*In Once Upon a Time, there are two major things going on in that fandom on AO3:
-Fyre is writing the heck out of it. My favorite is her Home Before Midnight, which has two sequels. This was the one that started it all, I believe. It focuses on and has a deep compassion for all the characters, like OUAT itself. She's currently writing a season 1 AU WIP that is rather interesting.
-THE Rumpel/Belle-AU fic, and I say this as someone who maxed out on Rumpel/Belle quite a long time ago, is a WIP, A Bed of Thorns. It is quite possibly the only explicit fic I will ever rec, because it is that rare beast: a fic where the sex is actually there as character development. (Okay, honestly, it's a bit more indulgent than that, and I've started skipping some of the sex parts, but it's way better about it than most of the explicit stuff I read.) It is also an extremely rare beast in that it doesn't gloss over Rumpel's evil side. As an AU, this is very possible to read even if you know nothing about canon.
*I recommended this a while back on my media-rant journal before I got this one, but since I'm talking about the long form, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, alas, another WIP, but worth every chapter even if he never does finish it, is flipping fantastic. From my rec there:
What would happen if a) Harry were brought up in a loving super-rational super-academic household, and b) everyone and everything in the HP universe was, well... more-or-less reasonable? (Not necessarily sane, mind you -- just not holding the Idiot Ball.)... Harry starts out by explaining things like observer bias to various people at Hogwart, and decides to run experiments to figure out how magic works! He explains Punnett squares to Draco in the context of blood purity! The first several chapters are a little one-note like that, but I don't care because I love that note! I would have loved it had it all been riffs on that, but as it progresses it also acquires a really interesting plot, layers on layers of hints to be explained, I think maybe every character in the entire fic is now involved in at least one secret plot, and I find the relationship between Harry and Draco extremely moving (and no, not in that way; it's gen/het).
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Date: 2012-07-17 03:10 pm (UTC)Going back to your previous comment -- it just completely boggles my mind how CWR takes tropes that could so easily be done completely wrong and does them right. Like H/C, as you say. Like the Rush/AI/Young threesome -- even just writing that down that sounds horrible, right? Like something out of a bad PWP? But CWR makes it into this amazing thing where now I think part of my headcanon is Rush/AI, at least. And it's even more amazing because we never, in a sense, see the AI as itself -- it's always filtered through their perceptions. (And it killed me when Young finally, finally admitted that Destiny was in love with Rush, almost at the very end. AGH.)
And the handling of the long form is, as you say, spectacular. I simply don't know of anyone else who handles the overall long arc so well -- the HP fic above might, but it's hard to tell since it's a WIP right now, and I suspect it's a little more diffuse than FoD.
And YES, the sex-and-math. Simply magnificent. (and like I say above, so nice to find someone who CARES!) I loooove the physics/math/science bits that creep in. (The one that absolutely KILLED me was the carryover from "Infinite Loops" where Rush and the AI talk about love as marginal utility and then it comes back in "What Goes Undelivered" -- OUCH OUCH.)
And, and, and -- so that time loop chapter? Was when I fell really shatteringly in love. And the scenes of comic relief! Eli and Destiny Bingo! JUST.
And the characters -- I love how even though it's Rush-Young-centric all the other characters are still well-rounded and in-character. LOVELY.
I feel the same way about SGU that you do -- I loooove arc-driven TV. And honestly I didn't think much of the writing first season (at that point I was basically only watching for Carlyle), but second season was just starting to find its feet when they canceled it, BAH. AND THE ACTING. I think every single one of the actors on SGU did an incredible job. And the small-scale character writing is really good!
Speaking of arc-driven TV SF, have you watched ST:DS9? When it was doing arc I thought it actually did it really well. (Some of the standalones are also absolutely magnificent, although some are, well, not.) THe first couple of seasons are slow, but I think it gets quite good. (Not to the level of Farscape, mind, but what is?)
Also also... not SF, but have you watched Veronica Mars?
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Date: 2012-07-17 07:17 pm (UTC)I did want to wait until my FEELINGS on the first read-through had settled down just a bit, to see if it was as good as I remembered. IT IS
It really is :D It's standing up gracefully to the kind of saturation re-reads I'm inflicting on it as well.
<--- is a brute!
Going back to your previous comment -- it just completely boggles my mind how CWR takes tropes that could so easily be done completely wrong and does them right. Like H/C, as you say. Like the Rush/AI/Young threesome -- even just writing that down that sounds horrible, right? Like something out of a bad PWP?
LOLOL!!! Yes! I *do* have a h/c + service kink for sure....and I almost never get to indulge it, because h/c stories are so universally formulaic and tiresome. Repeated torment of our favorite characters ends up feeling like the story itself is a time-loop :P It's almost impossible to get variety in situations, in character reactions and interactions....and almost by definition no one can GROW and relationships can't change. If they do, the h/c is resolved, and there goes your format! But CWR really pulls it off, doesn't she. The damage is both cumulative and on an upward spiral of ever higher stakes and drastic devastation to body, mind and relationship. The inherent structure of the canon story (DISCOVER THE DEEP STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE) means that you can ratchet the tension as high as you want - it'll never feel disproportionate :D So it makes sense that Rush is further and further damaged, more and more difficult to reach, to help and to heal. It makes sense that Young goes deeper and deeper into this relationship, to the point of becoming Rush in a tangental but fundamental way. Even if he can recover from these events, Young will never recover from this relationship and he knows it.....and it's entirely worth it any way.
Added to that, she handled the slooooooow build of Young/Rush with a very deft touch. "Our characters are telepathically linked, now they will automatically fall in loff!" is such a worn out trope. She circumvented the usual issues so well - close contact intensifies the hatred and ups the claustrophobic close-quarters conflict.... and that obscures the latent attraction for a good long while :) Even once they start connecting, their explosive relationship never loses its fragile quality. You believe they really are the defining relationship of each other's lives, and at the same time that they never become less who they are. Which is (imo) a critical criteria of any genuine love - love should make you *more* yourself, not less.
But CWR makes it into this amazing thing where now I think part of my headcanon is Rush/AI, at least. And it's even more amazing because we never, in a sense, see the AI as itself -- it's always filtered through their perceptions. (And it killed me when Young finally, finally admitted that Destiny was in love with Rush, almost at the very end. AGH.)
The point at which Rush begins to refer to the AI as 'Sweetheart,' I knew, I knew their relationship had transcended "confused with Gloria" or simply "interconnected" and moved into a true love relationship....even though the AI was still struggling to figure out WTF all the CONCERN loops and WANT loops and OUTCOME DOES NOT EQUAL DESIRED OUTCOME loops - even though it couldn't define what it was feeling, it was feeling it. Ahem, can't relate to that at all *cough* :P
And the handling of the long form is, as you say, spectacular. I simply don't know of anyone else who handles the overall long arc so well -- the HP fic above might, but it's hard to tell since it's a WIP right now, and I suspect it's a little more diffuse than FoD.
HERE HERE. I grab every long-form fic I can get my hands on (I read fast...longer fics make me happeh!), and nothing I've read does it better than FoD. Hell, FoD makes published multi-book serieses look scattered and without focus by comparison :P Part of that is inherent in the structure of the story - it's very linear, driving to a discrete conclusion. But CWR doesn't rest on that nice tidy structure - this is a whole season of television here, with lots of episodes of BAD, all our character vignettes that fit seamlessly into the narrative (I have them all in their respective places within the kindle document, they work great that way)....and STILL the story telling is completely tight.
(speaking of long-form and HP, surely you've read Resonant's Transfigurations, and Copperbadge's Stealing Harry & Cartographer's Craft yes? (on those last 2 links, chapters are in reverse order - scroll down for the beginning)
[continued below....]
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Date: 2012-07-18 03:43 am (UTC)Oh, this is very interesting, this idea of the mounting stakes. And rings true with me. I always thought I didn't like H/C... turns out I just don't like bad H/C, I guess :) And I think it also makes a difference that Rush is the kind of character that the more you torture him, the more he-- becomes his own self. Partially because of his nature, and partially because of the nature of what his ultimate goal (and Destiny's) is (ascension).
"Our characters are telepathically linked, now they will automatically fall in loff!" is such a worn out trope.
WORD. And, y'know, it turns out to be a very good thing that she had that disclaimer about it being very SLOW building Young/Rush, because my first kneejerk reaction when they became telepathically linked was "Oh, no, I've read this story!" but -- as you say -- in those stories the luff is automatic, and the fact that it was explicitly stated to be slow meant I could trust it to -- not be the worn-out trope.
In my head, I sort of think of Rush's relationship with the AI to be both romantic and parental, in a really weird way. (Heck, the whole thing is weird.) I mean... I don't mean incestual, which gives me the squicks, more non-human in a way that a human mind can't really comprehend exactly. (Uh, I did a lot of thinking about this thing for a ficathon not too long ago, so it's in my brain...) Because the AI is like a big human kid in a lot of ways, and I think Rush gets that, and in other ways it's more than Rush is...
I have read both of those HP fics! I remember especially liking Transfigurations, and now I'll have to go find it again :P :) I did sort of give up on Stealing Harry while the sequel was still a WIP, but should get back to that one...
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Date: 2012-07-17 07:19 pm (UTC)And YES, the sex-and-math. Simply magnificent. (and like I say above, so nice to find someone who CARES!) I loooove the physics/math/science bits that creep in. (The one that absolutely KILLED me was the carryover from "Infinite Loops" where Rush and the AI talk about love as marginal utility and then it comes back in "What Goes Undelivered" -- OUCH OUCH.)
Though my math & physics education aren't advanced enough to explicitly understand the references in FoD, they are advanced enough to adore the feel of the references, the very real weight - adore to pieces :D The use of math, physics & code as narrative devices and POV for characters is just completely brilliant, right up there with Cryptonomicon in how much they add to the story and the characters. (and thats sayin' something, cause I'm a Cryptonomicon fiend :P)
ITA on 'loops' - ow ow ow, you just want to take the AI home and feed it cookies and read it a bedtime story, because it's so lost in this adult world of Big Emotions....when it's still an evolving child. *sniff*
And, and, and -- so that time loop chapter? Was when I fell really shatteringly in love. And the scenes of comic relief! Eli and Destiny Bingo! JUST.
OMG the time loop chapter was when I knew that this author was Going To Do It Right all the way through - the SG1 tone, the SG science, the way the one-offs manage to interrupt the arc without inspiring any resentment because the interruption to solving the problem of the hour (goa'uld, Ori, whatever) is somehow just as frustrating to the characters as to the viewer.....perfect.
And the humor bits? Fucking perfect :D They felt like genuine old-school Stargate, they felt like genuine SGU slice-of-life-music-montage, and they felt like the canon characters. And they were HILARIOUS :P I about died laughing at Rush protesting he doesn't swear, while Eli shuts him down with, 'You swear like a sailor. You swear in English, you swear in Ancient, you swear in languages I don't even know....Scottish or Irish or whatever,' while he's laughing so hard he can barely breathe :P
Eli interrogating drunk Rush about his favorites, bwaa ha ha ha ha!
Destiny Bingo slayed me - I go back & re-read that over and over. And Brodey & Volker singing the Immigrant Song at Destiny Karaoke.....omg. ded.
Eli's quips and moments remain just as delightful in FoD as they are in the dark world of canon :)
And the characters -- I love how even though it's Rush-Young-centric all the other characters are still well-rounded and in-character. LOVELY.
I always worry that fic will make all the secondary and tertiary characters one dimensional, and I happen to have a huge Military Nerd Crush on Greer and was prepared for disappointment there, too....and then we get EVERYBODY. EVERYBODY!!! With 100% AWESOME GREER!! With bonus From All Angles with EXTRA GREER!!!! *swoon*
I feel the same way about SGU that you do -- I loooove arc-driven TV. And honestly I didn't think much of the writing first season (at that point I was basically only watching for Carlyle), but second season was just starting to find its feet when they canceled it, BAH. AND THE ACTING. I think every single one of the actors on SGU did an incredible job. And the small-scale character writing is really good!
It's funny - my first watching through SGU, I couldn't deal with it. I was still missing BSG and nothing was going to distract me from that. I didn't like the characters, I couldn't tell them apart, and I was grumpy at the choices that led to both of those issues....in retrospect, it's very clear to me that the SGU writers room must have had as their watchword - WE HAVE 5 YEARS, WE NEED TO HAVE SOMEPLACE FOR THESE CHARACTERS TO GO. They had EVERY reason to think they'd get at minimum a 5 year arc, that they could do a very slow build on these characters. I remember reading an interview with Alexander Siddig late in the run for DS9 in which he pointed out that making Bashir an unlikable asshole was entirely on purpose on his part. He knew he had at least 5 years to develop the character, and decided starting out making him unlikable would make for the best story-telling, and the most enjoyable project for him as an actor. He *knew* he had the time. I imagine the SGU writers were sure they'd get at least five years, based on the record of SG1 and SGA, yk? Watching season 1, it's very apparent they were going for a slow build - slowly getting to know the ship, the many sections of the arc, and a really large ensemble cast extending out to tertiary characters who have almost as involved stories as the primaries. LOVE IT.
Speaking of arc-driven TV SF, have you watched ST:DS9? When it was doing arc I thought it actually did it really well. (Some of the standalones are also absolutely magnificent, although some are, well, not.) THe first couple of seasons are slow, but I think it gets quite good. (Not to the level of Farscape, mind, but what is?)
Oh yes indeed :D I watched DS9 through the initial run up through season 7, when I stopped having access to a TV - I recently went back and rewatched the entire thing and really enjoyed getting all the arc bits in sequence properly :)
Farscape, Firefly, Babylon 5, DS9 (all the Star Treks to a degree)....and less space-y X-Files, Fringe.... gimme arc story telling and speculative fiction and I'm alllll yours :D I haven't seen Veronica Mars tho, I'll have to look into that.....
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Date: 2012-07-17 07:31 pm (UTC)I feel the same way about SGU that you do -- I loooove arc-driven TV. And honestly I didn't think much of the writing first season (at that point I was basically only watching for Carlyle)
Holy shit, that guy is sex onna stick. And *why?* I'm not even sure. I think it's that the actor is just about as intense as CWR describes AI!Rush in FoD, really :D Have you watched interview bits with Carlyle? It's so disconcerting seeing him genuinely laugh or look self deprecating - so nooooot-Rush :D
but second season was just starting to find its feet when they canceled it, BAH. AND THE ACTING. I think every single one of the actors on SGU did an incredible job. And the small-scale character writing is really good!
The acting was fantastic! Along with the directing, the cinematography, the editing/pacing - really all top notch in every way. They took the right risks, they took enough time, they did every thing right. My sweetie also noticed something that I wouldn't have picked up on - casting paid attention not just to actors-look-and-act-as-their-characters, but also paid attention to VOICES. In a show this visually dark where more than half of our people are in uniform and hard to visually distinguish, having each actor's voice be aurally unique matters. Everyone on the show had such an amazing VOICE. Holy cow. Young & Rush's voices are so distinct I hear them in every line of dialog in FoD (and in the very few instances where FoD loses the character-voicing in dialog, the sudden drop-out of being able to hear the timber of the actor is quite noticeable while I'm reading). Just another impressive bit of attention to detail.
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Date: 2012-07-17 08:44 pm (UTC)I found the directing excellent. The cinematography... I thought evolved. (The ubiquituous montages, for example, in first season, I could have done without. Thankfully those went away in second season.) The large-scale writing in both first and part of second season frustrated me -- I thought there was entirely too much of telling instead of showing, telling us we were supposed to care about relationships and actions when they didn't give us enough background to do so (like in one scene Eli is supposed to be all cut up over Riley's death, and yeah, "Riley" is just code for "Ginn," but still -- I think we saw Eli and Riley talk ONCE. Maybe TWICE. It just didn't gel for me) -- but the small-scale character writing, THAT was always brilliant -- like how (in the same episode) Rush is just consistently, ever since the pilot, The Most Terrible at Saying Comforting Things Ever. HEE.
That's very interesting, about the voices. I do think they did a FANTASTIC job with casting, and ALL THE ACTORS ROCKED so hard.
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Date: 2012-07-17 10:32 pm (UTC)Work schmerk!!!! Oh, wait, food & rent are good. Carry on!
so I'm not going to be able to do this justice until tonight or tomorrow morning -- until then lemme just reply to this one -- YES. Have you seen Carlyle in Once Upon a Time? I got to SGU by way of him because his portrayal of Gold/Rumpel is so intense. And the amazing thing about Rush is that they may have the same face and the same Scottish accent, but the portrayal is so very different that it took me surprisingly little time to respond to Rush as an entirely different character.
Oooo I love that kind of plasticity in an actor :D Never heard of it! I will *definitely* follow a fantastic actor or writer or director into a previously untested genre or whatever....so, I'll look it up....
And yes, interview!Carlyle is a THIRD character entirely, someone very different! (And, as far as I've heard, really very nice, which is totally funny given the characters he plays. Perhaps he gets all his negative emotions out in his acting?)
LOL!! He wouldn't be the first :D Yes, he comes across as (and is regarded by his fellows as) a very genuine person.
I found the directing excellent. The cinematography... I thought evolved. (The ubiquituous montages, for example, in first season, I could have done without. Thankfully those went away in second season.)
LOL - I *think* we're saying the same thing :P In my brain 'cinematography' covers lighting, lens choices, camera angles and movement....directing & editing cover things like the montages (which became endearing to me even though they are pure schmaltz....), pacing, blocking/actor directing choices etc. (thinking about it, I bet the directive came down from on high to LIGHTEN IT UP and thus the montages, which let them have light moments without disturbing the arc or even changing those episodes very much.....)
The look of the show was well established from the start - the palette, the colors, the aggressive use of almost completely black blacks, willingness to put the actors into a totally dark room with partial lighting for the face only....really beautiful use of dark. As if Firefly was shot with a less saturated, cooler palette and a less sympathtic lighting esthetic :D
The large-scale writing in both first and part of second season frustrated me -- I thought there was entirely too much of telling instead of showing, telling us we were supposed to care about relationships and actions when they didn't give us enough background to do so (like in one scene Eli is supposed to be all cut up over Riley's death, and yeah, "Riley" is just code for "Ginn," but still -- I think we saw Eli and Riley talk ONCE. Maybe TWICE. It just didn't gel for me)
Yeah, they cast around a bit, trying to juggle such a huge ensemble cast, a huge arc and so many different settings (both on the ship and on Earth), and it showed in the writing short-cuts. Knowing the pressure that's on writing teams to put a show on the screen that a completely naive audience can waltz right into and understand, I'm sympathetic to the kind of mistakes you're writing about. They jar me, but I'm willing to overlook them in the first season into the second. And true to good arc-TV form, they finally got all the "tell" outta the way by early season 2 and were well into the SHOW :D There was very little throw away and really no fluff episodes, which really differentiated SGU from SGA and SG1....and that's undoubtedly where they lost the SG fandom. The SG fandom really hated SGU - and I understand why, because it's a show in an entirely different mold. Mah favorite mold :P
That stuff with Eli and Riley was so, 'huh?' that I have to wonder if there's a scene or three on the cutting room floor that filled out that grief beyond 'Ginn-surrogate.' I know that they cut a LOT from this show - can't wait to get my hands on the DVDs :D
-- but the small-scale character writing, THAT was always brilliant -- like how (in the same episode) Rush is just consistently, ever since the pilot, The Most Terrible at Saying Comforting Things Ever. HEE.
I've been rewatching the show with my oldest (who hasn't seen it at all) and I'd forgotten how dreadful Rush is at that stuff right from the start LOL! They did an exceptional job with character consistency right from the beginning. Scifi as a genre has *finally* learned its lessons about internal consistency - scifi fans remember eeeeverything! So don't fuck around or you'll piss your audience off! At the same time, there's nothing we scifi geeks love so much as a seamless retcon, so with some clever writing you can re-cast your show, character etc. and we'll all praise you for it :D I wonder if Telford was always intended to be a brainwashed spy or if that was a beautiful retcon to bring his character into better balance between Rush and Young?
That's very interesting, about the voices. I do think they did a FANTASTIC job with casting, and ALL THE ACTORS ROCKED so hard.
YES. Character was god, on this show. They maximized every chance to show backstory, relationship, conflict, quiet moments....within the purview of scifi/action-y genre, they gave us all the character they could. And the actors never missed a chance to give us non-verbal character stuff either! I loved that :D If they were on camera, they were telling the story, whether they had dialog or action or not.
Okay, must go get ready to sell a cello....I hope! :D
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Date: 2012-07-18 04:31 pm (UTC)...You haven't heard aboutOnce Upon a Time? Well. It's fantasy, probably obviously, a world where the denizens of Fairyland are transported to our world("Storybrooke, Maine") and their memories wiped, as part of a curse. The narrative cuts between backstory in Fairyland and present-day Storybrooke under the curse; Carlyle is Rumpelstiltskin in Fairyland and the pawnbroker-and-all-around-shady-business-guy Mr. Gold in Storybrooke, and he blows both parts away (I didn't even realize it was the same actor playing both roles until reading the recaps).
The show is interesting. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it... it's only gone through one season, and has had a few growing pains: the pacing is kind of terrible and the characterization of at least one major character is a bit all over the place, and the portrayal of adoption/fostering MAKES ME STABBITY. But the arc is exciting, it appears to have the courage of its convictions (can't say more without spoiling) and I looooove how many strong women it has, and that the women are the movers of the action, and that it's the relationships between women that are important, and that familial/parental relationships are given priority over True Love. So there you have it. I suspect you will like it, if only because Carlyle is soooo awesome :)
I know that they cut a LOT from this show - can't wait to get my hands on the DVDs
...this explains a LOT. OK, I might have to get the DVDs, if there's a lot of cut material in them! (I don't want to say goodbye to all these characters yet!)
...really beautiful use of dark
THIS. The aesthetic, I really liked. (Though the jittery camera I could have done without, thanks!)
Re the writing for the ensemble cast: Yeah, I can imagine it's difficult to write for such a large cast (and the ensemble is why I love SGU -- I LOVE ensemble TV, as I've said!) And this, as I've said before, ended up being so very consistent -- So one of the places where I was pleased both by myself and by the writing was -- I had this idea of TJ (and wrote the vast majority of "Laws of Motion") before watching "The Hunt," which was TJ-centric, and I was so very pleased that my conception hit exactly the conception the writers had :)
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Date: 2012-07-17 10:37 pm (UTC)omg, Rush in "Stage Three" trying to assure Tamara that Carmen was truly okay, that she hadn't just imagined it or wished it...but that it had truly happened. He was SO BAD AT THAT that it was making me laugh at the same time it was making me cry :)
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Date: 2012-07-18 03:54 am (UTC)Eli interrogating drunk!Rush, YES! Destiny Bingo IS MY FAVORITE. "Team Chloe and Matt. That is the worst team name ever."
My other absolute favorite is Eli's list of grievances. "Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION WITHELD FROM ELI: DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS" -- and that he graphed the fraction of briefings he's been running over time -- SO ELI! I heart Eli SO MUCH.
Speaking of the time loop chapter, because of this chapter and this whole fic in general, in my headcanon Rush and Greer are TOTALLY partner-allies, and it is WEIRD to watch canon and realize they're ACTUALLY NOT. hee.
I really wish... I think with five years they could have done freaking amazing things with SGU. I really think that first season and the first half of second season was Not All That, and then suddenly it snapped into place and whoa, look at this! (Also, Bashir? LOVE BASHIR. He was always my favorite!)
Firefly is my I-may-never-love-any-show-like-this TV show. I fall hard for not just arc but for ensemble casts that are working together, thus SGU, DS9, ST in general ... not quite as much Farscape (though I admire it very much) or BSG because there was more tension there... and Firefly just pushed ALLLL my fannish buttons. (I never got much into the fandom, though. I think I tend to gravitate towards smaller fandoms.)
However, if you like arc, you MUST check out Veronica Mars first season even though there is no speculative fiction there. But the arc, the ARC. I have never seen anything on TV like it.
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Date: 2012-07-21 07:36 am (UTC)Yes LOL! Thus her into to that chapter, where she said she felt delightfully justified indulging herself and could get away with it cause she's writing in the SG fandom :D There's actually a very similar time-loop episode early on in SG1 where Jack O'Neil and Teal'c are in continuous time and the rest of a huge chunk of the *galaxy* is looping. Initially Jack and Teal'c are refining their ability to explain stuff to SGC so they can get some stuff done....and then someone comments on how fun it must be that they can do anything without long term consequences. So then there's a montage of scenes that are hilarious - Jack & Teal'c hitting golf balls into the Stargate event horizon (Teal'c dressed in plaid awful golfing duds is freakin' hilarious), Jack passionately kissing Sam, a few other things.
SG1 is delightful, but it's a totally different animal than SGU - it's more light hearted, the eps usually touch on the arc but are self contained adventures where Our Heroes Always Win....you know, the old Star Trek structure (complete, in the early seasons, with the old CAMERA PUSH IN! and repeated dramatic music cues - makes me nostalgic :D). The characters are completely endearing though. Someone compiled a "watch these arc eps" list for the first 3 seasons that we found very helpful....and which I cannot currently track down. I'll find it.
(I still have two eps of SGU to go...)
omg, you were still finishing up? Man, what a place to end, yeah? I mean....the eps where we see what happened to the them 2000 years ago were a gift - we got to see an ending. And the final half the final ep was just gorgeous visually, emotionally, character-ly - I cry through the whole thing when I watch it. So, not a Farscape NOOOOOOOOOO! ending at least! But.....aaaaaaaaargh.
I just love Greer. "Do I look like I am having an even remotely good time?" The heartbreaking part where Young disarms Rush, who reveals it was never loaded! "I feel like maybe I'm starting to get where you're coming from." BWAHAHAHAHA.
Man, I loff Greer, but FoD makes me love him 100X more than before :D He turned his damage to such a refined sense balance, and that was well written in the show, and brilliantly built on in FoD.
Oh MAN. The loop scene where Young slowly and carefully disarms Rush might be one of my favorite moments in the book. There's no doubt that 'service' is one of my biggest kink buttons, and the flavor that gets me the hardest, is 'acute perceptiveness when partner is in extremis.' Also, trust. If you look back at the preceding section, Rush had laid out the whole, "I'll *never* trust you, and you'll *never* trust me," bylaw down just a few scenes before. Then the time loops happen in which Young isn't even experiencing the learning curve of, "How the fuck do I get him to trust me on very short notice??"......and yet they hit that point where Rush is worn down to the point where he has no veneer or defenses and can only ask, "please...." and Young gets up & puts on his boots & tells Rush & Greer that he trusts them both. Lovely.
Eli interrogating drunk!Rush, YES! Destiny Bingo IS MY FAVORITE. "Team Chloe and Matt. That is the worst team name ever."
ROFL - yes!! I've read the funny scenes to my sons cause they love good scifi and they both appreciate good fanfiction, and the younger thought 'worst team name ever!' was soooo funny. He's been laughing about that for 2 days now :D
My other absolute favorite is Eli's list of grievances. "Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION WITHELD FROM ELI: DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS" -- and that he graphed the fraction of briefings he's been running over time -- SO ELI! I heart Eli SO MUCH.
Bwaa ha ha ha :D YK, as you've listed these, you've reminded me to go back and bookmark them. There are so many great scenes, but I get involved in the narrative and forget to hit the bookmark buttons! Eli's 'voice' stays really truly consistently Eli throughout FoD - and his voice is so distinct from every other character and distinct from the narrative voice, that it's just a joy to hear it :)
Speaking of the time loop chapter, because of this chapter and this whole fic in general, in my headcanon Rush and Greer are TOTALLY partner-allies, and it is WEIRD to watch canon and realize they're ACTUALLY NOT. hee.
They make a great team, really :D I've been experiencing the same ?? moments in our re-watch of SGU, realizing I'm expecting subtext or dynamics from FoD that 'haven't happened yet' in the SGU-canon-verse :P
[I'm also in love with the construction: /?/ and want to type it all the time now, but no one would understand :D]
I really wish... I think with five years they could have done freaking amazing things with SGU. I really think that first season and the first half of second season was Not All That, and then suddenly it snapped into place and whoa, look at this! (Also, Bashir? LOVE BASHIR. He was always my favorite!)
They REALLY could have, it's heart breaking. It had the potential to be the best arc scifi show of the teens, just as BSG was of the late oughts and Farscape was of the early oughts, and Babylon 5 was of the late 90s.
Firefly is my I-may-never-love-any-show-like-this TV show. I fall hard for not just arc but for ensemble casts that are working together, thus SGU, DS9, ST in general ... not quite as much Farscape (though I admire it very much) or BSG because there was more tension there... and Firefly just pushed ALLLL my fannish buttons. (I never got much into the fandom, though. I think I tend to gravitate towards smaller fandoms.)
Oh HELLS yes. Firefly was The Perfect Scifi show for me. Ensemble cast (ENSEMBLE=BEST), absolutely fucking fantastic chemistry right out of the gates, a universe that was rich and varied full of everything from whimsy to horror all detailed to the extreme, cinematography to make a feature film jealous, and writing that just never missed a note on character or relationship. I'm sure it would have had its less than good eps if it had enjoyed a full run of 5 years, but it would have been extraordinary to have the full scope of Firefly realized. Thank goodness for Serenity at least....but Firefly couldn't be done justice by anything less than a good long run that it never got.
It's almost impossible for me to rank them, but I'll give it a go: Firefly, Farscape, BSG, SGU, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Babylon 5.....ah hell, that list is actually more like
1. Firefly
2a Farscape
2b BSG
2c SGU
2d Sarah Connor
2e B5
LOLOL! My 11yo is like that, too - if you ask him to name his favorite anything (and school teachers ask this kind of thing all the time, very aggravating) he totally freezes up cause he loves all the good stuff equally!
However, if you like arc, you MUST check out Veronica Mars first season even though there is no speculative fiction there. But the arc, the ARC. I have never seen anything on TV like it.
I shall have to check it out! Speaking of "this show KNOWS ARC, you should see it!" if you haven't watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, you totally absolutely should. I'm an enormous T2 fan. I watch it a couple of times a year and have since it came out on VCR :P When I heard they were making TSCC, I was horrified - they couldn't POSSIBLY do justice to the movie, I refused to even watch. Then we found out that Bear McCreary had done the sound track (he did BSG's and it's extraordinary), and at the same time someone on LJ wrote a post that really caught my attention. And hey, Summer Glau! It's just flat out excellent. Another series that I still get viscerally angry didn't get the chance to continue because it was at such a powerful place.
Really enjoying this thread :D Are we self indulgent in our gushing or what? :D :D :D
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Date: 2012-07-22 03:49 am (UTC)Yeah, the 2000-years arc was... just, unexpectedly, heartbreaking. (I'd been spoiled, by reading FoD if by nothing else, that it occurred, but it was different to watch it...) (And HA Rush, who is so obviously sulking, as Volker points out, that they did it all without him! HEE.
...I wrote that a while back, and then I was thinking about it, and I wonder if what's also going on is that -- all the others' alternate selves have -- a legacy; even Brody, who didn't have kids, had a legacy in the nation he created. The alternate Rush, in contrast, was sterile; all he did was die with the ship, at least to the best of primary!Rush's knowledge. I mean, it's because of him that everyone else is still on the ship and not stranded at Novus, but that's a bit cold comfort, in a way...)
The loop scene where Young slowly and carefully disarms Rush might be one of my favorite moments in the book. There's no doubt that 'service' is one of my biggest kink buttons, and the flavor that gets me the hardest, is 'acute perceptiveness when partner is in extremis.' Also, trust. If you look back at the preceding section, Rush had laid out the whole, "I'll *never* trust you, and you'll *never* trust me," bylaw down just a few scenes before. Then the time loops happen in which Young isn't even experiencing the learning curve of, "How the fuck do I get him to trust me on very short notice??"......and yet they hit that point where Rush is worn down to the point where he has no veneer or defenses and can only ask, "please...." and Young gets up & puts on his boots & tells Rush & Greer that he trusts them both. Lovely.
This. THIS.
And OH Eli. I think what I love about Eli in FoD is that he really assumes the responsibilities (for both crew morale and science) that he's growing towards in canon, but only in those last two episodes does he really reach for it. ELI! LOVE!
So I will make a confession that I simply adored the first two seasons of BSG, and then I really thought it went off the rails -- I don't really do crack plots (Farscape? was not crack plot. Farscape was *brilliant* plot) and I am kind of allergic to TV-show-as-current-politics-commentary. (TV show as general meta commentary, sure! Some of DS9, for example, it's surprising to me that it aired so long ago because the episodes on government control, etc. were so relevant when I watched it several years ago...)
So my list of squee!love is something like
1 Firefly
2 Veronica Mars (I actually think it is much better than Firefly in execution, but not *nearly* as lovable)
3 DS9 (esp later seasons)
4 SGU
5 BSG (vaults up to 3 if I only consider the first two or three seasons)
6 Farscape
...I know. I KNOW. OBVIOUSLY Farscape belongs way up on that list in terms of awesomeness. And I loooove Claudia Black, as I've already said. And Broken!Crichton. And I ship them like crazy. And somehow it doesn't make me squee like the other shows do, and I have no idea why. (One reason, I suspect, is that I watched them on my computer, which tends to make me cranky -- I should watch them on an actual TV, or on my iPad, and see whether that changes my opinion. Weird, stupid things like that can have an effect on me!)
...I haven't seen Sarah Connor! I will put it on my list :) (though I think probably SG-1 and SG-A will be first :) ) (I haven't seen B5 either. I know I need to!)
hee. Yes, self-indulgent gushing for the win! Love it!