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 02:18 am (UTC)rofl - I hear ya :P I pretty much dropped everything and read the hell out of this fic....and then a second time....and now a third time. What can I say, I have a high tolerance for repetition, when something is FUCKING AWEOME. If my Kindle could get dog-eared pages, it would already have them on this fic, as I go back and reread pivotal scenes that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Dayum.
Shall we gush? :D
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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: 2012-07-17 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: 2012-07-17 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 03:43 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: 2012-07-18 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: 2012-07-18 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: 2012-07-21 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
no subject
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!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-31 04:43 am (UTC)I have more rambling to do on FoD....and now on these two stories as well. I shall have to compose myself, and then return to type it all out :D
Enjoying your re-read??
no subject
Date: 2012-07-31 02:12 pm (UTC)So, um, I got distracted from a reread by rereading Transfigurations (thanks for the rec!) and randomly finding Blood Magic. Have you read this? I'd read it long ago when I was reading a lot of HP fic, but it'd been so long I forgot what happened... I really like it. Nice worldbuilding, I think you'd like it.
Um, so, this wouldn't help with something like FoD where there were all these interspersed things, but for something like Blood Magic, have you seen this converter? I'm using it for all my long-form non-AO3 fic reads now...
no subject
Date: 2012-08-03 05:16 pm (UTC)Ooo - interesting converter!! I wonder how well it works? I've gotten really fast at c/p into a Libre document with chapter headings as h1, save as .html, convert in Calibre using h1 to create chapters, bam! :P
Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-04 04:10 am (UTC)Good stuff: plot. So much stuff going on. The Nekai, the planet trips, the constant power crises, the lovely way the relationship stuff didn't fix anything. Eli. Eli's note-rant - Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION ... Colonel Young: 5 DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS - Chloe getting to shoot stuff, and disarm bombs, and be a hardcore mathematician in a story where math = very high-value talent (RIEMANN HYPOTHESIS, even I have heard about that one!), the sense of ensemble, enhanced by the interlude fics.
The chewy bits: the trust issues. The backstabbing. For a nominally relationshippy action story with a nominally happy ending, there was an awful lot of lying, misdirection, and questionable consent (or outright pressure tactics, starting with "nice of you to wake up, by the way, telepathic link to your least favorite person on the entire ship and you can't keep them out of your head"). The Telford-Rush-Young tug-of-civilian felt a bit underdeveloped. If this had been posted as a complete piece instead of a WiP, maybe that would have gotten a little more organization/attention in the rewrite.
The Young-Telford dynamic may be a bit opaque to me because I skipped into this after half a season of the show two years ago. It was tough for me to get a bead on Young's character in FOD; if I'd watched more of the show (or, you know, been invested in a reading of the character beyond you abandoned one of your people onplanet, what the heck, the SG unofficial motto is "no one left behind", and that's when I broke up with SGU) I might have a better grounding for how Young evolves through the story.
The last two chapters sort of fell apart for me, because 1.) not that invested in how Young's brain is being colonized from the subconscious up, 2.) Arlington? Arlington? Seriously, wrong for Rush's character and doubly wrong considering what a pain in the neck Arlington burials can be for actual military, 3.) the setup evoked one of my favorite SGA fics, with serious cognitive dissonance. And yet, if you're going to try to sell an OTP, writing out the identity theme in the last section of the last chapter in blazing clarity is a great way to sell it to me.
BTW, I read "Mathematique" (what's up so far), and I am thrilled because the made-up genetics have overlap with SGA trash-talking I did in 2006. Apparently I am not the only person to call shenanigans on bad TV biology, yay!
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-04 02:36 pm (UTC)I think the plot management was really good, and I too loved the ensemble moments, especially the science team. And Eli. I LOVE ELI. I love that he graphed the fraction of briefings he'd been doing! Chloe's mathematician arc is show canon, although the part where she gets to shoot things and disarm bombs is a nice riff that she doesn't get to do on the show (which tends to be a little more protective of her than I think is a good thing).
I actually rather liked the trust/backstabbing parts, I suppose because Young/Rush is so not my pairing -- it's rather hard for me to imagine them getting together in any way that doesn't involve a lot of questionable... something. So that didn't bother me, whereas I think it would have bothered me in a pairing that was supposed to be presented as a little more healthy.
Young: so I think Young's character in FoD is quite a bit more tortured, angsty, and obnoxious than canon!Young. Yeah, canon!Young left Rush on the planet -- but in later episodes this was presented as a serious but temporary lapse in judgment, and he sort-of-kind-of atones for it, and his later character arcs present him as a fundamentally decent guy who is usually fairly level-headed, sort of Adama-like. Fod!Young, I feel, is still stuck on the characterization of the guy who left Rush on the planet; I think latercanon!Young would probably have agreed to have TJ pull Rush out instead of him. (Part of this -- I exchanged a couple of PMs with CWR -- had to do with trying to make sense of canon Young/TJ, which really kind of MAKES NO SENSE unless you postulate Young has some odd relationship issues.) I like canon!Young rather better, but (as I said above) I kind of appreciate not whitewashing the relationship between two guys who are both really obnoxious.
Fod!Rush, I think, is also rather more tortured and angsty than canon!Rush (while still not an illegitimate reading of his character). Now, canon!Rush has issues from here to the moon, don't get me wrong, but I didn't get the feeling that he hated himself. That being said, I rather liked the idea of there being some central theme underlying his whole personality, and it dovetailed nicely with the plot in terms of Ascension and the AI and all that.
Oh, Telford. This is why I said you should start with "Subversion" once I knew you were reading FoD, even with the icky torture attitude bits, because those episodes are really Telford's arc, and Telford is the one character that I think is really a bit OOC in FoD. He's not particularly OOC for how he's presented early first season, which is why it didn't register on me while reading, and maybe the fic was plotted out before subsequent character developments, but Telford in second season is not at all the Machiavellian government antagonist he's presented to be in the fic. (I actually quite liked him in second season SGU.) That being said, I enjoyed getting Telford/Rush backstory. Um. I'm kind of a sucker for plot?
Hee, I didn't catch the Arlington thing (not knowing anything about it). I liked the last two chapters because it gave me a chance to catch my breath, by that time I'd watched more of the show and was therefore more invested in what happened to the crew once they got back, and I did actually like how everything pulled together, but -- yes, after the plot-heavy climaxes of the previous chapters, definitely a lot slower. I have to admit to being awfully relieved that Rush went back for Young, because he'd gotten himself so screwed up by that time.
Hm. I'm going to have to watch SGA, I think, and then ask you about your favorite SGA fic. I really like watching McKay, I must admit, at least based on his guest appearance on SGU - so slimy!
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-04 09:59 pm (UTC)heroesprotagonists will Never Trust Each Other Ever... right before acts of mutual trust and nonaggression fix the time loop. Oh, boys.Oh, Telford.
*cackles* "Oh, [name]" is a pretty standard feeling in Stargate fandom. "Subversion" looks like a trainwreck and I will give it a shot once I find a copy. Or break down and join Netflix or something.
Um. I'm kind of a sucker for plot?
Really not surprised here. :-) The Rush/Telford backstory was a nice retcon/spackle job for why Rush is the way he is, although without seeing more of the show I can't vouch for Telford's characterization.
Speaking of not surprising, it almost feels expected that FOD dialed up characterization angst. It's sort of what fanfic likes to do. (I talked one of my fannish buddies into reading FOD; she argued that it's not really slash (!) because there's too much plot relative to sex &/or romantic payoff. There's an argument about genre tropes I want to invoke around here.) Specific character notes: FOD!Young does get over the top, but it sort of makes sense in the (usually escalating) Young-Rush tug-of-autonomy. Canon Young/TJ makes zero sense to me - seriously, TJ can do better, Young can do something less career-damaging - not sure how much of that is because the writers were shoehorning in the actress' real-life pregnancy. FOD!Rush is crazier than a bag of cats, and for some reason this bothers me less. I blame fannish conditioning, as well as approaching this as 50% original characters.
And the AI. How have I not even touched on the AI? Clearly Young's experiences at the SGC have not expanded his definition of "people". Ouch.
The history of Arlington Cemetery is actually somewhat interesting in its own right. Formerly the property of Robert E. Lee, the Union Army started burying its dead on the Confederate general's property in 1864. Now, it's one of the more well-known and well-filled military cemeteries, so there's a few extra hoops to jump for burial there.
I have to admit to being awfully relieved that Rush went back for Young, because he'd gotten himself so screwed up by that time.
Oh yes he did. Oh, Everett, what were you - oh, right, you weren't thinking very clearly, were you. I'd sort of been rooting for Young to pull himself together post-Destiny, but it's not that sort of story.
I really like watching McKay, I must admit, at least based on his guest appearance on SGU - so slimy!
Oh boy. McKay has been an insufferable genius since his first appearance in S6 SG-1, leavened by David Hewlett's comedic timing. I picked up that SGU S2 ep he was in, and I've got to say, when Rodney McKay of all people tells you that your plan isn't working, you dug a hole and jumped in it? Stop digging. Rodney's inability to assess when forward momentum is fixing nothing, but is only raising the catastrophe index, is fairly solid canon.
Okay, I think I'm missing things, but this comment has gone on long enough.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 03:02 am (UTC)I haven't gotten into elaiel's fic, for whatever reason -- do you like it?
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-06 03:29 am (UTC)I don't think, as I said before, that Telford's characterization was really off for the backstory -- in fact it was probably pretty much on for early first season (with angst dialed up a notch, as always).
Speaking of angst, yes, I agree -- what fanfic likes to do, so I didn't really give it much of a thought until you asked about the characterization :)
she argued that it's not really slash (!) because there's too much plot relative to sex &/or romantic payoff.
While this made me laugh, I kind of see where she's coming from. I feel like when a fic is marked slash (or het, for that matter), the expectation is that it will be ALL romance/sex, ALL the time, and that the characters will have no interests other than the romance bit. It sort of irks me, especially on the AO3 -- I never know what to tag things. I'd probably categorize this one both M/M and gen if it were on AO3, because just M/M, I think, gives rise to a trope expectation that doesn't give sufficient weight to the amount of plot.
Agree (as does CWR) that Young/TJ makes no sense. I can sort of understand it in my head on TJ's side -- guy chasing her, insistently, won't take no for an answer, in a moment of weakness TJ gives in, comes to her senses a while later and gets the heck out -- anyone can make a mistake once, right? (I also sort of imagine TJ as a little too oversocialized, though maybe I'm projecting Ekaterin onto her -- I sort of picture Ekaterin as a lot like TJ only with darker hair.) Young, no idea. CWR thinks it might be that he wants the unattainable (he seems to be uninterested in TJ on the Destiny until another guy gets interested in her) which also would explain why he keeps being interested in Rush.
FOD!Young does get over the top, but it sort of makes sense in the (usually escalating) Young-Rush tug-of-autonomy... FOD!Rush is crazier than a bag of cats, and for some reason this bothers me less.
Yeah, I agree. The other thing, I think, is that even if FoD!Rush's craziness is dialed up, it's sort of amping up character traits that exist in the original (because even if canon!Rush isn't quite that crazy, he's... crazy enough), and that doesn't bother me -- like you say, fannish conditioning.
I kind of adore the AI. What can I say, I am a sucker for the romance of technology, or something? But yes, Young's attitude towards it was rather, um, speciesist? organicist?
I'd sort of been rooting for Young to pull himself together post-Destiny, but it's not that sort of story.
Well -- I see what you're saying -- but it is indeed so not that sort of story.
leavened by David Hewlett's comedic timing. I picked up that SGU S2 ep he was in, and I've got to say, when Rodney McKay of all people tells you that your plan isn't working, you dug a hole and jumped in it? Stop digging.
He indeed has great comedic timing -- I really enjoyed watching him. I certainly did get the impression he was... optimistic... from that episode.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 06:03 am (UTC)elaiel's work isn't on the same depth-of-detail or depth-of-character in any way as CWR, but it's enjoyable to read. Lessee....can I say something more specific than that? *thinks thinky thoughts....comes up blank* It's honest carpenter fic, I'd say - well crafted, but not a blaze of delight like CWR's or Resonant's or Helenish's or Copperbadge's :)
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-07 12:50 am (UTC)I talked one of my fannish buddies into reading FOD; she argued that it's not really slash (!) because there's too much plot relative to sex &/or romantic payoff.
I'm kinda boggled to read that :D Okay, fandom does loff its porn - I mean, most of fandom exists for its porn! But if you pick up a 300,000 word story, you BETTER understand that this story is going to be largely about plot and relationship dynamics....cause how much frakkin' porn can there really BE in there? (don't answer that....)
I see FoD as an example of slash at its most skillful - it's not only a same sex pairing, it's a pairing that is brought together despite a fairly unrelenting reading of the canon dynamic of intense conflict. Slash is at its best when it keeps characters in-character (everything from "they hate each other" to "straight" is maintained), and makes us believe they fall in love any way. And there's no WAY you can read Rush/Young in FoD as anything other than love, even though the extremity of their situation keeps them from having the time or energy to do much romance :)
Okay, I think I'm missing things, but this comment has gone on long enough.
....have ya LOOKED at the comments in this thread so far? No such thang! :D
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-07 12:57 am (UTC)I had always closed the browser if I started a story and the conceit was, "Magic telepathic link!!" ....but this is the SGverse, and by golly that's canon! So I bought it completely, didn't even give it a second thought :D
The SGverse has that in common with HPverse I suppose - the canon universes are so delightfully crack-y that fanfic has wonderful latitude to play around in :)
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-07 03:02 am (UTC)Which gets back to my fundamental SGU stumbling-block, it's coming with lots of SG-verse baggage. If one filed off the serial numbers, I might enjoy it rather more.
...so Amazon's streaming service has the entire series for $8 ($4/season). Talk about temptation!
I feel like when a fic is marked slash (or het, for that matter), the expectation is that it will be ALL romance/sex, ALL the time, and that the characters will have no interests other than the romance bit.
Yes, there's genre expectations when there's a slash label on the box. FOD fit some but not all of those expectations: m/m relationship, check; significant to story, check; deep emotional bond, hi mental link; erotica no check. I want to say the relationship dynamics are almost old-school zine slash? Filtered through second-hand accounts and in FOD's case wedged into a heck of a lot more plot.
Tangentially, at one point people were suggesting "bob" as a tag for "(slash or het or other) relationship present but not the focus of this story". I don't know if it caught on outside cofax et al's circle, but I think it fills a niche.
I kind of adore the AI. What can I say, I am a sucker for the romance of technology, or something? But yes, Young's attitude towards it was rather, um, speciesist? organicist?
I'll go with speciesist. (I sort of want to see what happens if Young ever meets the Tok'ra, other than reflexive angry o_O face.) But the AI! It's trying so hard, and it is so very screwed from the minute Young decided it was a threat. So between Young treating it like the red-haired stepchild, and Rush's probably erratic guidance, it's a miracle it's not even more messed up. You probably have more background to assess the comp sci behind the scenes, but what I saw was plausible enough to suspend my disbelief. And make me want to give the AI hugs and chocolate. (Or whatever AIs get. Awesome math proofs?)
Young's attitude is actually in keeping with the SG-verse relationship with non-organic intelligence - wait, CWR managed to write 350k+ with an intelligent spaceship without invoking the replicator arc(s)? Okay, short version, spider-shaped Lego nanotech with a grudge from that time SG-1 lied and locked it/them in a time-dilation bubble - as well as his own tendency to let his emotions do the first evaluation. One of the good things about the fic is how organi- uh, intrinsic the Young-AI conflict feels, even when I want Young to ask more questions instead of flouncing out of the room/interface/interaction.
. I certainly did get the impression he was... optimistic... from that episode.
If you want SG1/SGA spoilers, I can cite multiple episodes where McKay failed to demonstrate the level of disaster sensitivity he has in "Sabotage". Seriously.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-07 03:09 am (UTC)Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-07 04:19 am (UTC)It's a great story, which trumps pairing for me. Or limited interest in the canon, in this case!
And there's no WAY you can read Rush/Young in FoD as anything other than love, even though the extremity of their situation keeps them from having the time or energy to do much romance :)
Eh, I think I have a different reading, at least at the beginning and partway through. There's love and then there's romantic love. And then there's lust. And need. By the end of FOD, I'd parse their relationship as probably in love, but I'm hedging my bets with integrated personality that doesn't hate itself (For FOD!Rush, forgiveness is a big step up!). I'm out of date on SGU canon, so I'm not sure where Young's head is starts on the romance/lust/need sliders, and that's messing with my reading of what CWR's doing with the romance.
A big piece of FOD seems to be how Rush and Young change: Rush because of the AI and the Ancient genetic overwrite; Young because of the link and Rush's neurological scaffolding. They're highly, I don't know, congruent by the end of the story? But they sure don't start there. The unstable dynamic - trust, need, affection, competing goals - is bulletproof awesome emotional storytelling. It can beromantic, but if at the end of this Young had walked away kind of shattered and pulled himself together (after two to five years) I would've understood that reading too. I didn't get the OTP vibe, but there was something very interesting going on with an identity theme flirting through the entire story, and it felt like chapters 48 - 50 really laid those cards on the table, especially the very end of 50.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-08 01:53 pm (UTC)Heh. I didn't realize this was an SG thing, although I suppose the way that Telford and Young are all "okay, here we go again" should have clued me in to that; I figured that one of the things that was going on was that they, unfortunately, figured out that Carlyle looks all woobly when he's tortured (poor Rush really can't get a break in this show). Which is true, but... he also does all kinds of other sorts of acting well, darn it!
Which gets back to my fundamental SGU stumbling-block, it's coming with lots of SG-verse baggage. If one filed off the serial numbers, I might enjoy it rather more.
I really think my SGU-love benefited from watching it first, without knowing anything about SG-verse at all (I literally didn't know anything about it besides that MacGyver was somehow involved -- hard to know how that's even possible, with the huge fandom, but there it is). I think my SG-1 watching, at first, suffered from the reverse effect, but -- I finally got to the end of Children of the Gods Part II -- I think I shall be able to decouple it.
But the AI! It's trying so hard, and it is so very screwed from the minute Young decided it was a threat. So between Young treating it like the red-haired stepchild, and Rush's probably erratic guidance, it's a miracle it's not even more messed up. You probably have more background to assess the comp sci behind the scenes, but what I saw was plausible enough to suspend my disbelief.
Awwwww the AI. One of my favorite characters! I don't think anyone has enough CS to assess what a self-aware AI would be like :) But I loved how it was both vaguely romantic and vaguely parental and -- and kind of hits all those buttons for me the way Mike did in Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- and yes, if the AI had been a human, it would have been slightly skeevy, but it's not a human.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-08 01:54 pm (UTC)Yeah -- this is kind of my reading of it. I mean, in some ways becoming an integrated personality is sort of the goal of a lot of in-love sorts of situations -- but in some ways I felt a bit like FoD!Young/Rush kind of skipped the "in love" phase and went straight to integrated-personality.
I see FoD as an example of slash at its most skillful - it's not only a same sex pairing, it's a pairing that is brought together despite a fairly unrelenting reading of the canon dynamic of intense conflict.
But yes to this! Like I said earlier in this thread, I think it's amazing that I started buying into the relationship even though they're both kind of... obnoxious.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-09 04:52 am (UTC)There was a really unfortunate SGA episode. Characters in a bind thought torture might force a mole out of hiding, and, um, it didn't work very well. The most charitable reading is a post-Guantanamo Very Special Episode, which backfired.
I think my SG-1 watching, at first, suffered from the reverse effect, but -- I finally got to the end of Children of the Gods Part II -- I think I shall be able to decouple it.
SGU does gritty; SG-1 SG-is a little more... bubbly. Classic Trek-influenced sci-fi drama. If you can calibrate for that, you should be able to adjust.
Depending on how you feel about the rest of S1, there's an old Stargate Primer for the Farscape Fan written when Ben Browder was cast on SG-1. It's very funny, but most importantly it ends with episode recommendations by season. My top three by season aren't her top three, but they're solid eps.
The AI isn't human, and that's actually pretty cool. It wants to understand humans - or it's programmed to try to comprehend the people running around the ship, or something - so I parse it as somewhat kid-like. In addition to romantic and sometimes parental. It wants to fix things, but it doesn't know how, or even that some problems aren't fixable within its capabilities, and it's really bad at coping with that. (One of my favorite parts is when Young and the AI have to cope with Rush off the ship.) I've got my buttons installed in slightly different places, but it's hitting some of those.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-10 01:41 pm (UTC)Classic Trek-influenced sci-fi drama. If you can calibrate for that, you should be able to adjust.
I'm getting that...
Depending on how you feel about the rest of S1, there's an old Stargate Primer for the Farscape Fan written when Ben Browder was cast on SG-1.
This is awesome. Also it helps a lot with orienting myself tone-wise ("oh, okay, RDA is trying to be funny!")
Yeah, sorry, my comment was quite incoherent -- I meant that Rush's relationship with it was parent-like, not the AI's. (Although I guess the AI also has to be parental, with all the trouble its humans are getting themselves into...) Anyway! Awwwww AI! :)
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-13 12:50 am (UTC)The really weird thing about the torture in SGU is that it works, at least with Telford, and Young's all blase about it. I think maybe the point was to set up a correspondence between it working with Telford and not working with Rush, but it didn't come together at all.
Well, SG-1 canon is you can break the brainwashing, but you basically have to flatline the victim to do so. Thus, Telford. It's a strategy. (Except in Rush's body, so it doesn't make much sense to me.) I think Young's choice to cut Wray and Scott out of the loop was spectacularly stupid, but it's part of Young's pattern of poor decision-making. Rush? I got nothing. The writers want to show Kiva and the Lucian Alliance are bad guys? It's the SGU take on Everyone Breaks Eventually? IDK, it's a theme the SGU writers don't handle with tact or sensitivity, but like to pull out of the plot-box anyway.
On a marginally related note, GO PARK for telling Young "no shouting" when Team Science was working on the FTL and pulsar problems. When is Young going to realize you attract more flies with honey than vinegar.
Anyway! Awwwww AI! :)
Aww AI indeed! I'm failing to resist rereading Heinlein after your earlier comment. The change in gears, tones, etc is causing some serious genre-clash for me. (Manny on Destiny, oh my stars and garters.)
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-13 01:15 am (UTC)Yes, this. There's not much mutual trust or liking, and then they're stuck together, and make it work. (Mostly. For values of "work" that include ascension.)
Like I said earlier in this thread, I think it's amazing that I started buying into the relationship even though they're both kind of... obnoxious.
*Cackles* SGA fandom does this trick too, with more comedy and lower levels of canon mutual dislike. It's pretty awesome.
Re: Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-13 08:03 pm (UTC)That's... actually... way better than what I was fearing, which was something along the lines of "This is terrible and you are a bad person for enabling me to watch it!" ;) I feel kind of the same way about it, myself, except maybe slightly more on the "enjoy" side?
I can comment on "Sabotage", "Pain", "Subversion", and "Incursion" 1 & 2.
Huh. I thought "Pain" was... not really worth watching (there's a reason I thought you should begin with Subversion). I liked "Sabotage," although partially for an Eli/Rush moment (I kind of heart Eli-Rush as a mentor/rivalry thing, even though I think part of what I like is the FoD version rather than the actual show version) and partially because I am drawn to Perry EVEN THOUGH SHE CLEARLY NEEDS TO GET OVER HER SCHOOLGIRL CRUSH. (I like that they don't shy away from the fact that this is what it is, but STILL. Am waiting for you to watch "The Greater Good" so I can really complain about her.)
The only other Season 1 I think is worth watching is "Human," but you have to also remember that a) I am a sucker for Carlyle, and b) SHOR'S ALGORITHM. So YMMV. But, hey, Daniel Jackson!
Season 2: "Intervention" is needed to tie up the arc. "Aftermath"... hmmmm... not my favorite, but I do like Riley quite a lot. "Awakening" I actually don't remember if I liked or not -- I think it was OK, and features Telford being decent. "Pathogen" wasn't one of my favorites, but it's Chloe-centric (sort of) and I do very much like the Eli-Wray subplot. "Cloverdale" is really not worth watching unless you want to see the actors do small-town America dreamscape (I thought it was a hoot, myself, and the *acting* is really good, but the whole concept is... eh. I'd advise against it unless you're feeling pretty punchy). "Trial and Error"... is Young acting stupid again. I know how much you love that! Wheeee! From "The Greater Good," as I've said, I think they're pretty much worth watching ("Visitation" has some pretty awful science, but in retrospect is one of my favorites in an incredibly creepy way) -- oh, except for "The Hunt," which was this totally random one-off in a half-season of arc. (I still liked it, because TJ is awesome, but it would be fine if you skipped it.)
Netflix has told me I can't watch SG-1 OR SG-A anymore. What the crap! I may have to go back and resurrect the DVD membership again. Or get amazon prime, which works out to about the same amount and would give me two-day shipping. Hmmmph.
(Manny on Destiny, oh my stars and garters.)
*head explodes*