thedeadparrot

Today was my birthday, and it was super chill and happy. The weather was great, and the company was great, and the food was great.

I also saw the leaked pilot of Elementary. I really enjoyed it, and while there are a bunch of things that I didn't like (Joan's job and former-doctor status, some of the clunkiness of the characterization and the storytelling), I think it's got some great potential to grow into itself after a bunch of episodes. There's a great warmth to the characters that I really love, and I can't wait until they become proper bros!

I really want Elementary to grow its own fandom, but I don't think it will happen. Too bad. I think the clunkiness leaves some great gaps for better writers to fill in.

So I started watching Revenge, and I have to say that it's a whole lot of fun for deeply trashy TV. The main plot is interesting enough, and I really dig Emily/Amanda as a protagonist, and I really dig Victoria as the antagonist. They both get to be highly competent and dangerous, and if the show can keep the intrigue up, their cat-and-mouse game is going to be awesome. I don't think it can last past one season without overstaying its welcome, but so far it's been pacing things nicely.

I am entirely amused by the show's not-Zuckerberg stand-in, Nolan. He's an awesome sidekick character, imo, and I hope they make sure not to fall in love with him too much and give him too much screentime. I think he's best when used sparingly and douchily.

Anyway, this show presses my competence kink and my schadenfreude kink, and I hope it doesn't start sucking. That wouldn't be fun.

I decided to watch the first episode of The Borgias for the lolz. Um, it probably says something about me that I keep going, "Hey, this looks exactly like Assassin's Creed 2/Brotherhood!" Also, "Hey, it's that guy!" Besides Jeremy Irons, there are tons of British character actors floating around.


Also, I swear the weather is trying to troll us today. YEAH, YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE, SMART GUY.

So, I have not actually obtained any free time whatsoever, but I still stake out time for commenting on West Wing, maybe, sometimes.

Anyway, I am now mid-season 3, just after the State of the Union, and okay, I have to say that anything involving the re-election campaign is my favorite and anything involving Josh's love life is very much not my favorite.

Oh, and I just stumbled on the episode about the Taiwan Strait, which would piss me off more if I wasn't really exhausted and stressed out at the moment.

Anyway, I am now shipping Jed/Leo/Abbey liek whoa, because dude, Jed and Leo have an epic bromance that rivals Kirk and Spock's. Okay, maybe slightly less epic, but man, if Bartlet for America wasn't about Leo's ridic mancrush on Jed, I don't even know. And if H. Con-172 wasn't about how much Jed loves him back, I don't even know. Plus, Jed/Abbey is just awesome when the show isn't punishing her for something or the other.

Also, I have developed a soft spot for semi-tragic CJ/Toby, because they are awesome, and frequently they are awesome together. This isn't to say that I dislike CJ/Danny or Toby/Andy in any way, um, just that there's a lot of excellent CJ/Toby out there.

It is a little weird to watch the Bush years played out post-Bush, and I don't even know how I feel about that in particular, because clearly, I am not in the same mindset I was in then. Maybe it would be a breath of fresh air, or maybe it would be fun, escapist alternate-reality. I don't know. It's hard to say.

Blah. How have you all been?

I figured I'd do the 7 things about me meme, just because I can. Ha.

001. I am Chinese-American, usually identifying more as Asian-American. I've been trying to reclaim this for me for a while, and I won't say that it's been easy to work through the issues that come from this feeling of not belonging in your own home, this feeling that you have to give up parts of yourself to belong here. But it's been better lately, and you, circlelist/flist, have been awesome and supportive when I have to do this stuff out in public. I am forever thankful that.

010. I usually hate sitting like a normal person on chairs or near desks. I have to bring my knees to my chest or fold them like, on the chair, with my knees sticking out in all directions. Sometimes, these are hard to accomplish when I'm sitting in classroom desks. But even then, I make it work, dammit.

011. My writing is usually at its best or most interesting when I have something to work with or against, basically when I have to figure out how to make something work for me in my head, which is why I think some of my best work has been about crossovers/AUs/prompts, because I like figuring out where the story is, how to be good enough to get it there.

100. I am extremely conflict-averse, mostly because getting into an argument with someone will usually stress me out a lot more than someone else being Wrong On The Internet. I usually only engage when I think I can handle it, but even then I sometimes grossly miscalculate.

101. I have been told that watching a television show/movie with me is An Experience. This is probably because I talk while I watch them. A lot. In a highly obnoxious way. Some people enjoy this more than others. But seriously, I think it's an extension of my enjoyment of analyzing/taking apart the media I consume. It's a lot more fun taking a deeper look at what I watch than simply consuming it. That's why we're in fandom, right?

110. I need to be moving sometimes when I think. I used to run around my house (literally), and these days, I'll jump onto my bed or hop around my room. These moments don't last very long, so it's basically impossible to turn them into like, a consistent jogging motivation. Which sucks, because I really need one.

111. I try to live my life with joy. This is not to say that I never feel down or out of it or upset. A cursory look through my past entires will tell you that. What I do think, though, is that the world I live in is amazing, and the leaves on the ground are amazing, and the sky above us is amazing, and the fact that we are right here, right now alive on this Earth is amazing. And I want to enjoy as much of it as I can. I want to fill my life with wonder.

A lot of my writing reflects this, I think, the way I believe that it's possible to carve out moments of joy amongst the shittiness of life. It's not easy, and it's not simple, but I have to believe it is possible at the very least.

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In other news, I have been watching The Middleman, which I have been meaning to get around to, and I just have to say, WHY HAS IT TAKEN ME SO LONG TO GET TO IT?

It is goofy self-aware scifi/comic booky-y show with a snarky, geeky female lead who is capable of saying really complicated dialogue really quickly! (and is a WOC!) And it's fun and funny and not afraid to make many, many pop culture references all the time.

Basically, this is the warm, fuzzy television show of my soul, and it makes me so sad that it never lasted past one season. Like, if you have ever read a crackfic of mine and enjoyed it -- or even read a SGA humor fic and enjoyed it -- you will love the pants off this show.

(And omg, did you know that it's centered around female agency and female friendship? Did you? Thought I'd just POINT THAT OUT.)

Anyway, I want to say that there are Ideas brewing in my head for post-series futurefic for Wendy Watson. I might even write some of it for halfamoon.

So I have been noticeably absent on LJ recently, I think, and that's a combination of (a) homework work, (b) TA work, (c) housework work, (d) looking-for-work work, and (e) video games.

I gotta say, Okami is one of those games that hits my addiction buttons in video games, which is usually only achieved by games in the Zelda series. But seriously, you run around as a white wolf! And you make things grow! And you paint all over the screen! And then you kill things, of course, in incredibly cathartic ways.

Also, I kind of got sucked into reading Man from U.N.C.L.E. fic, mostly out of fannish osmosis and an enjoyment of spies! At some point I will probably have to see another episode, as the only one I have seen so far is the crossover one where Kirk and Spock show up to chill for a bit.

Have not been paying attention to the new seasons of House or Merlin, though that may change in the future. Who knows.

In other TV news, I have been using Boston Legal as background noise as I'm trying get work done, and S4 of Hustle is a real let down, because the dynamics don't work right without Mickey. *wants S5*

Oh man, corporate whoring week is back in town. Probably should get back to my randomized algorithms proofs so that I have time to do stuff later.

So, queenzulu pimped me into Leverage, TNT's latest television show about thieves, and it is AWESOME.

They heist! They snark! They are ridiculous! They have two female characters I like (though one of them is being roped into a crappy romantic subplot)! The black guy is the nerdy hacker and not the muscle! Who talks about torrenting Doctor Who!

Of course, there is a good amount of cheese to all of this, though if you can just sit back and enjoy it, it's sort of delightful. There's some unnecessary angst about the main character's son (and seriously, if it isn't daddy issues, it's son issues, but that's a rant for another time).

Overall, though, it's about people being ridiculously competent as they scam and steal from other people (bad guys, of course), and if you dug the Ocean's movies, you'll dig this as well because frequently the scams are needlessly complicated and feature ridiculous accents.

I'm not feeling fannish about it, but it is ridiculously fun.


On a similar note, Sheppard's 11 is moving forwards at a nice pace. I have reached 12,500 words and have only the actual heist left to write (that's not a spoiler, right? You guys do know that there's a heist involved?). Everything is pretty bare bones at the moment, so editing is going to involve a whole lot of fleshing out, but I am excited. Next up will be sketching out what scenes I want for the heist, then making a pass through to fill those scenes in.


Okay, so here's my request for recs: What's your favorite retelling of the King Arthur legend? I'm on a kick, and I know there has to be dozens and dozens out there, but I don't know which ones I should look into! For the record, I've read The Once and Future King, Mists of Avalon, Guinevere: Queen of the Summer Country, and I'm probably going to be looking into Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. So, if you guys know of anything particularly awesome I haven't mentioned, please tell me about it.