I AM HOME! (What I Did, Who I Met, Recs and Assorted Lunacy)
I'M HOME! Honestly, it's somewhat depressing cus now I'm exhausted and jetlagged and have to go to work tomorrow. BUT, I had a fantastic time on holiday and while I was away, while things did not go as awesome as they might have, nothing exploded which given the state of some things when I left them, was a minor miracle.
Anyway! What follows is a lot of personal type stories, so feel free to skip over - I've tried to highlight various recs in individual LJ-cuts so they're obvious. I know this is a hell of a tangled mess of a post, but I kind of want to get it all out and on here and most of these recs are tied in with the story of my hoilday.
It was really nice to see my family after FOREVER of not seeing them due to financial issues and then living in Korea for six months. Honestly, my family is small and sadly I didn't really see my cousins, and deliberately avoided seeing my grandpa's girlfriend (OY DON'T ASK) and step-cousins by arranging to be in a different state. But my aunt and uncle came out especially to see me and it was great hanging out with my grandpa. I love that dude. He's so weird. And frustrating. And probably autistic. He made me go down to the basement to help find small blocks of wood (don't ask). We eventually found them west of the boiler (yes, WEST of the boiler, this is how directions are given in this household; don't ask) in a box labelled, "irregular small wooden blocks, 1982". DON'T ASK.
My mother dragged me to a succession of her friends houses to, I dunno, prove I still existed or something, that and to show off my wedding ring because it was my grandmother's (my mother's mother) and therefore she feels somewhat proprietory over it. Which I understand, I mean, you know, she gave it to me when I didn't know what I was gonna do about a ring cus I was flat broke (Kev's we got for free because surreally he won his office raffle that he didn't know he'd entered and got lots of expensive gift vouchers which were valid at, among other places, a jewellers). And then everyone made me feel terrified that I didn't have this thing insured. Which to be honest, I really should do cus it's probably worth...well, I'm sure it's not worth a fortune as far as rings go because dude, some of those things are worth more than ENTIRE HOUSES, but it's platinum and has nine tiny diamonds channel-set across the top, the result being a) it's appealingly understated in terms of physical appearance cus I wander around in T-Shirts and anything more ostentatious would overwhelm me and b) it's...probably worth more than anything I've ever owned before, pathetic as that truth is. THUS. Insurance...probably a good plan.
PEOPLE WHAT I MET!!
Okay, so, on to the really fun bits - I got to meet a bunch of people from my flist which was both terrifying and pretty fucking awesome as I didn't really think I'd ever get that chance, living across the Atlantic from most of you.
First I hung out with chaila43. We went to a nifty Italian restaurant which had POTATO PIZZA WHAT and good desert and then I stayed over at her apartment and we got to talk about VIDDING. IN PERSON. Although not as much as either of us would have liked cus, well, I know I didn't want to leave, cus she is awesome and smart and it's so fun to be able to like...be with you all in person and explode about awesome geekery and vent about stupid show stuff and glee about awesome show stuff with SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS. And okay, I have very infrequently met flist-members before (heyiya and grav_ity and hmpf for instance) which has always had that sense of OMG SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS! But...it's still such a rare occurence for me that the notion hasn't gotten old, and probably never will. So thank you, chaila, for being SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS and also being a fantastically fantastical person at the same time. Plus this was the first time EVER I got to speak in person to someone about vidding. Which, EEEEEEEE!
I'm still scared of Sony Vegas, but seeing you actually using it was awesome and I'm kind of sad I didn't cart out my laptop so our two laptops could reject each other in person. Although we seem to be moving past that since your latest vid didn't glitch for me at all! Also discussing metatxt's and cyborganize's HILARIOUS ROMANCE from our parallel sideline perspectives was awesome and wildly informative. As was watching them vid-chat, about which more later.
Your mom's hot chocolate is awesome and everything about you is awesome and I wish I'd been able to hang out with you for longer.
ALSO, everyone should go watch chaila43's latest TSCC vid - Somewhere Over The Rainbow. It's beautiful and creepy, just like the show and really is a song choice that is so obvious in retrospect it's shocking no one else has made it yet. Except I'm glad they haven't because now I get to see chaila's version.
THEN I got carted up to Massachussetts with my mom cus she has like...kind of a house there. Except not really. Cus there's no kitchen, or, you know, HEAT. But what I did get to do was hang out for the afternoon with frolicndetour, which was, as above, and as below, and as a recurrent theme among LJ people, awesome.
And, um, mostly I think we just yakked for HOURS and went for pizza and then I took her back to my TOTALLY CLASSY unfurnished, unkitchenned, unheated pad and we yakked some more. About...Sam Anders and Kara Thrace for an embarassing amount of time, but hey, I OWN MY BIAS.
And quite honestly, I was under the impression we left with me deciding you should write a fic about Kacey's mom dying in the New Caprica attacks and Kara getting stuck with her, and you apparently think we'd decided I should, but either way IT OUGHT TO HAPPEN. My husband laughed out loud when I showed him the Baltar pendant, and I'm totally waiting for an excuse to wear it; I can't decide whether it would be better if people did or didn't know what the hell it was. XD Thank you!
She also recced me Insanity Has Us United by merrykk. To my shame I haven't actually managed to read it yet, because it's long and I've been busy with vacation things, but I do hope to catch up with it soon and, you know, leave feedback. But frankly, it deserves reccing on the sheer fact that merrykk WROTE THIS THING. Because I am told it is COMPLETE CRACK taken DEADLY SERIOUSLY and you all know how I feel about that kind of thing.
I'm told it's Kara/Caprica fpreg which to steal from Allie's own recc sounds like it has all the genderbending hilarity of mpreg without the overwhelming EEEEEW factor. Plus, CAPRICA. Plus, apparently, it has lots of unconventional family set-ups which I am a sucker for.
And the entire justification is the frankly fantastically literal take on the "love=babies" weirdness that if Kara has the same ability to live in denial as Gaius and the same ability to drink as Tigh, IS SHE IN FACT the two men Caprica loves rolled into one person? Which just. LOL. And clearly, the answer is yes.
So, um, there you go, a rec based on not having read it at all but being in love with the concept.
After that I went to Boston and spent a few EPIC DAYS with cyborganize, which, just, everything I could say about that would be summed up with "<# <# <3 <#". I've known you for years, and it was so amazing to finally be able to see you. How physically comfortable I felt in the same space as you was incredibly comforting. You still need to send me that dissertation chapter!
Thanks to you, I now have SIX FREAKIN' VIDS TO MAKE, and yet somehow, I cannot bring myself to blame you. ;)
We had a fantastic dinner with @Hera_Agathon from Twitter and the surreal realisation that she knew a welsh-speaker who is my age from my area or thereabouts. Since I didn't recognise her name from school I imagine she lived far enough away she was to, like, Llanhari or something rather than Glantaf (my high school), but still, WEIRD. Anyway, it was amazing to get to meet the legendary twitter BSG RPG character, played hilariously and perfectly as a tiny civil rights activist - CYBRID VIGOR! I will never forget the time @Hera_Agathon and @Saul_Tigh (me) had a giant argument about which of us was a more appropriate girlfriend for @Caprica_Six.
Me and cyborganize as VID CHATTED with metatxt which was pretty awesome. Even if SOMEONE insisted on distracting SOMEONE ELSE every time I had SRS POINTS to make! Srsly, man, I was like, a soliloquy of eloquence on deep topics! Nah, in all seriousness, I'm glad you two crazy kids are working out. If nothing else, it makes my life (and chaila's life!) a lot simpler... :p
For a while we also got to vid-chat with heyiya too. Your newly-made workspace is adorable even in grainy webcam quality!
We wandered all over loads of places with Julie trying to convince me that stuff made in the 1600s was REALLY REALLY OLD. So I took her on a google-maps tour of Cardiff and showed her that I can see a 1000 year old Castle through my office window. Like, literally we are across the street from it, it's a road, a bus stop and a dry moat's width away from us. All the emo kids hang out there. *pulls hand over one eye* MY MUM BOUGHT ME THE WRONG HOODIE! YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!
There is also a fascinating store where you can put stuff in a can for $4. Like, anything you like. Alas I couldn't come up with anything cool enough to can, so I didn't and instead just bought make-your-own-monster magnets and marvelled at how many awesome ice-cream and desert and cupcake shops Cambridge seems to have.
Also, AMERICANS, WHAT IS YOUR OBSESSION WITH SHEPPARD'S PIE? For realz, cyborganize and later nicole_anell BOTH MENTIONED IT as food they really liked. As far as I'm concerned it's the blandest bland that ever blanded, but hey, I'm the weirdo who hates strawberries, so probably I'm missing something. But it just seems so WEIRD as a point of reference for british food. o_O
And eventually I had to leave, and I didn't want to. :(
HOWEVER, blow was softened by the fact two days later I got to meet asta77. She's another person I've known for years at this point and had pretty much figured I'd probably never get to meet. I'm still so amazed and excited and happy that I got to meet you, dude. You're fantastic and I loved the whole time we hung out and I wish I could have stayed longer.
We wandered EVERYWHERE (it felt like!) around NYC, and saw this amazing high rise railroad section they'd turned into a park with wild meddow on each side of the main walkway and wooden sunchairs on railroad wheels that you can roll into position. I SAW A FIELD MOUSE.
We discussed going to a show but really there wasn't anything on that we particularly wanted to see that wasn't also hideously expensive so in the end we didn't bother and I'm happy with that choice; more time to wander and talk and see people and stuff. We did go to M&M World and I am now the proud owner of a bright yellow Peanut M&M hoodie! It's awesome. And makes me incredibly easy to spot in a crowd!
I am also the proud owner of a signed Mary McDonnell photo that asta77 got me, which I still can't really believe it's real, and just thank you. I don't really feel the magazine I picked up for you was at all a fair trade.
Asta sat very patiently through a bajillion music vids I insisted on showing her. Then she showed me two Leverage vids and completely sold me on, like, the entire show with them. So, go Leverage?
We watched the first two episodes and they were pretty fantastic, so I'll probably be catching up on that series soon. I don't think it's something that I'll want to write epic essays about like I did BSG (and the lack of a show like that was something else we discussed - actually it was a common recurring sadness for many of the people I met), but I do think I'll enjoy it.
We also watched a couple of classic Laura/Lee BSG episodes which again, so great to watch it with a fellow L/L fan. Eventually Asta's gonna write an epic Laura/Lee 4.5 semi-AU story, which is gonna be epic and amazing and have Sonja in it, and I'm just mentioning that now so when it eventually happens (BECAUSE IT WILL), you'll be prepared for its awesome. For I have appointed myself this fic's pimp.
We also got to meet up for lunch with nicole_anell who I was really excited to meet, and no_detective who I didn't know at all, and we had an awesome time at dinner and got thoroughly defeated by ENORMOUS DESERTS, and honestly, I figured we were probably scaring all the other customers with our geeky talk until I heard some of no_detective's stories about scaring other customers with geeky talk at other places and thought, noooo, we're lightweights!
I also got to chat some to Nicole about vidding which again, *glee*. And then I dragged Asta and Nicole into a candy store (or rather A SWEET SHOP DAMMIT!) where I'm sure I looked utterly ridiculously like a gleeful six-year-old, and we wandered a bit in Central Park.
Asta and I then got a bicycle-cab ride to Penn Station, which was kind of insane and amazing and a little like being strapped to the bad of a rickety and wilful gallopping donkey, but I had a good time with it and our ...driver? Rider? was classically talkative telling crazy half-lost-in-the-traffic-noise stories about his encounters with Mayor Bloomberg.
And then I came home. And was kind of sad about it, but you were all amazing, and I wish I'd had more time and thank you all for taking the time to come see me and talk to me and remind me I'm not alone on fangirl island.
ALSO! Since I was discussing above the loss of a "One True Show" these days, I thought I'd point people in the direction of Fringe. I'm not...as enamoured of their recent revelations episode as I hoped I'd be (briefly, too much new mystery, not enough progression of the old one), but I did like it and I do continue to cautiously like the show even as I wish it would be less standalone.
However, I have found a rather high success rate in terms of at least getting people slightly interested when I tell them that:
It features a morally ambiguous middle-aged woman with a robot arm who gets to snog hot younger guys and has portentuous though somewhat infrequent (and totally slashable) scenes with the female lead that almost always pass the bechdel test. It also features a somewhat unconventional family plot re: Olivia and her sister and niece (though that's less prominent currently) and is unavoidably predominantly about Olivia. It is also - though I hestitate to jinx it because it could easily go the other way - currently presenting a rather interesting discussion on our relationship with technology.
FINALLY, asta77 showed me this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING THING, that I'm sure everyone who was within a mile of D*Con has already seen, but trust me, if you haven't you need to:
So, there was my holiday. Half of you thought I sounded massively british, half of you thought my accent was surprisingly unbritish, most of you thought I looked like a teenager but at least one of you sided with me in my puzzlement. For the record, I think asta77 looks more younger-than-she-is than I do and my accent is embarassingly changable, and I love you all and wish I hadn't had to leave. WE MUST DO IT AGAIN SOMETIME.
Also, I'm sure I've forgotten something...
Anyway! What follows is a lot of personal type stories, so feel free to skip over - I've tried to highlight various recs in individual LJ-cuts so they're obvious. I know this is a hell of a tangled mess of a post, but I kind of want to get it all out and on here and most of these recs are tied in with the story of my hoilday.
It was really nice to see my family after FOREVER of not seeing them due to financial issues and then living in Korea for six months. Honestly, my family is small and sadly I didn't really see my cousins, and deliberately avoided seeing my grandpa's girlfriend (OY DON'T ASK) and step-cousins by arranging to be in a different state. But my aunt and uncle came out especially to see me and it was great hanging out with my grandpa. I love that dude. He's so weird. And frustrating. And probably autistic. He made me go down to the basement to help find small blocks of wood (don't ask). We eventually found them west of the boiler (yes, WEST of the boiler, this is how directions are given in this household; don't ask) in a box labelled, "irregular small wooden blocks, 1982". DON'T ASK.
My mother dragged me to a succession of her friends houses to, I dunno, prove I still existed or something, that and to show off my wedding ring because it was my grandmother's (my mother's mother) and therefore she feels somewhat proprietory over it. Which I understand, I mean, you know, she gave it to me when I didn't know what I was gonna do about a ring cus I was flat broke (Kev's we got for free because surreally he won his office raffle that he didn't know he'd entered and got lots of expensive gift vouchers which were valid at, among other places, a jewellers). And then everyone made me feel terrified that I didn't have this thing insured. Which to be honest, I really should do cus it's probably worth...well, I'm sure it's not worth a fortune as far as rings go because dude, some of those things are worth more than ENTIRE HOUSES, but it's platinum and has nine tiny diamonds channel-set across the top, the result being a) it's appealingly understated in terms of physical appearance cus I wander around in T-Shirts and anything more ostentatious would overwhelm me and b) it's...probably worth more than anything I've ever owned before, pathetic as that truth is. THUS. Insurance...probably a good plan.
PEOPLE WHAT I MET!!
Okay, so, on to the really fun bits - I got to meet a bunch of people from my flist which was both terrifying and pretty fucking awesome as I didn't really think I'd ever get that chance, living across the Atlantic from most of you.
First I hung out with chaila43. We went to a nifty Italian restaurant which had POTATO PIZZA WHAT and good desert and then I stayed over at her apartment and we got to talk about VIDDING. IN PERSON. Although not as much as either of us would have liked cus, well, I know I didn't want to leave, cus she is awesome and smart and it's so fun to be able to like...be with you all in person and explode about awesome geekery and vent about stupid show stuff and glee about awesome show stuff with SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS. And okay, I have very infrequently met flist-members before (heyiya and grav_ity and hmpf for instance) which has always had that sense of OMG SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS! But...it's still such a rare occurence for me that the notion hasn't gotten old, and probably never will. So thank you, chaila, for being SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS and also being a fantastically fantastical person at the same time. Plus this was the first time EVER I got to speak in person to someone about vidding. Which, EEEEEEEE!
I'm still scared of Sony Vegas, but seeing you actually using it was awesome and I'm kind of sad I didn't cart out my laptop so our two laptops could reject each other in person. Although we seem to be moving past that since your latest vid didn't glitch for me at all! Also discussing metatxt's and cyborganize's HILARIOUS ROMANCE from our parallel sideline perspectives was awesome and wildly informative. As was watching them vid-chat, about which more later.
Your mom's hot chocolate is awesome and everything about you is awesome and I wish I'd been able to hang out with you for longer.
ALSO, everyone should go watch chaila43's latest TSCC vid - Somewhere Over The Rainbow. It's beautiful and creepy, just like the show and really is a song choice that is so obvious in retrospect it's shocking no one else has made it yet. Except I'm glad they haven't because now I get to see chaila's version.
THEN I got carted up to Massachussetts with my mom cus she has like...kind of a house there. Except not really. Cus there's no kitchen, or, you know, HEAT. But what I did get to do was hang out for the afternoon with frolicndetour, which was, as above, and as below, and as a recurrent theme among LJ people, awesome.
And, um, mostly I think we just yakked for HOURS and went for pizza and then I took her back to my TOTALLY CLASSY unfurnished, unkitchenned, unheated pad and we yakked some more. About...Sam Anders and Kara Thrace for an embarassing amount of time, but hey, I OWN MY BIAS.
And quite honestly, I was under the impression we left with me deciding you should write a fic about Kacey's mom dying in the New Caprica attacks and Kara getting stuck with her, and you apparently think we'd decided I should, but either way IT OUGHT TO HAPPEN. My husband laughed out loud when I showed him the Baltar pendant, and I'm totally waiting for an excuse to wear it; I can't decide whether it would be better if people did or didn't know what the hell it was. XD Thank you!
She also recced me Insanity Has Us United by merrykk. To my shame I haven't actually managed to read it yet, because it's long and I've been busy with vacation things, but I do hope to catch up with it soon and, you know, leave feedback. But frankly, it deserves reccing on the sheer fact that merrykk WROTE THIS THING. Because I am told it is COMPLETE CRACK taken DEADLY SERIOUSLY and you all know how I feel about that kind of thing.
I'm told it's Kara/Caprica fpreg which to steal from Allie's own recc sounds like it has all the genderbending hilarity of mpreg without the overwhelming EEEEEW factor. Plus, CAPRICA. Plus, apparently, it has lots of unconventional family set-ups which I am a sucker for.
And the entire justification is the frankly fantastically literal take on the "love=babies" weirdness that if Kara has the same ability to live in denial as Gaius and the same ability to drink as Tigh, IS SHE IN FACT the two men Caprica loves rolled into one person? Which just. LOL. And clearly, the answer is yes.
So, um, there you go, a rec based on not having read it at all but being in love with the concept.
After that I went to Boston and spent a few EPIC DAYS with cyborganize, which, just, everything I could say about that would be summed up with "<# <# <3 <#". I've known you for years, and it was so amazing to finally be able to see you. How physically comfortable I felt in the same space as you was incredibly comforting. You still need to send me that dissertation chapter!
Thanks to you, I now have SIX FREAKIN' VIDS TO MAKE, and yet somehow, I cannot bring myself to blame you. ;)
We had a fantastic dinner with @Hera_Agathon from Twitter and the surreal realisation that she knew a welsh-speaker who is my age from my area or thereabouts. Since I didn't recognise her name from school I imagine she lived far enough away she was to, like, Llanhari or something rather than Glantaf (my high school), but still, WEIRD. Anyway, it was amazing to get to meet the legendary twitter BSG RPG character, played hilariously and perfectly as a tiny civil rights activist - CYBRID VIGOR! I will never forget the time @Hera_Agathon and @Saul_Tigh (me) had a giant argument about which of us was a more appropriate girlfriend for @Caprica_Six.
Me and cyborganize as VID CHATTED with metatxt which was pretty awesome. Even if SOMEONE insisted on distracting SOMEONE ELSE every time I had SRS POINTS to make! Srsly, man, I was like, a soliloquy of eloquence on deep topics! Nah, in all seriousness, I'm glad you two crazy kids are working out. If nothing else, it makes my life (and chaila's life!) a lot simpler... :p
For a while we also got to vid-chat with heyiya too. Your newly-made workspace is adorable even in grainy webcam quality!
We wandered all over loads of places with Julie trying to convince me that stuff made in the 1600s was REALLY REALLY OLD. So I took her on a google-maps tour of Cardiff and showed her that I can see a 1000 year old Castle through my office window. Like, literally we are across the street from it, it's a road, a bus stop and a dry moat's width away from us. All the emo kids hang out there. *pulls hand over one eye* MY MUM BOUGHT ME THE WRONG HOODIE! YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!
There is also a fascinating store where you can put stuff in a can for $4. Like, anything you like. Alas I couldn't come up with anything cool enough to can, so I didn't and instead just bought make-your-own-monster magnets and marvelled at how many awesome ice-cream and desert and cupcake shops Cambridge seems to have.
Also, AMERICANS, WHAT IS YOUR OBSESSION WITH SHEPPARD'S PIE? For realz, cyborganize and later nicole_anell BOTH MENTIONED IT as food they really liked. As far as I'm concerned it's the blandest bland that ever blanded, but hey, I'm the weirdo who hates strawberries, so probably I'm missing something. But it just seems so WEIRD as a point of reference for british food. o_O
And eventually I had to leave, and I didn't want to. :(
HOWEVER, blow was softened by the fact two days later I got to meet asta77. She's another person I've known for years at this point and had pretty much figured I'd probably never get to meet. I'm still so amazed and excited and happy that I got to meet you, dude. You're fantastic and I loved the whole time we hung out and I wish I could have stayed longer.
We wandered EVERYWHERE (it felt like!) around NYC, and saw this amazing high rise railroad section they'd turned into a park with wild meddow on each side of the main walkway and wooden sunchairs on railroad wheels that you can roll into position. I SAW A FIELD MOUSE.
We discussed going to a show but really there wasn't anything on that we particularly wanted to see that wasn't also hideously expensive so in the end we didn't bother and I'm happy with that choice; more time to wander and talk and see people and stuff. We did go to M&M World and I am now the proud owner of a bright yellow Peanut M&M hoodie! It's awesome. And makes me incredibly easy to spot in a crowd!
I am also the proud owner of a signed Mary McDonnell photo that asta77 got me, which I still can't really believe it's real, and just thank you. I don't really feel the magazine I picked up for you was at all a fair trade.
Asta sat very patiently through a bajillion music vids I insisted on showing her. Then she showed me two Leverage vids and completely sold me on, like, the entire show with them. So, go Leverage?
We watched the first two episodes and they were pretty fantastic, so I'll probably be catching up on that series soon. I don't think it's something that I'll want to write epic essays about like I did BSG (and the lack of a show like that was something else we discussed - actually it was a common recurring sadness for many of the people I met), but I do think I'll enjoy it.
We also watched a couple of classic Laura/Lee BSG episodes which again, so great to watch it with a fellow L/L fan. Eventually Asta's gonna write an epic Laura/Lee 4.5 semi-AU story, which is gonna be epic and amazing and have Sonja in it, and I'm just mentioning that now so when it eventually happens (BECAUSE IT WILL), you'll be prepared for its awesome. For I have appointed myself this fic's pimp.
We also got to meet up for lunch with nicole_anell who I was really excited to meet, and no_detective who I didn't know at all, and we had an awesome time at dinner and got thoroughly defeated by ENORMOUS DESERTS, and honestly, I figured we were probably scaring all the other customers with our geeky talk until I heard some of no_detective's stories about scaring other customers with geeky talk at other places and thought, noooo, we're lightweights!
I also got to chat some to Nicole about vidding which again, *glee*. And then I dragged Asta and Nicole into a candy store (or rather A SWEET SHOP DAMMIT!) where I'm sure I looked utterly ridiculously like a gleeful six-year-old, and we wandered a bit in Central Park.
Asta and I then got a bicycle-cab ride to Penn Station, which was kind of insane and amazing and a little like being strapped to the bad of a rickety and wilful gallopping donkey, but I had a good time with it and our ...driver? Rider? was classically talkative telling crazy half-lost-in-the-traffic-noise stories about his encounters with Mayor Bloomberg.
And then I came home. And was kind of sad about it, but you were all amazing, and I wish I'd had more time and thank you all for taking the time to come see me and talk to me and remind me I'm not alone on fangirl island.
ALSO! Since I was discussing above the loss of a "One True Show" these days, I thought I'd point people in the direction of Fringe. I'm not...as enamoured of their recent revelations episode as I hoped I'd be (briefly, too much new mystery, not enough progression of the old one), but I did like it and I do continue to cautiously like the show even as I wish it would be less standalone.
However, I have found a rather high success rate in terms of at least getting people slightly interested when I tell them that:
It features a morally ambiguous middle-aged woman with a robot arm who gets to snog hot younger guys and has portentuous though somewhat infrequent (and totally slashable) scenes with the female lead that almost always pass the bechdel test. It also features a somewhat unconventional family plot re: Olivia and her sister and niece (though that's less prominent currently) and is unavoidably predominantly about Olivia. It is also - though I hestitate to jinx it because it could easily go the other way - currently presenting a rather interesting discussion on our relationship with technology.
FINALLY, asta77 showed me this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING THING, that I'm sure everyone who was within a mile of D*Con has already seen, but trust me, if you haven't you need to:
Click to viewSo, there was my holiday. Half of you thought I sounded massively british, half of you thought my accent was surprisingly unbritish, most of you thought I looked like a teenager but at least one of you sided with me in my puzzlement. For the record, I think asta77 looks more younger-than-she-is than I do and my accent is embarassingly changable, and I love you all and wish I hadn't had to leave. WE MUST DO IT AGAIN SOMETIME.
Also, I'm sure I've forgotten something...