(no subject)
Another birthday request, this time from 
poisontaster
Today's topic is the Newsflesh trilogy, incorrectly tagged in my journal
as the "Newsflash" trilogy, which is a shameful erasure of a pun.
(Mostly unrelatedly, I'm picking black nail polish off my fingers while
I think about where to start writing, which is something neither George
or Shaun would related to, but which I'd bet Buffy or Maggie have done a
million times over each. Well, alright. Buffy would carefully removed
the applique cameras first, because her tech is her baby.)
In case the cut text doesn't work BE WARNED THAT HERE BE SPOILERS. For
all of it. So much spoilers.
I started a re-listen of the series a few days ago and didn't really get
as far in as I'd hoped I would but here we go anyway. (The original team
are just sitting down to their first meal with the Rymans. It's still
such, such early days.) What I will say so far is this: George
and Shaun's blythe assumption that he'd die first seems far less
practical and smacks so much more strongly of foreshadowing. It probably
should have the first time too, but I tend to turn off my thinking brain
when I'm doing media and let my feels drag me all unimpeded hither and
yon.
Also, the tension I still remember so vividly from that first blood
testing scene, after they've escaped the pack in... Santa Cruz, I think?
That tension is gone. So incredibly gone. The scenes were Buffy tests
positive, where George tests positive, are still going to be horrible.
The worst. I'm probably going to cry at both all over again. Knowing
that Georgia is probably immune (and oh god, watching her die again,
knowing that, is going to be brutal in a different way, oh god
Shaun) and that Shaun already is by this point? Damn you, canon.
You're the worst. Don't ever change.
While we're on the topic of George and Shaun's co-dependency and
immunity transmission! I don't know much about virology; the only sure
ways I know to pass antibodies from one human to another are through
scientific intervention or through breast milk. I'd assume that blood
transfusions and maybe bone marrow transplants could also have a partial
or full effect, potential rejection issues aside.
I do know that human-to-human viral transmission is almost always done
through bodily fluids. Muscus, saliva, blood, sexual... what do I call
them that doesn't sound ridiculous? Because I'm making frowny faces at
both "sexual emissions" and "sexual fluids". Anyway, the point is: as a
species we regularly show how much we care by sharing little tiny
micro-organisms via the liquidy things that our bodies produce. You're
totally welcome for that sentence.
We know that live-state Kellis-Amberley is good to go with both blood
and saliva applied to any open wound or mucus membrane and I feel like
it's any layman's guess as to whether the live-state virus can be
sexually transmitted. (McGuire's CDC contact probably has a few
well-informed opinions, though!)
Basically, what I'm wondering is this: Did Shaun acquire George's
antibodies via sexual contact (including kissing) or through other
means? Because inquiring minds really want to know if they're going to
be outed later in their lives/posthumously or if they're going to be
considered a medical curiosity. All of the epistolary fic on this topic,
pls. I want excerpts from fake journal articles and from bloggers
wagging their tongues and the outraged/delighted comments sections on
all of that. (Also also: Is Shaun able to pass the antibodies back on to
George 2.0?
Something that would be SUPER FASCINATING to explore as a larger
world-exploring exercise is the accidentally reversal of global warming.
We'd still see a few degrees' uptick because of the last century and
half's emissions and I have to wonder if green energy would actually
suffer a developmental setback because of both the removal of the threat
(for a few generations, at least) and because of other, more immediately
cataclysmic concerns.
To shift the topic from spec to squee: As per usual, I lovelovelove the
universe McGuire paints and the characters she places in them. And I
mean, I get why they're so vivid and well-drawn; this is a woman jokes
about contacts in all kinds of odd places who 'won't talk to her
anymore' and who voluntarily contracted a goat tapeworm (goat, so it
wouldn't migrate or reproduce, unlike human or pig) for a year while she
was researching Parasite. They're fifteen-minutes-in-the-future science
fiction that feel so wildly and unrestrainedly organic, natural
extensions of the world we know, precisely because of that level of
research. I love that the logical inconsistencies in the science that
even I could spot in the first novel (there isn't such a thing as a
virus that absolutely %0 of the population has or develops immunity to,
that's not how they work) iron themselves out by the end of Blackout.
And better yet, it's the kind of science fiction that doesn't just
imagine how tech changes, it looks at people too. I love that Shaun is
the outwardly emotive one. I love that George is fucking unapologetic
about not performing pretty, about not smiling, about not flirting. But
I love that we get Buffy too, girly and silly and frivolous and still
GREAT. She doesn't betray them because she's a girly girl, or because
she's someone who's not ashamed of her sexuality (George calls her on
her masturbation habits in what, the second chapter?), or because she's
bi/queer/pan. Her betrayal is given the due complication Shaun and
George would have to give it, to the whole person they love. You can't
just shut off love and affection and I'm so glad McGuire doesn't ask us
to either.
Oh, and let's talk about the blogging community! Because I REALLY
FUCKING LOVE that part of the 'verse. McGuire presents some pretty
honest critique of the media and brings forth the future a lot of us
still envision for the internet, where information flows rapidly and
freely and without (too much) interference from The Man. If the book
were written now, it might have been done differently. The Auntie kinds
of bloggers are still alive and well, but with the rise of
microblogging, I have to wonder. If the zombie apocalypse really does
hit us this summer, we'll be live-tweeting and -tumblring, not
live-blogging it. Instantaneous information, but so easily lost. I'm not
sure the world would make it if we kept relying on micro-blogging the
way we do now (but feel free to make a case!)
I like that Shaun and George aren't always heroes. They hurt other
people along the way and it's not presented as anything but that. I like
that almost everyone gets to be a complicated human being, even minor
characters. I really, really loved the twisted, loving, abusive,
protective dynamic (with emphasis on the twisted and abusive) between
the Monkey and his subordinates, that we saw in the third book, after
George the Second is freed. I don't want to glorify that situation, but
it's given nuance and it's made compelling to at least some of the
audience, when it didn't necessarily have to be.
I love that at the very end of it all, George the Second starts a blog
and a life of her own even as Shaun finds his own voice and identity
again.
But seriously, someone write me the journal article from a hundred or
even fifty years in the canon's future, where someone speculates in much
the same style of Shakespeare/everyone ever, about how Shaun and George
MUST have been lovers, no matter how scandalized the rest of you are by
it.
This entry was also posted at http://cantarina.dreamwidth.org/184557.html. (comments:
)
poisontaster
Today's topic is the Newsflesh trilogy, incorrectly tagged in my journal
as the "Newsflash" trilogy, which is a shameful erasure of a pun.
(Mostly unrelatedly, I'm picking black nail polish off my fingers while
I think about where to start writing, which is something neither George
or Shaun would related to, but which I'd bet Buffy or Maggie have done a
million times over each. Well, alright. Buffy would carefully removed
the applique cameras first, because her tech is her baby.)
In case the cut text doesn't work BE WARNED THAT HERE BE SPOILERS. For
all of it. So much spoilers.
I started a re-listen of the series a few days ago and didn't really get
as far in as I'd hoped I would but here we go anyway. (The original team
are just sitting down to their first meal with the Rymans. It's still
such, such early days.) What I will say so far is this: George
and Shaun's blythe assumption that he'd die first seems far less
practical and smacks so much more strongly of foreshadowing. It probably
should have the first time too, but I tend to turn off my thinking brain
when I'm doing media and let my feels drag me all unimpeded hither and
yon.
Also, the tension I still remember so vividly from that first blood
testing scene, after they've escaped the pack in... Santa Cruz, I think?
That tension is gone. So incredibly gone. The scenes were Buffy tests
positive, where George tests positive, are still going to be horrible.
The worst. I'm probably going to cry at both all over again. Knowing
that Georgia is probably immune (and oh god, watching her die again,
knowing that, is going to be brutal in a different way, oh god
Shaun) and that Shaun already is by this point? Damn you, canon.
You're the worst. Don't ever change.
While we're on the topic of George and Shaun's co-dependency and
immunity transmission! I don't know much about virology; the only sure
ways I know to pass antibodies from one human to another are through
scientific intervention or through breast milk. I'd assume that blood
transfusions and maybe bone marrow transplants could also have a partial
or full effect, potential rejection issues aside.
I do know that human-to-human viral transmission is almost always done
through bodily fluids. Muscus, saliva, blood, sexual... what do I call
them that doesn't sound ridiculous? Because I'm making frowny faces at
both "sexual emissions" and "sexual fluids". Anyway, the point is: as a
species we regularly show how much we care by sharing little tiny
micro-organisms via the liquidy things that our bodies produce. You're
totally welcome for that sentence.
We know that live-state Kellis-Amberley is good to go with both blood
and saliva applied to any open wound or mucus membrane and I feel like
it's any layman's guess as to whether the live-state virus can be
sexually transmitted. (McGuire's CDC contact probably has a few
well-informed opinions, though!)
Basically, what I'm wondering is this: Did Shaun acquire George's
antibodies via sexual contact (including kissing) or through other
means? Because inquiring minds really want to know if they're going to
be outed later in their lives/posthumously or if they're going to be
considered a medical curiosity. All of the epistolary fic on this topic,
pls. I want excerpts from fake journal articles and from bloggers
wagging their tongues and the outraged/delighted comments sections on
all of that. (Also also: Is Shaun able to pass the antibodies back on to
George 2.0?
Something that would be SUPER FASCINATING to explore as a larger
world-exploring exercise is the accidentally reversal of global warming.
We'd still see a few degrees' uptick because of the last century and
half's emissions and I have to wonder if green energy would actually
suffer a developmental setback because of both the removal of the threat
(for a few generations, at least) and because of other, more immediately
cataclysmic concerns.
To shift the topic from spec to squee: As per usual, I lovelovelove the
universe McGuire paints and the characters she places in them. And I
mean, I get why they're so vivid and well-drawn; this is a woman jokes
about contacts in all kinds of odd places who 'won't talk to her
anymore' and who voluntarily contracted a goat tapeworm (goat, so it
wouldn't migrate or reproduce, unlike human or pig) for a year while she
was researching Parasite. They're fifteen-minutes-in-the-future science
fiction that feel so wildly and unrestrainedly organic, natural
extensions of the world we know, precisely because of that level of
research. I love that the logical inconsistencies in the science that
even I could spot in the first novel (there isn't such a thing as a
virus that absolutely %0 of the population has or develops immunity to,
that's not how they work) iron themselves out by the end of Blackout.
And better yet, it's the kind of science fiction that doesn't just
imagine how tech changes, it looks at people too. I love that Shaun is
the outwardly emotive one. I love that George is fucking unapologetic
about not performing pretty, about not smiling, about not flirting. But
I love that we get Buffy too, girly and silly and frivolous and still
GREAT. She doesn't betray them because she's a girly girl, or because
she's someone who's not ashamed of her sexuality (George calls her on
her masturbation habits in what, the second chapter?), or because she's
bi/queer/pan. Her betrayal is given the due complication Shaun and
George would have to give it, to the whole person they love. You can't
just shut off love and affection and I'm so glad McGuire doesn't ask us
to either.
Oh, and let's talk about the blogging community! Because I REALLY
FUCKING LOVE that part of the 'verse. McGuire presents some pretty
honest critique of the media and brings forth the future a lot of us
still envision for the internet, where information flows rapidly and
freely and without (too much) interference from The Man. If the book
were written now, it might have been done differently. The Auntie kinds
of bloggers are still alive and well, but with the rise of
microblogging, I have to wonder. If the zombie apocalypse really does
hit us this summer, we'll be live-tweeting and -tumblring, not
live-blogging it. Instantaneous information, but so easily lost. I'm not
sure the world would make it if we kept relying on micro-blogging the
way we do now (but feel free to make a case!)
I like that Shaun and George aren't always heroes. They hurt other
people along the way and it's not presented as anything but that. I like
that almost everyone gets to be a complicated human being, even minor
characters. I really, really loved the twisted, loving, abusive,
protective dynamic (with emphasis on the twisted and abusive) between
the Monkey and his subordinates, that we saw in the third book, after
George the Second is freed. I don't want to glorify that situation, but
it's given nuance and it's made compelling to at least some of the
audience, when it didn't necessarily have to be.
I love that at the very end of it all, George the Second starts a blog
and a life of her own even as Shaun finds his own voice and identity
again.
But seriously, someone write me the journal article from a hundred or
even fifty years in the canon's future, where someone speculates in much
the same style of Shakespeare/everyone ever, about how Shaun and George
MUST have been lovers, no matter how scandalized the rest of you are by
it.
This entry was also posted at http://cantarina.dreamwidth.org/184557.html. (comments:
)