Things Piling Up on My "To Blog About" List
I am well on my way to devouring all of the avocados in the world. Also, various kinds of sushi. And srirachi peas. And Jaffa cakes.
(I sound like I'm pregnant...)
I've finished The Doctor's Dilemma - recommended - and am currently reading "Lamia" - probably also recommended. I still can't get into The Old Curiosity Shop or "Descent Into the Maelstrom," but I'm still trying.
I didn't get a calendar for Hogswatch this year, but I did get a Buffy calendar last year...in September. So, I've just been using it and adding a day. I was reluctant to turn the page on Xander...but then got a fantastic surprise when I discovered that April's character is Giles. GIIIIIIIIIILES! I MIIIIIIISS YOU!
(I clearly need to get back to rewatching epsidoes. I left off a couple of months ago in the middle of "The Gift" - I just couldn't do it that night. Of course, that is NOT the place to start rewatching in order. Not if the goal is to revisit what is so awesome about the show/characters. Especially not Giles or Buffy.
I am less than six serials from having seen every Doctor Who story aired to date*, and I've only recently seen the last Dalek story, so it's a particularly interesting time for me to be revisiting "The Daleks." It still shocks me the way The Doctor acts in that one, but not nearly so much now as it did the first time I watched it, knowing Eight, Nine, and Ten fairly well but little to nothing of the others. Susan's bizarre declarations of how "magnificent" the very Aryan Thals are stood out to me even more this time 'round, knowing how much play the Daleks-as-Nazis allegory gets in later stories. And Ian and Barbara are just amazing beyond all reason. I remembered thinking that Ian was more The Doctor than The Doctor was at the time, but I was blown away by it all over again, particularly in the "I will NOT convince the Thals that they are wrong in refusing to fight just so we can fix the TARDIS and get out of here" scene.
In the past couple of weeks, I have listened to Pyramids, Guards! Guards!, and Eric. The first six Discworld books are all wonderful in their own ways (_especially_ Wyrd Sisters), but these three right here... This is where the series really starts to come into its own.
Much as I had forgotten how awesome Magrat is, so, too, had I forgotten why Pyramids was my early favourite. I had this vague notion that it was because Djelibeybi = Egypt and (P)Teppic made my adolescent heart go all dribbly, but it wasn't long before I began remembering how wonderful Teppic actually is, and Chidder! (how the HELLS did I forget Chidder? He's one of the few Discworld characters I've ever tried to draw), and all of the bits with the Ephebian philosophers ("The trouble with my friend here is that he doesn't know the difference between a postulate and a metaphor of human existence. Or a hole in the ground," "Ibid you already know," "Somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of...of pie."), and You Bastard (I had this lovely memory of magpieinthesky , bratnatch , and I giggling about "You Person" in 9th grade), and flat Ptaclusp IIa...and...and _everything else_.
Nigel Planer's pronunciation of "Ptraci" was kinda neat (basically "Puh-trah-chi"), but lost the joke...and, in much the same way, his over-exaggerated initial "p"s missed the effect of the accent. But otherwise, I quite enjoyed his reading, particularly the way Ptraci sounded feminine without being a falsetto characture of a harem girl. There were several times when I actually laughed out loud, which is a bit unfortunate, since I was listening to it at work.
I found while listening to Guards! Guards! that I still have a mad crush on Vimes, I still ADORE the "total whittles, the lot of them" bit, and I was surprisingly fond of Planer's Lady Ramkin. I tend to forget just how wonderful a character she is, but she really rather put me in mind of my beloved high school English teacher this time. The ends of both Guards! Guards! and Eric had me tearing up, unable to see the spreadsheets I was working on. Considering I was dry-eyed when I read them the first couple of times in the solitude of my room, it's a testament to how much more actual _story_ affects me, now.
Also, is it just me, or is the Ambiguous Puzuma kind of a Weeping Angel prototype? And Eric is ALL KINDS OF influenced by Who; Rincewind, of all people, (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Lavaeolus) channels The Doctor so much it hurts, at times.
Also also, today I was doing some particularly tedious and brainless data manipulation and found myself thinking, "They should really hire someone to do this sort of thing. Oh, wait, they did...and it's me." The remarkable thing about this thought? I "heard" it in Stephen Brigg's Rincewind voice.
(What does it mean that the voices in my head have actual identifiable voices? There was also that time I clearly heard Spike making fun of me when I knocked the side mirror off Benton...)
After finishing Eric this afternoon, I was listening to Get the Knack and contemplating the implications of "Good Girls Don't" - a song about teenage sexual exploits with the chorus, "Good girls don't/Good girls don't/Good girls don't/But I do." That led me to thoughts about how much I love the final lines of Bridget Jones' Diary (starts a bit after 5:30) - "Wait a minute... Nice boys don't kiss like that..." "Oh, yes they fuckin' do." - and how that love was originally because it was so unexpected and has now, thanks mostly to Captain (not Cap'n) Jack, everything to do with the sentiment itself. There were more than twenty years between the release of "Good Girls Don't" and the film version of BJD, so it's not exactly fair to point at the two and proclaim "HaHA! Double standard!"...but I find myself doing it, anyway.
I spent so much of my life slut shaming and buying into the "good girls don't" thing, primarily because of the sort of media I consumed and the messages I got from (need I specify, primarily older male) relatives that I am particularly sensitive to it, now that I've truly come to believe "yes they fuckin' do." Morality and personal worth have nothing to do with consensual sexual activity, and, much as I love rockin' out to "Good Girls Don't," I have to constantly excuse it on the basis of it being from another time, and it being an account of a _specific_ girl's opinion rather than a condemnation on the part of the songwriter of all "loose" women.
And finally, "Excelis Dawn."
Oh. My. Gawd.
It took me a full week to finish this two-disc Big Finish audio, sent me by the fabulous bizarreoptimism . Mostly that was calculated, as I wanted it to last as long as possible and only listened to it on days I was in just the right mood. But one of the extra days was because I had to shut it off in the middle of the second track of the second disc. Why?
"Someone died, Iris."
I had been LOVING all of the talk about Five's particular Five-ness ("You finally found some Responsibility?" Iris suggests) and his summation of Four, and it was particularly nice to hear all of this considering the drabble I have written for BizOp** has made me think a lot about how the Doctors think about previous incarnations and Companions. And I had been thinking about just how much I _adore_ Five and Peter Davison, how he is just...EXACTLY the right mix of Type A and B, exactly the right balance between friendly, sweet, fun-loving adventurer and stern paternal figure, that he should, by all rights, be My Doctor***.
Because I had stretched the listening out a bit and didn't remember exactly what all had happened, when he first said, "Someone died, Iris," I thought he was referring to something that had happened in this story, that it was a particularly Doctorly, particularly Fively way of saying, "Stop messing about, Iris; this is a serious situation." Then I remembered the hint from the beginning about where in the course of his life this adventure was set, and I nearly drove off the damn road. If laughing hysterically at something Five says makes it difficult to drive****, flat-out bawling at something he said was a whole new level of challenging. Needless to say, I put it aside for a couple of days at that point. And didn't crash my car, somehow.
So, it was clearly very well-written. Story-wise, I thought it quite good for the first half, then started to suspect that the plot was just a MacGuffin to get Davison, ASH, and Katy Manning together in a studio to record some awesome conversations about who The Doctor is. There was just too much going on, too many loose ends, and not enough time to pull everything together in a way that made sense. It was disappointing to watch what started so promisingly kind of fall apart halfway through. How many serials can THAT be said about, though? It's kind of a tradition in Who. But then, instead of rushing out some tidy-but-unbelievable conclusion, really weird shit started happening, and Iris just kinda...drove off ("I'll be seeing you, Doctor." "Not if I see you first, Iris Wildthyme. Not. If I see you. First." I LURVE YOU, PETER.), and there was never any further discussion of Jolene after everyone left it as understood that she was dead _but we knew she wasn't_, and...wot?! How was THAT an ending?!
IT IS PART ONE OF A TRILOGY! TWO MORE ADVENTURES WITH ASH DOING HIS BEST BRIAN BLESSED! WINWINWIN!
Big Finish, you are my favourite. Ever. In the world. Bringin' me new material with the Doctors after I've finished all of their episodes... Bringin' me Tony Head as yet another entirely different character from any I've ever seen him play. Bringin' me Katy Manning as a flippin' TIME LADY (and incidentally convincing me that, should an animated Discworld coven book ever be made again, Manning NEEDS to be Nanny Ogg; who would have thought I'd ever say THAT?!)
Ye've stolen me 'eart, chuck.
* At least, to today's date. Less than 48 hours to S5/31! Also, very subtle with the scheduling, guys. Should have gone for broke and saved "The End of Time" for Good Friday...
** Which would have been posted and out of my system by now, but for her wanting to watch the pertinent original stories as part of her quasi-proper-order viewing schedule, so it'll be a little while before she's ready to read. And, since I'm not "publishing" it yet, I'm still hung up on tweaking it a little every night instead of writing anything new. But the one for librarian_byday is on tap for drafting this weekend, barring Unfortunate Incidents.
*** Again I say, I am SO GLAD he's not, since it's all part of that personal growth thing that Ten is, instead. Before I met Ten, I would have been all over Five, which would have perpetuated My Type and stunted my ability to become the sort of person who takes behavioural cues from Ten. The Five-ish side of Ten is what drew me to him, but the Four-ish side has made me who I am today.
**** And I experienced this a fair few times, too, and definitely not just with Five. Iris and Lord Grayvorn got in on the action, too.
(I sound like I'm pregnant...)
I've finished The Doctor's Dilemma - recommended - and am currently reading "Lamia" - probably also recommended. I still can't get into The Old Curiosity Shop or "Descent Into the Maelstrom," but I'm still trying.
I didn't get a calendar for Hogswatch this year, but I did get a Buffy calendar last year...in September. So, I've just been using it and adding a day. I was reluctant to turn the page on Xander...but then got a fantastic surprise when I discovered that April's character is Giles. GIIIIIIIIIILES! I MIIIIIIISS YOU!
(I clearly need to get back to rewatching epsidoes. I left off a couple of months ago in the middle of "The Gift" - I just couldn't do it that night. Of course, that is NOT the place to start rewatching in order. Not if the goal is to revisit what is so awesome about the show/characters. Especially not Giles or Buffy.
I am less than six serials from having seen every Doctor Who story aired to date*, and I've only recently seen the last Dalek story, so it's a particularly interesting time for me to be revisiting "The Daleks." It still shocks me the way The Doctor acts in that one, but not nearly so much now as it did the first time I watched it, knowing Eight, Nine, and Ten fairly well but little to nothing of the others. Susan's bizarre declarations of how "magnificent" the very Aryan Thals are stood out to me even more this time 'round, knowing how much play the Daleks-as-Nazis allegory gets in later stories. And Ian and Barbara are just amazing beyond all reason. I remembered thinking that Ian was more The Doctor than The Doctor was at the time, but I was blown away by it all over again, particularly in the "I will NOT convince the Thals that they are wrong in refusing to fight just so we can fix the TARDIS and get out of here" scene.
In the past couple of weeks, I have listened to Pyramids, Guards! Guards!, and Eric. The first six Discworld books are all wonderful in their own ways (_especially_ Wyrd Sisters), but these three right here... This is where the series really starts to come into its own.
Much as I had forgotten how awesome Magrat is, so, too, had I forgotten why Pyramids was my early favourite. I had this vague notion that it was because Djelibeybi = Egypt and (P)Teppic made my adolescent heart go all dribbly, but it wasn't long before I began remembering how wonderful Teppic actually is, and Chidder! (how the HELLS did I forget Chidder? He's one of the few Discworld characters I've ever tried to draw), and all of the bits with the Ephebian philosophers ("The trouble with my friend here is that he doesn't know the difference between a postulate and a metaphor of human existence. Or a hole in the ground," "Ibid you already know," "Somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of...of pie."), and You Bastard (I had this lovely memory of magpieinthesky , bratnatch , and I giggling about "You Person" in 9th grade), and flat Ptaclusp IIa...and...and _everything else_.
Nigel Planer's pronunciation of "Ptraci" was kinda neat (basically "Puh-trah-chi"), but lost the joke...and, in much the same way, his over-exaggerated initial "p"s missed the effect of the accent. But otherwise, I quite enjoyed his reading, particularly the way Ptraci sounded feminine without being a falsetto characture of a harem girl. There were several times when I actually laughed out loud, which is a bit unfortunate, since I was listening to it at work.
I found while listening to Guards! Guards! that I still have a mad crush on Vimes, I still ADORE the "total whittles, the lot of them" bit, and I was surprisingly fond of Planer's Lady Ramkin. I tend to forget just how wonderful a character she is, but she really rather put me in mind of my beloved high school English teacher this time. The ends of both Guards! Guards! and Eric had me tearing up, unable to see the spreadsheets I was working on. Considering I was dry-eyed when I read them the first couple of times in the solitude of my room, it's a testament to how much more actual _story_ affects me, now.
Also, is it just me, or is the Ambiguous Puzuma kind of a Weeping Angel prototype? And Eric is ALL KINDS OF influenced by Who; Rincewind, of all people, (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Lavaeolus) channels The Doctor so much it hurts, at times.
Also also, today I was doing some particularly tedious and brainless data manipulation and found myself thinking, "They should really hire someone to do this sort of thing. Oh, wait, they did...and it's me." The remarkable thing about this thought? I "heard" it in Stephen Brigg's Rincewind voice.
(What does it mean that the voices in my head have actual identifiable voices? There was also that time I clearly heard Spike making fun of me when I knocked the side mirror off Benton...)
After finishing Eric this afternoon, I was listening to Get the Knack and contemplating the implications of "Good Girls Don't" - a song about teenage sexual exploits with the chorus, "Good girls don't/Good girls don't/Good girls don't/But I do." That led me to thoughts about how much I love the final lines of Bridget Jones' Diary (starts a bit after 5:30) - "Wait a minute... Nice boys don't kiss like that..." "Oh, yes they fuckin' do." - and how that love was originally because it was so unexpected and has now, thanks mostly to Captain (not Cap'n) Jack, everything to do with the sentiment itself. There were more than twenty years between the release of "Good Girls Don't" and the film version of BJD, so it's not exactly fair to point at the two and proclaim "HaHA! Double standard!"...but I find myself doing it, anyway.
I spent so much of my life slut shaming and buying into the "good girls don't" thing, primarily because of the sort of media I consumed and the messages I got from (need I specify, primarily older male) relatives that I am particularly sensitive to it, now that I've truly come to believe "yes they fuckin' do." Morality and personal worth have nothing to do with consensual sexual activity, and, much as I love rockin' out to "Good Girls Don't," I have to constantly excuse it on the basis of it being from another time, and it being an account of a _specific_ girl's opinion rather than a condemnation on the part of the songwriter of all "loose" women.
And finally, "Excelis Dawn."
Oh. My. Gawd.
It took me a full week to finish this two-disc Big Finish audio, sent me by the fabulous bizarreoptimism . Mostly that was calculated, as I wanted it to last as long as possible and only listened to it on days I was in just the right mood. But one of the extra days was because I had to shut it off in the middle of the second track of the second disc. Why?
"Someone died, Iris."
I had been LOVING all of the talk about Five's particular Five-ness ("You finally found some Responsibility?" Iris suggests) and his summation of Four, and it was particularly nice to hear all of this considering the drabble I have written for BizOp** has made me think a lot about how the Doctors think about previous incarnations and Companions. And I had been thinking about just how much I _adore_ Five and Peter Davison, how he is just...EXACTLY the right mix of Type A and B, exactly the right balance between friendly, sweet, fun-loving adventurer and stern paternal figure, that he should, by all rights, be My Doctor***.
Because I had stretched the listening out a bit and didn't remember exactly what all had happened, when he first said, "Someone died, Iris," I thought he was referring to something that had happened in this story, that it was a particularly Doctorly, particularly Fively way of saying, "Stop messing about, Iris; this is a serious situation." Then I remembered the hint from the beginning about where in the course of his life this adventure was set, and I nearly drove off the damn road. If laughing hysterically at something Five says makes it difficult to drive****, flat-out bawling at something he said was a whole new level of challenging. Needless to say, I put it aside for a couple of days at that point. And didn't crash my car, somehow.
So, it was clearly very well-written. Story-wise, I thought it quite good for the first half, then started to suspect that the plot was just a MacGuffin to get Davison, ASH, and Katy Manning together in a studio to record some awesome conversations about who The Doctor is. There was just too much going on, too many loose ends, and not enough time to pull everything together in a way that made sense. It was disappointing to watch what started so promisingly kind of fall apart halfway through. How many serials can THAT be said about, though? It's kind of a tradition in Who. But then, instead of rushing out some tidy-but-unbelievable conclusion, really weird shit started happening, and Iris just kinda...drove off ("I'll be seeing you, Doctor." "Not if I see you first, Iris Wildthyme. Not. If I see you. First." I LURVE YOU, PETER.), and there was never any further discussion of Jolene after everyone left it as understood that she was dead _but we knew she wasn't_, and...wot?! How was THAT an ending?!
IT IS PART ONE OF A TRILOGY! TWO MORE ADVENTURES WITH ASH DOING HIS BEST BRIAN BLESSED! WINWINWIN!
Big Finish, you are my favourite. Ever. In the world. Bringin' me new material with the Doctors after I've finished all of their episodes... Bringin' me Tony Head as yet another entirely different character from any I've ever seen him play. Bringin' me Katy Manning as a flippin' TIME LADY (and incidentally convincing me that, should an animated Discworld coven book ever be made again, Manning NEEDS to be Nanny Ogg; who would have thought I'd ever say THAT?!)
Ye've stolen me 'eart, chuck.
* At least, to today's date. Less than 48 hours to S5/31! Also, very subtle with the scheduling, guys. Should have gone for broke and saved "The End of Time" for Good Friday...
** Which would have been posted and out of my system by now, but for her wanting to watch the pertinent original stories as part of her quasi-proper-order viewing schedule, so it'll be a little while before she's ready to read. And, since I'm not "publishing" it yet, I'm still hung up on tweaking it a little every night instead of writing anything new. But the one for librarian_byday is on tap for drafting this weekend, barring Unfortunate Incidents.
*** Again I say, I am SO GLAD he's not, since it's all part of that personal growth thing that Ten is, instead. Before I met Ten, I would have been all over Five, which would have perpetuated My Type and stunted my ability to become the sort of person who takes behavioural cues from Ten. The Five-ish side of Ten is what drew me to him, but the Four-ish side has made me who I am today.
**** And I experienced this a fair few times, too, and definitely not just with Five. Iris and Lord Grayvorn got in on the action, too.