Well, pick out China and move to Vermont.
1. The massive DS9 rewatch is in full swing. I'm realizing that I hadn't watched DS9 in a really long time, and rewatching has been a really joyful experience. I've finished season 1 and am a few episodes into season 2, aka when the show starts getting seriously good. My biggest overall impression is that while the show does feel dated - the first season is almost 18 years old, after all - it doesn't feel as dated as it ought to, considering its age. I mean, everyone is wearing '90s matte lipstick, and the acting sometimes has that shouty/mannered/overenunciated feel (only sometimes explained away by uncomfortable alien makeup). But the subject matter is still so relevant - terrorism! religious extremism! post-colonial restructuring! - that DS9 has maintained its freshness. I accidentally caught a Next Gen episode on BBC America in the middle of my rewatch, and it became clear how miraculous DS9's freshness is: "Tapestry" was one of my favorite Next Gen episodes during my first couple of rounds of fandom, it originally aired at the same time as DS9's first season, and it's now awfully quaint. And it shouldn't be: it's all Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie, who were among the strongest of that cast, and its "It's a Wonderful Picard" premise ought to hold up. I suspect that the difference is that DS9 feels more like most SF shows do now, with its arc-based structure and political gravitas. The worst episodes from DS9's early seasons are the ones that don't connect to the ongoing large-scale concerns of the show. The two really, really good S1 episodes, "Past Prologue" and "Duet," are both centered around the uneasy and permanent symbiosis of Bajor and Cardassia, and both allude to 20th-century Earth without using too specific of a reference point. The worst episodes of DS9's early seasons fail to advance any of the major or minor arcs; they have a TNG-ish feel that leaves the actors flailing. Especially since so many of them rely on "someone is acting strange," which is hard to pull off when we barely know what the characters are like yet.
DS9 was also blessed with the finest cast of any Trek series. Avery Brooks is a weak link, either underplaying or belting out an Emmy Winning Moment, and Nana Visitor is shrill and has two facial expressions. But the rest of the cast is golden. Siddig El-Fadil had trouble finding his character at first but is a fabulous blend of smarmy and sweet by the beginning of S2, and Terry Farrell, although understated, is better than she usually got credit for, conveying enigma and approachability at the same time. The show's three veteran character actors, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, and Rene Auberjonois, are the ones who really raise the level, though, storming their way through oppressive makeup, bad jokes, and the implausible multitude of shitty things that happen to O'Brien. Some of the supporting cast are kind of dire - Rosalind Chao has only one volume setting (fun fact: she's the Kevin Bacon Game link between DS9 and Six Feet Under) and Aron Eisenberg never learned how to talk with his Ferengi teeth in - but we're starting to get Garak and Dukat and Kai Winn, and that set of veteran character actors is spectacular, too.
So DS9 holds up beautifully on rewatch, at least so far. Although every time they say "Cardassian" I hear "Kardashian" and cringe. I hate my culture.
2. There's a meme going around where you list the file names/working titles of everything in your WIP folder. There's a ton of abandoned shit in my WIP folder, but I tend to have amusing (at least to me) working titles, so here's a sampling. I probably won't finish most of these, and some were last edited in 2006. These are all file names.
unsatisfying vmars slash
johnnyben with irony and gender theory
so you think you can slash
going to reality queens
torchwood boys are sad
the rimming fic
honorary canadians
mentalist threesome
rent boy kradam (actually, this one I might amnesty out - what I have is substantial and pretty good)
jeremy bamf superhero bondage
maybe rockne could skate with drew meekins
bates ryan consolation lap dance (actually, this is finished and I should probably just post it)
charlie jeremy superhero apocalypse (finished in longhand, no time to type lately, will actually be up pretty soon)
3. In conclusion, I refuse to cut tag this picture because it is so beautiful:
DS9 was also blessed with the finest cast of any Trek series. Avery Brooks is a weak link, either underplaying or belting out an Emmy Winning Moment, and Nana Visitor is shrill and has two facial expressions. But the rest of the cast is golden. Siddig El-Fadil had trouble finding his character at first but is a fabulous blend of smarmy and sweet by the beginning of S2, and Terry Farrell, although understated, is better than she usually got credit for, conveying enigma and approachability at the same time. The show's three veteran character actors, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, and Rene Auberjonois, are the ones who really raise the level, though, storming their way through oppressive makeup, bad jokes, and the implausible multitude of shitty things that happen to O'Brien. Some of the supporting cast are kind of dire - Rosalind Chao has only one volume setting (fun fact: she's the Kevin Bacon Game link between DS9 and Six Feet Under) and Aron Eisenberg never learned how to talk with his Ferengi teeth in - but we're starting to get Garak and Dukat and Kai Winn, and that set of veteran character actors is spectacular, too.
So DS9 holds up beautifully on rewatch, at least so far. Although every time they say "Cardassian" I hear "Kardashian" and cringe. I hate my culture.
2. There's a meme going around where you list the file names/working titles of everything in your WIP folder. There's a ton of abandoned shit in my WIP folder, but I tend to have amusing (at least to me) working titles, so here's a sampling. I probably won't finish most of these, and some were last edited in 2006. These are all file names.
unsatisfying vmars slash
johnnyben with irony and gender theory
so you think you can slash
going to reality queens
torchwood boys are sad
the rimming fic
honorary canadians
mentalist threesome
rent boy kradam (actually, this one I might amnesty out - what I have is substantial and pretty good)
jeremy bamf superhero bondage
maybe rockne could skate with drew meekins
bates ryan consolation lap dance (actually, this is finished and I should probably just post it)
charlie jeremy superhero apocalypse (finished in longhand, no time to type lately, will actually be up pretty soon)
3. In conclusion, I refuse to cut tag this picture because it is so beautiful: