stumbling toward normalcy
In a few short hours, I'm going CLIMBING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the first time in six months (and it's been longer than that since I was climbing regularly). I'm kind of terrified by how out of shape I'll be but mostly SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Slowly but surely, I'm starting to return to the land of functional humans. I feel like I've been in dissertation hangover mode for more than a week now, but soon I think I shall be fit for human interaction and the performance of basic life skills like dressing myself in something other than pajamas, leaving the house, and writing fic. The question is which fic to tackle first: the abandoned fic about Gillian, Zoe, Emily, and basketball, the abandoned Daniel/Janet fic, or the not-yet-started-but-still-eating-my-brain fic about Father Jack, sin, and confession. Hmm... (Opinions are welcome, though I can't guarantee I'll listen to them.)
**
Snagged this one from sdwolfpup:
* everyone has dirty fandom secrets or guilty pleasures or unpopular opinions.
* list five of yours.
* get cries of OMG YOU TOO or WTF ARE YOU SMOKING
* profit
1. This will not be so unpopular on my own flist, I'm sure, though it is in the wider fannish world: With very few exceptions, I'm simply uninterested in stories that don't involve women. Nothing against the existence of m/m slash, or male character-focused gen, or whatnot, but stories that look at male characters in isolation from their interactions with women I mostly find kind of boring.
2. I adore BOTH messy, angsty, ambiguous gen fic AND schmoopy, shippy fic. They inhabit very different parts of my brain, and if forced to choose, I'd have to go with the former, but I'm glad I don't have to choose. My life would be less enjoyable if I were not able to consume reams of mediocrely awesome, predictable shippy fic!
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer does not appeal to me at all. I keep saying that I'll watch it some day, and I do believe everyone who says it's awesome, but neither teenagers nor vampires do a thing for me. And there's SO MUCH of it...
4. Related to the above, I've never quite figured out why everyone is so gaga over Joss Whedon. Maybe I need to see Buffy to understand? But I was a little indifferent to Firefly (liked but did not love) and actively disliked the little bit of Dollhouse I tried to watch, and none of this makes me inclined to trust that the magic of Whedon would overcome the fact that teenagers and vampires simply do not interest me.
5. Jack O'Neill is my least-favorite member of SG-1--original or new team. Not that I don't like Jack well enough (at least early on, before RDA started phoning it in). I just like everyone else so much better!
**
And today in the TV meme: Day 14 - Favorite male character
I'm glad this didn't include "of all time" or anything like that, because my favorites shift around a bit. A couple of years ago I probably would have answered Cameron Mitchell for this question, and he's still probably the runner-up. Other honorable mentions are Toby Zeigler and G'Kar. But my favorite male character for the moment and the foreseeable future is James Ellison from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (This should not have surprised you!)
One of the things I love best about Ellison is the way he so easily could have been a stereotype and yet is not. When we really start to get to know him, Sarah Connor has already wrecked his career: he was once a hot-shot FBI agent with a bright future, and now he's a little past his prime, still chasing a cold case with a few too many unbelievable leads. He's a little worn and weary and he hasn't lived up to his career promise. He is, however, very good at his job, and he keeps pursuing his leads, looking for the truth even as that truth leads him further and further on a career-suicide track.
I think my favorite thing about Ellison, though, is the way he is so believably drawn as an open-minded person of faith. Shockingly enough, people can be faithful adherents to a religion and also believe in material and scientific evidence, also be open to changes in their worldviews. Many--probably most--people do not fall into an either-or dichotomy between faith and science, yet how often is that complexity, the continuum of both-and, portrayed in fiction? James Ellison embodies this SO well: he has a strong religious faith, and he sees that faith tested, he experiences doubts, but he doesn't abandon it. Yet he's an excellent investigator, and when he comes upon evidence of unbelievable things, he believes them: he's seen the evidence. He doesn't seem to see a conflict between his faith and his evidence; rather, he works to reconcile these worldviews together. There are more things on heaven and earth...
I also love that he's able to change his mind. He does the best he can with the information he knows, and when he gets new information, he's able to admit he was wrong and change direction in light of the new information. That is possibly my number one turn-on in another human being!
Also, he's incredibly hot!
Slowly but surely, I'm starting to return to the land of functional humans. I feel like I've been in dissertation hangover mode for more than a week now, but soon I think I shall be fit for human interaction and the performance of basic life skills like dressing myself in something other than pajamas, leaving the house, and writing fic. The question is which fic to tackle first: the abandoned fic about Gillian, Zoe, Emily, and basketball, the abandoned Daniel/Janet fic, or the not-yet-started-but-still-eating-my-brain fic about Father Jack, sin, and confession. Hmm... (Opinions are welcome, though I can't guarantee I'll listen to them.)
**
Snagged this one from sdwolfpup:
* everyone has dirty fandom secrets or guilty pleasures or unpopular opinions.
* list five of yours.
* get cries of OMG YOU TOO or WTF ARE YOU SMOKING
* profit
1. This will not be so unpopular on my own flist, I'm sure, though it is in the wider fannish world: With very few exceptions, I'm simply uninterested in stories that don't involve women. Nothing against the existence of m/m slash, or male character-focused gen, or whatnot, but stories that look at male characters in isolation from their interactions with women I mostly find kind of boring.
2. I adore BOTH messy, angsty, ambiguous gen fic AND schmoopy, shippy fic. They inhabit very different parts of my brain, and if forced to choose, I'd have to go with the former, but I'm glad I don't have to choose. My life would be less enjoyable if I were not able to consume reams of mediocrely awesome, predictable shippy fic!
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer does not appeal to me at all. I keep saying that I'll watch it some day, and I do believe everyone who says it's awesome, but neither teenagers nor vampires do a thing for me. And there's SO MUCH of it...
4. Related to the above, I've never quite figured out why everyone is so gaga over Joss Whedon. Maybe I need to see Buffy to understand? But I was a little indifferent to Firefly (liked but did not love) and actively disliked the little bit of Dollhouse I tried to watch, and none of this makes me inclined to trust that the magic of Whedon would overcome the fact that teenagers and vampires simply do not interest me.
5. Jack O'Neill is my least-favorite member of SG-1--original or new team. Not that I don't like Jack well enough (at least early on, before RDA started phoning it in). I just like everyone else so much better!
**
And today in the TV meme: Day 14 - Favorite male character
I'm glad this didn't include "of all time" or anything like that, because my favorites shift around a bit. A couple of years ago I probably would have answered Cameron Mitchell for this question, and he's still probably the runner-up. Other honorable mentions are Toby Zeigler and G'Kar. But my favorite male character for the moment and the foreseeable future is James Ellison from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (This should not have surprised you!)
One of the things I love best about Ellison is the way he so easily could have been a stereotype and yet is not. When we really start to get to know him, Sarah Connor has already wrecked his career: he was once a hot-shot FBI agent with a bright future, and now he's a little past his prime, still chasing a cold case with a few too many unbelievable leads. He's a little worn and weary and he hasn't lived up to his career promise. He is, however, very good at his job, and he keeps pursuing his leads, looking for the truth even as that truth leads him further and further on a career-suicide track.
I think my favorite thing about Ellison, though, is the way he is so believably drawn as an open-minded person of faith. Shockingly enough, people can be faithful adherents to a religion and also believe in material and scientific evidence, also be open to changes in their worldviews. Many--probably most--people do not fall into an either-or dichotomy between faith and science, yet how often is that complexity, the continuum of both-and, portrayed in fiction? James Ellison embodies this SO well: he has a strong religious faith, and he sees that faith tested, he experiences doubts, but he doesn't abandon it. Yet he's an excellent investigator, and when he comes upon evidence of unbelievable things, he believes them: he's seen the evidence. He doesn't seem to see a conflict between his faith and his evidence; rather, he works to reconcile these worldviews together. There are more things on heaven and earth...
I also love that he's able to change his mind. He does the best he can with the information he knows, and when he gets new information, he's able to admit he was wrong and change direction in light of the new information. That is possibly my number one turn-on in another human being!
Also, he's incredibly hot!