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jedibuttercupWhee, it's a Friday! The turbulent waters here have smoothed over, chocolate cheesecake was served in the break room for breakfast, and one of my coworkers gave me a Blue Ribbon to hang on my tackboard. *hums happily* Now, if my tax refund would just arrive...
In the meantime, here's a meme I spotted at calliopes_pen. There are a *lot* of fandoms I'm interested in, as y'all should already know, and I'm looking for an excuse to waste time today, so please, do comment. =)
1. Comment with any ship [or character] from a fandom that you know I like, or at least have some knowledge about.
2. I will ramble for about 100 words (I may go over a bit) about the aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is.
3. Put this on your LJ, if you are so inclined.
In the meantime, here's a meme I spotted at calliopes_pen. There are a *lot* of fandoms I'm interested in, as y'all should already know, and I'm looking for an excuse to waste time today, so please, do comment. =)
1. Comment with any ship [or character] from a fandom that you know I like, or at least have some knowledge about.
2. I will ramble for about 100 words (I may go over a bit) about the aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is.
3. Put this on your LJ, if you are so inclined.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 01:29 pm (UTC)CSI! ♥
Date: 2006-04-14 02:07 pm (UTC)Back in the dark ages, when the show was a new curiosity that I watched simply because it was on right after the newly-discovered "Survivor", I was, sadly, more a fan of Sara/Nick. (I still love me some Nick, though he should seriously get a haircut, but I'm not sure he and Sara would get along at all well in a romantic relationship). By Season 2, however, I was completely fascinated by the interaction between Gris and Sara, how they were so similiar in many ways, the possibilties of the vague past they never discuss that led him to invite her to the team in the first place, the heavy UST (which I always saw as two-sided, in that restrained way of his, not just Sara fangirling over him obsessively), and so on and so forth.
(Also, two such introverted, intelligent, deeply thinking characters? Perhaps a bit of personal wish-fulfillment, given the lack of same in my own life, in hoping they could make a go of it).
He RUINED it, though, when somewhere near the end of-- was it season 4?-- he shut her down hard, closing her way out, and her character arc went on a downward spiral. I wanted to kick her for pushing, and him for overreacting, and the writers, for taking things in that direction. Finally, at some point in season 5 Gris and Sara finally began acting a bit playful with each other again, but all the tension seems to have disappeared. For example, did you see the face she made at him last night when he said "I'm good at mouth-to-mouth"? It was more "WTF?" than anything flirtatious.
So I figure either (a), he finally got his act together and there is sekrit hanky-panky going on outside the office, or (b), she is so over him, and he's back to feeling safe behind his lonely barriers. Either way, AARGH. (At least, though, they didn't take it in a Cath/Warrick direction and have one of them get suddenly married over the summer and the other one turn all angsty over it).
To sum up: Love Sara. Love Gris. Love Sara/Gris-- set before or related to the meltdown. But in the present? Please, producers, unless they get together just as Gris leaves the show and presumably continue Happily Eva Afta in the shrouded world of Sara's personal life, do not retread the same angsty, angsty path, ever ever again.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 01:33 pm (UTC)Illyria and Wesley- that sholud keep you busy.
Illyria & Wesley!!
Date: 2006-04-14 02:55 pm (UTC)You hear me gush about this all the time, why make me repeat myself? =)
Seriously, though. I adore Wesley for many and varied reasons, few of which have to do with his physical attractiveness. Many of them overlap with my reasons for adoring Daniel Jackson of Stargate: SG-1, namely his intelligence, his bookish "primary" occupation, his essential stubborn, determined nature (which, admittedly, is pretty hidden under awkward dross when he first shows up), his incredible growth of character over the entirety of his arc...
Ahem. Anyway. Wesley is also, unlike Daniel, a character who, when pushed to extremes, finally broke. There is no happy ending for him after Fred's death. This makes me want to mend him, to continue his arc and slowly bring him back into a functional state of contentment with life (like Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly, pre-movie, whose world went all to ashes in Serenity Valley but eventually rebuilt himself a family and a home). Barring a pure angst-fic like "The Day After the Apocalypse", I like the idea of Wesley slowly rediscovering life and purpose again, and was mightly aggrieved that the show killed him off instead of letting that happen.
Illyria is, in many ways, responsible for his breaking in the first place. She wears the face of the woman he'd been obsessed with for the better part of three years; her arrival is what killed Fred, just after Wesley had finally, finally attained her. And yet, though her nature is "evil" by modern standards, she's really just a product of her environment, and is not actually guilty of murdering Fred; Knox is the one responsible, and Wesley took care of him during the early phases of his near-insanity after Illyria's awakening. He can't really blame her. But he can't let go of her, either, especially once Illyria reveals she retains many of Fred's memories, and that Fred's humanity is slowly rubbing off on her, making her more and more human-like as time passes.
She's interesting enough in her own right, with all that history behind her, her fish-out-of-water status, and all the inherent difficulties of her adjustment to this world and her adoption of Wesley as her guide/mentor. I think, honestly, that she might be OK without him provided she finds another mentor; Fred's feelings for Wesley weren't nearly as deep or long-lasting as Wesley's for Fred, and human emotions are pretty alien to Illyria still anyway, so if you accept the last episode of Angel as canon then I can see her getting over her grief fairly easily and moving on. (I have, in fact, written her that way more than once).
If Wesley were to survive, though-- in an AU or crossover, obviously-- then whatever healing he does must still include Illyria in his life, since he's completely unable to let go of her in any form. As the years pass, once Fred fades a bit from his memory-- for, after all, she was there for such a small fraction of his total life and they had barely any time together as a couple-- I can definitely see his attachment to Illyria deepening again into something romantic. (Or, you know, if you want to go the unhealthy angsty route, I can also see him getting involved with her sexually in a self-hating way, but I don't like to go there). The question is, would she welcome it, and would it last? Difficult to say. Many possibilities, though.
So in summary, I guess that's what I like most about Illyria and Wesley together: the sheer potential that was squelched prematurely by the show.
Re: Illyria & Wesley!!
Date: 2006-04-14 03:04 pm (UTC)Because after the cruel joke at first I thought I would let you have a public forum to wax eloquent on your favorite ship.=)!
Re: Illyria & Wesley!!
Date: 2006-04-14 03:32 pm (UTC)Please. They're not my favorite ship, just one of the top ten. Or have you forgotten last week's
Re: Illyria & Wesley!!
Date: 2006-04-14 05:32 pm (UTC)Feed
Date: 2006-04-14 07:13 pm (UTC)Re: Feed
Date: 2006-04-14 07:20 pm (UTC)*snort* Not quite what I meant by 'ship', but thank you for playing, good sir. *grin*
Re: Feed
Date: 2006-04-14 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 08:18 pm (UTC)Riker/Troi. I know that you used to be a trekkie, so have at it. :D
Trekker, thank you, not Trekkie. =)
Date: 2006-04-14 09:21 pm (UTC)Oh, it's been ages since I thought about them. Didn't they get married in Insurrection, or the movie after that whose name I can't even remember? I only saw those two films once apiece, shuddered in horror at what they'd done to my beloved franchise, and backed away slowly. That last one offended me nearly as much as the entire run of the so-called "Enterprise" with its canon violations! Though I do have a lingering image stuck in my head from it... Nemesis, that's what it was called!... of Picard's bared manly biceps bulging, don't ask me why. In a contest of Captains, he's a close second for me behind Kirk; they appeal to different parts of my personality.
But you didn't ask about Picard. *laughing* (Don't even HINT to me about him and Beverly, BTW *shudders* They ruined that for me with the whole married-and-divorced thing there at the end. Not to mention, the poor guy had more chemistry with Q than he did with the woman he'd supposedly been longing after).
*ahem* Back on topic? Sorry. I was all "Ooh, mystery" back in the very beginning, the Riker and Troi they greeted each other as if they'd had a prior acquaintance that maybe had been romantic and maybe hadn't ended terribly well. I didn't realize then that they'd jerk us around ALL FRICKIN' SEVEN SEASONS before hurriedly slapping them together long after the UST had withered and died, per staple TV maneuvering of instantly obvious couples. (In my defense, I was nine at the time).
I read some of the novels back then, too, though it's been awhile. There were some special connotations to the whole Imzadi thing they had going, right? I was horrified when they paired her with Worf-- no offense to Worf, I adored him with Jadzia, but they were wrong wrong wrong for each other. Aliens of the week, which usually ended up backfiring in spectacular ways, I could handle; her pairing up with a non-Riker series character? At least she could have gone for Picard if she was looking for a distraction, that might actually have been interesting to watch! As for Riker, he was shoved into all the worst bits of the Kirk/skirt-chasing stereotype in a reverse of the old series' sexed-up-captain/austere-first-officer roles, which got him into some pretty bizarre romantic entanglements, memorably including-- if I remember right-- a holodeck character and a non-gendered alien. Gack! All of that, when they each had their-- previously recognized-- soulmate right close to hand!!! *beats head against wall* *takes deep breath* Okay, I'm calm now. Mom keeps telling me that I get far too passionate about make-believe universes that have nothing to do with real world living, but I just can't help it. =)
Riker and Troi themselves individually... well, when they weren't being bent out of shape to serve the "Terribly Important Social Lesson of the Week", I liked them all right. Riker had a nice sense of humor, not as dry as Picard's, but I got the feeling he'd make me laugh if I were Mary-Sued into his universe, and he wasn't "completely unfortunate looking" (to quote Elle from Legally Blonde), so, okay. His severe lack of ambition, though, was a problem for me; Spock was able to stay tacked onto Kirk's coattails forever-and-ever without losing face for a variety of reasons, primary among them his very different cultural background, but with Riker, while it was nice and loyal of him, it made him seem kind of like the Captain's personal sheepdog or the son who just won't move out of dad's basement, you know? And Troi, well, she was kind of bland until after the episode where she had to take command of the ship during the disaster and started being more the proactive character and wearing more sensible clothing instead of being the token officer-in-a-skirt (*cough* Uhura *cough*).
By the end of the series, though, I was in love with them both-- along with most of the rest of the command crew-- and quite, quite irritated at all the obstacles the producers kept hitting them with.
Um... I think I answered the question in there somewhere? Right? =)
Re: Trekker, thank you, not Trekkie. =)
Date: 2006-04-14 09:38 pm (UTC)I remember Minuet (the holodeck girl) but I had to think a bit about the non-gendered alien thing. IIRC a percentage of their population still developed a vestige of gender identity one way or another and they were "reprogrammed" if caught. Riker's "Girlfriend" that week ended up going in for "treatment".
I read "Imzadi" too. Loved it. And hey... Peter David. And two Datas, two Rikers, and a shapeshifting wookie running around. Funny Stuff.
Yes, the whole "Imzadi" thing had a whole other level of meaning. Don't tell me that you forgot about Lwaxana's deathbed penchance for strangulation and neo-anal creation regarding the subject. :D
Re: Trekker, thank you, not Trekkie. =)
Date: 2006-04-14 10:01 pm (UTC)> I read "Imzadi" too. Loved it. And hey... Peter David.
I own just about every TOS book ever written up until #83, which sequence sadly only includes two Peter David titles; my brother was the TNG collector. Still, I absolutely had to buy my very own copy of "Q-in-Law"-- it made me laugh even harder than TOS #36 "How Much for Just the Planet?" I ♥ Peter David.
Oh you know you were a trekkie.
Date: 2006-04-14 09:42 pm (UTC)I was a trekkie and I didn't have the requisite accessories...
Just sayin'...
Re: Oh you know you were a trekkie.
Date: 2006-04-14 09:48 pm (UTC)...Oh. You mean, like, Spock ears and things, right? *quickly hiding rank pips and signed Quark's Bar card*
*blushes*
Re: Oh you know you were a trekkie.
Date: 2006-04-14 09:51 pm (UTC)Yep. Those things. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 09:50 pm (UTC)Picard/Q
or
Jack/Daniel
How about I mention both? =)
Date: 2006-04-14 10:38 pm (UTC)I didn't actually see Picard/Q until long after the series was over, though Q was one of my favorite characters and I was quite miffed they buddied him up with Janeway during the run of Voyager instead of squeezing him into a TNG movie.
Jack/Daniel is actually the 'ship that introduced me to the concept of watching a show with "slash goggles", or, in other words, watching each character interact with any other without applying gender-related stereo-types to the sparks generated between them. (I have a huge, huge list of Jack/Daniel recs sitting on my hard drive that I really should dig up and post some time, set anywhere from Season 3 through Season 8).
Once I started seeing the Jack/Daniel, it backward infected just about everything I've ever watched, bringing to life the potentiality of such 'ships as Picard/Q, Bashir/O'Brien, Kirk/Spock (of course), Alan/Billy (Jurassic Park III), Wesley/Gunn (Angel), and Jack/Will (PotC). I can't stand to read fic that slaps two guys together just for the sake of it being slash, but in the hands of a good plotty writer, I like it just as much as I do plotty het-fic these days.
You may notice about the above-listed couples that they're mostly the buddy sort, none of this terribly angsty business like Bashir/Garak fans or Wesley/Angel fans or suchlike. I never got the point of those any more than standard Harlequin-y het fare; they do nothing for me. Which is not to say there's no angst to the ones I do like; O'Brien's married, and you can't just make Keiko evil and ship her off, and Jack and Daniel had that terrible falling over the things Jack said while under cover followed by two seasons of Jack increasingly marginalizing Daniel while chasing Sam, but there's a spark and flash and equality and openness to their interactions in general that just gets to me, even if you're writing it as just a good gen friendship.
I really miss that in SG-1, by the way. Daniel's sporadic interaction with Jack in Season 6, and their renewed caring-about-each-other behaviour in Season 7, made me very happy, but it dwindled away again in Season 8 and now there's no Jack at all. Forget Jack, now; the sparks Daniel has with Vala drown out any other possible 'ship he's ever had since the Jack/Daniel "Spacemonkey" era, even more so than Daniel/Sha'uri, which I have a huge soft-spot for.
Even with Picard and Q, there's still a certain element to their relationship where most of the time Picard yells at him as though he's a friend who has terribly disappointed him by going out late, getting drunk, and arriving two hours late for the party Picard is hosting, rather than an almost all-powerful being who could wipe him from existence in the blink of an eye, and Q is so desperate for Picard to like him by the end (not to mention poke a sharp stick in the Continuum's eye by proving Q's obsession with humanity isn't just a stupid hobby), he treats him on an emotional level as an equal. Aside from the great honkin' speedbump of Q's actions almost directly leading to the Locutus-izing of Picard, they had the makings of really amazing universe-changing friendship going there. (Which the movie-verse-- and the Q-baby subplot on Voyager-- completely ignored, of course).
The 'fic that really made me like Picard/Q, though, was Escher Dreams by The Anon Sisters. Absolutely lovely. I wish there were more stories like that one out there.
Good enough answer? =)