The second-to-last main franchise offering from producer/writer Russel T. Davies*, The Waters of Mars ( Extremely Vague Spoilers. )


ETA: Heavier spoilers in comments.

* AKA "Rusty" "Rusty >:(" and "Oh thank god you're going don't let the door hit you on the ass AND TAKE YOUR SLOW-MOTION VAGUE WAILING WITH YOU, I'm serious, don't you dare leave that where Moffett can pick it up!"

Poll #1485472 Underscores: Y/N?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 29

Underscores in unsernames are:

Dreamwidth usernames should:

Ticky?

From the Due South fanwiki, emphasis mine:

"Due South was originally a made-for-TV movie on CBS [...]. The show was canceled in 1996 due to low ratings, with the final episode airing in Canada in May of 1996.

A year later, they resurrected some of the cast and crew to create the 1997-1999 spin-off. While many of the cast from the original show returned, they were unable to secure David Marciano to continue his role as Ray Vecchio. The ratings never lived up to the producers hopes, and the spin-off was canceled after 26 episodes.

In the spin-off series, Benton Fraser [...] accepts his new partner, and with his deaf wolf Diefenbaker in tow, the two join together to battle crime. They never quite mastered the chemistry that Paul Gross had with David Marciano in the original series, but the two performed quite well off each other.

There is often confusion as to whether the 26 episodes with Callum Keith Rennie are part of the original series with David Marciano, because the two series were combined and presented together in the United States as one series with three seasons, and later distributed as four seasons on DVD."

Page created November 19, 2008, last edited the 26th of the same month.

God bless you determined little OTPers, continuing the Ray wars ten years after the cancellation of your show. Never say die! Viva la resistance! The South will rise again! Experimental hair will be banned from the Yukon! Everybody party!

(My favorite bit might just be that last paragraph. It's one of the failier attempt to 'prove' an argument I've seen in a long while. It's that extra touch of condescension that does it. "You may THINK it's not a spin-off, but you're wrong. Lots of people make that mistake, so that proves just how wrong you are." Somehow I think I might go with the wiki that insists on attribution instead, for some reason.)

If I could only pick one thing to illustrate how fandom had changed over the years, it would probably be how when I got into fandom, a much-hated canon event/episode/arc was responded to with "Let's write fic/make groups to fix it, goddammit!" and now a much-hated canon event/episode/arc is responded to with "I will never write fic again/this fandom is over and dead!"

ETA: Comments now contain Torchwood spoilers, although it's mostly That Big One you've probably already been ruined for unless you're very good at avoiding or very lucky.

There's something I actually do want to say wrt: the BDSM arguments that have sprung up (IE: "Having to Warn for BDSM is saying my kink is the same thing as rape and murder!"):

There are three words considered the commandments of the BDSM scene: Safe, Sane, and Consensual.

That last one is what's at stake here. No one who is doing a scene right goes into it without checking for the safety of the people involved, for their comfort level and what they can handle. All anyone is asking is for writers to do the same thing: to extend readers of their fics the courtesy they would to a sub or dom they were playing with by allowing that other party to know what they're getting into, so that they don't wind up in a situation they can't handle or don't want. Even people into BDSM can find elements of it disturbing, because no one is going to be into all aspects; if you're into putting someone in a hood and whipping them but the other person only likes D/s power-play with mild bondage, you need to know that before you get seriously involved, and that's all warning for BDSM activities is doing. And if you find the term "warning" to be offensive, "Note: contains BDSM" works just as well. (This is not the time to get into my pet gripe that cautions for BDSM should always have a colon after them specifying which sort of BDSM because of how broad a category BDSM covers, not when apparently there's an argument over whether there should people should indicate for any of it at all.)

I'm frankly astounded anyone within the BDSM Scene has a problem with this in the first place--to be sure, those words and that concept are the ideal and in day-to-day BDSM don't always happen, but it's still an enshrined tenant of the whole culture.

I keep seeing things lately that remind me of fandom's fine case of "you only feel that way because you're pathetic and weak" mentality. It's nothing new--"You're only demanding warnings/ratings because you're too easily upset" has been done at least three times before on LJ that I can think of, and I remember it once back in mailing list days, too, and I've lost count of the times we've done "If you weren't such a coward/sad little girl, you wouldn't feel bad about/try to stop your fic from getting MSTied/mocked/'critically analyzed'/run over by a bulldozer and set on fire"--but it seems to slowly escalate with each reiteration, and this time it's unusually strident. I look forward to the "eChicken" application that is being developed so these arguments can end as they properly should, with the one side clucking derisively at the other.

(You know, come to think of it, I remember a version of this argument back in my message board RP days, and when the entire group decided that warnings were good and necessary, one of the players started all of his posts ever after with something like "WARNING: innocent birds are killed, stripped of their protective plumage, impaled on two sticks and placed over a fire, then dismembered and savagely consumed. Souls sensitive to such desecration need not apply." Every. Post.

Since he was the one whose RP post prompted the argument in the first place, I believe there's another school days term for this: Sore Loser.)

As for the other unique points of this go-round, I'm not sure I even want to touch on that; I'm not in the mood for yet more "my minority is more valid than your minority" wank.

(Confused about what I'm talking about? Go here. Warning: May Induce Rage)

( Spoilers, kind of. )

I was entertained. I don't regret paying that movie price. But everyone who assured me it was more than an entertaining big dumb shiny movie was seeing something I didn't. (Of course, this movie being what it is, people will be arguing about it one way or another for the next ten years at the very least.)

On the other hand, Karl Urban as McCoy was genuinely freaking amazing, and Old Spock was awesome even if what he was saying appeared to be straight rough-draft notes*.


* In another bit of annoyance, I know they weren't, because it turns out there's a novel and graphic novel series explaining the backstory to this movie, following that trend that drives me crazier every time it happens. People, is it really so damned hard to put integral pieces of story in your main product?

From azarias & sainfoin_fields:

Give me a fandom and I'll tell you my:

1. one true pairing ship
2. canon ship
3. "If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship
4. "You are one sick bastard" ship
5. "I dabble a little" ship
6. "It's like a car crash" ship
7. "Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" ship
8. "Makes no canon sense but why the Hell not" ship
9. "Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship

You all should have a pretty good feel of what I pay attention to enough to do this by now. (Also, I'm interpreting #6 as "horrifying yet fascinating" for the record.)

For a while now I've been contemplating doing a semi-regular pimping post series (it would have to be semi, with me) to keep me in the habit of posting, if nothing else, and also because one night I determined I was the only person online on my Buddy List who had read Lois McMaster Bujold, and that's just wrong. So I finally set down a bunch of things that I'd be interested in talking about at length, and now I'm doing a poll to see what people would be interested in, although I may end up disregarding that as whim takes me.

There's a lot of stuff I follow that's not on here, mostly because I don't follow it intently enough to consider myself qualified to pimp it, like, say, Runaways (or honestly most comics I read). I'm intending these to be reasonably in-depth discussions of both the strengths and the weaknesses of each thing, so "I really enjoyed the first five trades of JMS's Spider-Man run...." isn't really going to cut it. I'm also pretty sure I've forgotten something, but this isn't exactly a major commitment, so I'll cope.

( All ticky boxes all the time! )

Somehow I missed hearing about this at the time, but: A live Live Action Cowboy Bebop film may be in the works... starring Keanu Reeves.

I haven't got enough NO in me.

I finished this episode in a daze, astounded that suddenly the show didn't suck again, went online, and immediately discovered why: Bryan Fuller is back.

The thing is, I quite enjoyed the first half/volume of Season 3, but in that way where.... Well, it was as if instead of jumping the shark, the show landed on the shark and proceeded to ride it like a bucking bronco. It wasn't good, but it was like watching televised fanfic: it wasn't terribly plausible and the characterization kept doing weird things, but it was entertaining enough that I was content to go along for the ride and see what crazy-ass thing they did next. Unfortunately, in this latest volume, most of the crack (with a few exceptions) was gone and we were left with just the stupid, which is much less fun to watch. I mean, even the episode guest starring John Glover pretty much sucked, and that takes some doing.

And then suddenly--suddenly enough that I got mental whiplash--wham, it's back to being good. Or at least much closer to it than it has been.

All hail Bryan Fuller.

( The specifics of what I liked. )

Now, all of this is still not quite up to the potential of Season 1, and it doesn't mean it will keep on being good, but suddenly I have hope again, right when I was about to give it up. (For the record, it was "mommy" that began truly breaking me.)

It's good to know the Symbolic Pigeon from BSG is still getting work, I guess.

I also think I've finally pinpointed one of my major problems with this show: David Shepherd is Carrot Ironfoundersson played completely straight and utterly serious.

There's a reason that's a bad idea.

I would dearly love to know what it is so much of my friendslist sees in this, because I'm annoyed by the Smallville-esque 'subtleties', the way canonical homosexual is evil in the first episode (and I must agree: what freaking version of Jonathan and David have these people been reading?), and the fact that King Silas is 'evil' pretty much "because God said so". I may continue watching because I love Ian McShane like a deeply loving thing, but this is rather not what I was expecting.

It is not often that in my cynical expectations of TV, I am impressed by just how mind-bogglingly stupidly a show manages to end itself, so tonight I salute you, Ron Moore. That was really very fantastically moronic and so predictable we called it as soon as ( minor spoiler, of a sort )

I feel somewhat bad for people who liked and had a solid commitment to the show and were believing into the very last half-hour that somehow this was gonna pull out and be okay. Somehow. Or that at least that it wouldn't end with ( larger spoiler )

I'm really, really glad I never got invested in this show.

ETA: ( I guess this is spoilery too. )

John Scalzi sayith:

"But a large chunk of it was a lot better than I had characterized it as being, and thus my characterization of the whole thing as a complete waste of time was based on ignorance, an assumption that the parts I tracked through were the majority of discussion (i.e., more ignorance), and a fair amount of pissed-offedness that an especially irritating if minor part of it showed up at my site.

So for that inaccurate characterization, and the various offense it caused: I apologize. I was wrong."

My faith in humanity is suddenly doing a hell of a lot better.

(By the way, if you're looking for a good short summary of these events that spells out clearly and coherently how racism is involved, I recommend this.)

I've got some kind of glitch going where I can't see comment page links in my journal, and since I don't routinely get more than 25 top-level comments on my LJ, I haven't got a handy example to show the support staff. So would you guys mind spamming me a little? Or link interesting things or play Comment Calvinball or something. Merci beaucoup.

And to give this some content, um, this is me loving Jo Walton, and this is Guy Gavriel Kay making some interesting points about what blogging does to the relationship between authors and fans, a point not irrelevant to certain recent events.

I really am! I thought it was only an urban legend that if you looked into a mirror and said John Scalzi's name three times he would appear. I wouldn't have done it if I'd thought it could actually happen!

Also, can we just ban all varients of "How dare you have that argument in that tone?" It's only marginally better than responding to a discussion you disagree with by snidely pointing out spelling and gramatical errors. (Which, come to think of it, is also pretty Scalzi-like.)


ETA: It would also be nice if these people realized repeatedly talking about "the horrible things that 'LJ fandom' has said to us" doesn't actually make those horrible things just spontaneously exist. Oh, there actually has been below-the-belt hitting on both sides, but it's pretty clearly weighted towards one, and it's not the group that the pro-SF/F side of this keeps trying to insist it is. Let us not forget who started slinging the "malevolent little cunt"s around.

Other people have said all the more thoughtful things I could possibly say, and probably better, but I just want to take a moment to congratulate Elizabeth Bear on passing her officer's exams and taking her position up aboard the USS Failboat. And let's all offer our congratulations on her instantly winning the bingo game aboard that ship with a veritable slam-dunk:

-You didn't properly read the text in the first place.
-I was trying, don't I get credit for that?
-Both sides were equally bad!
-I've received many supportive emails.
-You know, many of my closest friends are black.
-Someone's got to be brave enough to say this.
-Having this argument is making me racist!
-I was trying to set an example.
-I'm not really white, when you think about it.
-My words have been viciously misinterpreted.
-I knew this was painting a target on my chest but I didn't realize how big of one.
-I've made some mistakes, which I'm not going to specify. But see how penitent I am.
-The other side totally made worse mistakes than I ever did, though.
-Let's just stop talking about this, okay? I'm tired of it.
-I've realized I made mistakes so I'm just going to take all of that down now so it'll stop bothering me, isn't that wonderful?
-I'm so sad about all of this I just might leave the internet.

And many more I'm sure I've missed! (Chime in with your favorites!)


ETA: Okay, I've thought of something I haven't seen said: I've spent a fair amount of time through all of this arguing that it's unfair to tar the entire pro SF/F fandom community with the same brush of fail from all of this, because sure, there's a lot of assholes in it, but not everybody is. I am now giving up on that, because it's an unsupportable argument when it seems like every new famous voice that chimes in is doing so on the side of suck. It may be actually to the good of everyone that people like, say, Scalzi haven't jumped in, but the way things have fallen out has left everything distinctly lopsided and more-or-less justified half of LJ's desire to never buy an SF/F novel again.

The moral here is this: whatever you take out of this, don't take out the lesson that "I should never talk about race on the internet." That's just as much of a problem, and honestly belongs up there in my bingo, because it's not a way of achieving anything: it's a way of punishing the people who disagree with you.

There is nothing on this earth that is not made better with the introduction of dinosaurs.

(And speaking of fandomsecrets, this makes me wonder if I've been making secrets in my sleep, and this is simply the most awesome idea in the history of ever.)


And now, an equally random meme:

Comment with up to five things you associate with me, and I'll ramble about them at great and pointless length, and then will tell you how they could be improved with the addition of dinosaurs.

I think these are just about the Gothiest thing I've ever seen in my life. And they also don't look terribly structurally sound, which depending on your level of Goth pretentiousness may or may not be an asset.

On the other hand, they'd make fantastic conversation-starters, and there's something oddly appealing about the green-and-black one. It's got a kind of retro feel that, in the right setting, would make it completely innocuous. Ambush coffin.

Via rosaleendhu. Use of Nemi icon obligatory; actual icon subject not relevant.

There's a Torchwood profic novel where Jack saves the day at the end while riding on a flying unicorn.

I do believe this takes the championship from the "Ianto Jones wakes up a girl" novel.

ETA:

But soaring towards him from the stand beyond the goalposts was another extraordinary sight. A flying unicorn.

The pale white coat was dappled green in the supernatural light. It seemed to toss its head at him as it approached. Jack clambered up on the rail, waiting for the amazing creature to pass, and leaped onto its back.

He almost overshot. But the animal dropped its shoulder and swung around so Jack was able to rebalance.

He sat well forward on the animals whithers, plunging his hands into its silky mane and pushing his legs over the point of the shoulder to keep them clear of the elegantly beating wings. He held on grimly as it veered into the wind and out over the centre of the Stadium.

Someone got paid for that.

REPEAT, CHAPTER ONE IS UP!

AND IT'S-

...err?

I have just read Welcome to the Jungle and I have something I would like to say:

Harry Dresden is not 6'9".

The idea of Harry Dresden being 6'9" is so laughable I'm fairly certain you have a problem conceptualizing height. As further evidence of this, I point out that you have a man who is 6'9" driving a classic Volkswagen Beetle. I know he is a wizard, but that is ridiculous.

Also, if he were 6'9", many of his conversations with Karrin Murphy--just a smidge over 5', remember?--would have to be conducted with the aid of a bullhorn.

I am choosing to believe you are aware you have this problem and that's why most of your descriptions in the books are more like "of around average height" or "an inch or two above average height," except in the cases of a couple shorter people where you obviously had some sort of personal marker in mind. It's okay; I have the same problem with distances and usually describe them as "within a few hours' travel on foot" instead of with miles or (god help me) kilometers. It's not a serious flaw. Just go back to being vague and everything will be fine.

And please do not put this in the actual story where I will not be able to ignore it.

My housemate got a book out of the library called The Men Who Stare At Goats. After staring at the cover for a long blank moment, I opened the dust jacket and determined it is, in fact, about completely insane shit the US government has been involved in. And more importantly, the dust jacket contains this line:

"Why have 100 debleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces Command Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina?"

If that doesn't fill your daily quotient of awesome, I don't know what will.


ETA: It's being made into a movie with Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, and George Clooney! My daily quotient of awesome has just been exceeded!