a conspiracy of cartographers

Real life processing post coming at some point when my brain and my body are actually in the same place long enough that I can do it without flipping out. In the meantime, This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult more or less sums it up. It didn't actually occur to me that I had this cycle, but when I started typing up my explanation of the ways in which mine differs, it ... doesn't. Huh.

I am currently in the middle of a "clean all the things?" moment, but I need to keep metaphorically cleaning or actual dire things will happen. I am taking, like, a half hour to REBEL WITH INTERNET, though. So, some related fannish things:

1. Stonehenge Apocalypse is pretty hilariously awful, guys. I am not willing to ever rewatch it without the aid of alcohol, I do not think the poor people of Vancouver should ever be made to do British accents, and a small flat bit in the countryside outside Vancouver does not look remotely like Salisbury Plain (made even more painfully evident by an almost back-to-back watching of Pandorica Opens) -- but I now know that Peter Wingfield can act for reals, not because they gave him anything good, but because his body language was completely different.

2. Somehow this did not satisfy me (or scare me off), as I appear to be doing a bit of Canadian Actor Bingo, like I did last summer -- only last summer, it was by way of Callum and therefore (mostly) Toronto Bingo, whereas if I follow Peter Wingfield around, it appears to be Vancouver Bingo. I'm now watching this cute and incredibly short-lived show called Queen of Swords; I have no way of knowing if it's objectively any good, because they had me at "Basically it's Zorro, only Zorro is a gorgeous intelligent kickass woman." Goddamn. And the main villain of the piece is played by Valentine Pelka, who is Kronos -- and I knew Kronos was attractive, in an evil sort of way, but without the scar and with the addition of a goatee, he looks really freakishly like a young Roger Delgado, be still my heart. And Peter Wingfield waltzes into town as an adorable doctor who has been traumatized by the Napoleonic Wars, and although his name is Robert Helm, I keep on being convinced that his name is supposed to be Benjamin Adams, because he is clearly Methos in disguise.

3. A vid rec! Unbelievable, a Highlander vid for which you ... probably need the context of the show to fully appreciate. I spent about the first minute giggling, because Duncan's hypocrisy is transparent and funny, right? I spent the second minute going "...huh." And I spent the last minute making the same faces as Methos, because 178 confirmed kills, sdfklfdjfd. It makes me go YES YES EXACTLY and is great.

4. New tag. /o\

Today is a working on my fics for kink_bingo day! So far, though, that mostly means laughing at the picture on the wiki entry for virginity/celibacy (Merlin & a unicorn!! <3) and making a list of all the postage stamps and line-as-one-fics I want to do. This is less than helpful, so I am taking a leaf from oliviacirce's book (and, in fact, a lot of the text from her post) and asking for any prompts/suggestions you guys might have. Open brainstorming session!

( Card & possible fandoms under the cut. )

I have been so busy with Life Things that I almost forgot it was Doctor Who night! Luckily, I remedied that.

( 5x11: While I have faith that Moffat can come up with something better than the traditional Reset Button of RTD fame, I ... think this mess will definitely need a reset of some kind. Wow. Warning for wild theorizing along with potential casting spoilers at the end of the post. )

I forgot how much I sort of missed Doctor Who finales! Also, next week it'll be done for the year, which is awesome because once the season is finished I have license from myself to write SO MUCH FIC.

I don't even care about SGA fandom, but oh my god, this post! It is all about how John Sheppard is an emotional moron and also really gay. I think my face is going to break from grinning soon.

Can anyone tell me what it is about summer that makes me want to watch stupid TV? I should be catching up on three seasons of True Blood or doing more of my Babylon 5 rewatch, but no, now I have a desire to watch bits of SGA. What is broken in me??

Brb, going to rewatch some Highlander so I can write Methos fic dskldfsjk the local grocery store to do some errands, oh my god, self.

Apologies ahead of time; I'm powering through season one because, frankly, a lot of it is character bits, a lot of it is human character bits, and I just don't care enough to do proper deep analysis when I know what's waiting for me. (In the same vein, I'm probably going to skip whole sections of season five because I want Byron to die in a ball of fire.) First season is a bit of a wasteland in the middle, to be honest; sort of space-show-of-the-week.

( A skimming of Believers & Survivors, a Londo-and-G'Kar-bits watch of By Any Means Necessary, and a proper watch of Signs and Portents: In which there is a whole boatload of religion, Garibaldi hangs out with the Bad Decision Dinosaur, and Londo hangs out with Morden, who is worse; talk yet again of Londo and G'Kar's arc, plus my unconditional love for Signs and Portents, a really dangerous plotbunny, thoughts about prophecy, and discussion of what the characters want. )

SO THERE'S THIS SHOW ABOUT A DUDE WITH A TIME MACHINE OR SOMETHING? I DON'T KNOW. I HEAR IT'S PRETTY GOOD, THOUGH.

( 5x11: I could watch Matt Smith play footie all day. ALL DAY. )

Some tasty space links to go with today's recap!

i. Hypothetical methane-based life on Titan. There are plenty of non-biological explanations for everything that goes down on that moon, but I love that life is one of the wacky options.

ii. Hubble spots a planet-eating star. OM NOM NOM. The universe is so cool.

iii. Stellar Geography in the Babylon 5 Galaxy, which is less scientific but probably still relevant to our interests. Someone with much more attention to detail than JMS drew this up, so there are the usual mildly peeved fannish notes about inconsistency, but it's still awesome. (My personal favourite part is that, from the arbitrary viewpoint from which the galaxy is mapped, one would basically be traveling West to get beyond the galactic rim. :D)

( Mind War & The War Prayer: In which Bester turns up for the first time and we are likened unto ants, aliens are attacked by terrorists, and Londo's shoes are too tight; talk of the telepath arc, the seasons-long breakdown of mystery, the politics of being Centauri, and the healing power of love. )

MORE.

(I am in fact trying to power through season one as quickly as possible, so I can get to the Good Stuff. Although even s1 has some good stuff, scattered here and there.)

( Born to the Purple, Infection, & The Parliament of Dreams: In which Londo is in love, I don't really care enough to watch Infection, G'Kar is paranoid, and there is religion; lots of character joy, plus my bewilderment that Sinclair ships Londo/G'Kar. )

Some of you may recall that last summer I did an epic due South rewatch (tagged here, with a couple of extras); it took me a diligent month and a half, with breaks for things like WisCon in the middle.

What I would like to do now is a bit madder.

I'd like to rewatch a show that is a self-contained world five miles long, weighing two million, five hundred thousand tons, and spanning a hundred and ten fucking episodes plus a ridiculous pilot film. It is the dawn of the third age of mankind, I've only got a handful of episodes with me at any given point, and if I'm remotely sane (and don't give up partway through) it should take me at least all summer. Today, Aria presents: a Babylon 5 rewatch!

I'll do more than one episode in each post (usually two to four, depending on how long my commentary gets); the pilot film gets its own, though. I should probably give some general header warnings going in, the most important of which is that this is going to be spoilery like a spoilery thing, and that if you have not seen this show, plan to, and are remotely allergic to spoilers, you should stay very far away. Less important warnings: I have massive alien favouritism (ie I will spend much more time deconstructing G'Kar, Londo, and Delenn than I will anyone else, and Londo is maybe one of my favourite characters ever); I will not hesitate to bewail anything that is 'acting' instead of proper acting; I will probably sometimes be blinded by my love for this show, and not pick out the problematic things I should.

Also, I want to keep track of how well each episode passes the Bechdel Test, so if I start forgetting to do that, poke me and I'll resume.

( The Gathering: In which Ambassador Kosh arrives and a mystery ensues; talk of foreshadowing, the things that change or don't between the pilot and the series proper, and a disproportionate amount of babble about Londo. )

Okay, what have I let myself in for? I'm going to bed. /o\

1. I spent quite a lot of last night snuggling a blanket, watching vids about awesome women being awesome, and crying my eyes out over said vids. I feel like this was an appropriate close to WisCon.

2. I have just discovered mint chocolate herbal tea. Where has it been all my life. I am in a tea-induced coma of bliss now.

3. Have some fanart of all eleven Doctors as owls. Their expressions are all incredibly perfect, but I lost it and started cackling when I got to Ten. Oh he's so cute as owls.