year in fandom meme + fringe reaction post!

[wanderlight]

(1) Your main fandom of the year?
INCEPTION. ♥ I also read a lot of Sherlock fic, some fantastic Merlin stories, and a little bit of RPF.

Your favourite film watched this year?
Imagine Me & You makes me smile and smile and smile. (I'll never get enough of Lena Headey, although the fact that she's been cast as Cersei Lannister confuses me?) Alternately: the new Evangelion stuff is EPIC.

Your favourite book read this year?
This is always such a hard question. Probably André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name, a novel which manages to deconstruct love without ever using the word itself. It's intimate, defamiliarising, unflinching, devastatingly precise, and probably my favourite love story of all time. Runners-up include Blindsight by Peter Watts, The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox, and everything Manna Francis has ever written.

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?
I'll do (yet another) albums post soon, but meanwhile, here are my songs of 2010.

Your favourite TV show of the year?
FRINGE. FRINGE. FRINGE. Also, um -- Caprica, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Nikita, Modern Family, and Community. I also watched A:TLA and Veronica Mars this year, though they aired some time ago, if that counts.

Your favourite LJ community of the year?
therewerecracks, which posts daily Doctor Who screencaps; absolutely gorgeous.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Is Joseph Gordon-Levitt a fandom?

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Caprica being cancelled. Or Merlin, which broke my heart so badly that I had to stop watching it. Though maybe we can reconcile sometime. Or Supernatural, which I finally gave up on.

Your TV boyfriend of the year?
PHILIP BROYLES. HOLY FUCK.

Your TV girlfriend of the year?
How is that even a question, when Olivia Dunham exists?

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
"You have to come back -- because you belong with me."

The most missed of your old fandoms?
THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. Though I will never not miss HP! *clings* In September I finished a Remus/Sirius story that I've had on my hard drive for two years. It was just for personal satisfaction, but I like it so much that I might actually post it sometime.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I don't know. I wouldn't mind another fandom to write in, though. I am vulnerable and open to suggestion, so go on. Convince me. :)

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
inception_bang stories, and being able to join the weekly Fringe flail, now that I've seen all of the aired episodes.

Also, I have three-and-a-half more Inception stories which are yelling at me, wanting to be finished, so maybe those will eventually show up?

(2) I finally caught up, and -- spoilers --

FRINGE REACTION POST
-- up to 3.09.

01. Let's just get this out of the way first: Anna Torv, holy fuck you are a gorgeous creature of steel and grace and a voice that makes me shiver.

Olivia is one of the most compelling characters I have come across in a long time. I love her intriguing balance of coldness and warmth. I love the fact that whenever she feels emotionally vulnerable, she just channels it into being badass. I love the way she deals with so much shit and just locks it all down and gets the job done. Competence really turns me on, and nnngh.

I think I really fell for her in 1.11 "Bound," the ep where she's kidnapped, has to go through a spinal tap, and then fights her kidnappers and escapes right after that. I mean, that's pretty badass. Or possibly when she faced down Broyles early into S1 and basically said: Yes, I do get emotionally involved in my job. And it makes me damn good at what I do. So stop trying to discount me by pulling the "women are too emotional" crap and fuck off. (And thus began a beautiful relationship of grudging, absolute respect and mutual trust!)

It's pretty fascinating how Olivia's been characterised through juxtaposition in the third season. alt!Olivia (what's fandom calling her, by the way?) is a great foil. Though, interestingly, we never get to know her. We get alt!Olivia-playing-Olivia, and Olivia-thinking-she's-alt!Olivia, but never a pure expression of alt!Olivia herself. I ... don't really know where I'm going with that.

02. Peter/Olivia is my new Sydney/Vaughn. The way he's there for her, the way he smiles at her (who wouldn't want that?). Olivia's fear, the distance she keeps. It's all very simple stuff, but beautifully realised -- their love spans universes, asdl;kjals;dkjf.

I loved the beautiful, slow burn of the first two seasons, but ever since the Olivia switch in S3, my feelings are a mess. What it did to their relationship -- I can't articulate it, because it hits too close to home right now. Or ... not, actually, ahaha. Because Peter slept with Olivia's doppelgänger from an alternate universe and that doesn't really have an equivalent in real life. My point is, there is love, and betrayal, and a girl trying to cope with the consequences of a mistake a boy made, and that's enough to break me at the moment.

03. Even though I'm dedicated to Peter/Olivia, I kind of ship Olivia/everyone? This might just be because I want to sleep with Anna Torv, but think about it! Olivia/Broyles would be HOT AS FUCK together. Imagine the aesthetically appealing angry!sex. And I can't get over the quiet, doomed wistfulness of Olivia/Charlie. And I think that office scene in "Brown Betty" made everyone ship Olivia/Astrid, really.

04. BROYLES. NNGH. FUCK. In short: I have a type. He is it.

I have been a fan of Lance Reddick's magnetic, hotass intensity ever since watching season one The Wire. I can get no further with The Wire, for reasons that have nothing to do with how amazing the show is and everything to do with leftovers from stupid friend drama. I have to admit: I started watching Fringe partially because faeriemaiden and such_heights and nekare kept telling me to, but, uh, 90% because I wanted more Lance Reddick. Which I got, and am very pleased with.

05. Peter fascinates me, from a writing perspective. The entire mytharc revolves around him: the rupture between worlds created when Walter saved him, his role in healing/destroying the multiverse (well -- dualverse?). (And yeah, we get it -- what's with your Jesus/redemption metaphors, JJ? Does the sketch of the Doomsday machine remind anyone else of the Rambaldi sketches?)

Anyway, my point: Peter is, arguably, the locus of the story, but ironically, he has very little agency. Most of what he does is in response to what's been done to him, and character-wise he's developed primarily in relation to other characters. I'd say that Olivia, Peter, and Walter are Fringe's main characters; while Olivia and Walter could be uprooted and transplanted into other shows, and still come across as who they are, I'm not sure that Peter could. A lot of his character would be lost without the weight of the Bishop family history, and his role as Olivia's love interest.

06. Lastly: oh, Walter. You are so fucking human, it kills me. ♥



I am sorry that my reaction post is so very overdue, nekare! :D It got long, so I'll stop here, and do the other half of what I wanted to talk about later. Meanwhile, here is a tiny, non-spoilery summary of my headspace for cherise and everyone who's still in S1 or S2: I love everything about this show. I love Olivia fucking Dunham, who's a total BAMF and possibly one of my favourite characters of all time in any medium. [Insert more superlatives here.] I love Broyles and the irrepressible Walter and Peter and Astrid and Charlie and Nina, which is to say, everyone. I love Charlie's aviators and "Astro/Aspirin/Asterisk" and Walter's lab and Peter being protective and alternate universes and asdljflskdfjs Peter/Olivia in their long black coats, wandering around crime scenes and determinedly not smiling together. I am so emotionally invested in this show that it's ridiculous. And now it's moved to the Friday timeslot of death. I am a curse unto TV shows.

Comments

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

HAVE YOU MEMORISED THESE BOOKS? COULD YOU QUOTE PASSAGES VERBATIM? :D

asd;lkfjsldj;skd that scene. Sara and Toreth kill me -- in a good way -- the way they obviously trust each other and love each other, and have their own little codes and rituals for dealing with that in a way that Toreth can handle. Also! The one where Toreth asks Warrick to say it! ("I won't leave you.")

because they just don't talk at all about what it means, but they both understand exactly what it means.
YES. I love love love how Manna Francis characterises through sex. One of the things that is awful and delightful about Toreth is the depth of his lies and self-deception, how he sleeps with half of New London half out of habit, how his thoughts in the narrative always skate away from actually acknowledging his feelings. I don't know, I have a thing for borderline sociopaths, it's terrible.

but then I realize all I've done is gone through the Administration series and replaced Toreth with Eames and Warrick with Arthur
asdfljsl;dkfj sd like "a trick of the light (I thought I could move on)" where Eames wants and Arthur can't give and so he takes what he can get, and -- god I love that story so much, I cannot even articulate it. ♥ Anyway, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. CONTINUE TO WRITE FIC IN THIS FASHION! Inception needs more unflinchingly fucked-up character dynamics!

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

I... can quote bits and lines of it verbatim, but not actually whole passages, hahaha. Like I know by heart that when Toreth comes back to Warrick in "Playing with Fire", Warrick is buttering his toast with an exactitude that would take electronic measuring equipment to detect the variation in thickness, and that in "Strategy" Warrick tells Toreth to stop because otherwise it will be the biggest ratio of foreplay to fuck on record (HAHAHA), and that in "First Against the Wall", when Toreth goes to visit the panther, he thinks about his psych file as a cage, hahah, and he thinks "You can't get out and every bastard with a key can get in," and that Warrick tells Dilly that if she wants, he can humiliate himself and work out the amount of time Toreth left him (fourteen days) in hours, minutes, and seconds. But I don't actually know whole passages. Just the bits that I have to keep myself from plagiarizing haha, because I adore them so much.

Oh man, when Toreth gets dragged off in Control and she's terrified and he's like, DO YOU REALLY THINK I'M A MONSTER. And the origami crane he crushes ugha ;slfkajsd and the part where he sends her flowers and says he's sorry and she realizes that he's not really, he can't comprehend being sorry but he realizes he's gone too far this time, I LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH. I love those little codes, and that she's one of the closest things he has to love, and how she's jealous of him and Warrick but in this totally believable "I don't really want that but I want something like that" way.

I HAVE A THING FOR BORDERLINE SOCIOPATHS TOO. And I still remember that first story with Tanit, and how she watches Warrick and Toreth on her screen, and realizes how they work together and she really wished they wouldn't, ugh, watching them with the sound cut off. I love that just reaching out for Warrick in the morning makes Toreth go into shock, but how towards the end of the series they are like MOVING IN TOGETHER a;ldfjk;aslfdkj AUGH and I also just love how solid Warrick is. A long time ago I read this meta on Administration that said what really made the story work is that you have Toreth, who can top and bottom with equal enthusiasm, and Warrick, who you know would probably be the dominant one in any other relationship (with his control issues and his natural BAMFery) but together, Warrick just gives himself to Toreth in that unimaginably forgiving way, and Toreth lets himself possess something that has commitment behind it. It's just so perfect.

YES EXACTLY LIKE THAT a;lkdfj like I wanted desperately to write a story where Nash comes barreling back into their lives, with the intent on stealing Arthur away from Eames, and he says all this nasty shit about Eames, only half of which is true, but Eames doesn't want Arthur to know the half that is true, so he breaks up with Arthur and sleeps with everyone until, ohmygod, one of the guys he sleeps with says "Say hi to Arthur, I feel like I know him now", and Eames just freezes up, and Ariadne has to come over with a lot of vodka to get him to see that he's really not okay not having Arthur. And then finally Arthur interrupts Eames in the middle of picking up a hot chick and is like, "Hey, I think you have something that belongs to me," and Eames bristles, but then he realizes it's Arthur and he has to palm his totem because god, he thinks this is a dream, how could Arthur ever want him back after what he knows, AND JUST ON AND ON, THE WHOLE EMOTIONAL ARC OF THE ADMINISTRATION, but with their names switched. It's so easy~~~

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

AAAH I have been trying to answer this comment properly for DAYS but got caught up in pre-Christmas shenanigans. Please do not let my long delay interrupt this lovely flailing session! :D

asdl;fasld;fj YES SO MUCH YES WRITE THAT STORY. Because Eames knows, deep inside, that there's always been something different about him -- I mean, what kind of a man does it take to melt right into someone else's skin? who is he really? where do the lies end? -- and it's never really bothered him before, because it makes him damn good at his job, but he knows that he's not normal, he knows that Arthur needs someone stable and real and one day Arthur will leave so he might as well just leave first. Wow, that was a long sentence. But YES, SERIOUSLY, I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO HAVE YOU WRITE THAT STORY. ANYTHING. ♥

"Say hi to Warrick. I feel like I know him now after hearing his name so many times" -- or however it goes -- is one of my favourite lines EVER. I love the way Toreth is just like, "... What." And the PANTHER IN THE CAGE, my heart can't even deal with those scenes. And I LOVE IT WHEN TORETH BUYS SARA FLOWERS TO FIX THINGS. And how she lets him, and everything she puts up with for him because at the end of the day, he's there for her too, in his way.

and Warrick, who you know would probably be the dominant one in any other relationship (with his control issues and his natural BAMFery)
YES. Sometimes I forget that Warrick can be a scary motherfucker in his own right -- I guess he just seems tame in comparison, haha. Toreth and Warrick fascinate me, the way they so specifically work. The way that a part of Warrick is desperate for something only Toreth can give, and that's what draws them together at first, and lets Toreth trust him, just a little, just enough. I also love the way Warrick intellectualises and rationalises his relationship with Toreth, in some ways, but also doesn't deny the irrational, uncontrollable need. The contradiction of it, I guess?

Also, I just realised that I have probably re-read the story "Pancakes" three or four or five times within the last couple of weeks. ("Ssh. Just ... ssh." = &hearts.)

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

SHH JUST SHH IS LIKE ;alksfdj;af OHMYGOD and later when Toreth jerks off to it, and it isn't enough, and yet it's better than sleeping with anyone else, :((((((( a;sldfkj and how it was bad enough to deal with massages without having to smell like a brothel afterwards <-- trufax i think about this sentence every time i see scented massage oils.

I love love love how competent Warrick is, and how much he just will not let people screw with him, not Carnac, not the guy in Control, not even Sara when she tries to protect Toreth. He's just so totally "I will do things my way and on my time" that when he lets Toreth jerk him around, GOD LIKE THAT ONE TIME where he realizes that what he's saying is "I wouldn't be willing to do that, not even for Toreth", it's AMAZING. And that bit where they're in the elevator and Toreth is like, why do you do this? and Warrick is like, stripping in an elevator and trying to joke about it but Toreth won't let him. I just love Warrick so fucking much. He probably is one of my favorite slash characters ever. All his weird complexities and simplicities, and how much he wants things, like the fucking fake wardrobe with the handcuffs, and how Toreth wants to give him all of it but they have to keep negotiating for every little bit of emotional surrender, ugh, so wonderful. I wish one day I could write something that wonderful.

also don't encourage me!! I don't want to be be responsible for writing thousands and thousands of words ripping off manna francis!!