sundries

[rm]

My proposal has been accepted for Infinitus. Now the question is whether I can make Infinitus fit in the summer schedule. Coming the weekend after Bristol and not knowing what Patty's summer plans are yet makes this a big maybe, although I am realizing that I would like to be there. Part of it is the programming item, which is more work related to the mourning of fictional characters but focused specifically on how death is a stand-in for eroticism both in JKR's text and fannish response.

I'll put this out there to a wider audience. I should submit a programming idea to NYCC. But I've no idea what that should be. Help me, Big Internet Brain.

Oh! I'll need to go to the Jewish Museum of London while I'm there. Largely because one of the characters in the "Fly Girls" project that's somewhere in the stack of actual salable projects Kali and I are working on has a Jewish British chick in it circa WWII.

The coins of Beriah Wall.

A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets.

Have been having a lot of weird synchronicity lately. It's funny how crap that consumed my life twenty years ago will pop up on someone else's radar and I can be like "oh, oh, oh! I know stuff! yay."

Shepard Book's backstory is coming. I realize I'm excited because I imagine that backstory is a bit like the sorts of backstories I written for Snape at various times. We'll see.

AARP acknowledges the needs of LGBTQ seniors. AARP is powerful and if they are endorsing a report saying that LGBTQ seniors need legal protections for their relationships due to health and financial issues, that's a useful thing to have in our corner.

Appeals court finds that anti-gay online bullying (which included threats/descriptions of violence) is not protected speech.

Lesbian prom photos. A lot of lesbian prom photos. You can even ad yours. Via 51stcenturyfox.

copperbadge apparently posted this story for someone anonymous. It's a CoE fixit, but yet also still contains Ianto choosing when and how to die. I think that's what makes me okay with CoE, in part. IHNIIHBT also involves Ianto going knowingly to his death and we got that done before CoE so for all my "not ready yet" you know, I probably was. Anyway, it still made me cry.

Here. This old thing is about all I can manage for St. Patrick's Day. It's new to some of you.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've realized I may also have extreme prejudice towards the Kate arc because it's so "manchild refuses to grow up" and it's amazing how they were always named Kate with my ex too. So I'm not just bored by it, I'm seriously irritated. Hi. Issues.

Anyway, I'm not sure _why_ it's holding my attention, but I can't really get the show out of my head.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I think we're supposed to see Neal's pursuit of Kate as a romantic heroism (which presumably in S2 may get turned on its head if Kate turns out to be the Big Bad). That's not how it comes across though -- I agree much more with your description of it, though I think the show in some ways does too -- the tide does subtly start to turn from "Do what you have to for Kate" to "Do what is right and make smart decisions for yourself".

I think we're also supposed to buy Neal's pursuit of her as the central attraction of the show, since most of the advertising is about him trying to re-attain her, but one almost wonders if the whole subplot needed to exist at all. I can think of two or three alternate plots that would be much more satisfying and feel less glued-on.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think that subplot is there to appeal to folks who watch stuff like Lost. Let's have a long drawn-out mystery. And that they are using it to make Neal doubt Peter now is actually interesting. But Kate herself? I DON"T CARE and it makes makes me sincerely dislike Neal (which I don't most of the time) because his emotion about her feels like it's about him and not her, you know? It feels cheap, and Neal's emotions about pretty much everythign and everyone else feel a lot more sincere to me. Part of the problem there, I think, isn't jsut writing, but you're asking an actor to have chemistry with a thing that isn't there and has never been there, and that's just a hassle.

I really hope Kate is the Big Bad. Because I know I'm going to throw things if we're actually supposed to want them to be together.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It does feel like it's about Neal -- that it's about his ownership and his alpha-male protectorship being challenged, rather than about a real relationship.

I have to admit I totally hope Kate is the Big Bad too. And I think she is, the way the first season arc played out, but I also have fear that she's going to be the Eternal Unobtainable, like Jared's parents in The Pretender.

[rm.livejournal.com]

In what universe does anyone think Neal is an alpha male? I mean, not to buy into shitty fandom tropes, but the overwhelming waves of OMGINEEDAPPROVALRIGHTNOWPLEASELIKEME that come off of Neal sort of totally negate the idea of alpha male for me.

I mean, Neal knows he's not an alpha male, right? Right? I hope. Hrrrr.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I think everyone knows Neal's not the alpha male, except for whoever is writing the Kate-arc. I was tying alpha-male into protectorship, rather than into Neal. :D That's one reason the arc feels so wrong. Neal is totally desperate for approval and love, and yet he has this weird "must protect and defend" thing going with Kate, which doesn't actually fit that well into the rest of his persona.

I think it would work better (though still not work all that well) if instead of saying "She's in danger and I have to save her" he said, on the show, "What does she want and how can I get it?"

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm going to point to this comment from you next time someone gives me the whole "giant teams of writers working on shows make shows better" speech, because this is entirely why it's not fucking true.

The Kate plot-line is the subject on which Neal totally has become someone's Mary Sue, it seems.

"She's in danger and I have to save her" he said, on the show, "What does she want and how can I get it?"

Or "she's not giving me what I need anymore, and I need to know why?" (although phrased less creepily) which would fit in with Neal's epic petulance. Although, I suppose on some fucked up level, if Neal thinks Kate is playing him and is willing to entertain that she may not be in danger, he may be viewing this was her doing what she had to do to get him to break out of prison or something else crazy. This is could be looked at as how con artists flirt, but the show has never given us the impression that Kate was ever playing this game as hard as Neal (although, if she's the Big Bad, it's clear she was playing it harder).

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that may have been his initial motivation for escape -- "She doesn't love me anymore, why doesn't she love me anymore?" -- it just was never very well articulated, and turned too quickly into "She's in danger! I have to save her!"

Some of the very early stuff is actually a bit stalker-creepy, very "She must love me so why is she doing this to me?" which I was grateful they got away from because I don't want to think of Neal as a sad unhinged stalker.

I think Kate can play the game as hard as Neal -- she was clearly a part of his team and...you've got to the Wine Bottle and the subway map, right? If Kate could pull that off so artfully that even Mozz couldn't find it at first, she must be fairly skilled on the technical end. I also think, however, that the con side of Kate has been downplayed into near nonexistence. Which is a shame; I'd respect her more if we saw more evidence that she was just as big an humbug as Neal is.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Kate is like the one place the show totally fails when it comes to women.

Also, seriously -- I figured out the fucking wine bottle label like two episodes before Neal did. What the fuck?

(and wow, while I identify with no one on this show, I have little moments about Neal where I'm like... oh, I do that... just... less. Oh god. Am I that insecure?)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

One nice thing about White Collar is that there's no one person I identify strongly with. I'm trying to avoid doing that, 'cause invariably "I" die. (Seriously, Dove was telling me about a series of books the other day and said "But I hate to say this, in the seventh book you totally die.") So I can explore the relationship dynamics a little more objectively, and I can watch a little less anxiously. I mean I really like most of the characters, and if June were killed I would be upset, but not like Remus Lupin And Ianto Jones upset.