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Jan. 15th, 2008 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseTwelfth Night was a thoroughly pleasant event this year. Not terribly exciting, but I didn't really have a moment where I felt bored or restless or where I was wondering what to do.
Archery the night before was at least entertaining; the target was a Du5tch town full of fleeing citizens, militia members, and invaders; the idea being to shoot the invaders, but not the citizens or your fellow militia, and definitely not either the windmills or the Dike (The dike wasn't generally harmed by the first shot to hit it... but there were places you could hit a wek point and burst it, represented by baggies hidden behind it full of water with blue food colouring. After the main contest, we started *aiming* for them, as there's something about making a horrible mess with a good shot that appeals to the average archer.) I did moderately well, shooting few of the civilians (very narrowly missing killing the baroness...). Robin Won. (Like we expected otherwise). Colin came in second, not so much a surprise these days, but certainly still happy news.
On the day itself, we arrived as the real fencing seemed to be starting, so i got to watch a bit. (I so need to get more armour and get back to it. Maybe when they invent 27-hour days.) Conversation was plentiful and good. There was a class by a woman from out of town that was more a rambling commentary on Dutch Costume, with books of period art that were more interesting, alas, than the speaker, and another supposed class on music that ended up mainly with her playing bits of stuff as samples and a few side conversations. Her husband was doing a painted artwork of a harpy-creature, and I watched and chatted a little with him about art. And about the time all the sitting and talking and quiet was seeming like a little too much, the dancers started.
We had about ten* or more people from out of town - all but two or three of whom weren't even regulars from Northshield, but visitors from out West, Medicine Hat and Regina mainly. Mainly they fenced (Aside from the classes mentioned above) but they seemed enthused and well welcomed by the fighting types.)
And, of course, there were prezzies. For the third year in a row, I got people to pick out their gifts. Most people I didn't buy a specific gift for: I bought a pile of books and (used) DVDs I liked and knew *someone* else would, usually many someones, and a few things like hot chocolate and seasonings in case you get a non-reader (Rarer in the SCA but still present). There are always a few people for whom we have particular plans instead (including, this year, one person whom I almost gave a second gift before I remembered what I'd gifted him). It's worked fairly well. And I got a bonus. After I'd gifted everyone at Twelfth Night and in my gaming group, I was left with one extra book (Which is perfect, as it means even the very last person has a choice and thus a chance). In this case, the final book was Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon (Some had read it and loved it, others seemed intrigued, but it always came second).
Which works out as far as I'm concerned. Because I love the Temeraire series but I don't *own* them. Well, now I have the first. Whee!
Among the other things given out:
Two copies of Jim C. Hines' Goblin Quest
Sherwood Smith's Inda, with fair warning it was the first of a series
Jackie Kessler's Hell's Belles
Jo Walton's Farthing
Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald's Land of Mist and Snow
Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain
Elizabeth Bear's Dust, which, silly me, I started reading before I gave away, but didn't get to finish. Now I have to buy myself a copy whenever I cease to be broke. (oh noes! I'm helping feed the presumptuous cat!)
Serenity
Young Frankenstein)
*Interesting typo for the day: "about ten" came out as "a food twn".
Alas, the thing I was gifted in turn that I most notice **currently** was someone's cold. Thus, I'm at home. (I went to my first class then decided I felt like crap.)
______________________________
I've been watching the first Season of Stargate SG-1 as I've been working on pottery at home. (Yes, I'm ten years behind everyone else.) So far, it's had some good dialgoue, some good episodes, and a lot of episodes that are half good. They seem to do their best when they take a shameless cliche story and try to make it fresh (Cold Lazarus, where a doppleganger of O'Niell takes over his life, or Tin Men, the "For you See? We are all robots!" episode> Both should've been cliches, but they seemed to work.) than when they try to do a slightly different idea; because the different ideas tend to get quashed by genre expectations. Pretty much every time I've been particularly aggravated by the show, it's because it did that latter.
Genre expectations are things like: The good guys win at the 40-minute mark of a 42 minute episode. The bad guys will do something that's right on the evil overlord list. If given a moral dilemma in which both choices are bad (Kill a person you care about or else let an entire population of strangers die), there's ALWAYS a loophole. A good person making a terrible choice will change their mind at the 11th hour. If a piece of technology is discovered which saves this particular episode, but would change the whole game from this point onward, it gets blown up. Several episodes seem to have a great premise that gets warped because of at least one of the above. (Prime example: why doesn't Teal'c move his son to the Stargate the instant he's stopped the ceremony, instead of sitting around talking for another couple of hours? They would have made it to the hospital on Earth in time. Oh. Right. Then he'd have his wife and kid on base, and the writers would have to account for his family life, and develop that, instead of letting him be the inscrutable warrior.)
I might be spoiled by Battlestar Galactica, which has its own dreadful flaws, and writes itself into its own corners, but which at least doesn't flinch from subverting or flat out contradicting any and all of the above.
I get the impression it gets better about coming up with ideas that aren't quite so stifled later. And there's enough There there to keep watching. (And I like Daniel's habit of geeking out about tech, culture, or cool things at ALL the wrong moments. Especially when that kind of geeking saves his life.) But I can also keep watching with pottery in front of me.
Query to those in the know: Do they ever have an episode which follows up at all on the doubles form Tin Man? The reason I ask is that my brain started to immediately create a "what happens later" storyline that I think is kind of cool -- but which is too character specific to file off the serial numbers successfully. I have no intention of writing fanfic, but it would reassure me if the writers carried through.
Archery the night before was at least entertaining; the target was a Du5tch town full of fleeing citizens, militia members, and invaders; the idea being to shoot the invaders, but not the citizens or your fellow militia, and definitely not either the windmills or the Dike (The dike wasn't generally harmed by the first shot to hit it... but there were places you could hit a wek point and burst it, represented by baggies hidden behind it full of water with blue food colouring. After the main contest, we started *aiming* for them, as there's something about making a horrible mess with a good shot that appeals to the average archer.) I did moderately well, shooting few of the civilians (very narrowly missing killing the baroness...). Robin Won. (Like we expected otherwise). Colin came in second, not so much a surprise these days, but certainly still happy news.
On the day itself, we arrived as the real fencing seemed to be starting, so i got to watch a bit. (I so need to get more armour and get back to it. Maybe when they invent 27-hour days.) Conversation was plentiful and good. There was a class by a woman from out of town that was more a rambling commentary on Dutch Costume, with books of period art that were more interesting, alas, than the speaker, and another supposed class on music that ended up mainly with her playing bits of stuff as samples and a few side conversations. Her husband was doing a painted artwork of a harpy-creature, and I watched and chatted a little with him about art. And about the time all the sitting and talking and quiet was seeming like a little too much, the dancers started.
We had about ten* or more people from out of town - all but two or three of whom weren't even regulars from Northshield, but visitors from out West, Medicine Hat and Regina mainly. Mainly they fenced (Aside from the classes mentioned above) but they seemed enthused and well welcomed by the fighting types.)
And, of course, there were prezzies. For the third year in a row, I got people to pick out their gifts. Most people I didn't buy a specific gift for: I bought a pile of books and (used) DVDs I liked and knew *someone* else would, usually many someones, and a few things like hot chocolate and seasonings in case you get a non-reader (Rarer in the SCA but still present). There are always a few people for whom we have particular plans instead (including, this year, one person whom I almost gave a second gift before I remembered what I'd gifted him). It's worked fairly well. And I got a bonus. After I'd gifted everyone at Twelfth Night and in my gaming group, I was left with one extra book (Which is perfect, as it means even the very last person has a choice and thus a chance). In this case, the final book was Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon (Some had read it and loved it, others seemed intrigued, but it always came second).
Which works out as far as I'm concerned. Because I love the Temeraire series but I don't *own* them. Well, now I have the first. Whee!
Among the other things given out:
Two copies of Jim C. Hines' Goblin Quest
Sherwood Smith's Inda, with fair warning it was the first of a series
Jackie Kessler's Hell's Belles
Jo Walton's Farthing
Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald's Land of Mist and Snow
Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain
Elizabeth Bear's Dust, which, silly me, I started reading before I gave away, but didn't get to finish. Now I have to buy myself a copy whenever I cease to be broke. (oh noes! I'm helping feed the presumptuous cat!)
Serenity
Young Frankenstein)
*Interesting typo for the day: "about ten" came out as "a food twn".
Alas, the thing I was gifted in turn that I most notice **currently** was someone's cold. Thus, I'm at home. (I went to my first class then decided I felt like crap.)
______________________________
I've been watching the first Season of Stargate SG-1 as I've been working on pottery at home. (Yes, I'm ten years behind everyone else.) So far, it's had some good dialgoue, some good episodes, and a lot of episodes that are half good. They seem to do their best when they take a shameless cliche story and try to make it fresh (Cold Lazarus, where a doppleganger of O'Niell takes over his life, or Tin Men, the "For you See? We are all robots!" episode> Both should've been cliches, but they seemed to work.) than when they try to do a slightly different idea; because the different ideas tend to get quashed by genre expectations. Pretty much every time I've been particularly aggravated by the show, it's because it did that latter.
Genre expectations are things like: The good guys win at the 40-minute mark of a 42 minute episode. The bad guys will do something that's right on the evil overlord list. If given a moral dilemma in which both choices are bad (Kill a person you care about or else let an entire population of strangers die), there's ALWAYS a loophole. A good person making a terrible choice will change their mind at the 11th hour. If a piece of technology is discovered which saves this particular episode, but would change the whole game from this point onward, it gets blown up. Several episodes seem to have a great premise that gets warped because of at least one of the above. (Prime example: why doesn't Teal'c move his son to the Stargate the instant he's stopped the ceremony, instead of sitting around talking for another couple of hours? They would have made it to the hospital on Earth in time. Oh. Right. Then he'd have his wife and kid on base, and the writers would have to account for his family life, and develop that, instead of letting him be the inscrutable warrior.)
I might be spoiled by Battlestar Galactica, which has its own dreadful flaws, and writes itself into its own corners, but which at least doesn't flinch from subverting or flat out contradicting any and all of the above.
I get the impression it gets better about coming up with ideas that aren't quite so stifled later. And there's enough There there to keep watching. (And I like Daniel's habit of geeking out about tech, culture, or cool things at ALL the wrong moments. Especially when that kind of geeking saves his life.) But I can also keep watching with pottery in front of me.
Query to those in the know: Do they ever have an episode which follows up at all on the doubles form Tin Man? The reason I ask is that my brain started to immediately create a "what happens later" storyline that I think is kind of cool -- but which is too character specific to file off the serial numbers successfully. I have no intention of writing fanfic, but it would reassure me if the writers carried through.
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To Answer
Date: 2008-01-16 03:45 pm (UTC)Oh - as time goes on they do actually do a few of the things that you mention. As in having stuff that they've found and/or acquired create major changes later on. They're slower about it, perhaps, than some shows, but they do do it. Indeed, it's one of the charms of the later seasons when you see what happened to that Deathglider they managed to salvage and combine with Air Force Earth tech in Area 51 etc.
I think my favorite first season Ep is probably "The Torment of Tantalus" which I rather liked for a lot of reasons even though the stranded character refers to the UN which he should never have heard of (probably should have been the League of Nations).
Re: To Answer
Date: 2008-01-17 12:29 am (UTC)Well, they're already showing up with follow-ups and consequences for some earlier episodes, even this early in Season two (I just finished Thor's Chariot in last night's pottery session). It's not so much the specific details of how they fall into genre conventions that bothered me, for all the examples help; It's that there's a good clear way the story *could* go (Let's call it Path C)... except that tradition says it goes down the well-trodden path A instead. So they went that way, and didn't even consider path C.
Some of the ways this happens aren't even big things. I think I already half mentally rewrote "There but for the Grace" to end with the same results on all fronts, but which would have a couple *MORE* sucker-punch scenes in the middle. It's all little stuff, it wouldn't change the outcome, but it would make me grit my teeth less at some of the bits along the way where someone is inexplicably trusting.
Which is why I think they do better when they start with a cliche, and go, "How do we make this different?"
I think Cold Lazarus sticks in my mind the most; Tantalus is good, though, you're right. Tin Men I liked probably more than I ought, but the friction that created the beginnings of a plot-bunny in my head were based on a big gaping WTF?/plot hole about the tech, and the knowledge that, given hunfdreds of years with nothing better to do, there's no way Daniel (and to a lesser degree Carter) aren't going to start trying to figure out how it all comes together. (This is frequently cited as the reason fanfiction happens anyhow; a big plot hole or unexplained character detail. Perfectly polished fiction doesn't give you that hook that makes you go, "Waitaminute. What about...?"
Re: To Answer
Date: 2008-01-17 03:59 am (UTC)Did you try cleaning it? That seemed to help last time. Melissa may have licked it or something.
Re: To Answer
Date: 2008-01-17 06:59 pm (UTC)I have no idea where this came from...
Date: 2008-01-18 09:08 pm (UTC)I don't know if you've ever heard of Elizabeth Boyer but, if not, try and find some of her books. Very interesting. I think you'll like them.
"The Troll's Grindstone" is the one that currently springs to mind.