Seen every-bloody-where, because we're just like that. I did actually think of doing it before I saw everyone else doing it, pretty much immediately upon reading "Your Friends Are Not Watching the Same Show You Are (And That's Okay)", but since I have no doubt that pretty much everyone I know independently did the same thing, it all comes out in the lemmingy wash. ;-)

( The Shows What Val Watches (Or Has Watched In The Last Year Or So) )

There are way thinkier and/or more creative things I want to post about, but the quick and easy will have to do for now.

By request of brightknightie, in response to this meme post.

( Commentary for 'Five Times Coreen Fennel Didn't Kiss Henry Fitzroy (And One Time She Did)' (6/6) )

~~

So there it is. The feedback on this one has definitely been quality vs. quantity! I've actually been surprised as many people have responded to it as have, since I'm fully aware that it's of "niche" appeal, and not even a shippy niche. What did surprise me is how heartfelt some of the feedback has been. I didn't really expect people to find it as moving as they have, and continue to be really blown away by what they've been kind enough to say.

Blood Ties Fans Give Back has hit on the PERFECT fannish charity drive: glasses to the Lions club recycling program.

I love this because (a) it keys on Vicki as the center of the show, and (b) I do love my vampire fandoms when they do blood drives, but pout because I can't donate. Of course, my own cupboards are bare for this one too, because my system has always been "previous pair goes in the glovebox, previous glovebox pair goes in the Lions box" right away. (And yes, by that time I probably would have no business trying to actually drive with the ones I'm taking out of the glovebox, but I'm too cheap to buy spares with every scrip when I mostly live in contacts.)

Although it just occurred to me I still have a bunch of the sample frames a debtor sent Office of Doom once instead of paying Safilo, which for some strange reason didn't want a box of discontinued merchandise back. I've given a bunch of them to various theatres already, but this might be a good time to get rid of the rest. And I think the packrat I married might still have his old ones somewhere?

Please crosspost and distribute!

( Press release )

And has been since last night, actually, but I am chipmunky and low-energy and slow with the posting. Go here for the master list of multi-fandom female-character-focussed goodness.

I had fun writing "Homecoming" (Heroes) for karrenia_rune, who set me the challenge of following Caitlin's adventures in the future timeline.

And was delighted to receive "Rubber Ducky, You're the One!" (Blood Ties) from deire, who gave me my favorite P.I. and goth-girl-Friday and both their moms, all in the same place at the same time. And as if that weren't already worth the price of admission, there's an extra giggle courtesy of His Royal Smugness. (He really does need to be smacked. Often. With great affection, of course.)

Among the sixty-plus offerings, a few of my favorites:

"Three Months Out. Six To Go. (Perfect Time For a Big Sister Freak Out.)" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) by havocthecat. You might think that being nearly thirty and married would let Dawn out of Buffy coming unglued at the news that she's going to be an aunt. You would, of course, be mistaken. Funny and a bit poignant, with fantastic family stuff (counting both Summerses and Scoobies as "family," of course).

"Starwort" (Forever Knight) by brightknightie, who went well above and beyond the ficathon's 1,000-word call with an older and wiser Fleur encountering LaCroix again, seven years after the "Be My Valentine" flashbacks. Fleur often gets a bad rap in fandom, as a victim of that ep's clumsy use of romance tropes, but this story takes the best of that girl we met and grows her into a worthy woman indeed.

"Silkscreen" (Firefly) by llyfrgell is a lovely look, through Zoe's eyes, at Inara's arrival and the beginnings of her becoming part of the family of Serenity's crew.

"All Witches Go to Limbo (The Unbaptized Innocents Refrain)" (BtVS/Charmed crossover) by wisdomeagle. Tara and Prue cross paths in the afterlife. Delicate, poignant, and respectful of both universes' magic systems and relationships.

"Electric Vengeance" (Heroes) by larah33. A creepy and weirdly exhilarating ride into Elle's broken psyche. Gives her credit for more complexity than canon left room for (which most assuredly does not translate as reform or apologia).

"The Verse That Was" (Firefly) by spiletta42 is a nicely crafted caper with a believable key role for Inara, and great glimpses into everyone's character.

From her newly-inaugurated email newsletter (which you can sign up for at her website, which also has a blog that she keeps quite well updated):

After the show I will be joining Jim of 'The Doctor & Mrs. Who' which airs Thursday nights at 9pm CST (or 10pm EST). I've been on with Kenn and Jim several times already, (on their show 'The Two Doctors') but this is a special that jim and his wife do...so tune in if you'd like to hear more about the process of filming and my time on Smallville! (You can find it online here)

I'm about halfway through listening to the archive of the show, and it appears she was on the phone with them for the full hour, taking calls. (Which I would have known BEFORE it happened if I'd found the darn newsletter in my spam filter in time...) Just fun and rambly and chatty. Only a couple of oblique mentions of BT, at least so far, but a definite must if you're interested in Gina in general.

The other podcast she mentioned, "The Two Doctors," is here. Just found it, off to download now...

Is here, including a couple photos (one macroed 4 ur lols, referencing a riff between the guys during the Q&A) and a link to a video snippet of the Q&A someone put up on YouTube. Cool stuff, sounds like a good time was had by all, wish I could have justified the trip.

Kyle's shirt looks like a Nascar paint job on acid, but we forgive him on account of the cute. :-)

Fango interview with Gina, complete with tantalizing hints of potential con appearances this summer.

Spill already, girlfriend! I gotta plan this stuff! %-}

After a soul-suckingly hellacious couple of days in Corporate America, I submit the following Facts of My Tuesday:

• I remain happily up to my eyebrows in a fandom that has somehow managed to avoid descending into a snarling weasel-pit of shipwars. With a canonical triangle, yet. I have no earthly clue how this has happened, but I'm so not questioning it.
  
• It took five painless minutes and much less energy than it would have taken to run him through with my smallsword to submit an Angie's List report on the sewing machine repair guy from whom I finally got back my Bernina today after nine months. We loves Angie's List, yes we does, my preciousss.
  
• On a related note, I now have my Bernina again. neonhummingbird? We need to talk costumes soon if you're gonna have 'em for Worldcon.
  
• It was brought to my attention this morning :: kowtows in lizbetann's general direction :: that the 1982 Broadway revival of Camelot is FINALLY out on DVD.
  
• Cadbury's Creme Eggs are reliably and consistently yummy.
  
• Maureen O'Hara with a sword will never, ever not be cool.
  
• My "This way to the egress" mug (which each of the production staff received as a gift from the Barnum cast) is still made entirely of win.

Yes, the one I finally got around to watching on my actual TV while I was home sick yesterday. I'm sure it shocks you all terribly that the Queen of Nonverbal wanted to rewatch it in a form more than five inches across before trying to blog about it. :-)

( Blood Ties - Spoilers for 1x22 'Deep Dark' )

[Insert wailing and gnashing of teeth about lack of renewal here. If I really get started, I'm not gonna stop.]

[xposted to bloodties_tv]

Had a conversation with a client referencing an individual named Colleen. Went to note it in the system. Fingers typed "Coreen" THREE TIMES before I got it right. (And yes, I had to slow down and think every. single. letter. in the first sentence of this post.) *facepalm* IR DORK.

In other news, there is a toddler's sippy-cup of milk in the breakroom fridge. My hypothesis is that someone brought it in to use for their coffee, but it still occasioned considerable blinking.

Yes, I'm that boring today. Move along...

(And yes, I now owe you guys two Designer Crack posts. They're coming, I swear!)

Someone was saying something snarky in their blog about Victorya's design from last week. An activity of which I heartily approve, as I want her gone more desperately than I do Christian.

Except there's a typo, and it's referred to as "Victory's dress."

Blood Ties folk who have either read the books or been made familiar with that particular nickname for Vicki through other means will understand why that bid fair to make my head explode.

In other news, I finally said "The hell with it, the to-do pile isn't going to get any smaller" and spent two hours this morning rearranging my office so that the window is no longer directly behind me. I can have the blinds open and see the computer at the same time! I can sit and watch the icky wet snow while attempting to catch up on those two hours of work! GLEEEE!

Apparently Citytv pulled an unexpected scheduling scramble, so "We'll Meet Again" has now aired in Canada. (What is it with those last two eps? It's like some sort of weird loyalty test!)

( Blood Ties - Spoilers for 1x21, 'We'll Meet Again' )

And then there was one. :-/

[xposted to bloodties_tv]

"Five Times Coreen Fennel Didn't Kiss Henry Fitzroy (And One Time She Did)". T, just over 10K words, Coreen & Henry friendship. [ETA: Spoilers through "Wrapped."]

And now, brain, you will turn your attention to Lizzie Siddal. Oh, yes, you will. :: is determined ::

Interesting news here. Relevant points:

1. From an email sent out by Lifetime: Beginning Saturday, February 9th and Sunday, February 10th, at 10PM(ET/PT) "Blood Ties" watch the entire series from the beginning. A different episode will air on Saturday and Sunday nights on Lifetime Real Women (LRW). Check with your local cable provider to find out if LRW is available in your area.

2. Someone in comments quotes a different, longer email indicating that the last two eps will be available on iTunes after today.

And of course, the usual "no decision has been made regarding a third [*eyeroll*] season" spiel.

I've never heard of LRW, and am sure it's not on our current package, but the information could be useful to somebody, so here it is.

Are they really only on "5:55" in Canada? I thought the two schedules were closer than that. Arg.

People have been uniformly good about spoilers on the comm, but there are enough comments about the general awesomeness of "We'll Meet Again" to make a person's head explode. And one not-really-spoiler-but-tantalizing-hint that I'm sure really wasn't deliberately calculated to torment the biggest Coreen fangirl this side of legal drinking age. ~whimper~

Not gonna do it. (For reasons already outlined here.) And reports are still that the iTunes compromise is thus far not an option. I'm crossing my fingers that it's because they've been making them available according to the airing schedule, and this one was scheduled to air this coming Friday. So chances are that simply hasn't changed at their end.

Nope, nope, nope. :: digs in heels ::

Tangentially, is it me, or is the copy on the CityTV site a little...um. Folks? Lizzie Bennet is feisty. Scarlett O'Hara is feisty. Heck, Coreen is feisty. Vicki? Will kick your sorry ass into next Tuesday. Really quite a different thing.

One of the best things about the work-from-home-two-days-a-week deal continues to be the ability to have the TV on in the background. Today that means Labyrinth, one of those perennial comfort movies for which my love knows no bounds. (As many of you know, this is coming from the girl who zeroed in on her senior prom dress from one level up and across the mall because it reminded me of Sarah's bubble ballgown. Or at least what I remembered of it, since the movie wasn't out on video or HBO yet at the time. But I had gone to see it three times.)

Comfort movies are good things to have when you're on day three of varyingly-responsive-to-meds migraine and decided against rescheduling that root canal. (OMGBONECONDUCTIONBRAINRATTLE. That is all.) Whether or not your current primary fandom is gloomily watching its show get strangled by the network.

Today we have Tanya's Solomon-sword decision about how to handle her blog for the last two eps. Because of course the wrinkle I forgot in my reply to cjmr's comment yesterday was that while the show is Canadian, Lifetime's American website streaming generates ad revenue for which no writer is getting paid. *sigh* Too bloody complicated, dammit. At this point, I'm thinking it's best to hold out on the last two until they air in Canada a few weeks down the road, and can be begged, borrowed or ahemmed from charitable souls there.

Failing that, there's always the compromise of doing iTunes through Firefox News, which will at least result in their commission being contributed to the Actors Fund.

Meanwhile, Denis McGrath's staff-writerly lament reminded me that the CHUM corporate shuffle split the assets from which the Canadian funding came between two different companies, so that's not looking so good either.

The Novocain is wearing off, literally and figuratively, and I am Grumpy Fangirl. My Postmodern Pollyanna duties will be subpar for a bit. Just so you know.

*sigh* Still, the day Ludo can't make me smile will be a Very Bad Day Indeed. "Sarah frieeeeeeeend." :-}

The sentiment should be more forceful, I suppose, but at the moment it's just kinda not. Partly because I went to bed with a migraine (ETA: Aaaaaand it's back. Ow. Note to self: Get new Midrin scrip.), and thus woke up groggy and weird, and am still just kinda "meh" about everything, including the news that Lifetime will only air the last two BT eps online. (My first impulse, actually, was to be annoyed that the responsibility for announcing it got dumped on andpuff. Who, yes, is having fun playing fangirl in the adaptation of her own sandbox, but who also has work to do on a book in a completely different series. But I realized it came to her from the website folks, who've always been on the fans' side, and that it was just the quickest way for them to make sure we did find out what's going on, which is hardly a priority for the programming department.)

There's also a weird perspective thing happening in my head -- for one thing, they will be putting them online, which leaves us in better shape than the poor Journeyman fans being similarly shafted by NBC.

For another, for all that it aired here first, and Lifetime's purchase of it certainly helped make things happen, it is and always has been a Canadian show. I've been operating for quite a while now on the assumption that the best hope for a second season lies in Kaleidoscope deciding to forge ahead on the overseas (which they already have) and Canadian (which seem reasonably probable) commitments. If Lifetime gets off the fence on the right side, or some other U.S. outlet decides to pick it up, so much the better, but frankly I haven't been holding my breath.

Ergo, meh. Make of the information what you will. :-/

In which we examine the question, "Which of Henry's worlds is scarier, the supernatural or Art?" ;-)

( Blood Ties - Spoilers for 1x18 'Drawn and Quartered' )

[xposted to bloodties_tv]