there will be a fish

You know how sometimes, when you get all over-invested in a TV show or whatever...and then you find out that the fledgling fandom is sadly lacking?

But occasionally, an author you like and trust starts writing in that fandom, and it's awesome.

Anyway, that just happened to me:

Strategy (9147 words) by LJC
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Arrow (TV 2012)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak, John Diggle & Oliver Queen
Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, John Diggle
Additional Tags: Five Plus One, all the kissing tropes ever in the history of ever
Summary:

The first time it happened, Oliver thought it was a fluke.

BTW, if you have no idea what Arrow is, it's...well, not good in the way something like The West Wing is good, but it's totally great nonetheless. I was super dubious when my sister talked me into it, but it turned out to be really fun. This is the first time I've ever really liked Green Arrow; Stephen Amell sorta did for Oliver Queen what Mark Ruffalo did for Bruce Banner, for me. The plots are excellently ridiculous in the way only comic-based fare can be, and John Barrowman gets to play a villain. Then you have Felicity, who (like Illya Kuryakin before her) was originally intended as a blonde bit part, only was too awesome to contain (also like Illya), and shot from "five minutes of IT girl" to "second season regular." Basically, the Felicity-Oliver-Diggle show is what I'm watching, and that is made of win.

Also, there's a reason you get a lot of hits when you google "arrow shirtless". (I was going to link to tumblr, but apparently they're shunning non-members now? just google it.) I would like to thank Stephen Amell for making all our lives a better place through the careful application of gleaming abs. And shoulders. And leather pants.

HEE. I am really unholy amounts of amused by the titles of the songs on the Mission Impossible 4 soundtrack, because it is full of horrible jokes and wordplay. A selection of the track listing, for your enjoyment:

1 Give Her My Budapest
3 Knife To A Gun Fight
4 In Russia, Phone Dials You
5 Kremlin With Anticipation
6 From Russia With Shove
10 Man, a Plan, a Code, Dubai
11 Love the Glove
12 Express Elevator
13 Mission Impersonatable
14 Moreau Trouble Than She's Worth
15 Out For a Run
16 Eye of the Wistrom
17 Mood India
18 Mumbai's the Word
19 Launch is On Hendricks
20 World's Worst Parking Valet
21 Putting the Miss In Mission

It's even funnier if you've seen the movie, and know which scenes they refer to. :)

...hi, welcome to my brain right now. It has apparently decided to get obsessed with spy things again, and has been (a) re-reading (and compulsively editing) my senior thesis on science fiction in spy films/TV, (b) going to seen M:I4 four times in theaters, (c) watching all the rest of the Mission: Impossible movies possibly also multiple times, I admit nothing (d) watching the old Mission: Impossible TV show (which I have discovered is enormous amounts of fun, and not dated much at all, because the screenwriters were apparently fellow fans of David Maurer's The Big Con, and the characters basically pull off an awesome con job/heist every episode), (e) thinking about buying soundtracks for various spy films on Amazon, and (f) adding any spy films that weren't already on my Netflix queue to my Netflix queue -- at least, as many as I can fit before it hits 500 again, which is sadly only about 15 more, and (g) trying to telepathically make someone write good Ethan/Brandt fic.

I am also writing up my thoughts on the Mission: Impossible films, and trying to resist the urge to edit my thesis into something the internet might read and I might not be ashamed of, and posting it. Because no one wants to read that, I don't think, whereas I am a giant nerd who is barely resisting telling you all the origin of the quote in the subject line.

When I finally saw the 2011 Jane Eyre a few weeks ago, it reminded me of how awesome Mia Wasikowska is, so I ended up re-downloading all of the Sophie episodes of In Treatment (which is a fantastic show; damn fine acting and writing across the board). I watched the first season proper back in 2008, so I felt I could get away with just watching one character's sessions.

Anyway, I just watched all of said episodes back to back, and damn, I'd forgotten how fucking phenomenal she is. I think she was, what, 19 at the time? And it's even more impressive now that I've seen her in other things; she played a sixteen-year-old Olympic-hopeful gymnast to the hilt, and just as impeccably as she played a 19th-century orphaned Scottish governess.

NGL, I cried a lot this time through. Sophie is such a brilliant character.

GUESS WHAT, YOU GUYS? NEW SHERLOCK ON NEW YEAR'S DAY!

BEST. YEAR. EVER.

My sister left this morning for two weeks in Paris, the lucky duck. I miss her already. Without her around, who do I go running to tell when I recognize some obscure actor in a TV episode? Who will get my jokes about Aristotle, or laugh at my blatantly terrible puns? Anyway. I'm kinda mopey as a result.

Thus, I've been watching lots and lots and lots of Prison Break. Did I mention that Katie and I got totally sucked into PB? Yes, I know, hi, welcome to six years ago, but my god is Michael Scofield pretty. And crazy smart, and crazy loyal, and crazy sneaky, and also? Just plain crazy. I love him. :) The show itself is like crack -- not great television, but damn good TV; pretty deft balance of arc writing with episodic structure, and my goodness do they cram a lot of action into a single episode! I will find myself convinced that something happened like, three episodes back, when it was just twenty minutes earlier in the same episode. Whew. It's hitting all kinds of narrative kinks for me -- innocent man falsely accused, resourceful (woobie, balls-to-the-wall) mastermind main character, awesome lady doctor, tragic childhood backstories, intricate clockwork-like planning, daring rescues, harrowing escapes...and that's just the first season. Now I'm in the second, and it's ALSO got fugitive-on-the-run, and an obsessive intellectually-equal, morally-grey antagonist to boot. I'm having a blast.

If I had to complain, though, I would say that I wish they had cut down on some of the storylines -- I don't give a damn about Bellick, for example, and T-Bag needs to get squished like the cockroach he is, already, and I am kinda bored by C-Note's "plot", even though I like the character. The show can also get depressing -- I was thinking about it, and it weirdly rather fits the classical definition of a tragedy (lots of characters suffering reversals of fortune due to tragic flaws, people dropping dead left and right, etc). Only, the effect is somewhat odd when stretched out into a serialized drama rather than contained in a single shorter entity like a movie, and it can get a bit exhausting. (LOL, I bet that's the first time anyone's bothered to analyze Prison Break through the lens of Aristotle's Poetics. What a ridiculous person I am...) The show pulls it off pretty well by also sneakily being an enormously entertaining adventure story, though. Which is an odd combo, if you think about it -- how often do you see a tragic action-adventure? Interesting. Makes fic-reading kinda frustrating, though -- as far as I can tell, no one has ever written a single piece of future-fic in the fandom, because apparently none of the characters have a future. Sigh.

Anyway, jumping back to Mahone, how much do I love William Fitchner? His role on PB prompted me to look up his IMDB profile -- I'd already remembered his roles in Contact (&heart;) and Armageddon off the top of my head, but I kinda geeked out when I remembered that he played Judge Christopher Mulready in the S5 West Wing episode "The Supremes," which is one of my very favorite feel-good eps from the series. I mean, it's a total pipe-dream in terms of realism, but god, I love it. I love it so much, in fact, that simply the reminder of it forced me to re-watch it just now. I love Glenn Close as Evelyn Baker Lang, and when Josh has his "I love her mind, I love her shoes!" moment, and when Donna realizes Josh is putting her mother's cats on the Supreme Court, and Mulready messing with Toby about the constitutionality of DOMA, and when Mulready and Lang are delightedly arguing away with each other in the Roosevelt Room, and Josh and CJ getting blasted on 21-year Glenlivet with Senator Pierce. I'm not sure how I managed to forget that William Fitchner was Mulready, because that scene where he's meeting with Bartlet in the Oval Office ("but who writes the extraordinary dissent?") never fails to give me a little shiver of goosebumps. Part of it is the show's always-excellent writing, but damn, Fitchner nails the delivery. He does quietly intense intelligence very well indeed.

I just re-watched that Criminal Minds ep with Alex O'Loughlin as the serial killer. Totally made me cry, again. *sigh*

New Hawaii Five-0 tonight! I am excited; this is the first one I'll get to watch live (which means cursing at the commercials is a tragic inevitability). I'm hoping it will involve Danny or Chin's getting their turns to be held hostage, because that would be exciting. I suppose I would also settle for finally getting Danny out of his shirt and/or into a situation where he must swim for survival. OR ALL THREE. *crosses fingers* :D

ETA: ( spoilers )

HI THERE, INTERNET.

Haven't posted in a while, have I? Probably because work is crazy due to it being the season for all the holiday parties, and also having a social life, and about a half-dozen doctor appointments. *sigh*

BIG NEWS: Katie and I caught up on Hawaii Five-0! PLEASE COME DISCUSS IN THE COMMENTS! I want to talk for ages about how pretty the scenery is, or how pretty the wildlife (i.e., EVERYONE on the team), or about how rapidly this show has become my happy place, only to make me wait for new episodes. But I really have to sleep at some point tonight, so I won't. I am making myself pick three things to talk about instead:

( mild spoilers, I guess )

3a. The problem with working in a hotel with continental breakfasts is that I spend a great deal of time in the morning with pineapple right in front of me, reminding me of H50, while also being a giant nerd. These things lead to thought processes like: Ever since I found out that pineapple has an enzyme that literally breaks down flesh, I have had a bit of weirdness eating it. Hmm, I bet Danny would also have a problem with that. He already hates pineapple; maybe that's why. They're flesh-eating! Flesh-eating...ooh, maybe someone should write H50 zombie fic. It's set on an island, that's inherently interesting. Plus, you just know Steve would be awesome at killing zombies. They probably have a section of SEAL training all about beheading the living dead. Or he just decided he wanted to be prepared. OH WAIT -- pineapples, zombies, both flesh-eating...THE PINEAPPLES ARE CAUSING THE ZOMBIES. AHAHAHAHAHA....

...and then, I have not a single person at work to share these thoughts with. It's very sad.

Anyway, stopping there! Because I have to be awake at 5am, and then work for about 18 hours, and then do the same thing on Friday, only waking up at 4am instead. But please talk to me in comments. :D?

( Castle 3.01 A Deadly Affair )

ETA: Also, HI THE RYAN REPORT! I missed you!

1. I went on a massive Fringe-meta streak a few days ago (mostly here), enabled nicely by ignipes, who kept saying interesting things to spark me off. She then wrote a great post about Olivia Dunham which I recommend to anyone who was/is reluctant to watch Fringe based on their first impressions of her or things they heard other people saying back when it started (or interested in Olivia, or in female characterization on TV, or whatever). I was a little uncertain about Olivia when I started watching, too – so you can trust me when I say that I am REALLY HAPPY I got over that with some more watching. *nudges everyone in the direction of the pilot*

2. Isn't it disconcerting when you run across something and don't remember anything about it or where it came from? It's a bit similar to the feeling I get when going through old journal entries and thinking "Gosh, that's rather clever, but I don't remember saying it at all..." The case in point today are some old bookmarks linking to pictures of two thousand-year-old papyrus fragments with bits of The Odyssey written on (from Books 9 and 11, Book 11, and Book 17). I thought it might be from one of my classics courses, but the date says they're from the winter after sophomore year when I was withdrawn from school. My best guess now is that maybe a classics geek from my flist linked to them... They ARE pretty cool. They remind me of a school field trip to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, when I spent so long wandering through the exhibit that they had to send someone back in to find me because the buses were leaving. :D

3. Speaking of nostalgia, I would like to link (again) to this poll, which takes the cake as My Favorite Poll Ever, Fullstop. It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Go on, click on it; you won't regret it. :D

4. Oh, hey, did you guys notice that Lie To Me started again on Monday? SO EXCITED! Tim Roth was all terrible posture and intensity, Jason Dohring (aka Logan Echolls on Veronica Mars) guest-starred as a psychopath, and Brendan Hines and Monica Raymund spent the entire episode looking foxy in spite of Loker's terrible shirt (which he made fun of himself, oh, Loker). ♥

Dear everyone who has ever loved Damian Lewis,

Whether you're a fan of him as Dick Winters in Band of Brothers or Charlie Crews in Life or whatever else, let me tell you this: you never knew, but you secretly always wanted to see him seductively read "To His Coy Mistress" in his natural accent.

And guess what? NOW YOU CAN. :D



Love, Me

P.S. Now I really want to re-watch that bit from his adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing (which, btw, is ADORABLE, A++ would watch again) where Benedick and Beatrice break down Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds...") in a delightfully UST- and snark-filled scene. ♥