it's a magical world

Some possible stories from the AU meme!

Torched Wood Saloon
From tardis_stowaway: Torchwood, wild west AU. Because Stetsons are cool.
So I haven't actually seen the movie yet, but this is basically Cowboys vs. Aliens, right? Anyway. Miz Gwen Cooper, a fierce gun-totin' rancher gal, sees mysterious lights in the sky over her ranch one night. Heading out to investigate, she stumbles across mysterious stranger Captain Jack Harkness lying stark naked (of course) in the pasture. And then plot happens. Also features Owen as the town doctor, Tosh as the barmaid at the local saloon, and Ianto as Gwen's clever young ranchhand. (Dude, I don't know, I've seen High Noon and The Searchers, but that's about the extent of my knowledge of Westerns, it's not really my genre.)

Avatar: the Last Airship
From troisroyaumes: Avatar: the Last Airbender, space opera AU
I have actually read an AtLA/Firefly fusion, and remember thinking it was a really nifty idea, though of course now I will never be able to find it again. But yeah, all space opera AUs just turn into Firefly fusions in my head. Katara and Sokka are siblings in joint command of a small smuggling ship, Appa; Toph is their wiseass mechanic. They pick up hotshot young pilot Aang on a border moon. His entire colony was wiped out in the War of Unification, and he's got a secret to hide. A secret big enough that they find themselves being chased all across the known 'verse by an Alliance vessel -- which is commanded by the exiled young Lord Zuko...

The Importance of Being Nixon, IDEK.
From newredshoes: The Easy Company Oscar Wilde AU
HA, so basically Nix is already Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest, y/y? Okay. The hard-drinking, idle gentleman bachelor Lewis Nixon is approached by his dear friend Dick Winters on a matter of the heart. It seems that Dr. Eugene Roe, an up-and-coming young physician at Dick's prestigious hospital, has fallen in love with a humble village nurse, Renee. The social barrier between the gentleman and the lady is far too great for Roe's parents to even consider the match, of course. But perhaps with the influence of the Nixon family name behind her -- and Nix's irascible uncle, Lord Sink, they could fabricate a story of a long-lost inheritance and convince the Roes that Renee is actually a highborn heiress... Wacky misunderstandings and hijinks ensue, and of course it turns out that Eugene was misplaced as a baby and is in fact the son of a humble village preacher, so he and Renee are in fact of the same social position and there are no barriers to their nuptial bliss. Also Harry Welsh and Kitty Grogan are there being snarky somehow, and Kitty and Renee trade tips on how to manage their menfolk. And Nix drinks a lot while Dick fondly indulges him and they trade many witticisms. WHAT. (Look, there is a distinct lack of marriageable ladies in this fandom, okay?)

The Twelve Gods of Olympus Washington
From lutamira: The West Wing as greek mythology
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON. Okay, obviously Jed = Zeus and Abbey = Hera. Maybe CJ as Athena? Sam as Apollo? I kind of like Toby as Hephaestus, IDK why. Charlie as Hermes. Josh as Ares, waging war on Congress. Donna as Artemis? No idea who Poseidon is. Lord John Marbury is Dionysus, obviously. Where the hell does Leo fit in? I DON'T EVEN KNOW.


These are fun! Any more? Hit me up!

Last night I checked the word count on the actual AU I'm writing, and saw that it was at 52k. Then I laughed hysterically for a little while. Seriously, I have officially written to the end of the part I'd plotted out from the beginning, but there's all this STUFF that still needs to HAPPEN and now I'm just flying blind here, oh my god, this story will NEVER END.

I did that "who do you write like" meme, and apparently I write like Chuck Palahniuk. Tried it twice, same result. Um, okay.

I could still use a beta for the Amy & Bad Wolf fic. Which I don't think is particularly Palahniuk-y, but what do I know.

I have fallen drastically behind in the TV meme. Not that anyone cares, but still. Catch-up time!


Day 24 - Best quote

There are so, so many. I love catchy quotes. And there's no way to logically narrow it down -- Whedon or Sorkin? Who could possibly choose? -- so I'll go with a perennial favorite:

"Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy." -Dana Scully, X-Files


Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)

I've seen the first two episodes each of M*A*S*H and White Collar, respectively. At some point I will actually sit down and work my way through them. (I have the first three seasons of M*A*S*H on DVD, I really don't know why I keep putting off watching them when I've really enjoyed what little I've seen.)


Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale

In the good way, I'll assume. The first time a season finale ever made me go all OH HOLY SHIT YOU ARE SO NOT LEAVING ME LIKE THIS ALL SUMMER was the end of X-Files season 4, "Gethsemane". Now THAT was a whammy of an ending. Scully telling a panel of FBI investigators that Mulder committed suicide that morning. WHAT. I was like twelve. Waiting through that summer was NOT fun.

Runner-up would be West Wing S1 ("What Kind of Day Has It Been?"). Now that I think of it, those both follow the classic Dallas cliffhanger model (who shot J.R.?), though with some variation. And both X-Files and West Wing tended toward fantastic cliffhanger season finales, just about every season.


Day 27 - Best pilot episode

Most shows don't start well. Most good shows aren't particularly great until halfway through the first season, at least. But there seems to be a running theme through this post, because again, I'm going to go with a tie between X-Files and West Wing. The X-Files pilot was a bit cheesy, but it did a fantastic job of introducing us to the characters, format, style, and themes of the show as a whole. "Nobody down here but the FBI's Most Unwanted!"

Likewise the West Wing. It's a bit more madcap -- well, there are a LOT of characters to introduce -- but it's a pretty brilliant introduction to the show:

C.J.: Is there anything I can say other than "The President rode his bicycle into a tree?"
Leo: He hopes never to do it again.
C.J.: Seriously, they're laughing pretty hard.
Leo: He rode his bicycle into a tree, C.J. What do you want me to – "The president, while riding a bicycle on his vacation in Jackson Hole, came to a sudden arboreal stop." What do you want from me?
C.J.: A little love, Leo.

And I'll leave the rest for another day.

I'm bored. I mean, I am eternally grateful that for a short space of time I have had ACTUAL WEEKENDS, and I'm sure I'll be kicking myself this time next week when I realize yup, they're going away again for another few months. But I have no particular fannish projects holding my attention at the moment (still in post-Big Bang slump, though it still needs another round of editing once my betas have had a chance to slog through it) and nothing much to DO. I've watched another disc of True Blood, which finishes the first season. There are other shows I'm vaguely interested in, but none enough to seek out for download. And while I would love to curl up with my laptop and read good fic, I'm still in a Jack/Ianto frame of mind and I've spent the past month rereading just about every halfway decent fic for the pairing, and I want to read NEW fic. But that fandom's taken a bit of a hit since CoE, and even the CoE fix-it phase of fandom seems to have died down, at least for the moment.

And there is no new Doctor Who today. TRAGIC.

So instead I'll knock out a few more of the TV meme, since I am terminally incapable of posting on anything resembling a regular basis.


Day 19 - Best TV show cast

I freaking LOVE ensemble shows. TEAMS! The biggest downfall of Doctor Who, for my particular tastes, is that it focuses too tightly on the Doctor and the Companion. This is why I get so bloody excited about multiple companions, like Nine & Rose & Jack, or Eleven & Amy & Rory, and why for all of the many pitfalls of "Journey's End", I will love it forever for giving us all of those awesome people flying the TARDIS together. The TEAM! element of Torchwood is vastly more important to me than my shipping Jack/Ianto, and my biggest problem with CoE. But I digress, clearly. So: Whoniverse, basically out for this one.

THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD ENSEMBLE SHOWS, guys! I clearly cannot pick just one! Here, have a celebratory picspam of AWESOME TEAMS BEING AWESOME. ( ensembles FTW! )


Day 20 - Favorite kiss

I was going to say, there is no way I can narrow this down. And then maybe try to picspam you again. Because there's Mulder/Scully in "Millennium", and Nine/Rose in "Parting of the Ways", and Simon/Kaylee MAKING THE FUCK OUT FINALLY in "Serenity" (yes I know that's the movie, but it's just an extension of the show and it totally counts), and Stuart/Vince at Vince's birthday party, and and and...

But no. Look, I have a ship for every show, and every kiss is awesome. But I do play favorites occasionally. ( yeah, that one. )

Look, this is the scene that made me start watching the Whoniverse as a whole. I had seen nothing, and then I saw this scene on YouTube, and then I downloaded the first episode of new!Who and went for it in order to eventually see this in context. That is one damn important kiss in my fannish life.

Also, NNGK.


Day 21 - Favorite ship

DO WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN.

Picspams take a freaking long time. I'm going to be lazy now.

Torchwood - Jack/Ianto. Doctor Who - Doctor/Rose, Amy/Rory(/Doctor). West Wing - CJ/Danny. Firefly - Zoe/Wash. QAF UK - Vince/Stuart. X-Files - Mulder/Scully. All of these are ships for which I will trawl the internet for quite literally weeks or months on end, to varying degrees of success. Every show has its own ship, but those are the ones that are still my bulletproof kinks. I am not shippy to the exclusion of other pairings, nor to the point of hating any pairings involving just one of my ship. But yeah.


Day 22 - Favorite series finale

...hmm. Most series tend to drift by the end; there are very few series finales that leave me satisfied. I'm definitely not counting miniseries here, because they're written to be one complete story -- otherwise "Points" for Band of Brothers would be an automatic win.

Toss-up: "West Wing" ended VERY well, given how long the show ran; the final episode is a bit sentimental, but god knows it earned it. And I love love LOVE Josh in the Oval Office with Santos -- "What's next?" BIG SPARKLY HEARTS.

But also? Queer as Folk UK. Now there was one show Russell T Davies showed out with style. Everyone gets their own freaking awesome epilogue -- Hazel gets married (for tax reasons)! Bernard becomes a porn baron! Nathan becomes king of the world! -- and, most importantly: There are many rumours about Stuart and Vince -- all of them true. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

What I planned to do this evening: finish the last remaining scenes in my Big Bang fic. (Seriously, there are, like, three scenes I still haven't properly written. And I have failed to finish them ALL WEEK.)

What I did instead: TV MEME!

This is not a big picspam, but I couldn't resist. Shows: Band of Brothers - BSG - Doctor Who - Dollhouse - Firefly - HIMYM - QAF UK - Sports Night - Torchwood - True Blood - West Wing - X-Files.

Day 14 - Favorite male character

Even narrowing it down to one per show -- and not including ALL of the shows I like -- THIS WAS HARD.

( BOYS! )

I am operating on three hours of sleep. Maybe. Possibly less. Wheeeee.


Day 09 - Best scene ever

This, this was hard. Narrowing down my favorite episode for any given show is tricky enough; best scene? In any TV show ever?

There's the Stuart & Vince scene in episode 8 of QAF UK, which is the sweetest and most roundabout declaration of love ever. (Stuart: "Poor sod. Give him six months, he'll be able to name all the Doctor
Whos. In order. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy." Vince: "What about Paul McGann?" Stuart/Vince: "Paul McGann doesn't count.")

Or there's the very first scene with Wash in the very first episode of Firefly, which is quite possibly the greatest character introduction in the history of television. ("And we shall call it...This Land.")

Or "Shoe Money Tonight", quite possibly my favorite episode of Sports Night, which gives us Jeremy's amazing monologue to Natalie over a game of poker. ("But mostly, I want you to trust me, just once, when I tell you you have three sevens, and I have a straight.") Which vies for my other favorite scene from that show, the very end of "Sally" -- the exchange between Gordon and Casey, which takes the running gag from that episode and abruptly turns it on its head, in a shocking and utterly game-changing way.

Or the climax of Doctor Who's "Parting of the Ways", Rose as the Bad Wolf, which is just kind of glorious and terrible and heart-rending and that music makes me tear up every time.


But really, nothing quite holds a candle to the sheer emotional power and beauty of this one: The West Wing, "Two Cathedrals", Bartlet's address to God in the National Cathedral.

Bartlet: You're a son-of-a-bitch, you know that? She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know whose ass he was kissing there 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise his glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that tender ship of mine in the north Atlantic last year, 68 crew. Do you know what a tender ship does? Fixes the other ships. Doesn't even carry guns, just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers the mail, that's all it can do. Gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, 30 million new acres of land for conservation, put Mendoza on the bench, we're not fighting a war, I've raised three children... that's not enough to buy me out of the doghouse? Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto? A deo scito? Cruciatus in crucem! Tuus in terra servus nuntius fui officium perfeci. Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem!

[Walks away from the altar, lights a cigarette, takes one puff, throws it to the ground, puts it out with his foot and proceeds to leave.]

You get Hoynes!

GAH.


( the rest of the days, to keep track )

Netflix gave me the first disc of season 6 of West Wing today. I meant to watch one, maybe two episodes, and then go to sleep.

...it's a good thing they only give me one disc at a time, or I would not have gone to bed tonight. OH MY GOODNESS, WEST WING, YOU ARE BACK!

Yeah. I was stuck in flail for those last two episodes. So, it DOES apparently recover after season 5, after all.

(CJ is The Boss! LOVE.)

Taye Diggs as a Secret Service agent on West Wing?

You are all FIRED for not informing me of this sooner. Although, no real surprise here, since they've pretty much used all my favorite theater actors on this show at some point or another (see: Joanna Gleason, John Gallagher Jr, Lee Wilkoff, Mary Louise Parker, Anna Deveare Smith, Oliver Platt...). Tell me Jesse L Martin shows up in there somewhere, and I will love you forever.

ETA: o hai thar John Goodman. AWESOME. Okay, I know season five is made of pure suck, but am I honestly supposed to just leave off here? Seriously? Because that is not possible. (Man, was that a royal HA HA LET'S SEE YOU GET OUT OF THAT from Aaron Sorkin to the rest of the writers or what? He screwed them almost as badly as he screwed Sports Night by jumping ship when another network agreed to pick it up if he stayed on as writer. I may love his shows, but I get the impression the man himself is a royal jackass.)

I mean, West Wing DOES bring all my favorite theater actors at some point. Joanna Gleason, Lee Wilkoff, Oliver Platt, Anna Deveare Smith...yeah.

So "20 Hours In America" brings us not only Amy Adams, but JOHN GALLAGHER JR as the teenage kid who drives Donna/Josh/Toby part of the way.

For those of you who aren't total theater geeks, John Gallagher Jr (see icon) won a Tony award for best supporting actor in a musical last year as Moritz in "Spring Awakening".

Fandom collision of great personal glee!

Random fandom opinion: I like Hoynes. Even when he's being kind of slimy, he's always interesting. And I like him more every episode he's in.

Oh god, I'm just about up to the Simon Donovan episodes, aren't I. Technically, these were the first WW eps I ever saw -- actually, scratch that, "Stirred" (which I just watched, with the Hoynes and the four words why he will remain on the ticket) was the first episode I saw. It was back while I was in Dublin, and one of the flatmate's friends had recently gotten the S3 DVDs, and for some reason I was invited along that night (it was the only time that happened -- my flatmates mostly ignored me). It was a weird place to start, and no one explained much to me, and I could barely get the characters straight -- well, the President, I got, but that was about it. Except I really, really liked CJ, and was totally rooting for the CJ/Simon to happen. And we watched through the end of S3, and, well, we all know how that works out. This actually probably contributed to why I didn't get into WW then -- I had this ONE character I had any interest in, and ONE ship, and then, well, THAT.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, oh god, I'm not sure I want to watch the few remaining episodes of S3 again. Except of course I do, because I actually know and care about all the other characters too now, and I only have the vaguest memories of any plotlines other than the CJ/Simon arc. But. Gah.

Charlie's prank war on CJ in "Hartsfield's Landing"? MOST AMAZING THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

My neighbors probably think I'm completely off my rocker, what with all the shrieking with laughter and flailing about I've been doing tonight.

Just watched "Bartlet For America". I realize Josh/Donna is the ship to end all ships in this fandom, and I like it well enough, but y'know, so far I really, really like both Cliff Calley and Amy Gardner, and am looking forward to watching the Donna/Cliff and Josh/Amy work themselves out.

Which, in terms of my mental health, is probably better than being a rabid Josh/Donna shipper this early in the game.

I'm also starting to get into CJ/Toby, mostly because there is a lack of Danny Concannon in this season. Also, I'm pretty sure I've already read every halfway decent CJ/Danny fic ever written, which is kind of pathetic.

Unpopular opinion: Sam is my least favorite character. I don't actively dislike him -- well, most of the time, anyway. He just doesn't do it for me at all. I'm kind of looking forward to him being replaced by Jeremy Josh Malina's character in S4, so he can stop irritating me and taking up too much screen time.

Also, I'm sorta kinda possibly writing CJ smut. Um.

CJ/Danny becomes canon? HUZZAH! That was totally my sekrit West Wing OTP, though I thought it had no chance so I tried to repress it. I love spoilers sometimes.

However, I am less thrilled to discover that, having just tonight watched S2's "The Portland Trip", I will be DENIED Danny Concannon until halfway through season FOUR. Goddamnit it. This is a sad thing to do to me in the throes of my exultation, Sorkin. A sad, sad thing.

Please tell me there is CJ/Danny fic out there, people. Because in my tentative searchings, I have found much Josh/Donna and Josh/Sam and CJ/Toby, but not much else. I have no objections to these pairings, as I am relatively shipless for this show at the moment, and while CJ/Danny and Charlie/Zoey are still my favorites, this is not to the exclusion of other pairings. But I'd really, really like some OTP fic as well. Surely it's out there somewhere? And well-written?

In other news, thanks to Easter, today was my first complete day off in nearly a month, and let me tell you, it's nowhere near enough. There's a reason weekends come in two-day sets. Just not for theater people, and definitely not for me. You know it's bad when one of your actors approaches you in concern because you seem so stressed out. I'm not stressed, per se -- just exhausted. One day off is better than nothing, but what I really need is to sleep for a solid week, and I don't have that option.

Oh, West Wing DVD, you chose the EXACT WRONG place to decide you have a scratch and can no longer function, being at a very particular point in "He Shall, From Time To Time" where something very particular is revealed, and the second half of the episode is not available to me. And with the death of tv-links, I have nowhere to turn for the rest of this episode.

NOT HAPPY.