you should all talk to me

[be_themoon]

 So I'm planning on getting paid time on both DW and LJ before I leave, using the money I'm making tutoring. (Today and tomorrow alone should more than cover it, so I feel justified.) I went ahead and got the two-week free trial on LJ and therefore have 15 new icons (predictably, all ladies except for one of part of the Criminal Minds team) and feel a great urge to show them off.

I also want to catch up with everyone, because I've been so busy! So, therefore - 

TALK TO ME. 

Anything! What you've been doing, what show you're watching, do you have an awesome picspam or video to link me to, what are you writing, are you traveling, do you want to mock my descent into comics, have we pretty much never talked but we totally should?

GO FOR IT. FREE FOR ALL. 

<33333333333 I LOVE YOU ALL. 

Comments

[wordsatourbacks]

Hi! I'm loving Homicide: Life on the Street and ridiculously attractive, funny, and heartbreaking characters therein. (I guess you've seen that on my Tumblr, hee.) I am writing fic for the show! I don't want to mock your descent into comics - I still haven't finished reading the ones you uploaded for me! I am really looking forward to that. I am just so stuck on H:LotS right now.

[be_themoon]

I don't have any new icons yet on DW, or I would show them off for you. I HAVE A JESSE ONE. SHE IS THE BEST.

I have been noticing the H:LotS spam! Cop shows tend to bore me easily, but I've heard excellent things about it - maybe I'll try it out sometime. What do you love so much about it?

Oh, yeah, I totally get being stuck on one thing - I put pretty much everything on hold to watch James McAvoy movies in loops. :P You've... probably noticed on Tumblr. *shifty*

[wordsatourbacks]

I HAVE A JESSE ONE. SHE IS THE BEST.

*hearts forever* JESSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I have been noticing the H:LotS spam! Cop shows tend to bore me easily, but I've heard excellent things about it - maybe I'll try it out sometime. What do you love so much about it?

Oh, oh, I have so much to say about H:LotS I am temporarily rendered incoherent. MOAR LATER. Have a video about my favorite character, Meldrick Lewis! (Spoilers, but I don't think they'll really impact your viewing experience out of context, if you do decide to try the show sometime.)

Oh, yeah, I totally get being stuck on one thing - I put pretty much everything on hold to watch James McAvoy movies in loops. :P You've... probably noticed on Tumblr. *shifty*

Heeeeee! :D

[be_themoon]

Jesse just makes me want to cry, ALL THE TIME. HEARTBREAK AND BEAUTY AND DETERMINATION, JESSEEEEE. BE HAPPY, JESSE. BE HAPPYYYYY.

Heee, when you regain coherence though. I'm totally interested in hearing about it, you've got good taste in shows.

his face is just. kind of stunning. just. hnnnnnnnnnngggggg, oh god.

[wordsatourbacks]

Jesse just makes me want to cry, ALL THE TIME. HEARTBREAK AND BEAUTY AND DETERMINATION, JESSEEEEE. BE HAPPY, JESSE. BE HAPPYYYYY.

IAWTC. SHE IS THE BEST. JESSE JESSE JESSE. JESSE ILU. JESSE.

Heee, when you regain coherence though. I'm totally interested in hearing about it, you've got good taste in shows.

Hee, thanks! Since crossedwires is another huge fan of the show (we became e-quaintances over H:LotS!), I guess I will just copypasta bits of what's she's said about it until I get my own words together! Minimal spoilers.

I think if this were any other show, it would have been all about Tim Bayliss solving cases of the week, and I really like that it's not. I mean, I love Tim - and Frank-and-Tim - but I also like that it's about everyone in the homicide unit and their relationships with each other and the peeks we get into their personal lives. [...] I like that kind of continuity and storytelling where it's really not about the plot (with the murder to be solved in 42 minutes), but about the characters -- Bayliss continues to surprise himself regarding his own sex life (not quite as vanilla as he thinks he is), Pembleton being Pembleton (conflicted about being Catholic, sureness of himself as a homicide detective -- until his style of questioning gets questioned; really just complicated and awesome), Kay has something to prove (they don't have many scenes together, but I love her conversations with Frank) and can't stay out of Felton's personal life despite not wanting to get involved, Munch and his eternal pessimism.

It seems kind of unusual to see that much vulnerability from a man, especially a black man (I'm so glad he (and Frank and Meldrick) get to have such a range of emotion -- well, I guess it's the whole cast, really, that gets to be three dimensional in their own ways). [...]

Frank's explanation of unintentional, deep-seated, unaware racism. EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THAT SCENE. And Tim's initial disbelief and denial of it, because he feels protective of his family, which is understandable but also shows Tim is not without his own privilege blinkers. [...]

Russert and Giardello's relationship is an interesting study of intersectionality at work. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just mad." Yeah. And then they 'get over it' in a sense -- which doesn't mean it still doesn't sting or that everything's okay or that race or gender doesn't matter, because those things are still all there...but they have to work together and, I think, genuinely like each other. [...]

Meldrick's conversations with Frank about stereotypes, statistics, racial discrimination... And his frustration with it and urge to fight against them. YES. (On a meta level, one reason for having more characters of colour is so they can have conversations like this and express different opinions/emotions, though I suppose that first, (other) writers would have to accept that race is a factor in people's lives, because this conversation would be different if Meldrick were talking to Tim, for example.) [...]

I like the way they've brought in new characters because

1) They didn't forget the old characters existed. One of my favourite things about this show is the continuity, with the odd dropped line here and there about where they were or what happened to them. [...]

2) They're not directly replaced. Losing two detectives didn't mean two new detectives. [...]

(I think it's also worth noting that they didn't replace any characters of colour with white actors or women with men. Which should maybe not be as big a deal as it is.) [...]

I appreciate that their female characters, regulars or not, have a range of character and characteristics. There's also a certain 'real life' feeling about it too, that there would be less (or no?) women working in Homicide. [...]

Elizabeth Wu -- she was only in one episode, but, man, I love her a lot. Mostly, I love that she has a Chinese accent that's unremarked upon and doesn't hinder her abilities to do her job at all. This plays against the stereotype in such subtle and obvious ways; subtle because it's not a big deal, and obvious, because it's right there every time she speaks. I love that she's confident and smart and unintimidated by Frank. And that Giardello respects her because she's good at her job, despite making some costly mistakes. [...]

I forget that H:LOTS is an NBC/network show because it's a cop show that isn't a procedural. [...]

I like that they didn't do colourblind casting (except perhaps for Giardello, and then wrote his background to fit the actor), but it seems like they were aware of the effect race plays and still cast a POC in main roles. I judge all shows by H:LOTS standards. [...]

I really like these type of (western) shows that don't centre on the white dude (well, A:TLA has no white people, so there's that! And I think I have a little more patience/interest if the main character is a white woman, but even then, sometimes I'd like it to be less focused on one person (see The Closer)). And it turns out I don't really mind that they're in the story being all privileged, if the narrative doesn't support their POV and isn't all about them, which I think even the most 'inoffensive' shows don't comprehend (like, say, White Collar -- benign erasure is still pretty bad, eh? But maybe not as infuriating as purposely being tokenized and calling that 'diverse').

Which I guess is another way for me to say that I don't hate white people it makes for stronger storytelling to have characters with different POVs - because they have different life experiences because they're not the 'default' white male type - who are also given a significant amount of screentime and aren't just there to prop up the main character. It also moves away from the 'good' vs 'bad' guys way of framing a story because it doesn't have to be about defeating some evil doer; it can be about a bunch of people who have conflicting interests and motivations and moral lines, which I find fascinating to watch.

I think my favourite non-Omar scene of season 2 of The Wire, thus far, is Carver saying, “Thievin’ motherfuckers take everything, don’t they?” in response to seeing a bunch of white drug dealers appropriating the language, dress and attitude of black drug dealers. And there's no backpedaling from the narrative about it, no hiding behind hipster racism or cries of 'reverse racism' (and if there are characters that do this, like Gharty from H:LOTS, they're shown to be wrong and possibly not understanding how these social institutions work).

In general, I love seasons 1-4 (except for the third part of the three-part s3 opener, which is TERRIBLE) and season 7; I don't love most of seasons 5 and 6, which is why I am mostly skipping them in my rewatch.

his face is just. kind of stunning. just. hnnnnnnnnnngggggg, oh god.

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D

[be_themoon]

oh, that is a fascinating read. hmmmmm. I may have to give it a try sometime, though I'll give fair warning that cop shows have to be pretty unusual to hold my attention. (I watched the first season of White Collar and then quickly slipped out. I still watch L&O:UK off and on but only because of Freema Aygeman (GODDESS) and Jamie Bamber. The Unusuals was just amazing. And I think that's it for cop shows I watch? I dunno, can't think of any others right now.)

IT IS A DISEASE IT IS ALL HIS FAULT I CAN'T HELP IT

NOT LIKE I NEEDED THAT BEATING HEART OR ANYTHING

[wordsatourbacks]

I've never gotten engaged in any cop shows except for H:LotS, The Wire, and The Unusuals! H:LotS is, honestly, my favorite show in the world - has been for years. One of the reasons I love that Meldrick Lewis vid I linked is that it captures the simultaneous hope and despair and the keep-on-keeping-on that's so fundamental to the spirit of the show. I am in no way unbiased, but other folks commented saying they'd never seen H:LotS and were really moved by the vid anyway!

IT IS A DISEASE IT IS ALL HIS FAULT I CAN'T HELP IT

NOT LIKE I NEEDED THAT BEATING HEART OR ANYTHING

(icon)

:D :D

[be_themoon]

Then I shall give it a try sometime. :DDDD It is quite possible my general falling out with cop shows is that they are apparently ALL ABOUT TWO WHITE GUYS UGH.

I have just gotten really sensitive to that this past year, it is getting more and more difficult for me to overlook in a show/movie. Like, X-Men hits so many of my tropes, SO MANY, and I still feel weird about liking it because it's all about two white guys. But I'm trying to just be like "one can like movies of all types! and sometimes even movies about two white guys can be all about your storytelling tropes!"

is my obsession really that adorable?

:P

[wordsatourbacks]

This cop show is definitely not all about two white guys! :D :D (And neither is The Wire, if you're ever interested in trying that.) The flagship partnership for the first six seasons is Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss, a black guy and a white guy, and Pembleton is the show's breakout star and in explicit ways the show's moral center. Other regulars of color are Meldrick Lewis (my darling) and Lieutenant Al Giardello, and later seasons add Terri Stivers, Mike Giardello, and Rene Sheppard. White women regulars I love include Kay Howard, Megan Russert, and in season 7, Laura Ballard. In season 7, half the main cast are characters of color, and three are women. I flat out don't watch things anymore that are all about two white guys, though I plan to look into a little X-Men First Class fic sometime!

[be_themoon]

excellent!

X-Men First Class is - I don't know that I can actively recommend it, honestly. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. For me, it is a really great story with some really sucky bits. But that is because it tells a story with tropes I'm a total sucker for! I think it is not the right story for a lot of people. and that makes me really sad because they really could have done so much better.

[wordsatourbacks]

Another thing I enjoy about Pembleton is that he's consistently positioned as the most intelligent - and often the most charismatic - character during his time on the show!

:(((

[be_themoon]

oh, that's great!

and yeah. :((( pretty much sums up my feelings when I come off the squee high and have to think critically about it.

[wordsatourbacks]

I just have so much love for H:LotS and much of what it chooses to be! :)

:((( Well, I'm glad some people must be writing fic that is better than the bad parts of the movie. That's what I'm hoping for when I start looking at fic for it, anyway.

[wordsatourbacks]

is my obsession really that adorable?

:P

well... hee?

;P

[fly_to_dawn]

HI HI HI

I actually won my one year paid account at a lottery on three_weeks_for_dw, having lotsa icons is awesome.

My writing muse has come back, I am now writing a) a comedy thriller-type low-key screenplay (?) centering around an amnesiac werewolf, and b) a serious steampunk mystery about seven siblings who killed someone when they were younger and now ~the past is back to haunt them~ etc.

[be_themoon]

Ooooh, that's fantastic. And yesssss, I just want ALL THE ICONS. ALL OF THEM. WONDER WOMAN. EMILY MERCHANT. RENEE MONTOYA. SYBIL CRAWLEY. ABBY AND JESS AND CLAUDIA/JENNY. SIRYN AND MONET. MORE ICONS. (There are probably guys I want icons of? they're just much harder to think of. Rictor, Dick Grayson, my Primeval guys, the Eagle guys, James McAvoy. that's... about it? Damian Wayne, but I've already got him.) I cannot wait to get my Dreamwidth paid time and 85 NEW ICON SPACES HELL YES.

holy crap, those both sound AMAZING. I am especially interested in the one about the siblings, because god knows I love family dynamics and how blood holds people together. (in this case, perhaps a little more literally than in others.) If you want to talk about them to someone, I would LOVE to hear more about both projects. MORE INFORMATION, ALWAYS.

<33333

[fly_to_dawn]

:D

SIBLINGS ARE THE BEST. I am FOREVER OBSESSED with sibling stories (the Mitford sisters! The Black sisters! The Pevensies!) and am having much fun fleshing out their storylines and characteristics *g*

OKAY I'M GONNA RAMBLE

From eldest to youngest, they are: Florence, Frank, Edward, Rosalind and Alexander (twins), Shirley, and Madeleine. When they were young (Florence was 17, Maddy was 10) they collaborated to commit a murder, and ten years on, they are each sent a photograph of the victim...

Florence is the one who always kept them together - as an adult, she is the only one who regularly meets up with all of her other siblings (apart from Ros/Alex). As the eldest, she feels responsible for letting Ros and Alex commit murder, but also feels as though the twins were always out of her control. She's a diligent worker who has made a name for herself as the director of one of the largest museums in Britain.

Frank and Shirley are the two genial ones of the family, intellectual and creative but susceptible to Ros and Alex's charismatic charms. Frank ends up as a mild-mannered lecturer, and Shirley a botanist. Although Frank doesn't care for fame, success, or adventure, Shirley has always felt restricted by her family and longs to see the world.

Edward and Madeleine are arguably the opposites of Frank and Shirley, in that they are practical, and down-to-Earth. Their greatest strength (or perhaps weakness) is that are unable to take the threat of Alex & Ros seriously, and always regard them as petty, melodramatic, attention-seeking children. Edward is a devoted bureaucrat who is determined to let nothing get in the way of his career; Madeleine found love with a wealthy man and is now Lady Madeleine Brigstocke, celebrated young socialite. Edward has always felt overshadowed by his siblings, whilst Maddy, being the youngest, has always detached herself from petty squabbles.

Rosalind and Alexander (nicknamed 'Holmes/Moriarty' by the others, although they are never sure which is which) are the cunning masterminds who orchestrate the murder; in childhood they are extremely close but have drifted apart since the incident, and don't remain in contact with the others. Now Rosalind oils engines on a flying steamboat, whilst Alexander plots political change underground. When they were the young, the world was theirs - now with the imminent threat of exposure, the game is on once again.

GOOD LORD THAT GOT LONG.

It's very much still a WIP, especially with the more detailed relationships between the characters, but yeah, totally fun to write.

<3

[be_themoon]

okay, I'm pretty much reduced to a spluttering mess. All I can say is WOULD READ WOULD READ WOULD READ HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD I WOULD READ THAT. WOW that sounds fantastic, a;sldkhgldkghd. And now I desperately want to know who they killed and WHY?

[bedlamsbard]

I LOVE my paid time on DW. Love love love. It is the combo of ALL THE ICONS + the in-journal search, so I am totally willing to shell out the bucks for it. Which I have never done for an internet service before. (My LJ paid time was a gift, and I didn't feel like renewing it afterwards. My first DW paid time was also a gift, and I did.)

I am going to England this weekend for my archaeology program and having a freaking nervous breakdown about it, which is less than lovely. Um um um...I got really into fashion/style blogs and have thought more about clothes in the past month than I have in the past twenty-one years of my life. I wrote an almost-20K fic where Narnia conquers everyone and my action hero spends the first 1K throwing up over everything, and now Tirian is getting garroted. (Different story.) I'm watching Masterchef on TV and am trying to watch Foyle's War whenever the library actually has it, which is going to be curtailed by my going to England, alas. I have seen no movies that have come out this summer. Actually I have seen no movies that have come out since VotDT in theatres, because, uh, that's how I roll.

AND HOW ARE YOU DOING, MY DEAR?

[be_themoon]

fantastic! in-journal searching does sound like a really awesome feature, yeah. :DD

I've been following your going-to-England adventures and worrying for you. <3333 I'm sure everything will turn out great and you will have an AMAZING time, and I am very envious of you getting to go to England. But I totally get the urge to freak out, I'm having a fair amount of those moments for my trip. a;slkdhg

and clothes! I was never the clothes person in my family (that would be my older sister Esther) but I have found myself liking them more and more recently and becoming pretty fascinated by fashions throughout the years and stuff. And ack, I keep meaning to read your most recent fic and FAILING to. I'm so sorry, I swear it's not you. I really haven't been reading that much fic at all (except for a brief stint reading ALL THE X-MEN fic). Read: no fic at all except for that, really. I don't really know why?

heeeee, I've only seen X-Men: First Class and The Eagle. I'm really not a movie-going person. Actually, I never really used to watch almost any movies. (Residual influence from my family.)

I'm doing well! Insanely busy and still UTTERLY FURIOUS at my sister's father-in-law-to-be (if he is an asshole to me one more time about my lack of salvation I will probably punch him and my sister will be very upset with me), but mostly I am having a good time and packing up and being excited about things. Mourning the potential lack of Oreos in N.Z. Also barbecue chips. DDD:

[bedlamsbard]

It is, like, the most amazing feature. I don't need it often, but when I need it, I really need it, you know?

My sudden fascination with style blogs is a mystery to me, but strangely entertaining. I have discovered that I am a big fan of skirts, but that I'm one of those people who prefers them to be at or below the knee. Also I have finally more or less figured out what my proportions are and also lots of different hairstyles I want to try.

Heh, I almost never read fic, although I'm now really obsessed with this X-Men: First Class/White Collar fusion which is strange because I haven't seen either canon. But I love the anon author's writing style. (Also, I am secretly wondering if it's someone I read from another fandom, because it seems familiar.)

Oh oh oh! I also got really obsessed with Pinterest, which, love.

NO OREOS. I don't even like Oreos and this seems like a horrible crime against humanity, omg.

[be_themoon]

yeah, seriously. When there is that one thing you know you posted and super need now, it's really frustrating to go back through all of your entries. one. by. one.

Skirts are actually really fun! I just discovered this this past semester, and have been wearing them more regularly. it's really nice. :)

oooh, I've seen that one! It's a great writing style, very funny. and Pinterest looks lovely. *bookmarks*

I KNOW RIGHT. CRIME. AGAINST. HUMANITY.

[alexseanchai]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

IDEKWTF.

[be_themoon]

.... what.

Please explain.

[alexseanchai]

I CANNOT EXPLAIN. THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM. It is all bouncy fluffy fun!

[be_themoon]

I genuinely have no idea what to even say to that. Other than that I am glad it makes you happy!