Aurora's Sundry Notes

Meme via cookiegirl, because yay fandom memes and I haven't done in a while. Also, an easy way to create public content that isn't a Write Every Day check-in post! I'm tweaking the definition because I don't watch a lot of movies but I read a huge load of books.

How about we do that thing where you give me a show/moviebook/fandom and I’ll tell you:

my favorite female character
my favorite male character
my favorite book/season/etc.
my favorite episode (if it’s a TV show)
my favorite cast member
my favorite ship
a character I’d die put a reasonable amount of effort into defending
a character I just can’t sympathize with
a character I grew to love
my anti-OTP

Feel free to pick anything you know I've watched/read/enjoyed. Big fandoms as well as tiny fandoms of two are equally welcome! My commenting energies have varied lately, so if I take a while to come back to some comments, don't worry, I'll get there eventually.

Whee! The Summer/Winter Holidays fest at wintercompanion is open and looking for sign-ups until the 28th of May! So if you're interested in writing some Doctor/Jack fic based on prompts or creating Doctor/Jack art, head over there! I signed up right away - heck, finding that community is probably the reason I ended up back on LJ in the first place, so sure as hell I'm participating. Maybe it'll make me successfully finish a story again!

And even if you don't want to participate, in July the fic and art will be posted in the community, so keep an eye on it! They've got both LiveJournal and Dreamwidth versions now, so neither site needs to miss out.

Another fest I'm planning to participate in is torchwood_fest, which is nicely low-pressure and has a lot of prompts. I'd love to finally write a whole Torchwood fic after starting many that aren't finished.

I don't seem to get around to actually writing posts these days. Well, let me post just a few random important things.

Finishing Torchwood S2 was certainly bad for my overall productivity. I mean, now there's so much more fanfic I can read. And do you have any idea how much fanfic there is in that fandom, including well-written and thought-out stuff, with interesting plots and delicious smut, and how much of it's is bloody epic in length? I could spend the rest of the year doing nothing but reading fics. I'm trying not to.

Well, I am still succeeding at reading Things That Are Actual Books, still, and one of the books I'm currently reading is Chris Hadfield's An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. In the case you don't know, he's a Canadian astronaut who has, oh, been Commander of the International Space Station and recorded a version of David Bowie's Space Oddity in space, and so forth, and the book is his memoirs of how to become an astronaut and how to be one and what we all can learn from it and how awesome space is and stuff. I'm having a grand time reading it.

I possibly had other things to write, but I can't recall them. Well, let me record that I had a good writing day today.

tinnny made a wonderful set of icons on themes I'd requested: winter and trees, books and tea, clouds. Much as I'd like, I'm not taking everything, so feel free to go take a look at what is there! I think I'm going to need that userpic add-on...

Also, I forgot to find the link for this earlier, but: I decided to join Fandom Stocking after certain people on my friends list were enthusiastically recommending it, so here: My stocking! For those who don't know, the basic idea is (hopefully I'm explaining it right since I'm new, too) that you can stuff anyone's stocking with things related to their fandoms, like ficlets, fanart, icons, or more generic things if they want. Nobody's required/expected to do anything, it's all up to you. The comments to the stockings are screened, and they'll be revealed on January 6.

The fandoms I'm requesting are rather few: Doctor Who and Torchwood, Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol series (I was thinking of adding Finishing School to the mix, but I've yet to read the last book) and Becky Chambers's Wayfarers series (ie. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and The Closed and Common Orbit. I feel a bit odd requesting so few, when most have quite a list, but I can't help that currently I'm only fannishly obsessed with Doctor Who and Torchwood and a few small, rare (mainly book) fandoms. Out of my rarer fandoms, I thought I'd pick Gailverse and Wayfarers because they've got the largest readership as far as I can tell. But I'm also asking for book recommendations, especially modern scifi, so anyone who wants to give me something but doesn't do fic (or fanart etc.) or doesn't feel comfortable with these fandoms, you can try that. I'm not expecting anyone to do anything, but if someone wants, thought I'd link to it.

While I'm posting, maybe I could do a bit on my reading lately. My main reading has still been my reread of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I've got about 200 pages left - one of those books that won't run out on you too quickly! It's probably been about ten years since I read it, and I'd forgotten how much I love it. I adore history, fantasy, 19th century, playing around with history (especially since in my country, historical correctness is taken oh-so-seriously), and I have a fondness for the early 19th century literature that the style pastiches, so it's pretty much made for me.

In the mainstream/realism front, I've lately been reading Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper, and am finding it quite delightful. It has a warmth and a charm that I enjoy, and the characters are real and interesting. I'm also reading a novel by Tove Jansson (the author of the Moomin books, but I've been reading her adult/realist fiction during the past two years). It's the last one of her adult books I hadn't yet read, I think, and while I love her style and observations as much as ever, I have a bit of a problem with the characters in this one.

Finally, I recently picked up a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves from the library's recycling shelf, and was laughing all through the first chapter. Although I have to admit that when it comes to punctuation, I'm not quite as much a stickler as I otherwise am. I mean, I do get horrified when I see an apostrophe or a quotation mark in the wrong place. But Finnish and English have completely different punctuation rules, and altering between the two languages, I don't think I do either quite correctly.

I've been going through my re-watch Doctor Who S3 quite quickly, and ooh, I just watched Blink again. That episode is so. damn. brilliant. And just suitably creepy and exciting. Ah, I can't get over how brilliant it is.

And in the end of the episode, the trailer for Utopia! I actually squeed at seeing those brief moments of Jack returning, despite the fact that I already knew he would and I've already seen the episode and the last time I did wasn't so long ago, and I've quite recently watched all of Torchwood S1 so, um, a lot of Jack there, but all that still didn't stop me from squeeing. Ooh, I think I'm going to enjoy watching the final episodes. Had a bit of a hard time not going on right away, but Blink and Utopia are so different, I think I'm getting the most out of them by watching them on different days.

I've had a lot of fun watching S3. There are a few not-so-good episodes in the early-to-mid part of the series, but from Human Nature onwards it's such brilliance (and I generally enjoyed 42, too, as long as I put the science and logic departments of my brain to sleep). The over-emphasis on Martha's crush on the Doctor doesn't bother me as much this time around, probably because I knew to expect it so it's easier to not pay so much attention to it. I love Martha even more this time around, and besides, Freema is so gorgeous and I love her voice and guh. It's also interesting picking up the Saxon references and other things foreshadowing things in the final episodes, now that I know what's coming. And S3 is the beginning of the Tenth Doctor that I really, really adore. It's maybe odd because he's less likeable here than in S2 - first there's the way he often makes Martha feel second-best and takes half a season to even allow her to stick around (rather than just "one trip more"), and then there'll be the stuff with Jack. But I guess that's exactly what makes it more interesting. Characters with issues are fascinating. Guess that's why I became such an intense Doctor/Jack shipper after this season, too. With that relationship, definitely not running out of issues any time soon.

Anyway, I think Tennant's acting also improved tons between S2 and S3, he's just a lot more detailed and complex and interesting at this point. And while I found much of the Rose/Ten interaction in S2 cute, and enjoyed the connection they had, I also have to say that their "exclusive mutual admiration society" got a bit much and is not half as interesting as the issue-wrought relationships and complexities of S3.

Reminds me, I still need to write up my thoughts on Torchwood S1. Because at this rate I'll be watching S2 very soon, and would be nice to write up my main thoughts before that. Going to try to do it soon.