briarwood | Randomness

Today is artist claiming day in

sncross_bigbang. I'm signed up as both a writer and an artist. As a writer, this day is nerve-wracking...I'm always convinced no one will want my fic. So far I'm unclaimed. It's terrible for my ego :(

It's my first time as a big bang artist and I had my eye on three stories from the original sign ups. There were four or five others I thought I could do, but three that I really felt good about. Only two of those made the list...and it was a real hard choice. Maybe the other one will go unclaimed and I can volunteer to do both :)

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My OU course is over! Today was the deadline for the final assignment but I was done last week - in plenty of time. Now I'm free until later this year, when I have to decide whether to continue or give this up as a bad idea. A lot of that will depend on whether my workplace will continue to fund my studies. Frankly, doing the course cut into my fannish fun too much for my comfort. If I go on, I'll almost certainly have to quit a lot of the stuff I love most...and having to pay for that privilege? Not appealing. But we'll see. I don't have to decide anything yet.

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Poppy is much improved. She's back to her old, happy self, actually, though she still prefers to walk on three legs. The vet saw her again last night and told us part of the wire holding her leg together has to come out. This was a surprise as we understood the whole thing to be permenent. It won't be yet, and the vet assured us it's a simple procedure, but I'm a bit - no, a lot - worried that any more pain in that leg is going to set her back a long way. She's got to start walking properly or the muscles will waste. And she's got to go through the same thing with the other leg once this is over.

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I saw Whip It last Saturday - fabulous movie directed by Drew Barrymore and starring Ellen Page. Really, those two names say it all. I planned on seeing another movie afterward, but I felt so rotten - bad cold - I went to Bute Park for a picnic lunch instead. That was nice. I met puppies being walked in the park and got to watch seagulls on the river. I almost took the riverboat out to Cardiff Bay, but I'm absolutely not spending unneccessary money for three months (I'm saving up for Roadhouse Con) so I resisted that temptation. If I've saved enough by the end of the month I'll treat myself next picnic.

Then I headed home and spent the rest of the weekend being miserable in bed. But I'm all better now and ready to bounce again. Well...bounce a little :)

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And finally...

Anyone here watch Castle or White Collar? I keep hearing about them but no one ever explains what the show is actually about when they pimp! I just want to know if it's my kind of genre.

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Oh, one last thing.

krazykipper and

geonncannon - have you seen Legend of the Seeker? 'Cause if you haven't, you both should. You'll love it! (Geonn - mostly season 2. Trust me.)

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I watch both, but I'm off to work. If no one else clues you in, I'll give you the synopses later.
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I watch and love both Castle and White Collar. They're both dramas with a comic/light edge to them. Not gruesome, lots of banter, some silly episodes, some serious.

Castle: crime writer who's friends with the mayor of New York tags along with a detective, using her as research for his next book; the heroine is based on her. He's a goofy playboy type who has a charming teenage daughter and his mom lives with them too. Beckett, the detective is single, skeptical of him at first but he's too cute not to fall for. There's UST but it's all nicely simmering, not boiling and the secondary characters are very engaging. Castle does help with the cases quite a bit.

White Collar. Married FBI guy has hunted down Neal a lot over the years for White Collar crimes and when Neal breaks out of prison with only a month or so left, he finds out it's because Neal's girlfriend is missing. In exchange for N's help solving crimes (bit like Castle!) he keeps Neal out of prison, with a security anklet. Again, great supporting characters, lovely dynamic between Peter (FBI guy) his wife and Neal.

Thanks - I'd really appreciate it :)

I'm unclaimed, too. *quivers* My ego has crawled under my bed for shelter. It helps that I was one of the first claimed in the AU Big Bang. But.

Yeah...I always pick the crossovers no one wants to do. Nerve wracking, isn't it?

And I write het! Icky het! No wonder no one wants me :D

So crime-based, but not procedural?

Given that the only cop show I've ever really had time for is Sentinel...is it worth me checking them out?

Castle sounds like it might be...?

My crossover is with a book that people tend to read when they're quite young and think of as a children's book, so... despite the fact that it's gen, I suspect there's an element of "nooo, my childhoood".

Both shows have episodes built around cases but there's plenty of personal stuff in there, too. I'd say try them both; WC is incredibly slashy, Castle is very, very sweet. And watch more than just the pilots to get a feel for them.

Castle is brilliant. Beckett is a tough, streetwise cop. On a lot of those "an outsider/consultant tags along with the police" shows, you start to wonder how the cops solved cases on their own. Monk and Mentalist are a lot like that. The cops stand around while the expert wanders around and closes the case.

But Beckett? No. You always get the feeling Beckett would have gotten to it eventually, when she's not the one stumping Castle with her revelations. There's a reason he picked her to shadow. She's tough, sensitive, and awesome. She shows emotion without sacrificing a drop of strength and she shows you that she earned her position as the head detective.

I think you'll really like Castle. Every character works. My biggest fear was the fact that Castle lives with his mother and his teenage daughter, and I was afraid they'd be show-killers. But they are so perfect, and his daughter is brilliant. I forget she's only 16 sometimes. Loooooove her.

Give it a shot, I think you'll like it. :D

As for Legend of The Seeker, I watched bits and pieces of an episode because I had to write a Cara/Kahlan drabble. I may have to check out more of it! Kahlan is supremely hot. And I know Cara locked lips with Charisma Carpenter, which is enough to convince me it's worth a look. ;-D

I never watch just the pilot...not unless I really hate it. I need six eps to know if I love a show :)

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll be checking both out.

Oh, is yours the Dark Is Rising fic? I never read that. My best friend loved it but I was really fussy about stories at that age. If it was about boys and didn't have animals, I wasn't interested :)

Cool - thanks. My thing is I can enjoy a lot of shows, but I rarely get invested unless there's some SF or supernatural element to it; doesn't sound like these two have that. But I'm convinced I should check it out.

And I know Cara locked lips with Charisma Carpenter, which is enough to convince me it's worth a look. ;-D

First ep of season 2. The Mord Sith are very gay: all that naked communal bathing... But, really, it's the Cara/Kahlan thing - they're the hottest couple since Xena and Gabby. Which I guess isn't shocking, as LotS is from the same stable.

Yep. I didn't read it until I was sixteen. It's probably my favourite book now.

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What Jane said. But I'd like to add my thumbs-up for both.

Castle has a little-boy excitement about solving cases, proposing wild theories that often spark an idea that helps the team solve the problem; IMO the detectives at the PD tend to regard him as that slightly dotty neighbor that everyone likes. They tease, but accept him. And I love the relationship with his teen daughter and his eccentric-actress mother; they have some very real moments of coming together and being there for each other. (Although the poor daughter has had to grow up far more mature than either her father or grandmother.)

White Collar is more complex, with a many-layered relationship between the con man and the FBI agent. They have very different views of life, but each can't help respecting and learning from the other. And the FBI agent's wife is not 'just' a wife; she's a successful entrepreneur with her own business. She also understands that sometimes her husband's job comes first without pouting and making him 'pay' for it (as in too many TV wives). They tell each other the truth instead of blowing up over misunderstandings (as, again, in too many TV-couples).

I have both on my list to buy the DVDs when they come out; both are well worth re-visiting when "there's nothing good on".
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