Arduinna

Apparently more than 40 days of posting every day wasn't enough to ingrain the habit, as my one-day "no, really, it's okay if I take a break" amnesty for myself promptly turned into 20 days barring a couple of brief Yuletide interruptions, during which my brain started sliding right back to "eh, that's not important enough to post" about things, and "eh, I'll post something tomorrow".

Partly I blame tv, of which there is suddenly far too much - and there's more starting up over the next couple of weeks. I'm already behind! I'm going to have to start weeding things out pronto. It's so hard to break my old conditioning that I should watch all the genre tv I like even somewhat, because what if there's never any more, and what if I don't know what other fans are talking about (only you can cure fannish illiteracy!), and and and. But there's always more, and the options are either to watch ALL the tv and not have time to do anything else, or watch some of the tv and maybe be able to get into discussions or read(/write) fic or watch(/make) vids, too.

Also, though, I've been way more social than usual in the last few weeks, both fannishly and otherwise. I used to know more fans in the Boston area, but we drifted off in different directions years ago and lost touch, so mostly I just hang out with the same very tiny crowd with occasional out-of-town visitors (not helped by my sky-high levels of introversion and homebody-ness *g*). But it's good to meet people, which is what I/we have been doing lately. Good dinners, good conversations, faces to go with names on the internet. Win! It just also takes up a lot of my social energy that would otherwise go into interacting online.

October has also been Wedding Month; I had a post-elopement reception to attend two weeks ago for a dear niece (and her equally dear new husband <3), and last weekend was a friend's wedding, which I'd been looking forward to all summer and which more than lived up to expectations. Both were huge fun, but also pretty social-energy draining.

But really, a lot of it is the tv. I get home at night and there's hours of catching up to do, and then I'm too tired to do anything else.

Still, some stuff I can't give up:

Person of Interest, because oh my show. ♥ ♥ ♥ I've seen that other people are having some issues with this season so far, so mostly I'm just ignoring other people's posts and the chat comm, and avoiding the IRC chat (woe); POI is my happy place and I want to keep that. (So in this one case, please don't comment to point out all the things I should be unhappy about. *g*) ( I get that people think it's weaker this season, and I just kinda don't care (spoilers through 3x04) )

Elementary: still fun, although I'm still not fannish about it and probably never will be. But I'm always happy to realize my DVR recorded it and I have it to watch. <3

Haven, which never pissed me off last year the way it did some people, and which this year has been making me incredibly happy. ( ♥ ♥ ♥ (and spoilers through 4x06) )

Grimm, which is back this week (yay!) and which I expect to continue making me happy *g* Certainly the commercials are. <3

The Voice, about which I'm not at all fannish, but which I enjoy a lot. My favorite part is the blind auditions, where I'm not invested in anyone (and don't even watch the backstory bits, so I don't know what sad stories people have), and everyone has an equal shot, and I can just enjoy it all no pressure. But it's still fun even when I have to ff through stressy bits, or worry about people being knocked out. Some of the battles so far have been amazing.

Stuff that I'm sticking with for now, but that may wind up being cut:

( Sleepy Hollow )

( White Collar (spoilers for season premiere) )

( Once Upon a Time (spoilers through 3x04) )

Stuff I've either given up on, or probably will in the next week or two:

Agents of SHIELD; it's entirely possible that by the end of the season it will have shaken out into something I'd like more, but right now it's not there. I just don't care about any of the characters, and several of them actively annoy me. Which makes me cranky, dammit, because MCU is one of my fannish happy places, and I wanted this to be part of that for me. Hmf.

Likewise Blacklist; I liked it a lot right out of the gate, and that hasn't changed, but I don't particularly like any of the characters as people, ( and... )

And also likewise ( Once Upon a Time in Wonderland )

I feel like I'm forgetting a dozen different things, but I've been writing this for days, and need to post it to clear my mental queue so I can maybe start posting other things.

And now there is new POI to watch!

To keep myself busy and online so I don't forget to register, I wrote up the world's longest, rambliest post. \o/ There are spoilers for practically everything here...

I'm settled in for a nice snowy weekend -- lots of cat food, plenty of people food, clean laundry, and a good parking spot. (... I'm a little compulsive about parking spots in bad weather, after 20 years of unassigned street parking in a neighborhood where snow emergencies mean there are too many cars vying for juuuust too few spots, especially given how many people don't know how to shovel, argh, so we wind up losing potential spots to crappy shoveling jobs. But I digress.)

This is going to be much better than last weekend's 27 inches in 24 hours; it'll be more like 4-ish inches in 24 hours, just enough so I can indulge my hermit-y ways and not budge till I have to go to work on Tuesday.

My only concrete plan for today is to sign up for Vividcon, yay! I can't believe it's already time again. All my fannish plans keep winding up on the backburner, but at least maybe this will kick the vidding in the butt, because if reg is here, deadlines are nearly upon us.

I've grabbed a bunch of tv that I probably won't have time to watch, but it looks interesting enough that maybe I'll give it a try at some point, like The Americans and Cracked. I'm banking them for the moment, for some day I'm looking for something new to watch and can marathon through.

I've been watching a bunch of other stuff, though. A couple I've only seen the pilot for so far:

( Zero Hour )

( The Following )

And then there were the shows that ended recently:

( Leverage )

( Fringe )

( Alphas )

And then, of course, there are the shows that are currently airing and ongoing. Anyone else remember how, 15 years ago, we used to fret every year that this year would be the last year of fannish tv? How we hung on cancellation news, because if X got cancelled, what would we watch?

I kinda miss those days, to tell you the truth. How is there this much tv all the damn time? I feel like I never talk about any of it, because I'm always racing to catch up to just watching it. And for all that I tend to really like the summer shows, man, I miss having a few months every year to catch up on stuff I missed, or rewatch things, or get involved in complicated discussions about What! Might! Happen! (... with other unspoiled people, because for me the fun is guessing, not knowing in advance).

So instead, have a bunch of brief overall reactions to shows, with only a little specific commentary, just so people have some idea of what it is I'm watching these days:

( Person of Interest )

( Elementary )

( Lewis )

( Once Upon a Time )

( White Collar )

( Revenge )

Shows that I'm waiting to come back:

( Grimm )

( Burn Notice )

( Haven )

I know as soon as I post this I'll come up with another half dozen shows I meant to mention. Oh well.

I would write about the reality tv I'm watching, but this is already an absurdly long post. Suffice to say, my favorite shows -- Amazing Race, Project Runway, Top Chef -- still have me, but I'm burning out from overload, and less invested every season. All three shows have had aired four complete seasons since December 2010, and all three are in or about to start another season. I hate to give any of them up for completist reasons, but man. I am just burning out.

There are a bunch of Disney references scattered throughout the season, and probably lots more I missed since I haven't watched that many recent Disney movies (where by "recent" I mean "in the last 25 years" ahem).

But I did catch some, and more on my vidding rewatch. This one needed a couple of videos to cover the stuff I saw, so some of the cuts have embeds as well as still shots.

( Wish upon a star )

( Fantasia )

( Mickey Mouse )

( Cinderella castle fireworks )

( the dwarves from Snow White - pic and video )

( Snow White and her bluebirds - pic and video )

Next up, the final post, with bits and pieces of things that didn't fit into any of the themed posts.

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OUaT s1 picspam series

Part 1: Season one takes place in a forest

Part 2: Regina and Rumple: colors and castles

Part 3: Clothes make the match

Part 4: Clothes make the point

Part 5: You are here!

Part 6: Bits and pieces

Okay, I blame Tom and Lorenzo for this entirely. I started reading them for Project Runway recaps ("Project Rungay"), then started poking at other stuff they write. One of their favorite shows is Mad Men - which I don't like, so was cheerfully skipping the recaps for, till I stumbled over their followup Mad Style recaps, which looks at each episode through the lens of the clothing people are wearing, the rooms they're standing in, body language, color, things like that.

I was fascinated. I wound up reading a lot of them, and I've been reading them ever since. Other than a few basic things I've never really noticed the underlying meaning in things like clothes on tv (honestly, mostly just that SG-1 has always, always dressed in identical uniforms but equally always worn in four different ways, to clearly mark them as individuals who make up a solid unit).

But just as vidding makes you notice things like color, TLo can make you notice things like clothes. And once I started watching OUaT closely for visual cues, they started leaping out at me here, too.

Focusing on Storybrooke here, there are a few people on OUaT who dress individually -- Ruby is always in bright red, Archie is always in dull greens and other muted fall colors -- brown, rust. But the main characters are almost always dressed to reflect the interactions they're having that episode. Some of it's blatant (... for certain values of blatant), some of it's subtle, but it's there in pretty much every episode.

I will spare you screencaps from all 22 episodes, I promise.

But I won't spare you screencaps from *some* of the 22 episodes...

( Meet Mary Margaret, Emma, and Regina, together in the same scene for the first time )

( Regina and Mary Margaret, Regina and Emma )

( Mary Margaret, Emma, and Henry )

But it's not all about the women (er, and children). Entirely. Sometimes a boy shows up to entertain them.

( Mary Margaret and David )

( Emma and Sheriff Graham )

( Regina the seductress )

There are tons of little connections and cues all over the place in this show, and the more you look, the more you see.

Next up, more clothes, but in a different vein: clothes that make a point, specifically about episode 8.

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OUaT s1 picspam series

Part 1: Season one takes place in a forest

Part 2: Regina and Rumple: colors and castles

Part 3: You are here!

Part 4: Clothes make the point

Part 5: Disney references

Part 6: Bits and pieces

I was hoping to get this done before season 2 started up, but I'll have to settle for getting it done before season 2 gets too far in.

This past spring, therienne found a song that would be perfect for OUaT, and we started vidding it. (You can find the vid You can find the vid here on Dreamwidth or here on AO3.)

When you vid something, you're looking at it completely differently. Usually the sound is off so you're not distracted by dialogue, and you're looking specifically for visual information and cues.

So I started getting hit with these cues, and being boggled at how much I'd missed. And figured I'd share!

This is really image-heavy, fair warning.

The first thing I realized was that everyone in Storybrooke still lives in the forest.

( Starting with Granny's diner )


( And Mary Margaret's school )


( And the vet )


( Jefferson, too )


( And there's Regina's office )


( Even Rumpelstiltskin is in the forest )


Not every place is in a forest; some are in gardens.

( Like, say, Granny's bed & breakfast )


( And Kathryn, who lives in a bower because she's a sheltered princess )


( Mary Margaret is also a princess... )


The only prominent secondary character who didn't seem to follow this mode was Archie. He has stripes on his office walls, much like the stripes on Henry's bedroom walls -- but Henry isn't part of the story, and Archie is, so this was confusing.

( Until I figured it out )

I never noticed any of that when I was watching live. I'm really impressed with the set people on this show. Like, did you notice any trends there?

( Look at the birch branches and trunks )

I've got a series of posts like this, which I'll spread out a bit. Next up, Regina and Rumple and their castles.

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OUaT s1 picspam series

Part 1: You are here!

Part 2: Regina and Rumple: colors and castles

Part 3: Clothes make the match

Part 4: Clothes make the point

Part 5: Disney references

Part 6: Bits and pieces