General Chatter

[lls_mutant]

I feel like I've been quiet. Probably because I have been. Eating hospital was a success, but it was draining.

Yes, eating hospital was a definite success. Food still has to be presented to Toby in very specific ways, but we've doubled the number of foods he'll eat. Before, he would eat waffles, pancakes, baby oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce, muffins, jelly sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, crackers and anything with a chocolate chip. Now we've added peaches, pears, bananas, carrots, broccoli, green beans, spaghetti with meat sauce, and chicken nuggets. Plus, he's sampled strawberries, celery, and (voluntarily asked for) baked potato soup. HUGE change.

So, we currently have to do three structured meals a day, and plus the regular meals. Exhausting, but worth it.

Trevor is getting so close to walking. He runs around with his little pushcart laughing, and oh my god, he's so flipping CUTE. He's such a happy baby- I've never seen such a happy baby before. He's really starting to get more of a personality, and he's SO cuddly. You just can't help but squeeze him.

Looking forward to tonight's episode. Only four more hours left of BSG canon! I'm hoping they manage to resolve everything that needs to be resolved, though. Although I had a really weird, fortunately probably not true thought.



I know the popular theory is that Kara is the first human-Cylon hybrid and Daniel is her father. What if the first part of that is right and LEOBEN was her father? Well, not the one that's got the sexual obsession with her, but the others. Yeesh. I need to not be thinking about this.

Still wishing that some character would actually acknowledge that Gaeta is dead and that's sad, but not holding my breath :P



Believe it or not, I have been watching other things besides BSG. Like .

WTF? Daphne is still alive?????? Look, it's not about Daphne at this point. It's about stopping with the fake deaths already. ENOUGH, OKAY? Sheesh.

It's nice to finally see Matt and Mohinder get some screen time together. Although remember Molly, guys? The little girl you were raising together? When you're trying to drive home how awful it is that people are being rounded up, maybe mention HER? It's called continuity. Try some.

I'm curious as to who "Rebel" is. I was thinking Nathan, and then maybe Angela Petrelli, but now I'm going for the Asian guy in the control room. Don't know why. Just am. Maybe he's got some power that he can automatically send text messages without a phone.

Totally convinced that the creepy head honcho of the operation is a.) Sylar's real father, and b.) has a power himself.

Sylar's padawan of evil is driving me bonkers. How does Sylar put up with it?

I liked the Adam plotline in that it showed how irrational this whole thing was. Here you've got a guy with a power that is in no way threatening who used it to do better when he was on the swim team being rounded up although he's done nothing wrong. That's good stuff. The idea of Claire (and Sandra, who is quickly becoming my favorite character and I SO want to see a fight between her and Angela Petrelli) seeing the injustice in that and fighting it is cool. The whole Adam and Claire kissing thing? EEWWWWWWWW. She was SEVENTEEN. He was most definitely not.

But let's talk about how cool Sandra is getting. Obviously no one's dummy, and obviously fed up with being treated like she is. But you know what I REALLY want to see? A crossover where Sandra Bennet meets up with Ellen Tigh. It would be like Thelma and Louise on some serious steroids. Come on- you KNOW that would be cool. (Plus, I'd really like to see the actresses play sisters, because they totally could.) I'm really liking Sandra, which is great, because the female characters on Heroes are boring me these days.

I've given up taking Heroes remotely seriously, which is sad, but I still like watching it.



And of course there's Lost.

Let's totally ignore the time travel stuff, because time travel makes my head hurt. Lissa's ten things about Lost:

1.) Terry Quinn is AWESOME and totally rocked the Locke episode.
2.) I LIKE Sawyer/Juliet. Stay away from Kate, Sawyer! Stick with Juliet!
3.) I also love that Sawyer FINALLY mentioned the eyeliner on Richard. I laughed so hard, because I've always wondered about that.
4.) Love the actor playing Daniel Faraday. The character kind of annoys me. Wonder what happened to him three years later.
5.) Less Jack = better show.
6.) Glad to see The Boys reunited in Jin, Hurley, and Sawyer. They just need Charlie back.
7.) I am still having much love for Sayid and Sun. If they ever get together as a fighting force, I'm totally on their side, because being on the other side would scare me.
8.) I LOVED that Sayid was doing real charity work after he got back and before he went all black leather (whoo!) for Ben.
9.) Was anyone REALLY shocked when Daniel's mother was the watch lady?
10.) I'm so fucking confused as to the rest of it. I really am.



I've also been reading Watchmen, which I won't say much about because I'm only 2/3 of the way through. But it is as awesome as the fanboys say, and I'm loving it. I'm finding myself reading it more slowly because I don't want to be done with it. That's always good. I want to see the movie, but there's no way it will happen this weekend as I already promised Howard he could take Sunday off. Maybe next weekend, but I'm dubious- I think there's too much going on.

And we've been catching up on How I Met Your Mother. Okay, would someone PLEASE give Neil Patrick Harris an Emmy already, please? The rest of the cast is awesome as well, but NPH is the jewel. He had me laughing so hard the other night my sides hurt. (Stuff- the one where Lily makes them go to her play and then he puts on a play to annoy her.)

It's funny. I was starting to think of making a list of bromances I really like: the Tigh-Adama relationship, the Ted-Marshall-Barney triangle, Harry-Ron, Jayne-Shepherd Book, Josh-Sam and Leo-Jed, and as I was thinking that I realized how few good girl friendships show up in the stuff I watch/read. I mean, there are strong female characters, but the closest BSG gets to a good girl friendship is Kat-Starbuck, HP doesn't really put one front and center, Firefly the best I could come up with was Kaylee-Inara, West Wing doesn't really have a good one... (How I Met Your Mother, though, has Lily-Robin, which so far I REALLY like, and then there's Buffy-Willow. I love Alyson Hannigan, apparently.) I suspect this is partly due to the fact I watch a lot of traditionally male-dominated areas, and I'm lucky to be getting characters like the ones I do. But note to self: make sure there are some awesome female-female relationships in my own novel. (Which actually helped, because I'm stuck on one of my plot threads and knowing that this is something I want to see kind of gave me a nice red arrow for a direction.)

Anyway, enough chatter. I should read or write or nap or clean or something. Hope everyone's having an awesome day!

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I realized how few good girl friendships show up in the stuff I watch/read.

I totally recommend The Middleman on that basis alone. Wendy is the protagonist, and her relationship with her BFF Lacey is front and center.

I mean, I also recommend it because it is made of sunshine and puppies and all good things, but it does have a great female friendship right at its heart.

[gioiaverdi.livejournal.com]

Great to hear that Toby's doing so well. I'd put my grandson, Zavian, up against Trevor for happiest child *evah*, but maybe kids are just getting happier - wouldn't it e great if that was the case?

[tin-o-biscuits.livejournal.com]

Hooray for awesome children!! *confetti* And hooray Watchmen!! *more confetti... I have a lot of confetti*

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Cool- I'll have to check it out. I need more female friendship stuff, especially where they don't just talk about men, sex, and clothes. Thanks!

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

It would! Zavian- that's a really neat name. How old is he?

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Confetti! Yay!! :)

[gioiaverdi.livejournal.com]

He turned 2 in January. He does occasionally get the 2 year old tantrums. They last all of - ooooh, 90 seconds.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is partly due to the fact I watch a lot of traditionally male-dominated areas, and I'm lucky to be getting characters like the ones I do.

Yeah, I think more traditionally female entertainment would probably have more in the way of female friendships, but that's not what appeals to me as much. I'd love a good mother-daughter or pseudo-mother daughter relationship or a strong female friendship or even competitive working relationship.

[blue-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly suspicious that Tigh and Ellen are her parents and Cavil cooked her up in a test tube. That's a little crack, but I really have thought Tigh was Kara's dad for like, seasons now.

Or that Kara is the cylon daughter of the Daniel who is part of Caprica and the whole way the humanoid cylons created by humans seem to work there.

The one big sexist thing BSG seems to do is pit all the women against each other. Females that could be friends just seem to end up contentious enemies- Roslin and Tory could have been friends, and seem to be casual friends but then they hate each other. Kat and Kara have epeen-measuring contests. Kara holds a gun to Roslin's head. D'Anna and Six never seem to be friends, just partners in sharing Gaius. It looks like Dee might be friends with Athena, or maybe she just likes babysitting. I think it seems to suggest that women with power can't be friends with each other and need to scheme for what the other women have (a lot of the reasons I don't like Dee in certain arcs are because I feel they unnecessarily pit her against Kara, even without Kara's knowledge (the whole risking her life to save Kara's was pretty bleak.))

[sambethe.livejournal.com]

Funny, Slate had an article yesterday that also bemoaned the lack of good girl friendships in BSG.

It's here: Chauvinist Pigs in Space: Why Battlestar Galactica is not so frakking feminist after all.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Yay for increased food repertoires - I notice all the new things are healthy choices. Do you have things to work on so you can continue to expand the menu at home? And a big awww to almost-walking Trevor. :)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really anything would be good. ::Sigh:: In some ways I suppose it makes sense. I mean, I can't even find adult women in real life to talk sci-fi with, and that's mainly what I'm talking about here. You know what would be really cool? If Olivia and Astrid in Fringe got some sort of positive relationship going. I'd like that.

::Sigh:: Problems with liking a male-dominated medium. ::uses her girly icon::

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I think the Tighs being Starbuck's parents would be AWESOME, although it sounds like Ellen never had any sort of kid. But it would be cool.

I'd agree with you about the pitting the women against each other, but on the other hand, except for Tigh and Adama, they do it to the men a lot, too. I'm trying to think of a strong male-male friendship outside of Tigh and Adama, and not coming up with anything that's lasted the series. But I'm brain dead right now.

Actually, after Tigh-Adama the two other strongest friendships that never went sexual (on screen) that I can think of were Kara-Helo and Gaeta-Dee. Which is kind of nice that they're male-female, but hey.

I do agree that I never liked the Dee-Kara competition angle. (Although I LOVED the scene where Dee had to save Kara, because I thought Dee was able to rise above it.) Dee's character really suffered in being married to Lee, and giving her a female friend (or hell, more interaction with Gaeta), or a rival on a professional level (I still love the idea of a Dee-Hoshi bitchfight) really would have helped. ::Sigh::

I saw someplace on sci fi that on BSG, if two humans were left they'd end up nuking each other. I'm starting to believe it.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'd actually already read it. I didn't agree with a lot of the points the author made, but it would be nice to see more girl-girl friendships. But as I was saying to blue_crow above, we don't see a lot of strong guy-guy friendships outside of Tigh-Adama, either. Everyone's screwing over everyone else. That's what makes it BSG.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah- we've been really pushing the healthy :)

We have a follow up appointment on Wednesday where they're going to start working out introducing new stuff at home. I guess right now they just wanted us to get set up with the whole idea of snacktime at home. I'm looking forward to starting to get some more in. I'm already seeing some big changes- he has more energy and he's not having nearly as painful movements.

Thanks! :)

[blue-crow.livejournal.com]

That's probably true, and the cylons would probably end up stabbing each other in the back again and again (resurrection or not).

I think they just sort of demonized Dee for a long time and I didn't really like her because of it- it was hard to when she was a nagging wife for that long. >.> I like a lot of the little moments with her, though, the ones during the D'Anna Interview episode and some of her Bill Therapy Sessions.

But they certainly don't spend a lot of time developing friendships. Mostly just sex or romance, short-term alliances for mutual benefit, or contentious rivalries that ended in death. Or just death.

The man friendships I really adore are the Tyrol Anders New Caprica bit and the Tyrol Helo let's drink and fight over Sharon bits. They don't seem to really continue beyond those times, but...

[tuppence1.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty blank on strong male friendships in BSG aside from Adama & Tigh too. Helo and Felix might even be the next one on the list, which is kind of amazing. But they've got a scene in Crossroads 1 which is notable in that *Helo* is expressing his worries to someone for a change. Considering he's always the guy checking on everyone, I found that noticeable. There's some background blocking there too. And there's the scene on the Demetrius in Faith as well. Although yes indeed, that didn't last until the end of the series. :(

IIRC from a podcast, Apollo and the Chief were supposed to be good friends. However, the only indication we ever got were their scenes together in TABFAYW, and Tyrol saying that Nicky should go to Apollo and Dee if he and Cally died in ADITL. I've gotta think that's been dropped completely. Helo (and Sharon) wave to Lee when Lee first arrives on Galactica in the mini-series, and Karl helps him drop the weight and hugs him when Lee leaves the military in Six of One. But that just might be Helo, being everybody's friend (it's amazing how much more I like Helo now that he's been allowed to fuck up.) Sam and Lee always gave off the sense that if it weren't for Kara, they'd be pretty good buddies. But almost all of this is background, or subtextual. Or podcasts (sigh.)

Something I find interesting about Kara - I might like her the best when she's basically being an older sister to Sharon. It happens like twice in the series, but there's a quiet sense of friendship there. It's a tiny little scene between the two of them in Flight of the Phoenix that I love most. Which is why I was really annoyed at that deleted scene in S4 where Sharon says to Kara that if she had her way, Kara would be tossed out of the airlock. Not really a rational response, I know.

Oh, hey! Cally and Seelix for a female friendship. It's not a foreground portrayal, but they definitely were friends. They bond in the Kobol scenes at the start of S2, Cally saves Seelix during the shootout when Seelix gets hit, and Cally's very pissed when Seelix isn't accepted into Viper training during Dirty Hands. Damn, I wish we'd gotten reaction from Seelix to Cally's death. And Emily and Roslin were a one episode wonder, but I loved their interaction.

Speaking of non-romance, do you know what I really wonder? What the Pegasus crew thought of Lee. Especially Narcho and Hoshi, who've gotten the most screentime of the bunch. Narcho seemed to actually like Lee a fair bit in Six of One - he was the guy leading the toasts to Apollo (and I think it might've been his first non-schmuck moment. Oh Narcho :) And Hoshi...well, there must've been some off-screen double-dates with him and Felix and Dee and Apollo. Which must've just been bloody bizarre, in some aspects. (Your new boyfriend's best friend is your former XO, married to your former CO? Weird.) Not something that we could spend screentime on I suppose - probably not important enough. But I do wonder.

[tuppence1.livejournal.com]

After watching Sorkin spill his psyche all over Studio 60, his work is pretty much ruined for me. That said, the Dana-Natalie friendship in Sports Night is one of my absolute favorite things that he wrote. They're friends in all aspects, and they have a great workplace synergy (kind of like Adama's and Tigh's actually.) One of my absolute favorite moments is Dana and Natalie having a conversation about Natalie not taking a fantastic job offer away from Sports Night (the show within the show.) It ends with Dana saying "Natalie, I don't think I tell you I respect you enough." Natalie, with this amazing look of absolute confidence simply says "Yes you do." Perfectly serene, utter confidence, and just total and complete friendship. Sorkin never wrote anything else like it (and great work by Felicity Huffman and Sabrina Lloyd), and I might even like it better than the Buffy & Willow friendship (which I also adore.)

This lack is a legacy of tv writers being men. I think it used to be everywhere on tv, that you didn't have female friendships. (You were doing well to have more than 1 female character.) And yeah, things are better in non-genre tv shows nowadays (Ugly Betty, Gray's Anatomy, etc.) But I mostly prefer genre shows too. I want the trend to spread to them.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Okay- someone needs to write a Gaeta/Hoshi Dee/Apollo double date fic. (Actually, I'm sort of working on it a little. I've got plans for a big Dee-Hoshi fic where it starts out with him hating her because he thinks he should have been XO on the Pegasus after Kendra and that she slept her way to the position, and she's hating him because he's giving her such a hard time and later because he ends up sleeping with Felix and sort of "steals" her best friend away. I have a feeling it's going epic, but I'm waiting to write it all because he's got at least a few lines in the finale from the looks of things.) Ahem,

Yeah, Narcho did seem to eventually like Lee- I really wish we'd see more of him as well. (Not helped by the fact I ficced him and completely fell in love with him :P ) I agree, it would be cool to know more about them.

You're right about Cally and Seelix. That makes me smile. :) I wonder what Jean thought about Starbuck? They're sort of almost sisters-in-law, in a strange sort of way :)

That is amazing that Felix-Helo might be the next strongest male-male friendship on the list. It makes what happened to the Agathons during the mutiny even sadder, because while I REALLY think the Sunshine Boys were acting outside orders in terms of their ever-so-charming threats at Athena, Gaeta still had to have ordered them locked up. ::sniff:: But that's BSG, I suppose, everyone breaks everyone else's heart.

Which is the core of it there.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Dana-Natalie! You are totally right! I loved them!!! (I was a big Aaron Sorkin fan too, until Studio 60. My oldest son is even named Toby, although not after the character.) They were an awesome female friendship.

And yeah- I think, like I said, much of my issue is based in what I watch. I'd LOVE to see an Olivia-Astrid friendship develop on Fringe. ::Sigh:: But I suppose one step at a time!