The Hedgehog Won't Be Buggered At All

[swatkat]

* Hey guys, have you heard about this Cuddy fest thing going on? You probably have, but let me tell you about it again anyway:

cuddy_fest!

Shiny fic prompts!
Cuddy/Amber - desperate administrative need
Western AU. Cuddy as inkeeper/bartender. (Gen/het/slash)
Missing scenes: Post Human Error, Cuddy hires Chase and Cameron to work for her at PPTH.
One thing that happens when Cuddy drinks? She dances! (and pretty damn well, actually)
Cuddy/Foreman - No strings attached.
and many, many more...

Shiny Art Prompts!

You know you want to...

I'm particularly pleased with the fact that people have been claiming art prompts. We were worried that it wouldn't work, but people are coming to play, and that makes me happy. I'm also happy with the gen and House/Cuddy claims. But you know what would make me happier? Cuddy/Other people, and MOAR genfic. Please? *bats eyelashes*

* roga met David Shore and then wrote an awesome write-up of the event. No juicy spoilers for S5, I'm afraid, but a lot of interesting stuff about Jewishness on the show, among other things.

* Mary McDonell did a wonderful interview with Zap2it, where she says nice things about Laura and Lee and Adama. (delle, you must read it!) This bit made me laugh:

Do you think she also sees herself as a mother figure to him?

Yes, I do. But because it's Battlestar Galactica and the writers have the dignity to not write the cliche, it's really just in the sensation of the experience. She's more like an aunt. I think she loves him. And part of what she loves about him is that he's such a royal pain in the ass and he's such a man of the people. Under different circumstances, she'd be like, you're right. In this circumstance, it's like, you're pissing me off, keep your mouth shut, what is your son doing, [Adama]? We've got a ship to land on some planet somewhere, and he's talking about the government!

...

It was also sort of familial.

Yes, it was a little bit like mother and son trying to get dad to stop drinking and go to work!

Ahahaha.

I want to write sappy fic about Adama and his crazy, dysfunctional family now.

* Iron Man fandom, you are made of awesome. Thank you for all the Pepperlove. ♥

* The other day I read Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. I've been meaning to read it for ages; I have high regard for Roy - I've met her in person and read her non-fiction (and while I think much of her politics is posturing, you cannot deny the power of her political writings), and I had been seriously looking forward to reading this. And I was seriously... underwhelmed. Quite possibly because I read Midnight's Children right before this, and I couldn't help feeling that she was trying to do a Rushdie (without the humour and the problematic gender issues), and... it didn't work. For me, anyway. And I discovered an important thing - that while I LOVE dysfunctional (and dysfunctional family narratives; hello, Battlestar Galactica), I need humour and happiness and affection and functionality (in suitable doses) for the dysfunctional to work. I need all this, so that when the dysfunctional hits you, it *hurts*, because you've already grown to love these characters and you've seen them be happy and normal (in their way). That's why BSG's version of HAPPINESS = DOOOM works for me so much (or Joss Whedon's, for that matter) - it hurtsss us, precious, and we keep going back for more. I suppose we have it easier in fanfiction, because the dysfunctional world has already been created for us - in original fiction, especially in novels, you have to indulge in considerable world-building and character development, *without* affecting the story's pace. Rushdie does this with panache in Midnight's Children, and while I admit that the novel *really* picks up only after the introduction of the Midnight's Children, he keeps you sufficiently interested in the characters to read on. With this book on the other hand, I had to *make* myself read. I felt no sympathy whatsover for the protagonists despite their admittedly screwed-up lives. Roy spends a lot of time in building up the atmosphere (and it is very beautiful at places), but there's something off about her world-building and character development (also, the plot moves at a glacial pace), which is... off-putting.

Comments

[delle.livejournal.com]

I loved her interview. And I think she hit Lee on the head! I also watched her video interviews on Sci Fi (have you seen them?) and all I can say is that I now have a HUGE girlcrush on MM.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO WRITE ME SOME LAURA/BILL DAMMIT

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

She did! I've seen a few interviews, and I agree, how awesome is she? *joins you in the girlcrush brigade*

I second the sentiment. God, why is all the Bill/Laura out there so *bad*?

[goddesspharo.livejournal.com]

I love The God Of Small Things! I actually liked it better than Midnight's Children, but I read MC second so that could have a little bit to do with it. With Rushdie's novel, while it was well-crafted, I couldn't help but think that it really dragged for a good chunk of it. I thought the different unexpected paths that the lives of the characters took in Roy's novel were heartbreaking (especially the mother's) and even those characters that on the surface where very unsympathetic (like the grandma), she did a good job of providing enough nuance so that you understood them and could feel bad. But more importantly, I loved, loved, loved Roy's vivid imagery and general style of writing. It was almost...poetic.

I do, however, agree that there are serious similarities, thematically, in the two works. In fact, I think I wrote a paper once on their different uses of history and magical realism. That was fun to write.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

I guess I was expecting more from Roy, after having heard so much about the novel and having enjoyed her political stuff so much? I found Small Things grim and humourless, and that may have been one of the reasons why I disliked it so much. (The suffocating atmosphere, I think, was intentional) It is lyrical and atmospheric in parts, but I don't know. I just couldn't *get* into Rahel's narrative very much.

Whereas Rushdie. I despise a lot of the things he says; most of his later work is unreadable; MC is clunky and has *serious* gender issues. But - the setting! It's treatment of the Partition and the Emergency! It's historiographic metafiction at its finest, I think, and that's why I enjoyed it so much, more than Small Things and its, well, small things.

Part of my dislike of Small Things may also have something to do with my general irritation with Indian writing in English. Hmm. *scratches head*

I do, however, agree that there are serious similarities, thematically, in the two works. In fact, I think I wrote a paper once on their different uses of history and magical realism. That was fun to write.

Ooh, that sounds fun indeed! I was actually thinking of what it would be like to do a comparative study of the treatment of history in both novels. *g*