Words of Wood

This is a post for squeeing about Wolf 359! If you have not listened to the show check out my rec post for more. But since I have apparently convinced a few people to give the show a chance, and since I have more friends already listening than I realised, I thought it would be fun to have a post to chat about it!

Please feel free to link this around, I want to find more W359 friends too!

Main rule: use the comment title to say up to what ep you're talking about. I am very spoiler-phobic and would like to help other people stay unspoiled to the extent that is possible. And in a thread talking up to a specific episode, don't talk about episodes past that point. Make a new thread.

I will try to link the threads from with their comment titles in the main body of the post so you can click and avoid seeing other comments:
General season 1 talk (eps 1 - 13)
General season 2 talk (eps 14 - 28)
General season 3 talk (eps 29 - 46)
General season 4 talk (eps 47 - current)


Also I may as well use this to promote my fic, and please do likewise for your own fic/art/icons! I have written so far a 2.5k Minkowski h/c fic, set in s4 status quo: Anchors
and a tumblr prompt snippet set in same timeframe: talent night
(Btw I'm still accepting W359 fic prompts generally. I need to keep writing!)

Come and squee! Please!

I have a place at my first-choice university for their PGCE teacher training course! I've been aiming towards here for years, and I'm a bit stunned that this is finally happening.

I'm going to be a teacher.

I am picking up the December posting meme again, because I'm just that awesome!

imbecamiel asked, What makes you love a book?

The short answer to this is: characters. I need protagonists that I like and sympathise with. They don't necessarily have to be good people, but I still have to empathise with them (even if it's while simultaneously thinking, "Wow, you're a terrible person!" I'm having a problem coming up with an example off the top of my head, but the movie In Bruges would be a perfect one. If it were a book.) When I don't care about anyone I tend to wonder why I'm reading a book at all and wind up totally hating it. (See: Wuthering Heights.)

Also definitely important is the story itself, and the worldbuilding, and how both of those relate back to the characters. I like plots which are expanding, and uplifting, and end with the characters being better and deeper than they were before. I love stories which are difficult, and dangerous, but are ultimately about growth and joy. Sam Vimes and October Daye and Tiffany Aching and Miles Vorkosigan and Lirael and Tris.

There are some genres in which I'm more likely to find books I love -- sci-fi and fantasy over real life; although Anne Fine's All Bones and Lies is one of my comfort reads, and "traditional" male-dominated SFF leaves me cold. Guy Gavriel Kay's alternate history over actual history, with exceptions for Rosemary Sutcliff. Stories about women. Stories about young girls being powerful and changing the world.

I love... imagination. Patriarchal romance is boring when there are lesbian sky-pirates and bloggers documenting the zombie apocalypse and female faerie private investigators and Regency academic magicians and crystal dragons which are the secret hearts of mountains. I love stories which show that there's more, and characters who embrace that.

These are books which I love.

I feel I should do That Thursday Book Meme thing, just because I actually do like talking about books a lot but never really get around to it. I mean, I'm rubbish at actual reviews, but I love flailing about specific things!


What I've just read
The Will of the Empress, by Tamara Pierce. I was gifted Battle Magic by Eleanor's parents for Christmas, and it made me remember how much I loved the Circle of Magic books, particularly Tris. So I went on a Tris kick and re-read all of the ones with her. (Tris is a character I severely over-empathise with. She seriously is me, even down to looks! In temperament and even way of speaking we are identical. It's hilarious.)


What I'm reading now
How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea, by Mira Grant. It's a novella set in the Newsflesh universe, and it's my favourite one so far (I'm 62% through, according to my kindle.) In it, Mahir goes to Australia and is horrified by everything. It is hilarious and incredibly adorable, and Mahir was one of my very favourites in the trilogy so I'm delighted to have a whole story for him. Also I love the way that, as opposed to the rest of the world, Australia's reaction to the zombie apocalypse was, "Meh, the country's always been trying to kill us. This isn't terribly impressive."

My favourite bit so far has been Mahir's horror at being told that even if he's being attacked by a zombie koala, he could still get in deep legal trouble for shooting it. Because it's easy to get more humans, but koalas are endangered.


What I'm going to read next
Brsis lent me her copy of Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, which I am really excited about reading! Although it has already been STOLEN by Eleanor, so I will need to wrest it back first.

So my Pacific Rim squee needs its own post. Please do not squee-harsh*; squee-harshing makes me sad.

PACIFIC RIM I LOVED IT SO MUUUUUUCH

( Things which I loved, in list form: )

Also I now feel I really need all of the crossover fic for every single fandom. Especially Peter as a Marshal and Neal and Diana as Jaeger pilots. (This would be the best and you cannot convince me otherwise.)

*This is not to say we can't talk about how things could be EVEN BETTER, especially in terms of things like diversity and so-forth. I don't count that as squee-harshing. Just for the record.

*hangs head in shame* Yep, I missed a week. Apologies, I got eaten by Warehouse 13 and forgot about my life.

Book 1 (Water), 11: The Great Divide & 12: The Storm



( Thoughts )

COMMENTING RULES
1. No character bashing, please.
2. No future episode spoilers in the spoiler-free thread (and comments containing them will be screened), but expect to find them in others! If you're talking about massive plot twists it's nice to put a spoiler warning in the header, but it's not required.
3. Spoilers for Legend of Korra are also fair game everywhere except the spoiler-free thread; again, labelling them is friendly.
4. Feel free to illustrate your squee with caps. And gifs!

SPOILER-FREE THREAD (Only on LJ; let me know if I need to add one to the DW post too.)

Apologies, this is extremely late!

Book 1 (Water), Episode 9: The Waterbending Scroll & 10: Jet



( Read more... )

COMMENTING RULES
1. No character bashing, please.
2. No future episode spoilers in the spoiler-free thread (and comments containing them will be screened), but expect to find them in others! If you're talking about massive plot twists it's nice to put a spoiler warning in the header, but it's not required.
3. Spoilers for Legend of Korra are also fair game everywhere except the spoiler-free thread; again, labelling them is friendly.
4. Feel free to illustrate your squee with caps. And gifs!

SPOILER-FREE THREAD (Only on LJ; let me know if I need to add one to the DW post too.)

Sorry, this is up a bit late! I'll put my thoughts in comments in the interests of actually making this post more quickly.

Book 1 (Water), Episodes 5: The King of Omashu & 6: Imprisoned



COMMENTING RULES
1. No character bashing, please.
2. No future episode spoilers in the spoiler-free thread (and comments containing them will be hidden), but expect to find them in others! If you're talking about massive plot twists it's nice to put a spoiler warning in the header, but it's not required.
3. Spoilers for Legend of Korra are also fair game everywhere except the spoiler-free thread; again, labelling them is friendly.
4. Feel free to illustrate your squee with caps. And gifs!

SPOILER-FREE THREAD (Only on LJ; let me know if I need to add one to the DW post too.)

Hi! Welcome to the first part of the Avatar: the Last Airbender watch/rewatch, hosted by sholio and myself. There will be a post each week, and then we watch two episodes (20 minutes each) and discuss/squee in the comments.

Book 1 Episodes 1: The Boy In The Iceberg & 2: The Avatar Returns

In which there are penguin-otters (seriously, they are the cutest, I want one), Katara is a bb waterbender, Sokka is really brave, Zuko is looking for his honour, and there is a boy in an iceberg.



RULES
1. No character bashing, please.
2. No future episode spoilers in the spoiler-free thread, but expect to find them in others! If you're talking about massive plot twists it's nice to put a spoiler warning in the header, but it's not required.
3. Spoilers for Legend of Korra are also fair game everywhere except the spoiler-free thread; again, labelling them is friendly.
4. Feel free to illustrate your squee with caps. And gifs!

Spoiler-free thread

It's the first of December and I won mini_wrimo! Unsure of my exact word count until I type up, but I definitely wrote over 500 words per day.

I SHALL PARTY.

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Reminder that you should totally sign up to my Christmas Card post, so I can send you a card with Exciting Things inside! (Note: excitement levels may vary.)