RatCreature's Journal

The latest incident of this I've noticed was in this week's CSI: New York, but it's not really specific to that ep, so I don't think it needs a spoiler cut. So once again they examine photos taken by bystanders on their cell phones for evidence, and this is related to that weird "endless zoom and image enhancement" phenomenon in procedurals (and wow, do I wish photos and video really worked like that, that you somehow could extract all potential information rather than all actual information recorded, because then if you had a reference picture of an object and needed to see the detail of some part of the mechanism rather than the whole thing you could just zoom instead of cursing about how few easy to find photos there are just showing a small part of a thing in great detail), but I don't mean that exactly, though it is also a pet peeve of mine. It's that on top of the endless detail it never seems to happen that a significant portion of their relevant photos just suck too much, like maybe blurry because the person wobbled too much, completely over or under exposed, etc. This somehow annoys me because random tv people are apparently much better at taking snapshots than actual people, even if they are just using cell phones, are in a crowd, and not all sober.

Also, ( and this is a bit more specific so I cut, )

Now tv has inter-series crossovers too, that force you to watch the other show you don't know anything about? (I just found out that after I watched this week's CSI that it is a two parter and that the other half is an episode of some series called "Without a Trace" that I don't think I've ever seen. *grump*)

And here I thought only comics did this kind of thing.

I watched a couple of first season episodes of CSI: NY, and I they didn't impress me too much (though I liked them better than CSI: Miami), but the main thing that stuck in my mind is how horrible (and mismatched) the opening theme is. Who did come up with that? Whenever I hear it I have a strong urge to just turn it off to make the noise stop. It sort of overshadows the whole experience and not in a good way.

Untitled Highlander AU/Andromeda, by basingstoke. Het and slash (though there's no romantic focus, so it feels quite gen), Richie/Amanda, Duncan/Methos. (ca. 2,900 words)
Andromeda/Highlander
These are more glimpses at a universe than a fully realized story, but the setup is just very cool.

Necessary Changes, by devilc. Slash, Jason Street/Scott Summers, also Logan/Jean and some other pairings, both het and slash are implied. (ca. 24,000 words)
Friday Night Lights/X-Men
Jason discovers he's a mutant on top of everything else and is invited to attend the Xavier Institute. I'm really liking Jason here so far, and also his friendship with Tim, and of course I always have a soft spot for stories with Scott.
(It's still being posted, one part a day it seems, but the author's notes indicated it's finished and the total length, so in two days or so it should be completely posted.)

Days Like This, by killabeez. Gen, Angel, Dean Winchester. (ca. 9,200 words)
Angel/Supernatural
Dean and Angel meet on a hunt, and fight a gross, tentacled monster, but really the best thing in this story is the banter and the many great lines.

Untitled SGA/SPN snippets, by kitsune_tsuki WIP
So far more an enticing glimpse at a backstory and an opening snippet than a single story, but I thought the premise that Sheppard grew up as a hunter like Sam and Dean, and now encounters creepy supernatural stuff in Pegasus was cool.

To Conquer Fear, by marag. Gen, Gil Grissom, Batman and their teams. (ca. 2,800 words)
CSI/DCU
They work together to catch the Scarecrow in Las Vegas. The story is told mostly in emails and more on the fun than on the angst side of things.

Hailing From Parts Unknown, by sister_wolf. Slash, Logan (Wolverine)/Alec (X5-494). (ca. 3,500 words)
X-Men Movieverse/Dark Angel
Alec and Logan and cage fights. Why wouldn't you read this?

Office Hours (ca. 10,000 words) and the sequel The Wisdom to Know the Difference (ca. 30,000 words), by tartanshell. Gen, Peter Parker, Hank McCoy, Matt Murdock, and Scott Summers.
Spider-Man/X-Men/Daredevil
Peter meets Hank (at first not yet blue) as one of his biochemistry professors in college. This is just an awesome and very entertaining crossover, that has a great blend of humor and angst.

Floodlights on the Highway, by thassalia. Gen, Dean, Cam, Vala.
Stargate: SG-1/Supernatural
How could you not enjoy Cam and Vala meeting Dean at a car show?

Riggins & Winchester, by thisisbone. Slash, Tim Riggins/Dean Winchester, also Billy Riggins, Sam Winchester. (ca. 4,800 words)
Friday Night Lights/Supernatural
The Winchesters are passing through Dillon. This gives a great look at the characters, also of course it's hot.

( spoilers for this week's CSI... )

On a random note, apparently the LJ time functionality is still wonky, it continues to insist on using GMT unless corrected manually. Do others still have problems as well?

I've watched a couple of episodes of Da Vinci's Inquest now, and the series is really cool. I like the characters, though so far none have truly grabbed me, but I like the way the cases are handled on the show. I like that it's not always a crime leading to a death, that if it is a crime it is often a rather mundane one not bizarre or glamorous, but the show still manages to keep my interest.

I like that just as their cases are more or less normal and they also don't necessarily find the perpetrator within the ep (or ever) or reconstruct what happened with absolute certainty, but rather do what's necessary to have a likely explanation that's enough to close the case. Compared to CSI it's also a nice change that they do have realistic constraints such as budgets etc, so that there isn't always done a whole rigamarole of fancy tests or a full autopsy for every body, and the tests they do take actual time.

I mean, I'm not knowledgeable about either forensic science, bureaucratic constraints of coroner's offices, police organization, or anything like that, so it's not so much that I'm nitpicky about any particular details, as that the CSI angle that depicts crime as a puzzle and the only constraints to solving it in the normal course of events are technical and scientific, makes the whole set-up seem somewhat fake after a while. Not that I don't enjoy those moments on CSI when Grissom does some insect experiment with enormous effort to solve their puzzles.

Unrelated to crime shows, now that I'm seeing increased excitement and lots of people looking forward to the new Superman movie, I'd like to stress for the record that I find it completely unfair that it won't open here until August 17. *grumble*

...not literally (at least I hope not) but I've been even more unfocused today than usual. As one consequence of that there have been potential blog posts popping into my head, well more like beginnings of blog posts really, only to never quite reach the stage of sufficient content to turn into a real post. Okay, maybe the lecture about instruments to measure pressure in ultrahigh vacuums wasn't the best time to have really focused thoughts about the latest CSI episode (the one with the furries), but that kind of makes my point. I thought about furries and CSI (and the latest Angel, and old Teen Titans comics, and that obscure fandom secret santa project... you get the idea) instead of concentrating on advantages and disadvantages of the Penning manometer compared to other ionization manometers compared to gas friction manometers, and similar topics. And it wasn't the lecture, since my ability to concentrate hasn't been getting any better further into the day.

Anyway, here are (some of) the thoughts of my "not quite blog posts on their own" I had today, in no particular order:

• I'm thrilled that tzikeh and astolat adapted the popslash secret santa idea for obscure fandoms in their "while we tell of yuletide treasure" project.
  Actually from the list of fandom and pairing suggestions/examples it seems to be a "not the most mainstream fandoms and pairings" secret santa rather than just really obscure ones. And I like plenty of smaller fandoms, so I'm fairly sure I'll get some great stories with fandoms and pairings I like out of it, even though I can't sign up myself with a request. Of course in particular I hope for cool Batfic to come out it.


• I finally watched last week's Angel last night and was less than impressed. I thought about what more I could say about why I didn't like it, but I think it was mostly because I don't like Lorne that much in general, at least not as a main character, and because I was bored with the plot.


• I watched the latest JL episode and joined the rest of fandom in the squee. So now it undeniable, I've apparently acquired yet another series I like (and why does this keep happening to me? I'm such a sucker, dangle a shiny thing in front of me, and next thing I know I'm watching cartoons and reading Flash/GL and Flash/Batman slash). So far I've watched all of the second season and the pilot of the first. I actually have a couple of episodes more, but haven't yet found the time to watch them.


• Finally, about the latest CSI episode, ( spoilers for Fur and Loathing )

crack_van totally works. Not only do I now apparently read X-Men Comicverse fiction when previously I stuck with fanfic for the movies, no that would be harmless. I also spent quite some time during the last days watching CSI episodes, because the CSI overview gave me the last nudge to give the series a try. Sure it's not like I wasn't aware of the potential consequences of reading a community where people pimp their fandoms (it's not like you need a huge surgeon general's warning to figure those out), it's just -- I have a number of peripheral fandoms in which I have no real idea where to find good fanfic/recs, and crack_van is good for that too.

On the upside it turns out I can actually read an introduction to a fandom and find that informative, but still feel no interest whatsoever to check out the fiction. Like I didn't develop any interest in Blakes7 or Homicide or The Professionals or Pop Slash (okay, I read one of the recced stories for pop slash, I don't think that counts). Who knows, maybe exposure to temptation will even make me more resilient in the face of new fandoms in the long term.

Anyway, about CSI. Before reading any of the fanfic (I still prefer not to read fiction until I've seen at least some of the source) I watched a couple of CSI episodes, and several of those from third season showed Grissom's hearing problems. So, since this is a crime show and doesn't particularly dwell on the emotional impact of his illness I thought it would be really easy to find fanfic exploring this. But either I'm not good at finding stuff (which is possible, after all I'm not familiar with the fandom yet), or it isn't a popular topic as I had assumed. I mean, the fandoms where I got most of my "tv fan socialization" so to speak, were really large (like TS or XF) and somehow I've come to expect these obvious fanfic topics as a given, like the blatantly missing scenes, the fic dealing with the glaring emotional issue some character has, the emotional fallout of something that is never seen on screen, because it's "off-topic" for a cop show etc. I think of that as the "meat and potatoes" kind of fanfic, the topics/themes/scenes for which (in large fandoms) you'll usually find dozens variations of fanfic dealing with them, and most of these stories aren't terribly original, or brilliant pieces of writing (though some are), but I like to read that kind of fanfic, because it fills in the obvious blanks even I see in a source.

And before I inadvertently start an "entitlement" kerfuffle or something similar, I don't think of fanfic (fandom) as a supermarket, where I can always expect to find exactly the kind of fanfic I'm looking for. But I have to admit, it is kinda neat when it does work like that, you know? So if by chance any of you know of CSI fanfic dealing with Grissom's hearing loss, I'd like to read that.

Also, I was browsing for some Everwood fanfic (and I meant to rec an Everwood story too, come to think of it, but now I can't find the frelling bookmark, and of course I can't remember the author or title either >.<), and I noticed a couple of stories with German phrases/words as titles. And I was wondering about that, because I don't tend to come across, for example, Spanish or French phrases as titles in fanfic (or I don't notice, which is definitely a possibility as well), but see German ones semi-regularly, though from my impressions not as often as Latin ones. Anyway, I've been wondering why that is. I mean, I get that in X-Files fandom it probably is because of some of the episode titles, but Everwood? Does German look/sound exotic or something?