Space MADNESS

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Okay, okay, the ginger Klingon is less irritating now.

I could have done without the ginger-Klingon sex, though.

The idea of introducing Pilot to Gypsy, however, has given me an excellent twist for an upcoming Doctors!verse novel. When I return to a sci-fi ruining state of mind,* the medical saga of Shipmonster G. Space!Kraken,** already inspired by an aspect of Gypsy, gets an upgrade. It hasn't made me cackle before now. I love it when I cackle.

Speaking of medical drama, I can't stop writing it even in high fantasy, it would seem. You rarely hear, "There will be a slight delay in our world-saving Quest on account of our hero's recovery from open-heart surgery" in these stories. I'd like to see the Houses of Healing deal with a character whose heart has just exploded. THAT'S RIGHT, YO, MY NOT!ELVES ARE WAY COOLER THAN YOUR ELVES.

Damn, I love this hobby. You wish yours was half so much fun.


*I oscillate between sci-fi and fantasy moods pretty regularly.

**Another placeholder name. It takes me YEARS sometimes to come up with good names.

For the record, the G stands for Gamera.

Comments

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Speaking of medical drama, I can't stop writing it even in high fantasy, it would seem.

Did you ever see Ursula Vernon's story fragments about the Elven veterinarian? It had some of the most amusing romance scenes I've ever read, too, after he heals an Orc, and they start falling for each other, very awkwardly.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

We all love it when you cackle.

Having watched the entirety of Farscape (and the Peacekeeper Wars), I'm looking forward to hearing more of what you'll think about it as you go along. How far in have you gotten so far?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

YES. The outhouse scene amuses the hell outta me.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, they all just swapped bodies a couple of times. I was hoping for a bit more awkward moments with radically different bodies, but they still managed to do some pretty funny stuff. (Okay, yes, I had to replay the peeing scene. Sometimes I get to be twelve.) I loved Ben Browder playing Rygel-inna-Crichton. He looks like he found the whole Farscape gig wildly entertaining, actually.

I like that everyone has a dark side, too. "The Way We Weren't" had some excellent explorations of that (Velorek's "I am compassionate! Oh, and after I torture you for your own good, you should experience some slight discomfort FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE" was effectively creepy), and with every Zhaan episode I start expecting her to finally schism and start her own Smeagol/Gollum routine. I think they handle that aspect of self-struggle better than Star Trek.

My sister saw the first episode--she's not a CRAZY SPACE ADVENTURES fan, but she is a Jim Henson fan, so I had to show her the OMGPUPPETS. (She would not believe my claims that the giant space cockroach was adorable until I showed her.) We have decided that the giant three-jawed monster Rygel was bargaining with is the best one-shot character ever, and that after a hard day's selling it goes to a cozy-mystery book club and knits seven-armed orange sweaters for its nieces and nephews between sips of Decaf Earl Grey. Cthulhu is its bridge partner.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

Alas, the ginger Klingon tends to be one of the more sexually active characters in the series, though part of this is because he's in a relationship with Chiana. And Chiana is... well, Chiana.

D'argo can be counted on to do one of two things in an episode, at least in the first season - have sex with someone immediately after saying he will never forget his wife, and get put in chains or imprisoned right after saying he's sworn he'll never get put in chains again. But slowly he starts to get caught up in Crichton's insanity, and it all gets better from there.

I could totally see Zhaan doing a Smeagol act, but suspect that Stark has that covered for her.

[shadesofmauve]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who uses place-holder names for years. I get very odd and particular about whether a word feels right (it's why I haven't gone far with my con-langing), and I end up with /domain/ or /protagonist's-dad/ and stuff like that. There's a list of placeholders at the top of all my stories so I can do a find-and-replace when the right name FINALLY occurs.

Also, hooray for fictional medical emergencies. :)

Personally, one of my goals in fantasy is to work in entirely non-magical, inconvienient natural disasters. The flood does not just mean you cannot cross the river to reach the village; it means the village just went past you. On the river.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I was sore tempted to actually name this particular character Gamera until I read The Ghost Brigades. Scalzi beat me to it.

When I'm writing science fiction I often wind up using placeholders, generally boldfaced as well as listed so that find-and-replace will work. Sometimes they're just for me, because working out a name either requires some conlanging first. Other times it's because the alien's real name is unpronounceable or (as in S.G. Space!Kraken's case) they don't know their real name and need a new one--which can get entertaining even when I do come up with something. (At one point I realized I had characters named Betty, Veronica, and Reggie in one story. I draw the line at Jughead Jones, Space Alien, however.)

Yay for medical drama and natural disasters! That village flood sounds like fun. I'm somewhere in between on that one--my other story right now hinges upon a mage who, as he puts it, "has some affinity with stones." It turns out this means he's worked out an understanding with a VOLCANO ...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Dang, it just looks so ... unwieldy. But Chiana can handle it.

I have to ge back around to Stark. He's taken off at the moment and is, I don't know, counting spoons or something.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Is he really neat, because he's filled with turtle meat?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yes! AND he's friend to children everywhere!

Well, one child, at least.

He also maybe used to be vaguely turtle-shaped, but, well, that was before he matured into a giant space kraken.

Have you read the Old Man's War series? There's a group of genetically engineered special-forces humans who can work in vacuum; they are leathery rocket turtles with weird senses of humor. They call themselves the Gamerans.