Imaginary Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day my dear readers! I hope that whatever your relationship status you truly do have a wonderful day. Remember, there are many different kinds of love out there, so if you don't have a special romantic valentine to share your day with, there's no need to be all grumpy and anti-love. Declare yourself your valentine and treat yourself to a fantastic evening of your favorite things. Or make a good friend your valentine and go out and have a good time together.

I have to say I am lucky enough to have found the love of my life and we have a nice low-key celebration planned for the evening. We're going to dinner with our daughter at one of our favorite restaurants and just plan to enjoy one another's company. I am very much looking forward to it.

I read an interesting Valentine's Day-inspired article on GeekMom yesterday. Geek Mom Delphine asserts her belief in every reader's right to fall in love with the characters in the books we read. I really couldn't agree with her more. I think a character so well written you can fall in love with him (or her) is the sign that a writer is doing something very, very right.  After reading this post, I was inspired to come up with my own list of fictional valentines to share with you guys.

Harry Dresden
(The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher)

Harry is all kinds of awesome. He has his flaws, certainly, but he is a loyal friend and fiercely protective. He does what he believes is right and he always stands up to bullies, no matter the odds against him. He has a pretty solid sense of humor as well--freely joking about the time that one bad guy kidnapped him and tried to sell him on Ebay. Also, he's a wizard. And when he needed a way to stop necromancers, his weapon of choice was a reincarnated T-Rex. I mean, come on, how cool is that? Sadly though, it could never work out between us. My love of computers and gaming would not mix well with his effect on electronics I fear.

Araris Valarian
(Codex Alera by Jim Butcher)

Well, clearly JB is quite a talented writer. Araris is a very interesting character indeed to me, and he is a romantic, which wins him points. Araris was the most well-known swordsman in Alera, and singulare (body guard and friend) to the princeps Septimus before his death. When Septimus was killed in battle, leaving behind an unacknowledged wife and newborn son, Araris allowed himself to be disfigured with the coward's brand and presumed dead so that he could go into hiding with his friend's widow and son and keep them safe from the princeps' enemies. It's not his fault he fell in love with her, but he was a total gentleman about it, which makes their eventual romance all the more sweet.

Ostvel
(The Dragon Prince and The Dragon Star by Melanie Rawn)

Ostvel stuck me as an interesting character throughout the entire span of both of Rawn's trilogies. Not a Sunrunner, but living among them, and married to not one, but two, over the course of the narrative (his first wife died due to illness), he carried with him a perspective on the group that not many others in the series possessed. He was forever surrounded by people of power (Sunrunners and nobility), but he always remained a very straightforward and simple man, even when Rohan gave him is own princedom to run. The guy was just plain cool. If he was real, he would be the first friend I would turn to in any sort of crisis, no matter how big or small, and I would never hesitate to confide in him. Plus, he just seems like a pretty fun guy to hang out with.  

Bardan Jusik
(Star Wars Republic Commando by Karen Traviss)

Oh man, Bardan. I think I've told you before he's probably now my favorite Jedi of all time. Mostly because he had the guts to look at the Jedi Order and see it for what it was--neither good nor bad, just stagnant, and willing to let itself be used and compromise its morals because it thought doing so would serve the greater good. The man has a conscience, which, dagnabbit is just sexy. Also, he didn't stop being a user of the Force just because he walked away from the order, and he was constantly looking within himself to keep himself from being tempted by the dark side, while still allowing himself to have the kind of life that most Jedi deny themselves. It's hard not to love a man who is willing to give up the only way of life he's ever known for his family. Not for some half-baked romance, mind you, but for his actual family.

Lord John Grey
(The Outlander and Lord John Grey by Diana Gabaldan)

Okay, this maybe is a bit of a stretch, since he definitely plays for the other team. But John Grey is an absolutely fascinating character. He falls in love with a man who clearly prefers women, in a time when homosexuality is definitely something that needs to be kept hidden. Instead of pining about his unrequited love, he gets on with his life, while remaining a silent pillar of support for the man who has captured his heart. He is a true gentleman, in every sense of the word, and it's hard not to love him a little bit.

So there's my top five literary valentines for you. Delphine actually threw in one in her blog that was from a movie, Obi Wan Kenobi as portrayed by Ewan MacGregor in The Revenge of the Sith and I have to say I am totally in agreement with her on that. That particular role made me fall in love with MacGregor as an actor and with Obi Wan as a character. It is not easy to make a stuffed shirt like Obi Wan sexy, but MacGregor somehow managed to pull it off, and whatever lingering reticence I might have been having about being a Star Wars fangirl was completely quashed when I realized that while watching The Revenge of the Sith for the first time.

Other honorable mentions include:
Oz the werewolf from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (he is just cool in every sense of the word).
Charlie Weasley from Harry Potter (a British ginger who loves dragons? I mean, come on).
Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins (a cute, super sweet, slightly naive, prince in disguise with a wonderful sense of humor and all kinds of loyalty and courage to boot? Um, heck yeah.)

So, who are your imaginary valentines?

Can Spoilers Go Too Far?

Don't forget to watch the all new episode of Stargate Universe, tonight on Syfy at 8 pm CST!!!!!

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Also, check out the newest episode of Riese:  Kingdom Falling right here!

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Warning:  This post is about spoilers.  It might therefore be reasonable to assume that it contains spoilers.  

 (Mostly for Stargate Universe, but also a little bit for the BBC show Luther.)

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Spoilers, you say?

So, remember last week in my review of the SGU episode The Greater Good I said it pretty much looked like Ginn and Perry had been killed by Creepy Lucian Alliance guy? Then, the day after the episode aired, a bunch of people from the show (most notably David Blue and Joseph Mallozzi) went on the record telling us not to jump to conclusions, and we didn't know what we thought we know?

Sure, a couple of the trailers for tonight's episode have made it look pretty convincing that those characters are now ex-characters, but that could all just be down to editing.  Then, yesterday, I am perusing the weekly What to Watch article on io9, and imagine my surprise to find that this is the synopsis for tonight's episode:

Simeon makes his escape from Destiny after killing Ginn/Amanda Perry, sending Nicholas Rush on a vengeful mission. But Young and Greer attempt to retrieve Simeon unharmed.

Well.  That seems pretty darn definitive.  

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was catching up on Sunday's episode of Luther, which is a really fantastic miniseries that has been airing on BBC America for the last few weeks.  I was fast forwarding through the last commercial break of the episode and stopped when I got to what looked like the return of the show.

Except, that's not what it was. 

It was a preview for next week's episode, which for some reason BBCA decided to air before the episode was actually over.  In this preview, we see that Luther's wife Zoe has been murdered by his crooked cop pal and framed for the crime, and now Luther is on the run trying to prove his innocence.  My brain exploded a little bit.  When last I saw Zoe, before the break, she was alive and well.  After the preview, the episode wrapped up, giving us the big climactic scene wherein the crooked cop kills Zoe.  But the scene had lost all of the tension that the show had worked so carefully to create, because I had just seen an ad for next week and knew that Zoe didn't make it.  It really killed the end of the episode for me.  At least next week's ending won't be spoiled in the same way, since it's the final part of the series and there won't be any previews to show.  But still.

All of this got me thinking about spoilers and how they have wormed their way into the mainstream in the last few years.  Do television viewers truly not want any more mystery in their shows?  Is it just that the people who make the preview trailers aren't paying attention and put in something they think will grab viewers without realizing it gives away the ending of the episode?  

I really don't understand the thought process that went behind the programming decision to air the preview for the next week's episode before the episode had actually ended.  Granted, this series had already aired in its entirety across the pond in Britain earlier in the year.  Maybe somebody just figured that it was technically a rerun and spoilers were off the table? 

Then again, BBCA isn't the only network doing that, now that I think about it.  Psych on USA usually had their ad for next week before the last bit of the show as well.  Although usually the bit after the last break for that show is a wrap-up and all of the big reveals in the episode have happened already.

As far as preview trailers go, I know I've seen quite a few that have raised the ire of actors or writers from a given show.  They feel like they worked hard to make a really cool episode that would keep you guessing, and then someone with some editing tools somewhere went and cut together a teaser that doesn't tease but in fact totally gives it all away!  (The return of Carson Beckett in season four of Stargate Atlantis, anyone?)  What, then, is the point of bothering to watch the show?

The really good teasers do just that.  They hint at what the twist might be, and the best make you think it is something completely different from what it actually is, so that when you watch, you really get the full effect of the reveal.

I mean, I am all for spoilers for the most part.  I tend to see them as harmless fun that gets me excited for the new show.  I mean, heck, I read a daily article on io9 called Morning Spoilers after all.  But I very rarely read the whole thing.  I tend to skim, and only check out the entries for shows or movies that I like or am anticipating.  But if it's just an episode synopsis of, say, the sixth episode of the season that hasn't started airing yet, or an actual reveal about a big plot point, I try to skip it.  The spoilers I am usually looking for are casting scoops, or a general idea of where a show is headed for a season (as in, the vague overarching plot).

So, I guess when I say I like spoilers, I mean I like hints.  The problem is that the hints tend to get roped in with the really big ruiners and it can be hard to separate them without stumbling across some of the latter.  Sure, it's my own fault for reading the spoilers page in the first place, or the comments on a discussion thread or whatnot, but I do like to have a general idea of what could happen.  It's knowing that something is probably coming, but not knowing how it's gonna end up happening that makes it worth watching.

I have this problem with books a lot too, actually, because I read so many series.  I remember one of the first fantasy series I really dug into in college, I had read the first two books (out of six) and went to the store to pick up the rest of the series before I went out of town on a trip.  I read the back jacket of the fourth or fifth book, and it totally gave away the ending of the book I was reading at the time.  I was so appalled!  What made it worse was that it was a plot development I had seen coming and was really hoping would end up not happening.  So I was grumpy reading the whole rest of that book.  Now, I don't even look at the back cover (or inside flap) of books in a series unless it is the first book and I am trying to decide whether to pick up the series or not.  I realized the other day when putting away a book I had read multiple times that I had never read the story blurb on it.

But sometimes, even if you're someone who goes out of your way to avoid spoilers, you can't escape them.  Like when it's right there in the commercial before the show is over (and the networks are pushing you to watch things live), or when the usually spoiler free preview for next week instead gives away the big reveal at the end of the episode.  Heck, I love the author Jim Butcher, and as much as I enjoy The Dresden Files series, I completely adore his Codex Alera series so much more.  But once I read the first couple of books, and looked at the titles for the next few books, I realized that the actual titles of the books themselves are kind of a spoiler.  It's crazy!

I have really struggled with this in my reviews of the Star Wars Republic Commando series that I have been doing on this blog.  I've tried to discuss the primary plot of each book without giving away any of the really cool stuff that actually happens in the story.  For example, there's one plot line throughout the series which I totally left out of my review, as much as I wanted to expand upon it, because I just felt it would not be doing right by the readers to tell them that it happened before they read the book. 

I'm just left wondering, can spoilers actually go too far?  It's right there in the name, isn't it?  Spoilers.  If you're looking at something labeled "spoilers" aren't you asking to find more than you're probably looking for?  I do know that it's not fair to inflict spoilers on someone who isn't suspecting them.

I know, I know, life isn't fair.  Sigh.  But don't you kind of wish it was?

Anyway, I don't really have any answers on this topic, it has just been on my mind, and I wondered if anyone else hangs out in the middle of spoiler-land like I do.  I'll just be floating around, trying to figure out the best way to cope without letting all of my fun get ruined, I suppose.

No word count update today.  I did a lot of world-building yesterday but no actual writing, sadly.  On the other hand, I now know exactly what the paper is made of in the various countries in my story.  I also know what kind of fabric they use and what they eat, and how their language evolved.  Whee!  In that sense, my word count from yesterday is huge, because I added to my notes like crazy, but nothing in the story sad to stay.  Still, I am right about on track, and I think at this point it's very important to get my ducks all in a row in the notes so that I don't have to stop to look things up when I really get into the wrapping-up part of things.

Ta ta for now, folks.  Join me tomorrow, when we'll find out if Ginn and Perry really are dead or not.  (And you'll get to see me express my rage or amazement about how it was pulled off if they really are still alive.)

Monday Tidbits

Well, while I actually had a lovely weekend, I am really just not feeling it today.  Between the arrival of Fall kicking up my allergies and the cold my husband had last weekend, I am now in the hacking up my lungs stage of my own cold.  Whee.  I went ahead and gave in to the siren song of DayQuil, and while this is mostly good news for the alleviation of my congestion, it does mean I am nowhere near coherent enough to write anything of substance today.

So, I offer you up a few random tidbits for your perusal and enjoyment today.

Here is the finished blanket I was working on last week.  Now that its been given to the recipients I can share it with you.

Cocoa Waves by Cori 2010.

Pattern:  Hi-Five Towel by Sarah C

And yeah, you're reading that second caption correctly.  I did use a dish towel pattern for this blanket.  It is just a really awesome pattern, and after making a few towels with it, I wanted to see how it looked in a bigger piece.  I am really really pleased with how this one came out.

Yesterday I finished the birthday gift I was working on, so I'll have photos of that after it's been given.  My crochet plan for this week is to make my sister's October swap squares and that is it.  I think I am going to take a mini-hiatus from crochet for the rest of the week at least.

For the Star Wars fans out there, I stumbled across a couple of cool links over the weekend.  First, a little insight into what we can expect for the third Robot Chicken Star Wars special.   Color me excited about that.  Also, io9 got hold of some interesting behind the scenes trivia from the original trilogy.  It's a fun little read.  I certainly didn't know that Yoda was originally intended to be played by a monkey in a mask.  Though I am very glad that they ended up bringing in Frank Oz instead, to be sure. 

Also, the New York City Comic Con happened this past weekend.  One of Tor.com's writers attended a panel of science fiction and fantasy authors and did an awesome write-up on it.  Be warned, this is a very long article, but well worth the read.  It features, among others, Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Codex Alera), Naomi Novik (Temeraire), and Brandon Sanderson (who is finishing up the Wheel of Time series). 

And on a slightly more serious note, looks like Congress is entertaining a bill that would give the Attorney General power to shut down any website that he thinks infringes on any sort of copyright.  The bill gives a very broad definition of infringement and not only would sites be shut down but their creators would be permanently blacklisted from creating internet content.  Sylvia Bond over at Pink Raygun has a write-up that goes into how this will affect the online presence of fandom across the web, as well as just Joe Schmoe net users.  If you're interested in signing the petition against the bill, you can do so here.  It looks like the bill has been delayed for now, but it doesn't hurt to sign the petition if this is something you care about.