Bob the Mole

...and a Norwegian forensic anthropologist at a rivethead black metal concert identifies some skeletal remains as,

"Definitely human. And according to the orthodonture - American."

"American? Are you certain?"

"Yes, American."




Best teeth on the planet. There's a reason I love this country.

(This post is brought to you by "My orthodontist put a heavier gauge wire on my bottom teeth this week and now my mouth hurts, ow.")

Sorry for the lateness, but I want to thank the kind person who nominated Battlefield of the Gods for the Sunnydale Memorial Awards. It's a thrill to know that someone thought so highly of it.

This show has officially grown on me. Now I need a Caprica icon.

James Marsters as Barnabas - I'm having trouble seeing him as Barnabas the Revolutionary, but that's probably more because of my familiarity with the actor than a comment on his portrayal. In his first scene the accent did a good job at differentiating Barnabas from JM and Spike, but the accent wavered in the scene with Lacy. I imagine I'll get used to seeing him as Barnabas in a couple of episodes, but for now the wrapping-barbwire-around-his-arm made me want to chase him around with gauze and disinfectant.

I'm tempted by the ship that is Zoe/Philomon (Zolomon? Phloe?), moreso than I ever was by Topher/Bennett. I loved Topher for his absolute trust in his own abilities and his comfort with his eccentricities, but he wasn't like most nerds I've actually met. Philo rings true in the way he is painfully aware of his social awkwardness, and only relaxes in the privacy and safety of his lab. I don't know if robotics geeks often anthropomorphize their robots, but his treatment of Zoe-bot as a sentient being is probably making her existence a lot more tolerable. The Zoe-playing-Rachel-playing-Zoe charade risks devolving into a Shakespearean farce, but if handled well the ship could well be tender and moving. It also subverts the Pygmalion myth - this Galatea made herself and she gets to choose whom to love.

Sister Clarice wants Zoe's avatar as a way to build an Afterlife for her fellow believers. Does her god not provide one? Is it a BYOH - Bring Your Own Hereafter?

The "Welcome to your Holoband" Daniel Graystone reminds me disturbingly of Microsoft Bob, who was so annoying that Clippy the MS Office Paperclip was hailed as a savior when it replaced him.

What I did miss this week was Tamara Adams, whose transition from Nervous (and dead) School Girl to Badass Kingpin  in the holoworld was as exhilarating as it was sudden. Bet she never said to herself, "When I grow up I want to be a computer virus."

Probably the thing I love the most about Caprica (and this is probably Jane Espenson's doing) is the number of complex characters played by women at least in their forties. There's Amanda Graystone - brilliant but isolated, and prone to sharing her deepest fears with any stranger who offers to listen. Clarice Willow - a private school educator with an addiction to political intrigue and mind-altering substance. Vesta, the holoworld Crimelord-Wannabe from last week's episode. And of course Ruth, the cookie-baking grandmother who wants her son-in-law to avenge her daughter's death by murdering an innocent woman.

(Some background for non-fandom people reading this: There was recently an online contest for writing fanfiction based on characters from Joss Whedon shows. Since I'm a fan of said shows and miss doing creative stuff, I decided to try my hand at it. The outcome was four stories inspired by literature from four different eras.)

The January  still_grrr  challenge was to create fiction or art inspired by classic literature throughout history. After hearing that anyone who answered all four prompts (one each week) would get a cookie participation banner, I wrote the four stories below.

Week 1: Ancient to Renaissance literature.
Parable of the Artificial Duck

This one's based on characters from Dollhouse. It's a scene with two scientists and a man whose brain they recently reprogrammed to save his life. Now the guy's paranoid (for good reasons) that they made some changes to his "software".

Week 2: Neoclassic to Victorian literature.
Ghazal for a Slayer

I intertwined a classical Urdu poem with scenes from a dysfunctional (but compelling) relationship between two characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This story will probably make the least sense to someone not familiar with the show, but poetry fans will want to check out the references in the author's notes.

Week 3: Edwardian to Modern literature.
The Barter Economy

I think I'm most proud of this one. It comes closest to a classic short story in flavor, and the mood was inspired by Heart of Darkness and The Gospel According to Mark, both stories that begin in the alleged light of civilization and move toward a creepy and very human darkness. This is also the story that has kept me up at night - I think I committed race-fail in my depiction of the Lanai-ur tribe, and intend to rewrite it at some point.

Week 4: Anything before 1960
Battlefield of the Gods

I did not expect this story to get the positive response it did. There must something about  watching fallen gods acting like spoiled, self-centered twenty-somethings that resonates with our most primitive instincts. Readers not familiar with the Buffyverse find this inaccessible, though it's probably the in-jokes that make it work for those in the know.

I'm hugely grateful to whoever nominated this story for the No Rest For the Wicked Awards (In two categories! WOW!). Wednesday was the worst day I'd had in months, and learning about the nomination gave me a much-needed boost. Thank you, anonymous saint!

I just had an IM conversation with mergle about Angel from the Buffyverse. Note that she hasn't seen the series yet, but I've blathered about it to her enough that she's now having dreams about Buffy and her parents being vampires, the citizens of Sunnydale protesting that she's not slaying fast enough, Angel brooding that he couldn't save some kids from being zombified, and product tie-ins called "Dark Buffy Bars".

She also says about Angel:

mergle : The first I heard of him was "vampire with a soul, gets cursed to have the soul until he's perfectly happy, and then he sleeps with Buffy and is happy so he loses his soul and goes on a killing spree."
mergle : Somehow I wound up imagining Buffy waking up that morning and walking down the stairs to see lots of random dead bodies, and Angel making waffles in the kitchen.
bobthemole : oh god, that has to be reproduced somewhere


Hi, I'm Bob and I drag people into fandoms against their will. I'll bet there's a special circle in hell for people like me.

ETA: We're willing to make a donation to the Haiti relief effort if someone makes fan art of the waffles scene.

I am in the process of writing a fic for this week's still_grrr  writing challenge. It's set in the Peruvian Amazon. I'm not familiar with the Spanish language and South American culture beyond what I've been able to gather from the internet in the past couple of days, and I'm looking for someone more familiar with either who can tell me if I've made any glaring errors.

Anyone able and willing to volunteer?

angearia did this first.


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Following in the footsteps of snickfic and angearia from the Buffy fandom, but feel free to ask me about any fandom I've dabbled in.

Ask me one fandom-related question in the comments. This can be fandom specific, general, or about fandom/lj stuff/fic writing/etc. in general. Favorite character, favorite moment, unpopular opinion, something about a fic of mine... whatever. Subparts allowed. Wackiness encouraged.

Severus Snape gets Wormtail to cosh Jack Sparrow Edward Scissorhands over the head. Bellatrix Lestrange runs a bake-shop in Knockturn Alley.

Then Rupert Giles drops by for a hair cut.

There is some bleeding.

Everyone not a lyric soprano or tenor dies or goes mad.

My favorite cartoon series OF  ALL  TIME (which I haven't seen since I was 6) is now on Hulu!

http://www.hulu.com/the-mysterious-cities-of-gold