Sleep-speaker

For bluerosefairy!

Title: Cold War
Video: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Audio: Cold War // Janelle Monae
Summary: The Occupation and the aftermath.

Direct download available here. 10 megs approx. RightClickSaveAs.

Password: vidses


I will index and crosspost all vidlets at the end of November or when I've done all the prompts if I decide to keep going to finish them.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who left me really nice messages over at QoT's looooove meme. You all really made my day, and I was having a shitty one, so thank you.

Secondly, I wanted to specifically thank the last anonymous person who said hello; I hope that if you ever do get an LJ, you feel free to friend me and I'm so glad that you enjoyed my stuff and that Battlestar Redactica resonated with you. I was wondering, err, did you want me to send you a copy of my crazy fan-made DVDs of the thing? If not, then, please don't feel bad or anything, but if so, I've screened all comments on this entry, so if you want to give me a postal address or an email address I can use to contact you to get a postal address, I'd be happy to throw you a set.

Speaking of...did anyone else want some? I'm not actually expecting a lot of interest here - I think most people who wanted some got some already. But...it's long enough after the fact now I'm pretty comfortable throwing this offer up unflocked (I mean, I was always unhappy with that method of offering anyway since my flist has never represented my reading list or all the people I think are cool). Sooo...yeah. Back when I made the BSR DVDs I made a few extras and most of them are still knocking around so if you want some, then leave me your address or a contact email in the screened comments. I don't have an infinite number though so in the unlikely event I get a bunch of people asking, um, first come first served?

ETA: Um, okay, apparently a small bunch of people do want them, which first off, yay, how flattering! :) I am now officially out of spares. However, investigation into my raw materials (cases, shiny printing paper, blank dvds, etc.) shows that I actually am not out of the things I thought I was out of, so I can make a few more sets at no extra cost and very little hassle to me, but it'll take me a day or two to get them in order. Also I forgot there are currently annoying postal strikes in the UK. This means that

1) still accepting requests for discs if anyone wants them - as I said, it's very little trouble now I know I was wrong about the materials situation, but
2) I'll probably be mailing them out next week some time - I'll email or PM you when yours goes out.

Hey guys,

Remember how when the BSG 4.5 DVDs came out earlier in the UK, I was super awesome and recapped all the extended bits of 4x12 and what the deleted scenes were?

Anyone want to return the favour and let me know what the extended bits of Islanded in a Stream of Stars and Daybreak are about? Since, you know, they aren't going to commercially release them here apparently (except probably the on superspecial we mean it this time, it really IS the ultimate collection of everything and all it will cost you is your entire life savings box set)?

I would offer cookies, but since you are on the other side of a screen, all I can offer is the idea of cookies. Will you do it for me the idea of a cookie?

So, on impulse, I bought the first season of the 1950s Superman TV show. It's black and white and has stuff like "Superman and the Mole Men" (which is apparently pretty famous) and ridiculously nonsensical criminal plots (like, instead of having the ventriloquist slightly change his act to pass a coded message to someone in the audience, they have ANOTHER VENTRILOQUIST sit in the audience to speak OVER the first ventriloquist, putting words in the dummy's mouth to pass the message, thus also ensuring they wreck the act, meaning everyone starts wondering WTF is going on...).

I'm also sure that we're in for a real treat of even-handed racial depiction when we get to the episode in which Perry Mason's sister is kidnapped by a voodoo cult. o_O

I am, however, quite pleasantly surprised at the show's depiction of Lois Lane.

( What a shocking lack of sexism! )

In other news, my Farscape vid is kicking my ass.

In other other news, I spent the last week or so trying out various ways of thinking about the final few BSG episodes in an attempt to be more...okay with them. It hasn't really worked though. I am still in official Canon-Rejection mode. I mean, I'm happy to come out of my bubble and talk to the rest of you (or, heck, visit you in your bubbles!), but yeah. I still need my bubble. *clings*

Okay y'all. I got my 4.5 DVD box set today! Cus it came out today in the UK.

As usual it looks like the UK set is missing at least one awesome thing - and no I'm not talking about the webisodes, which, yes, it is also missing.

There's no extended cut of Islanded in a Stream of Stars. Which is weird because I was sure I saw a website's review of the UK set talking about it, but...it's definitely not here. The back of the slipcase and disc boxes advertises the extended cut of A Disquiet Follows my Soul but mentions nothing about Islanded and sure enough, it's nowhere to be found. And I checked EVERYWHERE. *sigh*

It's totally weird because there are no individual deleted scenes available for Disquiet, presumably because we get the extended edition instead. But there are also no deleted scenes for Islanded as if there should have been an extended version of that. It's all very odd.

So I tell you what, I'll update all of you on new content from this now, and you can all help me when you get the extended cut of Islanded and tell me if there's anything good I'm missing.

Anyway, down to business!

( Deleted scenes from Sometimes A Great Notion. )

( A Disquiet Follows my Soul extended cut. )

( Deleted scenes from The Oath. )

( Deleted scenes from Blood on the Scales. )

( Deleted scenes from No Exit. )

( Deleted scenes from Deadlock. )

( Deleted scenes from Someone to Watch Over Me. )

( Deleted scenes from Daybreak. )

And OY. I'm really tired now, so that's it folks!

So like, I meant to post about this DAYS ago when I actually read it but forgot, as I usually forget to post about comics (how many of you, for instance, actually know that I in fact buy all these BSG comics, huh?) Like how I always meant to post about the Zarek mini series they did and how bad I felt for them hanging his backstory on the terrible Saggitaron working conditions that meant they got terrible medical care and weren't given the drugs they needed to cure their mine-worker illnesses like...a month before we got that episode that told us they were all good drug hating fundamentalists.

Ahem. Anyway.

I love this comic cus it's crack. It's awesome cool random crack. I also kind of fear it giving me any answers in case, like the show, the comic proves much better at creating weird, exciting, nonsensical, mythological questions than answering them. And really, when it comes to mythology, does one need an answer?

I dunno. Maybe.

The point is, I'm relieved to find something, anything, BSG-related that makes me feel like things are exploding with possibility instead of being shut down.

( Spoilers for the Final Five comic. )

And now I'm making less sense than this cracky comic.

Short version: well-played, Dynamite. Keep it up for two more issues. Don't let this be the No Exit to your Daybreak.

BSG Manga: Echoes of New Caprica.

SOOO! I actually found this in my local Forbidden Planet a few weeks ago, which was way before the official release of the thing. But it seems it's turning up in other places too now so I'll post my OMG BUY IT post now rather than later.

It's three short stories set during/in the aftermath of New Caprica. One about Laura and her school, one about Tom Zarek (which I confess I haven't read and is written by Richard Hatch) and one about Kara and Kacey after they get back to Galactica (which was a nice little story but I'm not sure I can understand it in the context of the canon we have.)

The best one, obviously, is the one that's all about Laura. It is best for many reasons. Best because it has Laura being an awesome revolutionary teacher. Best because it involves collaboration and fear and what happens when you throw children into the mix as pawns. Best because it has Tory running around with a gun shooting the shit out of things. Best because it's all about Laura, the real Laura.

And selfishly, it will always be best for me, because the author of that story is a friend of a friend and OMG YOU GUYS. LOOK WHAT SHE DID FOR ME.

( I AM A RENNAISANCE CAPRICAN FOLK SINGER, YOU GUYS! )

AND THEN LOOK! LOOK WHAT SHE DID FOR ALL SEVEN THREE OF US REMAINING LAURA/MAYA SHIPPERS!

( theirloveissocohabitational! )

But in all seriousness guys, my own selfish excitement aside, it really is a great little story and I encourage all of you to get it!

Firstly I'm sorry for being very behind on replying to comments. My life is kind of crazy just now. Which is probably part of why I'm...feeling really weird about BSG.

The more I think about the finale, the more I'm disappointed in it, which...I really didn't think I would be. Because I'd lowered my expectations somewhat. But...I guess shit happens.

But I don't want to let it negatively affect my opinion of the entire show any more than I have to. So I am taking radical action and attempting to do something I hate doing: instituting personal canon. I'm just flat out refusing to acknowledge parts of it happened.

(Except I totally WILL acknowledge them at times because I'm like that and will callously appropriate visuals for vids. I mean I actually, if I have the heart to do it, even have a 4.5-centric vid in the works.)

But basically this is now my canon:

Mini - 4x11 Sometimes a Great Notion + No Exit.

Plus selected background scenes of awesome Cylon integration like the Cylons on the memorial wall. Or sitting in the Pilot briefing room with Starbuck in the gorgeous teaser to Someone to Watch Over Me.

Plus the moment Kara starts playing All Along the Watchtower and then plays her father's music to Sam.

Though really, if pressed, I'd just cut that down to Mini - 4x11 + 4x15 as the bonus backstory episode. I just want to save the two semi-decent things that came after (cylons on the memorial wall & Kara and her piano-playing.)

This means that:

1) Nicky is still a cybrid. ETA And Cally's suicidal/infanticidal behaviour makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE. /ETA.
2) Liam is still alive.
3) Ellen Tigh is still awesome and I can still love Saul.
4) Tory is still kick ass and leading and stuff on the basestar.
5) Massive implication that Daniel is Kara's father.
6) Boomer is more interesting this way. (I actually didn't mind her double-double cross but her final triple-cross was highly meh.)

I'm also vaguely considering canonising the very last two minutes of the finale because I actually liked that bit and without the sucky prior context of anti-technological and ONLY ONE HYBRID crap it's a fun fourth-wall break.

So it's like, we finish at 4x11 and then we have these floating pieces - No Exit, Kara playing the piano, Cylons on the memorial wall, a completely contextless suggestion that we're all hybrids. Like a trailer for the awesome this season could have been without the suck factor?

And I'm kind of totally okay with the lack of concrete answers since BSG disappointed me so hard with them and I'm now thinking, it's a far better show when it's just asking questions and inventing insane shit with no reason behind it.

I don't find this kind of thing easy, but I'm serious people. I WILL TAKE BACK BSG USING EVERY WEAPON AT MY DISPOSAL DOWN TO MY OWN EYE TEETH. (See? SEE ME REAPPROPRIATE DIALOGUE?)

WHO'S WITH ME?!

So, like, I'm waiting FOREVER for this thing to um, magically show up so I can watch it and thus have instead been reduced to reading the PatriotResource recaps which are usually kind of...vague and sometimes even miss stuff out especially nuances.

Still, I thought I'd post my initial responses to the two issues about 4.5 that have been bugging me and that I've hoped the finale would fix. And, you know, if you want to provide me with additional details I'd be mega grateful.

Basically this is one long meta-type meditation on the themes of technology in BSG and I'm pretty much not going to try and comment on specific stuff until I've seen it.

( HERE BE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE! )

1) A rec:

obsessive24 has made an absolutely incredible BSG vid - Slow Down Gandhi. It's about the politics of the mutiny, the fate of the underclasses, the abuse of power in the political and military hierarchies, dangling Earth like a carrot while letting Cylon fill the Fleet. And it manages to do this in a way that also invites the viewer to cast a critical eye on the vid's narrators - Gaeta, and, to a lesser extent, Zarek. At least as I watched it, I found myself as angry at Zarek for his opportunism and selfishness as I was with Adama and Roslin frakking while the world burns. And Gaeta is in the middle, angry, and making all the wrong choices. Perhaps it's my unfailing love of all things Cylon, but despite obsessive24's worries, I found the Cylon sections of the vid to be some of my favourites.

Anyway, I want to do justice to the layers of discussion in this vid, but I'll fail if I try, so I will just say, OMG POLITICS! RUN! GO WATCH IT!

Also, if you have any weakness for political rap, the music is amaaaazing.

2) Getting...recced?

So someone decided to link The Enemy Within on TWOP's Gender in Galactica thread.

Which is nice and all, and I'm surprised but glad it's getting a slightly wider audience than I thought and everything. And true, only two people have said anything about it (the poster who linked to it and one respondant), but...both of them seem to have completely missed the fact it's really, really GAY.

I mean...really. Did I not put in enough porn? (Don't answer that, Julie.)

It had actual, literal girlslash goggles.

Oh, internets. I thought you would never fail to see subtext. Or, you know. Text. Which involved nakedness.

3)



This is the What the Frak Happened on Battlestar Galactica official SciFi Recap for Daybreak I.

SPOT THE DELETED BOOMER/HERA AND BOOMER/CHIEF FLASHBACK SCENES.

Weird.