Same thing I'm always full of.

[mrissa]

1. I have been tagging lj entries a little at a time, in between typing revisions and writing new stuff and, y'know, the rest of my life. I find it a little daunting but gave myself full permission to be obscure when I need to. Which was a relief.

2. I have a theory now. I begin to think that many of the most useful conversations among working writers come when you can say, "How do you do such-and-such?" and you have a set of working writers who are clear that this question is not the same as, "How does one do such-and-such?" And then they can say, "Oh, I always X," or, "Usually I Y but this one time I Z and that was okay too." And then someone else says, "Really, Z? That almost never works for me, but what I like to think of is Q."

3. The revisions I am typing: they are pretty okay, I think. I am currently convinced that writing a book is like making lace: it's a whole thing when you're done, but you're almost certainly going to have a million holes in it, and you can only hope they're pretty. And work for them to be pretty. And not just pretty but in such a pattern that the reader can say, "Oh, of course, it's a shawl!" or, "How lovely, some gloves!" rather than, "It's...um...it's definitely...I like how you used a lot of thread here."

4. I have just finished watching S1 of Bones and boy howdy is that a Mary Sue. Fun Mary Sue. But uff da, the bit with her parents. Also, I am pretty damned sick of shows putting their thumb on the scales regarding their rationalist atheist characters to either force the rationalist atheist to admit that there are More Things In Heaven And Wherever or else show them as irrational for not doing so. Booth was raised Catholic, and the show does not demand that he detail how Catholicism, as a worldview, is not comprehensively successful in addressing his life situations, even though it almost certainly does have spots of being suboptimal. Nor do I want it to--I just don't want it to focus that way on Bones, either. It is okay to have characters with differing worldviews and not go out of your way, as a show, to undermine any of them, particularly if they're all fairly amiable and willing to accept new data.

5. Bones has given us a Geeky Little Brother character again. Are there no Geeky Little Sisters? Really? Or is it just that that social dynamic isn't particularly stable with our social mores? (That is, a younger adult geek woman is still likely to be parsed as potentially romantically interesting.) I would kind of like to see the Geeky Little Sister. Also, I suspect part of why we have a Geeky Little Brother is that Bones is a large enough presence that just adding Angela in makes it feel to the writers as though they have A Whole Mess Of Womens already. I may be wrong about this; we'll see. But it sort of makes me want to Take Action. And then I remember that this thing I'm revising features an older woman mentoring a younger woman as a pretty substantial character relationship. So okay then. Action Begun, at least.

Comments

[carbonel]

Does Dawn from Buffy count as a geeky little sister? Leaving aside the oddities of her origin, that is.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't know; the bits of Buffy I've seen did not enlighten me, nor leave me willing to see more bits of Buffy to find out. Someone else will surely have opinions, though.

[laurel]

I don't think so, I don't see her as geeky at all really.

A case could probably be made for characters on Everwood or Gilmore Girls.

[moiread]

> Also, I suspect part of why we have a Geeky Little Brother is that Bones is a large enough presence that just adding Angela in makes it feel to the writers as though they have A Whole Mess Of Womens already.

Wait until they add in Dr. Camille Saroyan! She is yet another strong female personality, and at that point basically all possible aspects of the lab are run by women. Sometimes the dudes get to assist, but it's totally a ladies' place. Which, if only in the interest of variety when compared to most other shows out there, I adore.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Eh, she doesn't do much for me, to be honest - though I'm still playing catch-up and am working my way through season 2 so maybe she'll grow on me as time goes on. It's not that I actively dislike her, it's that I preferred the character she replaced: Dr. Goodman.

[moiread]

I liked her right from the start, but this is one of those things that's entirely about personal taste. And though I liked Dr Goodman, I don't feel that they ever explored his character enough for me to get attached to him, so I didn't have any problem with them replacing him, especially with a character they did plan to do more with.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

And assisting is exactly where Hodgins belongs. It is where he'll be happiest. Not only does no one want him in charge, as of the end of S1 it seems clear to me that he doesn't actually want to be in charge.

[moiread]

Very very yes.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Which show has Abby the girl Goth genius? Criminal Minds? Also, Chloe on 24 always saves the world after everybody else has mucked it up. With baby this season, no less. That one gave us a woman President as well (having given us a black Prez years ago).

On Angel, there was Fred, the ultimate geeky little sister.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

Isn't that NCIS?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Criminal Minds's resident Goth girl genius is Penelope Garcia, and I don't register her as a Geeky Little Sister at all, possibly because Dr. Spencer Reid's Geeky Little Brother status trumps all in my view.

[moiread]

Agreed, though I don't think it's because Reid overshadows; Garcia just isn't anybody's little sister. (Not that that would be a negative; it just isn't her.)

Also, I can't remember her ever once going goth. She is way too into bright colours and big prints and rhinestones and putting fake flowers in her hair.

(I am really, really fond of Garcia. In case that has not come through. Heh.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Huh. I guess the way I had parsed her aesthetic was so firmly on the spectrum of my gothier friends that I hadn't actually noticed that she never did the classic goth thing.

And I think Morgan would have liked to be her big brother if she'd have let him. At least as of the end of S3. But she really, really didn't.

[moiread]

Yeah, Abby is NCIS. Which I don't watch (though it's on the list of shows I will get around to), so I can't say if she's Little Sister material or not.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's on my list of things to try as well.

[laurel]

I'm not sure I'd call Abby on NCIS a geeky little sister, in part because she's such a strong character. She's goth and geeky and awesome (and respected hugely by her boss and coworkers), but before too long they do introduce a geeky little brother type to the show. 'Course having two such geeks on a show is full of win. And David McCallum's medical examiner is geeky in a certain way as is his assistant who shows up in a later season. The non-geek womanizing guy is totally a film geek who quotes from and refers to movies all the time.

NCIS has really grown on me.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Now I'm debating whether Anybodys from West Side Story counts. She's not exactly geeky in most definitions but she is studiously parsing all aspects she can find of her particular subculture. She's definitely a Little Sister, and definitely not considered a romantic possibility. (She's also my favorite character in West Side Story, all the more interesting for being probably about the same age as Maria.)

A submission for Geeky Little Sister role

[mattgritter.livejournal.com]

Reggie Lass - Dead Like Me (originally on Showtime, now on Hulu)

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Dairene (?sp?) in Duane's Young Wizards series is pretty much an archetypal Geeky Little Sister. But even thinking of print, it's not exactly common, though more may come to me over the course of the day.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. Dairene was the print one I could think of. Most little sisters in books are either not geeky or else geeky but not as much as their older sibs. (Which may be true of a lot of youngests in general in real life--would have to poke around more to find out. There's certainly a strong skew towards oldests and onlies among my geek friends, and many though not all of the middles and youngests have older siblings who are clearly at least as geeky.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love your lace analogy. *zing!*

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Does Amanda Fitton, later Campion, count as a geeky little sister? (She is the younger sibling, is she not?) Have just finished The Beckoning Lady, in which she is Geeky Wife and Mother, which would be even more adorable if she actually had anything to do with the plot apart from discuss the outcome with Albert (grrrr).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, my library's Campion series is spotty enough that I can't tell.

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

Lisa Simpson

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

is a geeky little sister.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Clear example for the win.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I think Bones improves significantly as time goes on. The relationships seemed a little unnatural in S1 (although I didn't start watching the show until S2).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am a little concerned, because some of the Amazon reviews I was reading were talking about the sexual tension between Booth and Bones, and I had just finished watching an episode where the fella is trying to kill Bones and she falls into Booth's arms, and I was being thrilled about how little sexual tension there was in that moment despite the theoretical possibilities, that they were just letting them be friends. Sigh.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. You know what Mick Jagger says.

[laurel]

I agree that Bones improves as it goes on. I didn't much care for the pilot when FOX sent it to me as I felt the "ha ha squints" angle was annoying and other bits didn't work for me, but the characters grow on you and the show improves.

They do try to work the Booth/Bones as a potential couple angle as the series goes on, but it usually seems that other characters are more interested in that than they are. Booth and Brennan remain friends/partners/equals. Lots of fans are for lots of pairings on the show and they seem to do a little fan service here and there, but not so much that I get annoyed, if that makes sense.