Fashionably Late
Oct. 30th, 2010 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueThe past few days, all my focus has been going to this dumb TV show that ended a year ago already, and I didn't even start watching it until it was already over, but luckily for me that means I got to watch it all as fast as I could stand. Battlestar Galactica is not for everyone: those who like shows with lots of formulaic drama and happy endings are bound to be dissatisfied. I'm sure most of you who are going to watch it have already done so, but I'm going to give you five words that define BSG for me.
1. Relentless is probably the first and most significant term I can use to describe the show. If someone said tell me about this show in one word, this is the word I'd pick. The miniseries (which is really pivotal if you're planning on watching) starts out beautifully, but when things go wrong in this show they go wrong in the most spectacular of ways, and keep going downhill from there. It's really a study in the resilience and insistence of the human spirit in the face of tragedy, which is... pretty much a global and overarching theme.
2. Seductive is a word that can be misinterpreted strictly as "sexy," and while BSG is one hell of a sexy show, I use seductive to mean something that hooks you and draws you in and makes you feel helpless to stop the attraction you feel to it. If we look at it as relentless, then seductive might seem to be oxymoronic. But it isn't. It's the inevitable car crash we can't look away from, and by the time we realize we're hooked we're so invested in it that we wouldn't dream of walking away.
3. Creative is a term I award BSG because of its creative staff -- writers, designers, actors, directors, and so on -- who pulled together to take what could be just another sci-fi good-guys-versus-bad-guys-in-space drama and made it so much more. This is an adult show at its core: there are no cute tribbles, no big-eared Ferengi, no fuzzy Ewoks. There are only people and robots who look like people and robots who look like robots and move with the skill of assassins, and it's a battle of technology versus technology, wit versus wit, logic versus... daring and innovation. The world-building is pretty fantastic; the characters are great and full-fledged; the story rarely lags or throws gratuitous plots at us for the sake of making things more complicated or pandering to the fan base (hi, Lost). It's a gritty, realistic creativity.
4. Familiar is important. People have to resonate with something about a show in order to like it. Either a main character reminds them of a cousin/friend/brother/boyfriend/girlfriend (you get the picture) or the setting makes sense, or it features their team colors: something catches their attention and gives their nerves and heart a resting place. One of my favorite things about BSG is that the setting is all-too-familiar. Everyday items are commonplace and make us think this is the here-and-now, present-day except on a different planet. There's so much that's familiar, from the glassware at the bar to sports arenas to cars and motorcycles to kitchen-style toasters to telephones and cameras. It's a world we know and a world with which we identify... and then some. It's a grand sense of association that's continually tripping us up, because when we think we know what's going on, the writers throw something new and just different enough at us to make us stop and think.
5. Beautiful doesn't mean just good-looking, although there's no denying that the cast is incredibly gorgeous. What's beautiful about this show to me is the simplicity of the story. We're told continually that "this has all happened before, and it will all happen again" and that is the moral of the story and an absolute truth. Another beautiful thing about it is that all the mysteries offered up are resolved, something else from which Lost could've taken a lesson. There's also a beautiful synergy between the first two seasons as a rise and the final two as a fall, and I remember being so shocked at the end of the second season (and then again at the end of the third). Other things that are beautiful about the show are the writing and the characterization (this has some of the best, most complex, most flawed, and most realistic characters I've ever seen in a TV series). Are there misses? Sure. I could think of a number of things that didn't work for me, but overall, they do so little to dissipate the overall beauty and lyricism of the show.
There. Now that I've waxed poetic about BSG, I can talk about how that translates to RP.
One of the things I like a lot about![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ididwhatwithwho is that we designed it so that there doesn't have to be any continuity for the characters unless that's desired. In a typical RPG, there has to be continuity: storylines progress, relationships develop, life goes on. At this comm, it's set up so that every time can be the first time for a character, or it doesn't have to be. Once that was established, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lostinapapercup and I got the idea of taking our BSG characters, Kara Thrace (hers) and Sam Anders (mine) and playing with the idea of them meeting for the first time from many different points in canon. The first time we played them they were already a madly-in-lust couple (I know, right? how fun to play) and the second time, which was this week, we played them as meeting randomly for the first time pre-canon. Writing with her Starbuck is always a pleasure to start with, but this has been utterly fantastic for me in that it's given me a great reason to think about Sam's backstory. What was he like when he was "just" a regulation sports star? Where did he live, how did he spend his time, what was his personal environment like, and so on. Even though a lot of this doesn't show up in-game, it's been invaluable for me to establish all this stuff. I'm also realizing that Sam is about the least broody character I've played; he's not prone to that whole navel-gazing thing all the rest of mine love so well. It's been a kick and a half. From the first time I actually played him in a test thread with silveraspen's Laura Roslin to all the drop-in days at outpost_12 to guest-posting at milliways_bar to finally finding a great outlet for him at ididwhatwithwho, I'm feeling pretty damn good about the way RP-Sam's characterization is falling into place.
If you've RPed with me you've heard me say that I won't tackle a character until I know a bunch of their memories, because what's come before for them is pivotal to who they are now. That's difficult with Sam, who doesn't know he's not human (at the points from which I've been playing him). The memories he has were all given to him; he has no idea he's a Final Five Cylon; he has no idea he didn't grow up on Picon or go to Noyse Elementary School or any of those things, but he believes them all fervently. It's a great challenge as a roleplayer not to mess with this stuff on a meta level: if Sam believes he's human, I believe he's human. I'm also looking forward to it when he knows differently, but I'm not there yet with him. If I get a twinge of guilt every time he thinks things like I'm only human I have to keep them to myself. At that stage, it's exactly what he is. I can, however, use things from later in canon and plant them as parts of his personality. Things like an interest in science, maybe couched as an analytical look at the game of pyramid and its physics: these are substantiated canonically and I love that it's true.
What a great opportunity, exploring a character like that in more depth. So, suffice it to say I'm a huge fan of Sam Anders-the-character, and I liked him when I watched the show and I like him even better now, so there are two things I never want to hear about him from any of you. The first is the whole Sam-is-a-doormat argument, because I will argue your ass into the ground and turn it into dogmeat. The second is that Sam's not smart, because you'll get the same treatment from me on that one. There are a million great characters on that show and I will defend every single one of them as fascinating characters without being dismissive of them. They all have pluses, and they all have minuses. And they're all fantastic: see #5, Beautiful, if you need proof.
1. Relentless is probably the first and most significant term I can use to describe the show. If someone said tell me about this show in one word, this is the word I'd pick. The miniseries (which is really pivotal if you're planning on watching) starts out beautifully, but when things go wrong in this show they go wrong in the most spectacular of ways, and keep going downhill from there. It's really a study in the resilience and insistence of the human spirit in the face of tragedy, which is... pretty much a global and overarching theme.
2. Seductive is a word that can be misinterpreted strictly as "sexy," and while BSG is one hell of a sexy show, I use seductive to mean something that hooks you and draws you in and makes you feel helpless to stop the attraction you feel to it. If we look at it as relentless, then seductive might seem to be oxymoronic. But it isn't. It's the inevitable car crash we can't look away from, and by the time we realize we're hooked we're so invested in it that we wouldn't dream of walking away.
3. Creative is a term I award BSG because of its creative staff -- writers, designers, actors, directors, and so on -- who pulled together to take what could be just another sci-fi good-guys-versus-bad-guys-in-space drama and made it so much more. This is an adult show at its core: there are no cute tribbles, no big-eared Ferengi, no fuzzy Ewoks. There are only people and robots who look like people and robots who look like robots and move with the skill of assassins, and it's a battle of technology versus technology, wit versus wit, logic versus... daring and innovation. The world-building is pretty fantastic; the characters are great and full-fledged; the story rarely lags or throws gratuitous plots at us for the sake of making things more complicated or pandering to the fan base (hi, Lost). It's a gritty, realistic creativity.
4. Familiar is important. People have to resonate with something about a show in order to like it. Either a main character reminds them of a cousin/friend/brother/boyfriend/girlfriend (you get the picture) or the setting makes sense, or it features their team colors: something catches their attention and gives their nerves and heart a resting place. One of my favorite things about BSG is that the setting is all-too-familiar. Everyday items are commonplace and make us think this is the here-and-now, present-day except on a different planet. There's so much that's familiar, from the glassware at the bar to sports arenas to cars and motorcycles to kitchen-style toasters to telephones and cameras. It's a world we know and a world with which we identify... and then some. It's a grand sense of association that's continually tripping us up, because when we think we know what's going on, the writers throw something new and just different enough at us to make us stop and think.
5. Beautiful doesn't mean just good-looking, although there's no denying that the cast is incredibly gorgeous. What's beautiful about this show to me is the simplicity of the story. We're told continually that "this has all happened before, and it will all happen again" and that is the moral of the story and an absolute truth. Another beautiful thing about it is that all the mysteries offered up are resolved, something else from which Lost could've taken a lesson. There's also a beautiful synergy between the first two seasons as a rise and the final two as a fall, and I remember being so shocked at the end of the second season (and then again at the end of the third). Other things that are beautiful about the show are the writing and the characterization (this has some of the best, most complex, most flawed, and most realistic characters I've ever seen in a TV series). Are there misses? Sure. I could think of a number of things that didn't work for me, but overall, they do so little to dissipate the overall beauty and lyricism of the show.
There. Now that I've waxed poetic about BSG, I can talk about how that translates to RP.
One of the things I like a lot about
ididwhatwithwho is that we designed it so that there doesn't have to be any continuity for the characters unless that's desired. In a typical RPG, there has to be continuity: storylines progress, relationships develop, life goes on. At this comm, it's set up so that every time can be the first time for a character, or it doesn't have to be. Once that was established, lostinapapercup and I got the idea of taking our BSG characters, Kara Thrace (hers) and Sam Anders (mine) and playing with the idea of them meeting for the first time from many different points in canon. The first time we played them they were already a madly-in-lust couple (I know, right? how fun to play) and the second time, which was this week, we played them as meeting randomly for the first time pre-canon. Writing with her Starbuck is always a pleasure to start with, but this has been utterly fantastic for me in that it's given me a great reason to think about Sam's backstory. What was he like when he was "just" a regulation sports star? Where did he live, how did he spend his time, what was his personal environment like, and so on. Even though a lot of this doesn't show up in-game, it's been invaluable for me to establish all this stuff. I'm also realizing that Sam is about the least broody character I've played; he's not prone to that whole navel-gazing thing all the rest of mine love so well. It's been a kick and a half. From the first time I actually played him in a test thread with silveraspen's Laura Roslin to all the drop-in days at outpost_12 to guest-posting at milliways_bar to finally finding a great outlet for him at ididwhatwithwho, I'm feeling pretty damn good about the way RP-Sam's characterization is falling into place. If you've RPed with me you've heard me say that I won't tackle a character until I know a bunch of their memories, because what's come before for them is pivotal to who they are now. That's difficult with Sam, who doesn't know he's not human (at the points from which I've been playing him). The memories he has were all given to him; he has no idea he's a Final Five Cylon; he has no idea he didn't grow up on Picon or go to Noyse Elementary School or any of those things, but he believes them all fervently. It's a great challenge as a roleplayer not to mess with this stuff on a meta level: if Sam believes he's human, I believe he's human. I'm also looking forward to it when he knows differently, but I'm not there yet with him. If I get a twinge of guilt every time he thinks things like I'm only human I have to keep them to myself. At that stage, it's exactly what he is. I can, however, use things from later in canon and plant them as parts of his personality. Things like an interest in science, maybe couched as an analytical look at the game of pyramid and its physics: these are substantiated canonically and I love that it's true.
What a great opportunity, exploring a character like that in more depth. So, suffice it to say I'm a huge fan of Sam Anders-the-character, and I liked him when I watched the show and I like him even better now, so there are two things I never want to hear about him from any of you. The first is the whole Sam-is-a-doormat argument, because I will argue your ass into the ground and turn it into dogmeat. The second is that Sam's not smart, because you'll get the same treatment from me on that one. There are a million great characters on that show and I will defend every single one of them as fascinating characters without being dismissive of them. They all have pluses, and they all have minuses. And they're all fantastic: see #5, Beautiful, if you need proof.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:18 am (UTC)I like this post. (Are you shocked?) I think you're right on the money with your five adjectives. Mike and I were were giving our opinions about the show a few weekends ago, and while we had to acknowledge its imperfections we both raved about the characters and characterization in particular. I won't claim that I think every storyline made sense or that every loose end was tied up, but on the whole what an amazing work of art. I only wish I could've been somehow involved.
I'm so pleased that you watched it and enjoyed it.
And that you're having so much fun playing Sam! I remember us having an idle conversation around the time you first finished the series, and you said something about not knowing what character from it you'd play if you did play one. It made me laugh and made me think, and while there was no shortage of characters you'd write beautifully I honestly didn't have a suggestion. Sam and Bill came to mind as the most likely options, but I didn't think you'd ever actually play either.
I'm glad you proved me wrong. I've never come out and requested canonmates for Starbuck anywhere but have always thought I'd welcome anyone she knew. Anyone! Lee? Bring him on! Bill? She'd love to see him! Tigh? Hilarity! Laura? It'd be fascinating! But I feel kind of spoiled that for
(And thank you so much for the compliment! I'm all flattered.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:30 am (UTC)I have to say that normally, it's not my preferred thing to engage in canon coupling through RP from the very beginning. Look at Spike and Julia and at how hard they had to work to get where they are, or Sawyer and Kate, who also didn't come by what they have because it was easy or convenient. I love the journey as much as anything else. But I have to say that these two have such natural charisma with one another and such an affinity toward one another -- and that's established from the start in canon -- that I can't not play it the way that makes sense for the character. One thing about Sam is that he just loves Kara. He loves her, even though she's not perfect and doesn't always act like she loves him in return but still, he loves her. He's just one of those men who fell in love and refuses to fall out of it.
Fuck. I could go on about it for days. I'll spare you. ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:53 am (UTC)And yeah, I feel pretty similarly about the relationship biz. I've never brought a character into a game while they were in a relationship or with the expectation of getting them into a particular relationship once in the game -- you know I didn't even expect Julia and Spike to be able to pull it back together -- but with
Although I haven't felt like I am so far. Maybe if I was trying to play Starbuck in a relationship with someone Luke Skywalker or something. I mean, personally I think she'd eat him for breakfast, so I'd be pasting that attraction on with the kind of stick glue they give you in kindergarten and then, yeah, I'd feel kind of like a fraud. But so far I haven't done anything there that hasn't felt natural for each character based on who they are and what point in canon they're coming from. I guess that's the rule I can't break even in a place with no rules.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:57 am (UTC)(For now!)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-31 07:03 pm (UTC)