~The List~

[Felicia1066]

On the topic of Narnia, I must admit that I read The Magician's Nephew first. (Okay, my dad read it to me. He read to me a lot when I was little, and he's very good at it.) At the time, I didn't even know there were other books in the series. A few years later, I was old enough to check the publication date, and discovered that The Lion etc was written first, and that made a lot of sense to me, just from how it was written.

I'd put the BBQ between Breathe and Knock on Coffins. Fits the timeline, fits with how well everyone knows each other (how well Daphne knows the others, actually) and fits with the progression of how brown Chaz gets. There's that throw-away comment in KoC where Daphs mentions "the thing on Memorial Day".

[Elizabeth Bear]

Actually, I find that keeping track of what shade of sienna Chaz is in any given episode is a major continuity issue....

[jennygadget]

The BBQ was another one I struggled with. How far up would you recommend we push it? Chronologically, maybe? If not where it is right now, my head wants to put it maybe after Handful of Dust, but that's just off the top of my head without looking at the dates because I am lazy.

Personally, I dunno.  Reading through comments on the boards (the search button has been extremely invaluable in trying to pin down airdates for extra content) it looks like it was aired in pieces from March through May last year.  Which was pretty much the entire season.  (Which explains why it works as something that can be read earlier - because parts of it were meant to be read early on.)

On that note:  I have added airdates and authors for the first season episodes on the wiki.  If people don't like it I can easily take it off.  If you all do like it, I'll try adding the same for extra content and season 2, as well as a disclaimer at the top that explains that extra content does not have specific author attributions - as per tPTB.

Re: making a reading list for the lj entires.  The only way I can think to do it is to divide them up and actually go through them one by one.  (I call Chaz!  Ok, I'll share if you insist.)  And then discuss our notes as we go through them and decide how detailed we want to be.  But that's bc I'm one of those people that need to try something first - and then come up with a clear plan before doing it for real.  Any other suggestions on how to go about it are welcome and appreciated.

[Jezabella49]

A link to the first live journal post for each character would be a Useful Thing.*

It took me a while and a lot of reading here to realize how much Enlightening Narrative was committed in the Live Journals.  Catching Up is hard to do when you don't immediately realize what a Helpful Thing you have been given.



*been reading some stuff that used capitalization for decoration and emphasis.  Beware!  It's Catching!

[Felicia1066]

A link to the first live journal post for each character would be a Useful Thing.*

It took me a while and a lot of reading here to realize how much Enlightening Narrative was committed in the Live Journals.  Catching Up is hard to do when you don't immediately realize what a Helpful Thing you have been given.



*been reading some stuff that used capitalization for decoration and emphasis.  Beware!  It's Catching!

Because of all that they've been through
Catching up is hard to do!


(I'm sorry, but I had to.)

[makito]

it looks like it was aired in pieces

........Ooooooooh *realization*

That makes -perfect- sense.

Should we then perhaps split the BBQ into multiple parts and disperse them throughout? If not, I'm all for pushing it up before KoC, but the line "for tomorrow we shall die" at the end is just so appropriate for being right before Refining Fire. It's so foreshadowy and wonderful and shivery and all sorts of other good adjectives.

What do y'all think?

Actually, I find that keeping track of what shade of sienna Chaz is in any given episode is a major continuity issue....

Indeed, Bear. Indeed.


Aww, my newbie friend is so cute. She finished Breathe and we were talking about Chaz, and I forget what I said, but she said, "....Wait, isn't Chaz, like, pale?"
Ohhhh, I had forgotten what it felt like as a first time reader.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Imagine Daphne's cognitive dissonance! Wait! That's the guy who saved my life and vice versa!

...hey, he changed color!

(Chaz is Ambiguously Ethnic Lad. I have two friends with the same superpower. It's sometimes quite slapstick watching people try languages on them.)

[makito]

(*facepalms when she realizes that we can't split up the BBQ becuase it's all on one page. Herpaderp*)

I have a friend, who....well, after I heard a bit more about Chaz's physical appearance during my first read, I went HOLY CRAP IT'S MY FRIEND DANNY...he's very Ambiguously Ethnic (I honestly have no clue what's in there), but he looks white enough that no one tries languages, thank goodness. He's just odd-looking.

Though I imagine that would be quite funny to watch.

[Edmund Schweppe]

(*facepalms when she realizes that we can't split up the BBQ becuase it's all on one page. Herpaderp*)

But, through the power of anchors, you can link to individual parts of the BBQ - for example, Nikki Lau's trials and tribulations with the Star Trek: Next Generation Gas Grill is at http://www.shadowunit.org/wtfbbq.html#Part 3.

[jennygadget]

(*facepalms when she realizes that we can't split up the BBQ becuase it's all on one page. Herpaderp*)

Not quite, because the page is subdivided into parts 1-4 - and I think that's how it was divided up when it was originally aired.  I'm just not sure if linking to each part rather than just the whole would make the Reading Order more confusing or not.  So for now I vote let's keep it as is, but plan on thinking about it more and definitely noting somewhere on the wiki - such as the table jeffy was talking about - when the (approximate) airdates for each part was.

re:ambigiously ethnic - I was going to say I don't know anyone like that, but....living in socal, it's more that most people  (most white people?) just default to "(vaguely) hispanic" if one does not look like they stepped off the Mayflower, or is not otherwise clearly from one ethnic group or another.

Which is why what threw ME for a loop was when the Texans referred to Chaz as "black."  Not because I hadn't imagined him getting dark enough, more because "black" is a more sharply defined ethnic group in my mind; I - and most of the people I know - would be more likely to guess "hispanic" or just whatever if someone didn't look "clearly" black.

[Elizabeth Bear]

And of course, Hafidha's first guess was black, and Daphne's was white! no, Latino! *g*

There's some native american in there too, just to really confuse the issue....

[jeffy]

Okay, folks, try to keep up. ;-)

http://wiki.shadowunit.org/index.php/Reading_Order

[jennygadget]

And of course, Hafidha's first guess was black, and Daphne's was white! no, Latino! *g*

There's some native american in there too, just to really confuse the issue....

Well, that's what "hispanic" usually comes down to anyway....it's just "native to south america" Native American.

I thought that might be the case, only based on the fact that while I am very white bread as far as upbringing, my entire family tans.  Not like Chaz does, but definitely more to a shade where (as long as our farmer's tans weren't showing) we would be called hispanic around here - if our features weren't so clearly "Western European."  Dad's side of the family is most recently from Florida by way of Oklahoma - so we are guessing there is some Native American in there somewhere.