Fannish5: Name five characters who would throw the best holiday gatherings.

1.) Londo Mollari, of Babylon 5. Not just because the Centauri in general and Londo in particular love to party, but because Londo actually has organizational skills if he wants to employ them (see: organizing conspiracies against heads of state, getting various representatives of the league of non-alligned worlds he previously pissed off to form an alliance). And he's got the charm and vitality to make everyone feel welcome. Lastly, we have on screen canon for this. I ask you, whose "practice of religious belief" looked like it was the most fun to attend in Parliament of Dreams?

2.) Jadzia Dax, of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.. Dax loves a party, is tight with the local provider of drinks and food, and with her xenophilia is bound to pick up a rich variety of guests. Centuries of age also give her the knowledge to avoid stepping on anyone's cultural toes. Lastly, I say again, on screen evidence. Her hen night looked like it was glorious fun.

3.) Chiana, of Farscape. Much younger and more anarchic than my previous two examples, but when she wants to say thank you to people she cares about, she has given on screen evidence for her ability to organize a touching celebration (and the food that goes with it). Also, if Chiana is throwing the gathering, you can bet the romantic angst will be kept at a minimum and the fun level will be high; of course, it's not guaranteed all the food was legaly obtained, but in the Unchartered Territories, who cares?

4.) Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, of Lost. This man has proven himself able to throw a party even under adverse conditions on the proverbial desert island, and to cajole people who constantly clash to attend. He's been known to share chocolate even with messed up sociopathic masterminds. Hurley is definitely a candidate for best holiday gatherer ether!

5. Lorne, of Angel. A long time owner of a karaoke bar frequented by demons and humans alike, superb singer, all time nice guy and friend, Lorne probably could throw holiday gatherings in his sleep. (Why, he could organize merry get togethers even in a brain washed state when most of California was temporarily in the Hyperion worshipping Jasmine.) In addition to sharing the celebratory spirit and organizing skills of my previous candidates, Lorne can also provide great music for the occasion. Just be careful not to sing yourself if you don't want advice for what awaits you.
****


Speaking of Chiana,one of the many virtues of the AO3 is that one can discover stories one missed the first time around. I've always had a soft spot for the Chiana-John Crichton relationship, so I was delighted to find a long and plotty adventure starring the two of them:
Left Behind, set in season 3, with the episode Eat Me as a starting point. If you, like me, didn't know this story since ages, go and read at once!

*****

And lastly, one does not need new reasons to love Patrick Stewart, but I found his impassioned article about domestic violence very moving, and very worth reading.

Current Mood: peaceful

1.) My Yuletide story is off to the trusty beta. And again I am amused I ended up with the prompt for the fandom I only threw in as an afterthought. 'Twas very satisfying to write, though. No idea whether it's as easy to guess as my remix fic (which was easy if you know me; as skywaterblue put it, who else would go for a story based on one of the justly least popular DS9 episodes?). I also don't know the recipient at all, which I find in some ways easier than to write for a friend. (I'll never forget my nervoussnesss about whether or not astrogirl2 would hate Nowhere Man! The poor trusty beta who held my virtual hand won't forget, either.)

2.) Christopher Eccleston and Naoko Mori are going to play John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In a film covering the Beatles break-up years and the getting together of John and Yoko, no less. Mind you, the ages completely don't fit - I guesss Eccleston is older now than John Lennon ever got to be, let alone as he was in the late 1960s, and Naoko Mori while right for Yoko then looks younger than Eccleston when really Yoko was older. But who cares? They're both excellent actors, and I'm especially happy for Naoki Mori, who was mostly underused on Torchwood but when the show did allow her to shine really was magnificent. And hey, John Lennon plays right into Eccleston's type of roles.

3.) I already recced individual stories from this series before, but: halycon_shift has finished what amounts to a virtual season 3 of my much missed Sarah Connor Chronicles: Out on the Wire. Picks up right where s2 ended for both Sarah and John, uses the great supporting characters the show offers, and does justice to its complex themes. I'm still not over the cancellation and don't think I'll ever be, but great fanfiction like this helps somewhat.

Current Mood: satisfied

Though I visited the US quite often, I never was there in November and thus never witnessed the event myself. So, here's what a non-American from abroad learns about Thanksgiving from the American media:

- there are hotlines with turkey recipees available; sometimes, geeky Presidents use them
- on Thanksgiving, you even have to take a vampire in; saving him from bears, however, is optional
- on Thanksgiving, we find out Tony Stark is the son of Mrs. Robinson; this makes so much sense (obscure Home for the Holidays allusion is obscure)
- rewriting history for a school play so that the pilgrims get all slaughtered makes it more fun
- the President gets to pardon a turkey (but not to decide which turkey it should be; that's for his poor press secretary to do)
- Benjamin Franklin thought the turkey would have made for a far better national symbol than the eagle anyway.

I must say, I'm with Franklin there. Every other European nation used and is still using the eagle already. Why go for a remake, America, when you can do an original? Or, as Mr. Franklin put it:

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country . . .

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

Benjamin Franklin: part of what I love about the US. American friends, enjoy Thanksgiving (and the Birds of Courage)!

Current Mood: mischievous

A friend of mine wanted the complete Whedon run of Astonishing X-Men for his birthday in two weeks, which gave me an excuse to acquire the omnibus before wrapping it up as a present. Additional material that comes with it are basically an introduction containing the X-Men backstory parts important to AXM, an interview with John Cassady, emails from Joss Whedon to Joe Quesada and Michael Marts and some sketches; nice to see/read but not a must, so if you like myself already have the individual trades, you don't have to by the omnibus for these alone. Anyway, it left me all mellow and wistful. Not only was Cassady's art the prettiest, but I really loved those arcs and the way Joss wrote every single character, both the stalwarts he inherited and the new ones he created. To this day I'm frustrated AXM didn't get more fannish attention because it was fantastic and really the best thing he did post-Chosen (and I include Firefly here).

I also got Invincible Iron Man #20 (start of a new arc, Stark Disassambled) by Matt Fraction. ( Brief spoilery thoughts. )

In other news, my Whedon/Cassady AXM love made me go back to the AXM mood theme for a while.

Current Mood: busy

The local supermarket had the last two TNG movies, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis as a special cheap offer, and thus I saw them again for the first time since the cinematic release. (Because they were not exactly good, and I say that as a devoted later series of ST fan, I never made any attempt to rewatch before.)

So, how do they feel several years hence? For starters, there are worse ST movies. (Step forwards, Slow Motion Picture and Final Frontier.) However, the basic problems remained the same. Let's start with Insurrection.

( Star Trek: Insurrection )

On to the last TNG movie, object of much fannish ire.

( Star Trek: Nemesis )

Current Mood: mellow

Vids:

Black Narcissus is one of those classic movies which I don't exactly like but find fascinating as they disturb me gloriously in early technicolor. aycheb made a great vid about why: Riots.

Angel:

God Bless The Child: an elegic and sad portrait of Lorne by laurashapiro, and a goodbye to Andy Hallet at the same time. Oh, Lorne. It wasn't easy being green, no indeed.

On to the good news, at least if you like both Shakespeare and Patrick Stewart: his Macbeth gets filmed! I'm so looking forward to the Tennnant/Stewart Hamlet coming out this Christmas on dvd, but that production I actually had the fortune to see, whereas I didn't see the Macbeth, so imagine me squeeing over here like a banshee!

Current Mood: bouncy

In which there are several zomg moments.

( We have a tradition here )

Current Mood: shocked

Transferring Heroes stories to the AO3 was upsetting. I did some choosing and picking, as I didn't want to transfer all, but this meant rereading, which meant remembering, which meant me going "Damn it, Heroes, damn it!".

You know, I've been wondering retrospectively what could have saved the show because it did have such a lot of potential. Realistically saved, which means wishing a completely different mindset on Tim Kring & Co. or completely different writers is out. And my conclusion is that the only plausible option I can see would have been if Kring had stuck to his original idea of introducing a new ensemble cast each season. This would have meant his weaknesses - good long term character development, plausible long term arcs - would not have been exposed, his strengths - origin stories, setting up interesting relationships - would have been played to, and while one season long arcs still could have included problematic choices re: storylines for pocs and/or women, the odds of this being balanced by successful storylines for same would have been higher.

On to more joyful fannish nostalgia, this one concerning Star Trek: yesterday I had tea with an actor who does a lot of dubbing work and was friends with the late G.G. Hoffman, who used to dub both Sean Connery and William Shatner. Hoffmann also supervised a lot of the dubbing for TOS back in the day. And my new accquaintance (who dubbed the occasional Klingon and other guest characters) had an anecdote about visiting Hoffmann once in the studio, finding several female visitors who were ST fangirls (well, -women, that was what struck him, as he had the usual preconceptions about who likes Sci-Fi) who while being intrigued and impressed by the whole dubbing process immediately switched to stern and merciless once the work started whenever Hoffmann made a continuity mistake. They were his continuity advisors, and the actors were all amazed by all the details the fan women knew by their hearts. And took every suggestion...

Current Mood: indescribable

You know, I wasn't that crazy about The Claws of Axos the first time around, when it came without farting jokes and with Delgado!Master. This finale didn't live up to the two previous SJA finales; it was okay but not splendid, especially compared with Enemy of the Bane last season. (Same goes for s3 in general - it was pleasant enough but there was just one outstanding story, The Wedding of Sarah Jane, whereas season 2 had several great stories, notably Mark of the Beserker and Enemy of the Bane.) This being said, there was enough in The Gift to make me feel fuzzy about the entire gang to keep me a generally happy viewer, with only the slight disappointment this didn't live up to previous show efforts.

( Who wants to know about the life cycle of a plant? )

Current Mood: good

With the usual caveat that one woman's source of fannish annoyance may be another sentient being's source of fannish pleasure, etc.

1.) Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager.
Why is he annoying? ( Spoilers for ST: Voyager ensue. )

2.) Lorien from Babylon 5.
Why is he annoying? ( Spoilers for Babylon 5 ensue. )

3.) William "Bill" Adama from Battlestar Galactica.
Why is he annoying? ( Spoilers for Battlestar Galactica ensue. )

4.) Galen from Crusade.
Why is he annoying? ( Spoilers for Crusade ensue. )

5.) Lila from Dexter.
Why is she annoying? ( Spoilers for Dexter ensue. )

Current Mood: annoyed

The Companion Chronicles is a series by Big Finish in which various of the former companions get to narrate an adventure from their time with their respective Doctors, centered on them. I've previously reviewed Old Soldiers, in which the narrator is the Brigadier. This time, the Companions are Jo Grant and Sara Kingdom, from the Third and First Doctor's era respectively.

( Marc Platt: The Doll of Death )

( Simon Courier: Home Truths )

Current Mood: calm

Lessons learned from transferring my Alias stories to AO3: I must persuade nomadicwriter to post there as well, otherwise I'm pretty much the only one using an Arvin Sloane character tag (so far, with just one exception).

Also: Alias is a fandom where I get a headache nearly each time I have to decide whether or not to use the pairing handle. Because while most of my stories have Arvin/Jack subtext, there is no actual sex (or even as much as a kiss) going on, so indicating a pairing would probably mean raise wrong expectations.

Lessons learned from transferring my Highlander stories: first of all, Seventh Dimension had changed its URL again. Never mind, I tracked the new one down. Secondly: awwwww, first internet fandom. I feel ever so nostalgic. First ever fanfiction written in English! The one that made honorh write to me! The one that made kathyh write to me! First ever agenda story! (The agenda being: I'm ticked off at parts of fandom for their character bashing, have a point to make, and am also literary ambitious.)

Oh, nineties. You know, I think Highlander the Series (never mind the movies) holds up pretty well, all in all. The other month I was talking with kathyh about how HL handled the whole "immortal falls in love with mortal" concept way better than certain younger products, not to mention much of fanfiction in many a fandom. For starters, the show doesn't do the "one true love" concept, but rather sensibly makes the point that people who live for centuries, even millennia, will fall in love more than once. (Unless they're psychopaths.) Which doesn't devalue the relationships; of course they're not all presented with the same intensity, but they are all presented as important to the immortal in question. As for immortal/immortal relationships, one example from a comedy episode aside the general impression you're left with is that living together or centuries is not a good idea, whereas periods together and periods apart and willingness to switch between friendship and more according to the situation is.

Back then, that wasn't actually the thing I thought about first when being fond of the show. I liked the moral dilemmas, I liked the friendships, I liked some of the romance, sure, and the slashy subtext, and I definitely found the whole universe inspiring. And the online fannish interaction was fun. However, it also introduced me to the less fun and more infuriating side of fandom: the double standards for male and female characters, the way female characters can get demonized and bashed to no end if they're a) perceived in any way to stand beween a slash pairing, or b) hostile towards a fandom woobie, the way a morally ambiguous character promptly gets whitewashed in much fanfiction so that nothing ever is his (and mostly it's "his", see above re: double standards) fault, characters who don't forgive him immediately are judgmental assholes (if male) or deserving to die (if female)... like I said, it was the first time I encountered all of this. But by no means the last. The above mentioned very first agenda fic came into existence by one Misunderstood!Woobie!Methos story too many. (The example that pushed me over the brink into writing it went somewhat like this: Duncan and Joe found out that not only was Methos the perfect gentleman with Cassandra in his Horseman days - that rape talk was evil exaggaration by that bad woman - but he sent his personal physician from Egypt after her when she run away in the desert, and then the poor guy - Methos, not the Egyptian physician - was raped by Caspian on a regular basis so clearly he was the victim of victims; mean old Duncan - "that's what Mac gets for listening to the bitch, thought Joe" - can't even begin to apologize for his harsh, harsh words.)

Mind you: I thought reconciliation between Methos and Cassandra was possible, but not by her being told she should forgive him because he's such a charming guy these days (and certainly not by her turned into a villain and killed off). It had to earned through careful build-up and without belittling what he did to her, which is what I tried to do via the Covenants trilogy. Incubus was the first lengthy fanfiction - in any language - that I wrote, with a genuine plot instead of just dialogue and inner monologue which was and is my default option. Same with Transferences, which was also great fun to write because I got to flesh out Joe's daughter Amy and explore just what it means to be a Watcher in the HLverse, and Once out of Nature, which brings the whole thing to a conclusion. (And, I realized, is dated in one particular way - one gag depends on Methos being able to use a Lord of the Rings derived pseudonym; as soon as Peter Jackson's film versions were released, the general awareness of those names would have been far too high for him to use one, of course. Also, I had just discovered Yeats and let it show a bit too much.)

Current Mood: nostalgic

Because apparantly the "death panel/public health care" comparisons weren't offensive enough for some members of the American Right, Glenn Beck decided he needed he should get more topical, and came up with this incredibly tasteful comparison instead:

America has spoken clearly, consistently—we don't want [government-paid healthcare]. And for the first time in history, we don't think it's the government's place to give it to us. We're kind of reading this [holds up unidentified piece of paper] from time to time now. We are—excuse this analogy, but I feel like it's true—we're the young girl saying [puts on scared voice and crying face] "No, no—help me!" [back to regular voice] and the government is Roman Polanski. In the end, I think we're all gonna be cowering in France.

(Quote from this article, which also links the clip in question..)

You know, I think that actually manages to be more offensive than anything said previously ever since Polanski got arrested, which is quite an effort. (It also manages to mangle its own tasteless comparison by confusing just who went to France, but that's beside the point.)

Then there's the article Neil Gaiman linked to in his blog this morning, which compares the film based on his Coraline with Frau Holle - which he calls Mother Hulda - (not that either of the Brothers Grimm would recognize their tale from the bowlderized description he gives - more about that later), with the author coming to the conclusion that:

Those who made "Coraline" are also likely to endorse the evils of abortion and homosexual marriage, and given a chance, could easily change America into a Soviet-style hell on earth. That is - if you will - Mother Hulda shows the soul of the Right, and Coraline, the tormented soul of the Left.

A side-by-side comparison of the two stories reveals that ours is much more than a political struggle. Ours is truly "a battle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.".

Jacob Grimm, who was a linguist, scientist and who loved to trace fairy tale characters back to ancient gods, would have been disgusted by this diatribe, and, being the more agressive of the two brothers who thrived on spectacular academic flame wars, would have written an incredibly acerbic reply. You know what else he and Wilhelm G. were, besides academics and intellectuals? Liberals. Progressives. Jacob took place in the doomed revolutionary parliament in Frankfurt 1848, as one of the representatives. In short, he and his brother were everything the American Right ridicules and hates.

This claiming of the Grimms' fairy tales - who are in their undisneyfied version scary as hell sometimes, which contributes to their power, and certainly more gory than anything Neil Gaiman comes up with in Coraline - reminds me of that other display of ignorance a few months ago, when the very British Stephen Hawking suddenly found himself Americanized by Republicans and used as an example of someone whom evil British health care would have murdered. (Resulting in an immediate statement by him that he owes National Health Care his life, thank you very much.)

But you know, the truly frightening thing here is that people like this article writer or Glenn Beck can't dismissed as fringe nutjobs anymore. They have an audience. They actually get listened to and believed by millions. I think it was artaxastra who a while back said that the Republicans used to play to the fundamentalist crazies in order to get their votes but by now have been completely overtaken by them. Honestly, I used to roll my eyes and dismiss types like Beck from my thoughts, but that was before eight years of Bush did incredible damage. Now conservative America freaks me out because I'm afraid of what the next Republican goverment will do to both the US and the world.

Current Mood: infuriated

octopon - Pirates of DarkWater fandom asylum. Completed!

gotham_gazetteCompleted!</i>

vagrant_story - Vagrant Story fandom asylum. Pending/WIP.

commedia

Current Mood: hungry

( In which Deb gives more evidence of being a great cop, and other stuff happens. )

Current Mood: calm

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/labyrinthfans/

For fans of either David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly and Jim Henson and Brian Froud.

I am Colleen (ninetieschic) on this and Sam will probably choose some outlandish un.. no doubt lol.

Current Mood: curious

They who whine at their friends' list long enough shall be rewarded by comics which make them very happy indeed.

( Oh my stars and...no, just stars )

Current Mood: hyper

Icon courtesy of embarassing spoiled fannish frustration, as in: new Doctor Who, that's great (and a good special it is, too), new Dexter, nice (review will follow), but why oh why does fate continue to deny me S.W.O.R.D. #1?

*feels like the only person on the planet interested in the main characters who still hasn't been able to get hold of it, which means no ability to squee, discuss, share, ANYTHING*

In other news, I've an account at Archive of Our Own, here. Transferring my fanfiction from FFN isn't that difficult - the interface works really well, and the aesthetics are far more pleasing, plus I can already see the character tags are going to be extremely handy. I started with my Doctor Who, Torchwood, Marvel and Jossverse stuff, will go on with B5. Currently I'm shying away from my Heroes stories; it's so depressing to think of the fannish joy I felt when writing them, and of what became of the show. But I'm still proud of some of them, so I probably will transfer them as well in the end.

Going through my old Buffy and Angel stories, on the other hand, just produces a nostalgic glow. Probably because I was mostly happy with how both shows ended, and the occasional frustrations didn't outweigh the fondness. A month back there was another "which was darker, BtVS or AtS?" discussion which I rergarded with some distant interest, concluding that what people really replied to were in most cases "which do you like better?". As to the former question, I don't think you can answer them for the shows in their entirety, because it did vary from season to season (or even within season, when one thinks of AtS' abrupt tone shift in s2 post Epiphany). As to the later, I loved both shows - still do, for that matter, though I haven't been able to rewatch episodes for quite some time - but looking at my fannish output, I clearly found Angel more inspiring for fanfiction, and Buffy for meta. Which doesn't necessarily mean a preference - by now, it's a tried and true cliché that flawed canon generally inspires more fanfic than canon you're absolutely and completely happy with - but there it is.

Another conclusion from transfering old fanfic to a new archive: death warnings are a fannish etiquette I deeply resent and consider really annoying and stupid, but follow nonetheless.

Current Mood: frustrated

( Cardiff Hub: A Torchwood RPG )

Bet that news about ice on the moon feels a bit different now, huh?

( Mars: on which there is life, death, and exploration of all sorts of concepts )

Current Mood: impressed