fannish top five -- part 2

[fictional]

OMG resetting the router worked. Thank you thank you thank you.

Part 3 is coming soon. Caveat for these: my brain's pretty swiss cheese at the moment. Might have forgotten some totally apt response, and will curse myself later. Decisions are hard!

For lefaym
top five moments of AWESOME FAIL

1. Harry Potter: The Whole Book(s)? Not specific enough? Okay. Everything having to do with numbers of people, the misogyny inherent in the wizarding world, the (lack of) depiction of wizarding society. Without this nonsense, rm and I would never have had the idea for descensus_hp
2. Torchwood: The Ianto/Jack Rom-Com in "Fragments". Without this, we'd never have the stellar rescue of the script by GDL and Ianto's tears as he walks away. Suddenly, this cipher of a character had so many layers.
3. Firefly/Serenity: "Gorammit, girl, it's me," says Jayne, as he grabs River, trying to calm her down from being triggered. And I say, "uh, and this is supposed to work, why?" Suddenly, River/Jayne seemed extra full of betraying, traitorous, crazy hotness.
4. Smallville: THE WHOLE SERIES? Okay, again, not specific enough. How about every laden reference to Lex and Clark's post Rift relationship? Lex, giving Clark a sword to fence with. "It's a foil, every hero needs one." OMG the cheeze. I ate it with a spoon.
5. Star Wars: That bdsm dress Lucas trotted Natalie Portman out in. With that collar, and Anakin's propensity for… uh, choking things… it always comes back to the breathplay, doesn't it? I think my kink is showing.


For stardragonca
top five things a TV show/movie got right

1. The supernatural underworld in Being Human. After years, years of waiting, finally a show gives me the supernatural society – the rules, the relationships, the exploration of vampirism and lycanthropy and death I've been craving. With no humans to bollocks it up. Ironic, that.

2. Anachronism in Merlin. Instead of setting this in some fictional 6th or 13th century, they set in Never-Never Land, just like the legends themselves. Clever bricolage is clever, just like everything else about this sparkly little show.

3. The alternate universe of Star Trek Reboot. They managed to let the original fandom stand, and built a new one adjacent to it. You can love both. It's awesome.

4. Leverage's team building. They make you love every character, and every pairing. It's the perfect show to build a fandom around. Plus they give 'em bad guys to fight that you can really hate. This show should also get a nod for its awesome use/depiction of fannish and geekish sensibilities.

5. The period sensibilities depicted in The Duchess. It's arranged marriage in all its horror and splendor. Note, for instance, that Georgiana isn't sad about being married off to the Richest Duke in All The Land, she's thrilled. Also, a nod to nuance in the film's complicated people leading complicated lives thing. It's also a love story. Just a different one.

Honorable Mentions: New Who. Couldn't think of one specific thing, but, OMG love it so much. Also a nod to Buffy for its genre mixing. Comedy + Angst + Love + Monsters + Action = Kali's FANNISH GLEE. Books weren't indicated for this set, but can't let it pass without a nod to Julian May's Pliocene Exile and Galatic Milieu series, which got time travel perfectly right. You want to talk about timey-wimey? Read them. Also Georgette Heyer for recognizing the importance of wit in romance. So many Austen-imitators completely forget that the books are funny, and also failing at being witty themselves.. I don't mean to suggest, of course, that the Incomparable Georgette mimics Austen, as she's got a different project, but both make me laugh. Out loud.

For laughingacademy
Top five things I did not see coming.

1. The regeneration of Ten into… himself. I'd gone (not so quietly) insane between "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End", so while I don't necessarily like the way this panned out… it was a heart-thumping relief at the time.
2. The twist at the end of The Prestige blew my mind, as good magicians are meant to do.
3. The end of The Mist (film). Dude. It burns me SO hard that this movie incorporated all the darkness and brutality of human nature that CoE wanted to have, and managed to make me believe it, even with its ridiculously bad acting and bad dialogue, while Torchwood S3 just made me go, "uh, whut?" Ahem. Moving on.
4. The identity of the "fantôme familier" in Julian May's Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu series. I should have seen this coming – it's hinted at aplenty, but I didn't. (If you haven't read them, and enjoy space opera: run, don't walk. They're fabulous, queer friendly, time travel, aliens, um, elves, a character who is nicknamed, with justification: The Angel of the Abyss, saints & an awesome brand of Catholicism, and did I mention the best time travel ever?)
5. Mary's family, and their family business. Whoa. That was crazy awesome. Castiel and the introduction of angels, was also a big shocker. Man, I love Supernatural's season 4.

Honorable Mentions: Jack = Face of Boe. I was spoiled for this, but it would have completely blown me away. It's still one of my favorite things, ever. I should also mention: "Luke, I am your father." The first one of the Trilogy I saw (while sentient) was "Return of the Jedi" (I saw Empire in the womb, but do not recollect much), so Vader was always Luke's father. Sniff! [Contains spoilers for: Doctor Who, The Prestige, The Mist (film), Julian May's Pliocene Exile & Galactic Milieu series, Supernatural.]

For neifile7
Top five bunnies that ate your brain -- whether they turned into fic or not.

I chose to only do ones I haven't written/started writing.

1. au!Jack/au!John running a con on Pete's World!Torchwood, and thus, Ten.2 and Rose. Would end with Ten/Rose/Jack. (Still very much plan on writing this.)
2. a Merlin future-fic that involves the whole Crystal Cave plotline from the legend. (Will also write this.)
3. Cameron Phillips in Terminator: TSCC, looping through time, over and over, meeting John Connor a thousand times, trying to save him and avert the war against the machines, failing and then being sent back to do it over. This story ships Cameron/John as I do myself. Oh man, forgot about them for the fannish OTPs thing.
4. A West Wing/SG-1 x-over, where the Stargate stuff is happening during Bartlett's presidency.
5. L'Engleverse - the redemption of Zachary Gray. What can I say? I like my bad guys, redeemed. Would take place in NYC, when Zach is at Columbia Law, Emily Gregory is studying at Julliard, and Kali Cutter swings into town. (See Madeleine L'Engle's The Moon By Night, The Young Unicorns, The Arm of the Starfish, A Ring of Endless Light, A House Like A Lotus, and An Acceptable Time.)

Honorable mention: I knew the second I heard that Jack was the Face of Boe, that I wanted Ianto to meet the Face of Boe. And thus: There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains to Bear Their Names to Time. I've also got a half done Sam & Dean visit NYC fic, where the old bridges and waterways of the city are haunted. Lenore comes back too. (Miss her!) Maybe someday I'll finish that. And then there's the RPF epic involving various denizens of the BBC making a movie. Still might do that one, too. Also the Lovecraftian exposition of what might be Moving in the Dark at the end of the line in Torchwood's universe.

Oh god, and also the Leverage crossover with either Supernatural or better still, Torchwood. Oh! And then there's the Supernatural crossover with Being Human, though that would end horribly, and I would be sad. Also the Doctor Who/Star Trek reboot crossover. Can't you see the Federation as the 1st Great and Bountiful Human Empire? I can. I ♥ crossovers.

Comments

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, The Prestige — I had read the book years earlier, so I when I saw the movie I remembered the Tesla!twist but I didn’t recall the other twist at first. I should add that film to my BluRay wishlist.

Also, clearly I need to check out this Julian May person.

I loved learning about Mary’s family in SPN. Do you think John ever found out?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I loved learning about Mary’s family in SPN. Do you think John ever found out?

ME TOO. Um, I don't know. I want to say yes? Because he knew who had the Colt, and Daniel Elkins (? I think that's his name?) had to get it back from the Campbells (so therefore...Mary?) after the whole Dean-rides-Castiel-like-a-TARDIS thing. (My angels are a blue box.) Which means...

Elkins knew the Campbells and Mary, and John hunted with him years later. Although he never told him about the Colt. But maybe in the letter? ooh! Fic idea!

This is all not to say what Mary might have told him when he came back from the dead with a dead potential father-in-law next to him and his girl. How do you explain this? Heh.

tl;dr: I have no idea.

Julian May is so good. The first book, "The Many Colored Land" has a bit of a slow start (though if you go back and read it later, after the rest, it's awesome!) but they are totally worth sticking with. Some of the best shit ever, seriously.

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Okay, I am drunk and just watched a crack carny version of the Oresteia so am not very coherent, but your fives are relevant to my interests and make you very cool in my eyes. I also did not know you liked Merlin. yay.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

re: a crack carny version of the Oresteia - whoa. *offers... uh does not know what to offer*

I once had to sit through a horrendous play-that-was-really-one-long-epistolary-monologue, which was a letter from Clytemnestra right before Orestes kills her. Yeah. I haven't yet recovered, and this was years ago.

I'm glad you liked the fives! I ♥ Merlin. Can't wait for Series 2.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

I once had to sit through a horrendous play-that-was-really-one-long-epistolary-monologue, which was a letter from Clytemnestra right before Orestes kills her. Yeah. I haven't yet recovered, and this was years ago.

Aaagh! Flashbacks!

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I feel like a bad and lazy feminist -- I'm sure it's obvious, but I haven't thought about it, and my brain feels like a hard boiled egg, so if you have time or have a place to point me to, could you tell me why the wizarding world in HP is inherently misogynistic? Aside from there being so many more wizards with names and lines and importance and stuff...

Awesome lists of awesomes!

Hey, have you ever seen Dexter?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I love Dexter!

Misogyny in Wizarding World: for me, it really hits home when Hermione at the end of Sorceror's Stone says, in response to Harry saying he's not as good a wizard as she is: "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery and – oh Harry – be careful!" And I went, "uh, really?"

There also doesn't seem to be any future for a woman in the wizarding world except as an adjunct to a man. Adult women are divided into two categories: wife-mothers (Mrs. Weasley, Lily) and spinster teachers (McGonagall et al). There's no corollary to, say, Sirius Black in Harry's life. See here for a discussion in salon: http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/01/13/potter/index.html?sid=566202

I've lots more to say, but am having trouble finding words -- but inherently the books just seemed very ideologically conservative to me. I think astolat says it best here: [it wasn't so much that] she paired everyone off in the boring obvious heteronormative ways, because I knew she was going to, and also fandom can and will fix that in a second, but because of the awful sense of inertia. It's nineteen years into the future and they're all in exactly the same places they were nineteen years before, both in relation to each other and in relation to their environment. In fact, in the same places they were twenty-six years before, because all the friendships and pairings are basically as they were set up in the very first book. The kids are being put on the same train, to go to the same school, to what, re-enact their lives? Without Voldemort gumming up the works, presumably, but in the context of the backstory with Grindelwald, you sort of expect that hey, it's just about time for another Dark wizard to come along, who will have to be faced by Harry and Ron and Hermione's kids! and hey, we get to tell the whole story over again!

So the feeling I walked away with is, what Harry fought for was to lock them into this idyllic 1950s-esque suburbian status quo, where to me, his fight should have been all about diversity and progress, while Voldemort's side were the ones wanting to lock them into some kind of false-nostalgia for a time when wizards did things the Good Old Way. At least there should have been goblins in the train station putting THEIR kids on the train too; a tiny little house elf with giant eyes and quivering ears, timidly getting aboard. The kids going to Hogwarts on a high-speed maglev train in Muggle clothes with cellphones, rolling their eyes at Mom and Dad for still going on about that boring pureblood and muggleborn stuff, when everyone knows what's really important right now are ipods and environmental wizardry, etc. Or something -- just a sign that no, we're not frozen in time. (http://astolat.livejournal.com/156062.html#cutid1)

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Ah -- yes. There are a few wonderful female characters -- Umbrage, for example, ranks as a great villain for me -- but the books are totally stuck in time and stereotypes, with a very imbalanced cast and universe.

Sigh.

[such_heights]

You're thinking of writing TSCC fic? *dolphin noises of glee*

And YAY for Leverage, I love it so.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Oh man, is anyone even still reading TSCC fic? (I was so bummed when it got cancelled in favor of Dollhouse. Sigh.)

Leverage is like the most soothing show on earth. It is filling the wait till Merlin S2 beautifully.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

The AWESOME FAIL: yes, bring it! All of it!

And I want to read that Pete's World AU liek woah. Partly because I have never been able to see Ten/Jack/Rose in any version or incarnation, and I figure if anyone can convince me, you can.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hahahah. But they would be so pretty! SO PRETTY. And if you get rid of Jack's immortality, he wouldn't make Ten queasy, and, and... =D

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

These are so fun. Thank you for sharing/bringing the awesome! You're so broadly fannish. I'm like, "bwuh what?"

And you're 1000% right about Being Human.

(Which reminds me, I need to do my Lifty ones soon.)

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I'm broadly reader-ish. Sadly, the output is less significant.

WHEN IS Being Human S2 coming? WHEN????

(P.S. Post-its. If you want to email me the scans, I could try putting them together, if you're too busy and overwhelmed, which is completely understandable. Hopefully things are going okay your end, with the mom etc? I am burying my woes in fannish procrastination, hence the offer.)

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

The Post-its are, like, half done. It's just been crazygonuts and I've had to resort to taking care of myself v. taking care of them. Hopefully since J. is headed to North Carolina I will have quiet time and sleep and so on to work on them.

And I think Spring 2010 is what I heard last.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Of course! That wasn't like, a nudge. RL and taking care of you = much more important.

MEANWHILE, I some character who shall remain nameless spelled "pteranodon" wrong on them, and I have been up nights trying to convince myself that "pterodon" is what they call themselves, okay?! and maybe us non-cretacious period beings should just STFU. But i'm not crazy. REALLY.

Spring? Spring? That's like, so far away!

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Look, someone is from space. They might do things differently there, yeah?

And hey, it's cool. I own that I am slow about things these days. Yargle.