Too Fond of Books

For day 13 of Fandom Snowflake, we're reccing things! XD

Infinite New Possibilities, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with about a billion spoilers for the entire movie, rated General but with warnings for mentions of past torture. This work is what I go to fanfic for: it's filling in the blanks of what was missing during the movie; it gives us more character development for almost everyone who I care about, and the first chapter contains a lovely, touching scene where Poe gives Rey a tour of the Resistance base, and the two of them talk about what's to come. I haven't read the second two chapters yet, but I'm really impressed with the way the first part went, and I'm glad to recommend it.

Edited to add: The Force Awakens as an adorable manga-esque High school AU. This may just be the most adorable thing I've ever seen. It fits in with emo!Kylo Ren's twitter account nicely, too.

The Please Help Me Cosplay! tumblr is still chugging along, and there's a comprehensive list in the top entry right now that gives a ton of book and website references for everything from homemade foam armor to costume patterns.

American Captain is a diary comic about Steve Rogers' experiences in The Avengers and beyond. It's a rocky story: Steve struggles with PTSD and survivor's guilt; 2010 is alternately amazing and terrifying; and his new teammates are supportive but often confusing. I like how small it feels, and I don't mean small as in insignificant or stupid, but it feels small and right, the way things would if your universe suddenly exploded and reformed itself into something sort of familiar but not really. Such a great fan comic.

In your own space, post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create.

With the demise/retiring of the marvelous rec com Crack_van, over on LJ, I've been doing a little less fanfic reading than I'd like. But I have favorites that I revisit, including, first and foremost, the wonderfully hilarious In Which John is a BAMFy MoFo, OMG!, a Sherlock parody that I save for days when I'm sad and need cheering up. I don't want to spoil what makes it so funny, but suffice it to say, it's nice to see Inspector Lestrade having the upper hand, just for once, and it's awesome to read about John being a total BAMF, and completely annoying Sherlock just by doing that.

In the realm of fanvids (one of the fanworks that I wish I could create, but haven't had the chance to try yet), there are a bunch of vids that I love and keep revisiting.

Blow, by kuwdora is a great introduction to what makes the cancelled show Sanctuary so awesome and fun: cool characters, monsters of the week, period clothing, and kick-ass, punchy action. This video also went a long way to converting me to Ke$ha fandom, or at least, not total indifference. Kuwdora is a great editor and one of those vidders who makes me green with envy.

Then, there are other fanworks that I keep revisiting because they're this mix of awesomely funny and socially relevant. Serrico's 'Pornstar Dancing' is a great example of this sort of work. The lyrics of the original are just gross, but the images that serrico uses completely subvert them, to perfect, hilarious effect. (Serrico's notes for this video are: "Being a thoughtful, sensitive, and nuanced examination of gendered expressions and characterisations of desire. (Also known as: Let's Objectify Men.)") This is fairly NSFW, both for lyrics and image. Wait until you get home from work to point and laugh.

Day 1: In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

My AO3 account looks a little anemic these days, and I'm a little sad I can't blog about something I did for Fandom_Stocking this year, since reveals haven't gone up yet. But, anyway, here are three of my fanworks I'm most pleased with as of right now:

1) Theory and Practice, a XXXHolic story featuring Watanuki, Doumeki, and an OC. This work was for a (now sadly defunct) LJ community, for a prompt that asked for Doumeki caring for Watanuki, showing his feelings through actions. I enjoyed writing this work for two reasons: I got to research first aid methodology, a field which I'd never really investigated other than the two-step process of 1) find band-aid and then 2) use band-aid. This research lead me to the second reason I enjoyed writing the fic, which was sorting out Doumeki's character more. I was actually really reluctant to write him at first; he's so stoic in the manga, and I didn't want to assume too much about him and write him very OOC. But the more I thought about the way he cared for Watanuki, the more his actions made sense, and I grew more confident writing those and giving him minimal dialogue. Creating the side characters, including the OC, was a lot of fun, too, because I got to play with the idea of that manga teases that Doumeki has a lot of admirers (irritating Watanuki to no end, of course) and that this carries over into real life, where it's a bunch of sweet old ladies worried about him because he's so thin. Finally, I'm a sucker for hurt/comfort and this story has it spades, so yay for that! This is probably my favorite piece of fanfic; I was really proud to get the feedback on it that everyone was IC, and that the recip was delighted with it. :)

2) Star Candy, an Adventure Time coffeeshop AU. (The alternate title that I strongly considered was, Perfecting the Twinkle Matrix, which I still love, although it's a mouthful.) This is a femmeslash story between Marceline and Princess Bubblegum, although the slash is more in the subtext and ending than in the story itself. I know that some readers have a visceral hatred of coffeeshop AUs, and I thought I did for a long time, too, but than I saw this prompt and found the idea oddly charming; Marceline as slightly harried owner/proprietor was fun to think about, and putting the Adventure Time characters into a less fantastical setting still worked because AT is a show that is strong in a variety of settings, with low or high magic. This was another gift for an exchange, and I'm happy that so many people enjoyed it besides the recip.

3) When Ahiru Met Haruhi, a crossover between The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi and Princess Tutu, at the request of (I think) lemon_badgeress. This is one of my oldest works. I had asked my friends for crossover prompts, and Lemon asked for this jokingly, and I thought, ha ha, I'm gonna do it! It's one of the silliest, fluffiest things I've ever written, and I wish it would get a little more love. However, both of those fandoms are pretty quiet these days, and this short fic is pretty neglected.

Just thought I'd bring these links over here (they're languishing on my Google+ account, but then again, there is a lot of languishing on Google+ these days): We Are Comics, a wonderful blog that aims to show comics fandom's diversity by encouraging its readers to submit their photos and fandom origin stories. Such a lovely, positive step for fandom as a whole, after a lot of nonsense for the past few months.

AND, an amazing Kickstarter campaign here for a video game based around ritual dance combat. This one looks like it's in danger of not meeting its goal (although it did have a very ambitious fundraising goal, all things considered), and I'm really hoping that someone will come out of nowhere with a lot of money, because this game looks like so much FUN. I wish I could back for more, but that's not feasible right now. Check them out!

It looks like Gisele from the Fast and the Furious series is Wonder Woman, provided she doesn't have conflicts later on. I, for one, am pretty pleased about this. Gal Gadot did well in the movies in both acting and stunts, and although she's not as muscular as I imagine WW would actually be, I think she'll have the presence to handle the role, even if it's just a 30-second appearance at the end (which, given the title of the movie as Batman vs. Superman, seems more likely than her getting any meaningful screen time.) But, over on io9, Charlie Jane Anders makes some compelling points about the problems of bringing WW to the big screen at all, pointing out that because of WW's somewhat convoluted and mythologically-based origin story, you either make a movie solely set in a Greek mythology-aware world (a la Percy Jackson) or you strip that part of the story away and just make her into "Sexy Female Badass Warrior Woman." The problem is that doing either of these things is highly unlikely to happen in a satisfying way in a movie. Right now, I suspect the script's going to go something like this:

Batman: I have an ideological problem with you, Superman.
Superman: And I have one with you, Batman.
(Combat ensues.)
(Cut to Justice League satellite. WW and the Flash are watching the monitors of earthly activity.)
Flash: Aw, man, not this again.
WW: Boys and their contests. Your male ways are foolish in the extreme.

Which, although entertaining, doesn't really do justice to either character, and just makes me long for the day that the WW movie is a definite possibility and not a sticking point amongst fans.

( Thursday!: Videos Games! Awesome Web Comics! A depressing panel that turned out OK! Talking with awesome people! )

( Friday!: Defiance! Literary How-To's! Weird Outside Stuff! )

( Saturday: We camped out in Room 8 for five hours! But the Adventure Time panel was worth it! Huzzah! )

( Sunday!: Loose Ends of all varieties! )

General Thoughts:

~ The fundamentalists were more vocal and more... uhm, personal, this year, for lack of a better word. Last year, they just yelled about Jesus, but this year, their attacks were more Comic Con-specific, like the guy with a megaphone who shouted at all and sundry, "Don't let your souls be enslaved by comics!" (It took some willpower not to shout back, "Too late!") There were counter-protests, of course, and those looked unpleasant to referee. I tried to thank as many of the law enforcement people as I could when they weren't working or concentrating on other things; one of the transit security police officers looked surprised when I did, and confessed that he really wished he could go to the Con himself. (He wanted to meet Stan Lee for real, not just pay for an autograph.) As usual, even in the hoards of people, I never felt unsafe or afraid for my physical well-being once, and I think the SDPD is responsible in a large part for that.

~ For some reason, the crash after this Con was especially hard this year. The real world, as much as I love it, doesn't seem quite as interesting for the first few days afterwards, and today was no exception, with mundane chores and problems looming large.

~ There was a lot of zombie stuff--costumes, toys, images, etc.. It was not fun for me. I wish this trend would run its damned course.

~ There were times when the Exhibit Hall didn't seem as crowded as usual, and I couldn't figure out if it was actually truly empty, or I had just gotten really, really good at making my way through the knots of people. It is a lot easier when it's just me, and I tend to stay out of the central scrum of the big companies and their lines, but I could have sworn there were times when there were swathes of empty space, and that's an oddity.

~ The overall theme of this year's Con ended up being something along the lines of, "Crazy Contradictions!" It was personified best in the juxtaposition of the Christian Comic Arts Association booth next to the Killer Zombie Bunnies booth in the Small Press area. Comic Con often leaves me with the aftertaste of sweet and sour. On one hand, there's a pure interest in comics and reading that makes my heart sing, but on the other, there's a crass commercialism that manifests itself in the crazy-long lines for the exclusive toys and vinyl collectibles that makes me alternately groan and grumble. Comic Con is the only place where I can wear my Kate Beaton t-shirt and people not only compliment me on it, but also want one themselves. Comic Con is also the place where my phobia is everywhere, all the time, and I have to make compromises with myself to get past it, but it's also the place where many, many people I admire (both real and fictional) are front and center, and I can draw on their words and examples to give me strength. There's beautiful art, and there's the cheesiest of cheesecake, side by side; in fact, there are Charles Dickens-esque contrasts every two feet or so. It's sublime and ridiculous, and I love almost all of it, even as I realize that what I love is what some other attendees hate. But that's the beauty of multiple fandoms, and when they're all present and not in conflict, it's just completely awesome.

Pictures are here, updated with Saturday stuff. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera on Sunday, so no extra photos. Still, lots of good ones, though. :)

In the Love It category of Oscar nonsense:

~Ang Lee has just made right to the top of my "Super Awesome and All Around Must-See Filmmaker" List. Granted, he was on the there before, but last night, he muscled his way straight to the top. Further, he was one of the few filmmakers who thanked the author of the book their movie is based on! Seriously, what the what, Hollywood.

~FASHIONS: TEH SHINY! There were a lot of looks there were just plain pretty this year. I hope a lot of stylists and publicists were well compensated for their efforts! (My favorites were Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer, Olivia Munn, and Adele.)

~Adele and Shirley Bassey were amazing! And Christopher Plummer's speech about the Best Actress category was both funny and classy.

As for the Shove It category:

~OMG, WTF and BBQ. The first link is Buzzfeed, so perhaps avoid the comments, and the second is a much more reasoned critique from The New Yorker, but for sanity, possibly avoid the comments there, too. Anyway, I guess I should start out by saying that I am definitely not a Seth MacFarlance fan, so I was likely predisposed to be critical; that said, I'm still flabbergasted that some of the jokes were allowed to air. Seriously: domestic violence is funny how/why? Actresses taking risks for their roles is... worthy of making an entire song about how you can see their boobs? I feel like much of MacFarlane's material was an extended monologue based on a montage of The Soup's "Chicks, Man" segment.

~ This year's ceremony felt particularly long, and by the end of it, I was glad it was over.

So, next year... Amy and Tina, yes? Yes? Please?

In Books:

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, by Craig Marks: I gave up on this about 100 pages in. Here's what I said on Goodreads: "I don't think that I was the target audience for this work. After about a hundred pages, it was just a blur of people talking about cocaine-fueled orgies in between making videos, casual misogyny, and poor business decisions. I should say that I am highly impressed at the author's interviewing and editing skills; without careful thought and planning, this work would have been even more disorganized and confusing. And it is amazing to think that the cultural influence that MTV had came from such a tiny germ of an idea executed by people who had almost no idea what they were doing at the time. This said, it completely lost my interest in the long list of interviewees and overall tone of the book, which was self-congratulatory and completely unaware of the implications of its content." I still stand by that. I was hoping my impression would have changed with a few weeks' time, but I'm still dissatisfied.

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me, by Ellen Forney: I'm already looking forward to reading this again. It's a very honest, open look at Forney's grappling with bipolar disorder and how she overcomes it (and what this process entails.) I've been a fan of hers for a while, and I'm amazed after reading this that she was able to create the excellent, insightful comics that she does/did, given what she was going through at the time.

How to Be a Woman, by Catie Moran: An excellent, funny piece of writing, with an honest, wry tone. Essential reading for any card-carrying, 3rd wave feminist. Hell, it's essential reading for just about anyone!

Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire: I did enjoy this book, but I cannot remember reading anything like it, where I was so worried that the main character would die (despite the fact that I know she's the protagonist through the whole series.) She had so little to go on, and the forces she was up against had so much. Honestly, I kept wanting to hug her and tell her it would be all right, even as I suspected that it wouldn't. McGuire has a great eye for character and setting, and her descriptions of San Francisco make it a living backdrop, not just a location for the story to have short scenes in. I'm eager to read the next book in the series, but after a little while, when I've had some time to let my worry-urge rest.

On DVD/Netflix:

The Five-Year Engagement: Sometimes when you watch a movie, there's ONE SCENE that is so much better than anything else that the rest of the film just wastes away in comparison. The Five-Year Engagement was one of those movies, where there's a terrifically funny scene about three-quarters of the way through between Emily Blunt and Allison Brie. It was so good, in fact, that I wished the film had just been those two funny ladies, being their awesome, hilarious selves. The rest of the story has some OK bits, but nothing measures up to that particular sequence.

The Campaign: What a determinedly odd movie. Parts of it were funny, but other parts of it were so over the top, I don't know what to think about it.

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2: Perhaps I've been reading Escher Girls a little too much, but the women's character designs in this are really starting to bug me. It's one thing to have to simplify a costume or a body shape for the sake of easy animation, but when all the female characters have the same exact body proportions, it really starts to get dull, visually speaking. (And, for the record, these measurements appear to be 38-18-42.) The other annoying thing is the rebranding of the show to write out the token regular female character (Wasp) and token regular person of color (Black Panther) in favor of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk. Wasp and Black Panther could easily hold my attention as a super-team all by themselves, and their absence in the recent storylines is distressing.

J.K. Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy, comes out today to much speculation and to some incredibly snide reviews. The reviews are so vitriolic/fawning that I still have no idea whether or not I actually want to read the book, only wonder at the hatred some people apparently harbor for Rowling. (Socialist rant? What?) I mean, really, some of these quotes are written as if Rowling and the critic got into a catfight at a bar the night before. This only further supports my wish that she had published this work under a pseudonym; I suspect that the reviews would read a lot differently if the expectations from her famous series weren't hovering this new book's reputation.

In the department of books that I have actually read recently, there's The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson, which tackles the thorny question of, "Do kids kill art, or does art kill kids?" The parents of the Fang family, Caleb and Camille, are famous performance artists who have incorporated their children into their work for years; their children, Annie and Buster, have become adults who are barely able to function in the real world. All of these characters are profoundly selfish and self-absorbed people, yet I couldn't bring myself to hate Annie and Buster, mostly due to the fact that they'd found the courage to survive their parents' art installations and the determination to break ties when it was necessary to do so. As for the assertion that kids kill art (or the opportunity to make it)... well, I can say from immediate personal experience that this is true. On the other hand, when you make the decision to have those children, you have to revise your expectations. I think my dislike of the parents in this story was the fact that they refused to revise their expectations and continued behaving just as selfishly as they had before. The answer to this, that art kills kids, is proven in spades by the rest of the book, as the depth of Annie and Buster's troubles becomes clearer and clearer. The final twist of the plot is so preposterous that ordinarily, I would have quit reading, but by that point in the story, I really expected nothing less from the people involved. There are some very funny moments in this book, and Wilson has a very deft touch with dialogue and scene setting. If you're a fan of dysfunctional families and people getting past their childhood issues, this book is written for you; if you don't like stories about children being utterly and completely on their own, I'd urge you to avoid this story. I'm glad that I read this, and it was definitely funny in places, but overall, I'm left with a wariness for stories like this, and I'm unable to pinpoint just why.

OMG, ( Saturday! )

My thoughts on cosplay, let me share them ( here: )

As usual, if you're only interested in the pictures, they're here.

Tomorrow: The Children's Museum Adventure Time installation! Nothing else specific! Likely Xmas/birthday shopping! And the inevitable event horizon of I've Had Enough Con Thank You.