For the last year I've been seeing Tumblr rise in popularity in fandom and I did not get it.

Apparently the key to getting Tumblr is to get obsessed with something popular on Tumblr, obsessed in a manner such that you share the general zeitgeist with the Tumblr-fen, and then there is a well-nigh infinite stream of fannish waves that you can merrily surf on (or more like get dragged below kicking and screaming by the undertow - but then you are breathing the squee and there are fanart and sparkly gifs and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, mainly because your brain has melted to rainbow-colored ooze.)

Which is to say that, a) I have an incredibly boring and plain-looking Tumblr
and
b) it is 99% Avengers okay I'll be honest Loki-related reblogging.

(Presently I best understand Tumblr as sort of an advanced bookmarking service, as opposed to an actual communication or interactive platform. So yeah, no original content to speak of, I still prefer lj for essays and such, but you are welcome to check it out! I make no promises for how long the Loki-ness will or will not last.)

(aka Xparrot is metaing again, run awaaaa~~~~y)(aka why don't I have a Loki icon yet?)

On my flist the question was posed, why is Loki getting so much love in Avengers fandom in spite of all his wicked deeds, while so many heroic characters are vilified for much less severe character flaws? Which, as a long-time villain fan, I just had to jump in and say:

( fans have different standards for different fictional characters (no spoilers for anything, all generalizations) )

Or, tl;dr version: villains aren't heroes, what fans like in a hero may not be what they like in a villain, and that's okay.

Leaving the most important question unanswered: why do I still not have a Loki icon?

And to reward you for enduring my rambling - or if you just want to just skip to the good stuff - have an awesome and hilarious and adorable Avengers fic featuring redemption via a kid!Loki who, while not quite the comics char I so adore, is close enough to yet elicit dolphin noises from me (literally; I scared the cat last night reading it...) Plus it's got cute gen teaminess and h/c and an awesome tags list and a fantastic Clint POV and did I mention hilarious?

Amateur Theatrics (26585 words) by galaxysoup
Fandom: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.

In order of viewing:

Having just rewatched the Ouran High School Host Club anime for the *mumbleth* time, I then went and reread the manga, and oh man if only they would animate the second half of the story! because it's just like the first half only ten times as good. One of my favorite shoujo, that series - the art slides some in the later volumes, but it makes up for it in story and character and comedy and just, all of it. I was initially unsure about reading the manga, because I love the anime but it ends with certain plot threads incomplete and unsettling and I wasn't sure any of them could be tied off in ways that wouldn't break my heart at least a little - and then the manga goes and deals with all of them SO SO SATISFYINGLY! The romance is silly and ridiculous, and the friendship and family stuff is adorable and affecting, and just, awww that is what I want my comedy to be like. (Also there is one chapter that made me cry both times I read it, and it's not even really that sad - there's no death or anything like that; but it just - it's the part where and then in the end and just - oh oh oh my heart...) ...And yeah, Kyouya is still my favorite because, megane-type, and that's the whole joke - the brilliant thing about Ouran is that even knowing that they are parody, that they are the ultimate classic stereotypes of moe chars - those types still work.


Then, one of my fellow wranglers forced me to watch recommended the j-drama SPEC (aka Keizoku 2: SPEC though apparently Keizoku 1 is mostly unrelated) and OMG CRAAAAAACK. Even for a j-drama. SPEC is basically Japan doing X-files-meets-Heroes. With vuvuzelas. And starring a woman who I swear is what you'd get if Nodame (from Nodame Cantabile) and Sherlock (from Sherlock) had a daughter. And then died in a tragic plane-crash so she was raised by Fox Mulder. Touma is VERY VERY VERY SPECIAL, is what I am saying. (And kind of spectacular for it; can't recall offhand any other female characters with her particular blend of weird socially maladjusted borderline-unbalanced obsessive genius.) It's also fascinating for being maybe the only show I've ever seen (Japanese, American, UK, whatever) starring twenty-something male and female leads in which the sexuality of BOTH leads is 100% up in the air. They could be straight, gay, bi, or ace - there are hints for several things but no actual confirmation in the show itself. And Touma and her partner Sebumi have this intense but bizarre bond that is entirely up for interpretive grabs.

I cannot recommend this one wholeheartedly - if you don't know Asian drama, you might want to try something else first to warm up, else you might risk spraining your brain; and if you do know it...I am totally not joking about the vuvuzelas. (Also warning that Touma and Sebumi are kind of a manzai couple so can come across as mutually abusive if you don't know your classic tsukkomi & boke play...) That being said, it's definitely an experience! And there's a movie that just came out (that maybe will finish the story?) - very interested in seeing it!

(Also there is Ninomae! +<3333PSYCHOHEARTS)


And last, what everyone's been waiting for - YES I saw Avengers, YES I loved it, YES Joss Whedon should only do superhero movies from now on, YES every word out of Tony Stark's mouth is comic gold, YES the Black Widow is awesome, and YES I love Loki way too much. A few miscellaneous possibly spoilery observations below the cut - I don't have anything in particular to say that hasn't been said before. ( bit of spoilers! all squee all the time! )

So I've been volunteering as a tag wrangler on the AO3 for the last three years now, and I gotta say, maybe AO3 isn't perfect yet - it's a WiP, with all the ups and downs that entails - what we've got so far is pretty dang awesome. (Especially if you're about to go on a trip and really want to find a bunch of nice long novel-length fic to stick on your Kindle - go to your fandom or fave pairing, sort by wordcount, download the mobi file direct to your Kindle and BAM, done!)

If you enjoy AO3 as much as me - or having legal advocacy for fans, or checking the history of fannish vocab on Fanlore, or anything else the OTW gets up to - we're having a donation drive now, so if you've got cash to spare at the moment and you'd like to be a voting member, or if you'd just like to make sure we'll all be able to download fic for many years to come - consider chipping in.

Whether or not you donate, if you spend any time on any OTW site, you can take the OTW survey to let us know what you think of how we're doing:


OTW Community Survey

Also, if you do spend time on AO3 and are interested in our crazy tags, I'm hosting our tag wrangling Open House tomorrow in a public chatroom - everybody's welcome to stop in, all questions welcome, whether you want find out more about becoming a wrangler or ask just why the heck X was wrangled with Y when it should be part of Z!

I either picked an absolutely terrible or a totally awesome time to catch up with this show...whichever it is, watching it in real time is stressful, yo!

( spoilers for Fringe 4x19 )

So I have caught up with Fringe, to the current ep (4x18) and I am...confused?

--Though especially after this past season, I have to say, the show is honestly worth watching for John Noble's performance alone. There are times that one of the versions of Walter hasn't been around for a while and I actually will start musing about whether the actor was unavailable, before I remember that no, wait, it's the same actor. It's not that he looks or sounds that different; it's just that all of it, the way he speaks, the way he carries himself, everything, are different people. Who are all totally different from his real self as well, judging by the couple of interviews I've seen. Whatever Walter is doing, whichever Walter it is, he doesn't disappoint.

As for the rest of the show...

( Here there be spoilers! and way-too-late-at-night ranting )

--And I could rave on more but I need sleep! I will leave you with bloopers - it's always fun to see the cast of a serious show being OOC (especially if it involves crazy cute hugs!)

Just finished up with a couple seasons' of sf/f shows that you may have missed! Neither are perfect or amazing television, but they both bring something that the genre could use more of.

Show: Terra Nova

The idea: Humans from a dying future earth go back in time to 85 million years BC (with the help of a convenient alternate-stream time rift to prevent unmaking-one's-own-existence paradox shenanigans) to start a colony that may be humanity's only hope for survival.

( the bad: scifi cliches and cheesy dinosaurs; the good: families and DINOSAURS!!! )

Show: Lost Girl

The idea: A young succubus discovers what she really is and is inducted into the wild and wacky world of the Fae, often to her dismay.

( not fantastic but better (and different) than it sounds - and female friendship (and female creators) ftw! )

Up to 3x10 on Fringe and yes, it's true, this show definitely moves into a higher gear, starting midway through s2. I admit to feeling the twinges of genuine squee. It's odd, too, that a show so terrible with science (though that's enjoyably moved more into the established comic book mad science realm of ridiculous metaphors and established MacGuffins) and geography (it's become clear that in the Fringe universe(s) Boston is in fact a suburb of NYC, or possibly vice versa) is surprisingly good with characters and relationships - in spite of the absurd circumstances they act like actual real adult people. A recent ep especially impressed me by doing what I've almost never seen done in TV: one of the heroes, rather than trying to keep a very difficult secret, actually stepped up and told the truth without delay or prevarication, fully knowing the damage it would inevitably cause. Honesty! On a TV show! Astonishing!

( More rambling, squee and some not; also spoilers for a show that's definitely worth watching unspoiled )

Your show is cute (if still not as clever as you think it is) and fun and I liked the s1 finale twist*, but just so you know (because gnine's head is exploding as if from radiation), Boston to New York City is at minimum, a 4 hour drive. And Pennsylvania is even further than New York.

Look, I know the states of New England are small compared to California. But Massachusetts is actually bigger than a single city, and takes more than 15 minutes to drive through. Maps.google is your friend! (and those maps are to scale. The size that things appear on your screen? The actual states are a teensy bit bigger. Just so you know.)

The brother points out that X-files established the existence of Secret FBI Tunnels, by which you can get anywhere directly, no traffic or speed limits. It helps, of course, that all FBI agents are given Bugatti Veyrons as their company cars.

(This is putting aside all the little wrong Massachusetts details, such as Worcester has no buildings over 25 stories, and there are no redwoods anywhere in the Northeast. And there's been no characters speaking with Boston accents, and yes, in real life people actually do pahk their cahs in Hahvahd Yahd. But that's just standard TV-nitpicking; it's always fun when a show is set in one's home turf.)

(Of course, around the time of the giant cold virus, the brother posited that the writers are actively trolling us - perhaps in a cunning effort to generate buzz, knowing that nothing gets geeks talking online like blatant violation of basic science; perhaps merely because they get off on driving fans nuts - but it has to be deliberate; we can't see how anyone who could correctly use the word epidemiologist wouldn't know that viruses aren't cells?)

* Really, in spite of this, I actually am enjoying the show! Have now seen a couple eps into s2, and oh, Walter...

We also are enjyoing playing 'Where's Baldo?' and the cute nod to the FBI's 'old X classification'. (Also, the Futurama connection - Philip Broyles? as in, broiling? which is like frying? Like Philip J. Fry? XD)

So we are on the last dozen eps of FMA: Brotherhood and omg sooooo gooooooood *_* LING LING LING LING (not to mention, Greedling!!! <33333) and of course must love Roy Mustang. To say nothing of the awesomeness of the ladies (Hawkeye! Izumi! Olivier omg omg Olivier~~~~!) and of course Ed & Al still hit all my devoted sibs buttons and just, everyone, all of it, eeeeeee! (FMA poses a difficulty because I often tend to pick favorite characters - have favorite characters picked for me - based on who is the most badass, only in FMA that is EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER EVER. It makes it haaaaaard~~!)

...Of course getting down to the end wire here (just saw Roy take out Envy and am starting to get REALLY REALLY STRESSED about who actually makes it and how it's going to end for everyone, because at this point I love everyone enough that losing any of them will hurt (including certain minor characters who initially seemed to be introduced as minor villains to test the good guy's no-killing resolve, and then just seemed to be there as canon fodder, and now I don't even know but yeah, I love them too, ahhhh!)

Looking forward to reading the manga after this, too. (Normally I would wait a bit, so all the plot is not so fresh in my mind, but I'm sort of already getting an urge to rewatch the series, so yeah, manga...)

In fanning from the other side of the globe, we've started watching Fringe - only about halfway through first season and, hmmm. It would be better if the show didn't think it was ~so very clever~ and unique (uhhh guys X-files already did this over a decade ago, on the same network even, you're not exactly breaking new ground!) - especially since the pseudoscience routinely threatens to MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE (JUST LIKE RADIATION APPARENTLY DOES IN THEIR UNIVERSE.) Listen, I grew up on Star Trek, I love me my technobabble; and I'm all over comic books and their wacky amazing magic SCIENCE. And sometimes Fringe goes far enough that I can enjoy it but sometimes it tries to give 'clever'-sounding explanations that anyone who took high school physics (i.e. me) clearly can tell are wrong and also insane. Which they don't need to do! It's simple enough to handwave these things - just call on a MacGuffin! Ancient technology! Nanites*! Dark matter! Anything! Just doesn't say it's electromagnetism when clearly NO NO IT IS NOT!

OTOH this does have the effect of making me rather fond of Peter Bishop, since about 50% of his dialogue is saying aloud whatever I was just shouting at the screen. And so far I'm liking both his relationship with Walter (estranged parent-child relationships ftw) and with Olivia (their UST has been nicely and maturely underplayed thus far, to the point where I might be brought around to shipping them, if that's where it's going?)

...And then the brother has pointed out that the show is actually an AU Futurama - Walter is straight-out Prof. Farnsworth! Olivia is two-eyed less-tempermental Leela! Peter is pretty much exactly Fry + a brain! Astrid is Amy! Broyles is, uh, Hermes? Leaving only the question of who is Bender...

* ETA: Me, I just think Cesar Salazar should show up sometime. He and Walter are so on the same wavelength (Generator Rex's end was actually pretty decent, resolved enough to be satisfying but maintained enough status quo to easily continue it later, if they get the chance. Also I love Cesar for always; he is such an oddly special take on the comic book mad scientist...)

Shounen Jump just announced that the Gintama anime is ending - not going on hiatus again but actually ending. Now, this could be trolling the fans (wouldn't be the first time) but the wording is...awfully final. And the show did get in trouble a few times this year for pushing the envelope of offensiveness that much further...

...But why now? Right before it got to the Kintoki arc that I desperately wanted to see - and it's not going to adapt the current manga arc either (which I had been avoiding since I prefer to watch anime unspoiled, but had to check it out and oh my god it's got Joui flashbacks and backstory with Shouyou-sensei - that is to say, it's in the full-out shounen action mood that it does so very well, and the anime does even better...) The thing is, if the One Piece anime was canceled, I'd be unhappy, and I'd miss the seiyuu dreadfully - but we'd still have the manga, and the anime has never reached the original's quality, in art or pacing or anything else. But Gintama is one of the only series where I outright prefer the anime to the manga - it's such a loyal adaption, but the jokes are funnier animated and the art is far prettier (Sorachi's art has improved somewhat over time, but writing is still where his talents lie). Not to mention Gintoki without Sugita's voice is like...chocolate without peanutbutter! Fries without ketchup! Metaphors without food! (hmm, maybe I should go get lunch...) (Plus, it's really hard to find raws of the manga, and I can barely understand them as it is. The official manga translation was discontinued, and while there is a group scanlating it, the level of translation is about at my own - no offense to the translators; the series is a nightmare, but comparing to the raws I've found multiple lines that even I know are wrong, elementary Japanese mistakes like mistaking an emphatic 'ja nai' for a negative. The fansubs for Gintama aren't fantastic but better than the scanlators, so without the anime I'm going to be lost...)

There is always the hope of movies, of course, or endless OAVs like Hunter x Hunter. And yeah, until I know for sure otherwise I'm still going to keep a little hope we're being trolled. But all the same...sigh.

Also my silly cartoon Generator Rex has apparently ended; haven't watched the last eps yet, but I don't see how they could tie up the whole arc in the few they have left. Plus it means we'll never get the Rex-goes-to-Ben-10's verse x-over I craved, with Rex flirting with Gwen and Kevin flipping out and Ben & Rex making out... ;_;

In better animation news, am about halfway through Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and loving it! Such an incredibly creative and unique story, and it's so much more satisfying than the first anime; the plot actually hangs together and is going somewhere. Plus Roy Mustang is 100x more badass, gaaaah Roy. (Also there is a particular character of whom I hadn't realized how fond I'd become, until suddenly that character wasn't that character anymore and I realized how very upsetting I found it. I do so enjoy it when a series can do that to me, sneak up and make me fall in love before I even realize it's happening (though man I am hoping said char is restored somehow, and being FMA I have no guarantee...!))

There's nothing like a good vid, combining clips and music such that you see a show or a song in a whole new way, and fall that much more in love with your fandom for it. When I'm in the right mood I like going back and rewatching favorite vids, feeling the warm fuzzies for fandoms I haven't thought about for a while.

I was in the right mood today. So here's 5 awesome vids for older fandoms - maybe not the best in show, or even my personal favorites, but ones I adore for various reasons:

Smallville: Bad Romance by sisabet
"Bad Romance" is the perfect Clex song. ...Well, so is every other song about bad romances ever written, but this one is their anthem. So it was a great gift to all of fandom that Sisabet went ahead and vidded it, despite all the Clex vids before it that covered the same ground - only she went and found something new, not just in the later seasons of SV that most of us either weren't watching or wished we hadn't, but also in other incarnations of Lex & Clark, comics and cartoons and movies, to show how far their romance goes, bad to the bone and everlasting (oh the shot of DCAU!Lex getting up close & personal, an inch more and they'd be kissing...)

Stargate Atlantis: Rockstar by chayiana
There are a zillion brilliant SGA vids and Chayiana did like half of them. I can't say if this is my favorite of hers but it might be the one I've watched the most, being about the cleverest semi-literal interpretation of lyrics vids I've seen. The movie-star whale gets me every time. And the speed-dial bits. And all the big rock stars. And Todd!!!

The Man from UNCLE: Malchik Gay by gnine
Totally cheaty, this one, since the song was my suggestion to begin with, and I beta'd the vid - but I still love how perfectly it showcases Illya in all his tiny blond awesomeness (his gay, gay, why-oh-why-do-all-these-girls-like-me awesomeness). And Illya/Napoleon and their trust and friendship and outrageous lack of personal space. And the amazing giddy ridiculousness of '60s TV. And just a hint of the bondage that made MUNCLE what it was. ...And did I mention Illya? Gah.

Princess Tutu: Hold Me Now by alkampfer81 [Youtube link]
AMVs tend to be more about rhythm and motion and action than emotions (not that they can't be intensely emotional; but the nature of an animated source is such that it lends itself to the visuals) and this is one of the greatest examples of the form, so beautifully composed that it resonates even if you can't understand the lyrics and don't know the source. (Though I highly, highly recommend said source to anyone who likes fairy tales, storytelling meta, or adorkable girls who happen to be enchanted ducks.) While it's technically spoilery, in truth if you don't know the series you likely won't make enough sense of anything to actually be spoiled, and just - there are instances where the imagery so perfectly matches the beat that your heart clenches with it. My favorite moments are when Kraehe's black wings burst out, and the town walls cracking near the end.

One Piece: Sail On by ManyLemons [ddl at bottom of link, or Youtube link]
Okay, so OP is still ongoing and I'm still into it, but this is an older vid - it's missing some of my favorite chars and moments in the series. It's still my favorite OP vid; it so perfectly captures the comedy and excitement and most importantly the epic adventure. It's everything I love about One Piece, what makes it one of my favorite stories of all times, in 5 minutes. (I admit to especially loving the "turn the page and see your savior" because it's cheesy and a silly effect but...but it's Luffy, and the fall of Arlong Park, and just, yes, yes.) (...That being said, I can't help but wish for a updated version, with all the nakama and bits from later arcs...)

So I heard the news about the casting of Watson in the new American Sherlock remake, and...

( spoilers, I guess, if you haven't heard them? Also, yeah, there's going to be an American Sherlock. WHY, America, WHYYYYYY? That being said: My Thoughts on TV (that doesn't exist) )

I have finished Tiger Hunt! And it only took me...less than 8 years! I will take that as a win.

Tiger Hunt (62214 words) by Xparrot
Chapters: 24/24
Fandom: One Piece
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy, Nami (One Piece), Usopp, Sanji (One Piece), Tony Tony Chopper, Nico Robin, Other(s)
Summary: A rainy night, an unexpected threat, a desperate crew. And Zoro has never been so lost.

(also available on ff.net, but the whole site's been acting up lately - took me a couple tries to login before posting, and I think it might've lost or refused to post some reviews for a time >.< not to mention the formatting is all buggered up due to their burning hatred of double dashes and scene breaks, so yeah, I'd recommend reading on AO3 where it's all nice and pretty and you can easily read it on one page or download it to your reader/phone, whatever you like!)

Also, I am awfully belated in linking this, but last year the lovely kalakirya went and podficced half my MUNCLE fic! Her masterlist can be found here; they're also linked from the stories themselves on my AO3 account.

The longer I go without posting, the harder it is to remember all the things I've watched and listened to that I wanted to post about, and thus the more I hesitate to make a post at all. So, in the interests of clearing my journal palate, a list in no particular order, chronological, importance, or otherwise:

• Watched Thor a few days ago to prepare for the upcoming Avengers movie and rather enjoyed it. Which isn't to say it's good; it's rather a terrible movie and my friends who hated it are quite justified. I liked it anyway! Thor was a big ol' sweetheart (even if regrettably clothed for too much of the movie), Loki was scarcely a respectable trickster but made up for it by being the most woobie woobie who ever woobied (he made s1 SV!Lex look hard-hearted and unsympathetic), the romance was so laughably pastede-on-yay that it hardly even could irritate (why didn't they give him like a month on earth and develop the relationship in a montage? It would've taken all of two minutes and been 100% more believable), and I personally thought Asgard was beautifully designed, very Final Fantasy-esque architecture-what's-architecture-we-have-computers!
  


• Watched the 2 seasons of Lost Girl - hey you guys, you should totally be watching this! It's not a great show but it's fun and cute and most importantly it has Kenzi, who is made of amazing and hilarity and awesome outfits. It reminds me of early Angel: tS in tone and theme except that it's in Toronto instead of LA and Angel is a brooding young succubus instead of a brooding old vampire and doesn't brood as much as she'd like because she has Kenzi, who makes brooding difficult. And there is adorable f-f friendship and f/f romance (and m/f; Bo is bi, but really so, not just kisses-guys-for-love-and-girls-for-titillation.) And m-f friendship as well, and werewolves and sirens and all other manner of wacky fae, and Canadian actor bingo, and an outrageous bodyswap ep. And did I mention Kenzi?
  


• Watched the new Sherlock as it came out but tragically missed that fandom train. I have reasons but I'm honestly not sure if they're why my squee-tickets never arrived, or if it's the lack of squee which makes me critical. Either way, I am sad not to be joining the fun. Le sigh!
  


• Not fanning on Sherlock has not kept me from fanning on the actors, mind, because Martin Freeman is kind of fantastic and I can't wait to see him in The Hobbit, and Benedict Cumberbatch is Benedict Cumberbatch.
  


• Especially because Benedict Cumberbatch is also Martin! I spent rather more time than I expected or preferred on planes and in airports this holiday season (thank you, global warming, for your thoughtful gift of ice, snow, and more ice and snow) which allowed me to listen to all of Cabin Pressure, which is more hysterical than a radio comedy about a charter airline has any right to be. Also more cute and lovable. Plus, Douglas! (Who originated Javert and I really want to know if that's the recording of Les Mis I'm familiar with. Certainly he has the voice for it! Roger Allam and Anthony Head having a relaxed&authoritative pilot-off is a gift to all fangirls...)
  


• Have started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - only a couple eps in and still getting used to Miki playing Roy Mustang, but looking forward to seeing more!
  


• Finished posting my Ben 10 fic; still have to post the epilogue of Tiger Hunt, if only I can write the last scene...
  


• Still haven't moved over to Dreamwidth though I keep meaning to - have been trying to get all my fic off my journal and onto AO3 before I do, and still need to replace some stories with links, but as of now I believe all my fic is on AO3, from my very first stuff to present day!
  

I wish I were in the habit of talking about my inspiration as a personified muse. Then I'd have somebody to blame for the current state of fangirl affairs. The dark December doldrums are never a good time for me writing-wise (or much else for that matter); usually if I manage to write anything at all it's by desperately grabbing at the brightest spark of inspiration that flares up, no matter how pointless or ridiculous.

...Which means that right now all I seem to be writing is fic for my silly kids' cartoons. It wouldn't be so bad it were for something like Avatar: TLA, a series that many on my flist appreciate as much as me, and that I'd have no compunctions about telling everyone else to watch (watch it!). Or RGB with its adult characters and adult following, for all it was geared toward children. Or Static Shock, one of the gayest (in the best way) cartoons of all time (Road to El Dorado levels, no lie.) But no, my hypothetical muse passes them by, and instead I am writing about series starring not-very-gay teen superheroes that I can't fairly rec to anyone who doesn't share my taste for ridiculous, not-very-well-plotted or -animated or -anything else action cartoons.

It wouldn't be so bad if I were writing total crack, or horribly brainbreaking smut, and having the satisfaction of knowing I was destroying childhoods (if not for my generation, for today's kids) and doing my part to fulfill Rule 34. But noooooo, my metaphoric muse demands quiet relationship pieces! G-rated cuddling! Classic hurt/comfort! Just because the writers of these shows don't take them seriously doesn't mean that you shouldn't! Just because you're twice the average age of the main heroes and most of their fans won't stop you from ficcing them! And who cares if most of the fandom agrees that Ben 10's primary canon 'ship is baseless and poorly conceived and executed, you are still going to find them one of your favorite het pairings of all time! (GWEN/KEVIN IS ADORABLE ~LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU~) Who cares that the Six + Rex smoosh-pairing-name is naturally SeX, that's hysterical but you still can't slash them because dude, mentor-father figure - so you shall only crave gen!

...Stupid nonexistent muse.

So far I have committed unnecessarily dramatic Generator Rex fic (one of those confusing-to-class stories in which the principal interaction is between a canonical het couple, but the core relationship focus is gen. And hey, at least Six and Holiday are more my age!):
The World You Save (4,674 words)

And ongoing Ben 10 fic (a more straightforward het+gen friendship & h/c story that I started last year and is really just a self-indulgent excuse for lots of cuddling):
Thaw (WiP, 13,070 words so far, 2/4 parts posted)

Or rather, how come the best scifi I can find on Western TV these days is in kids' cartoons? This isn't a total problem for me, because as you know I have an undeniable adoration for silly kids' superhero cartoons (my brother and I are possibly the only people over 30 in the world who get excited about new eps of Ben 10. But it's so much fun!) But it gets frustrating because there are no fandoms for these to speak of. The cartoons based on existing properties like Marvel and DCU have followings, but not the original stuff.

Which is a shame because I just got into Generator Rex and want fic for it and there is none to speak of, because it is a silly kids superhero cartoon. (But it is a silly kids superhero cartoon with Agent Six and César!! Sigh...) It's also got some of the better scifi I've seen on TV in a while - super-mad-science technobabble-laden scifi, little to do with realism (except when it has a space elevator, which was pretty much spot-on, down to the mobile base station) but everything to do with the intriguing possibilities of humans intersecting with technology (it's set in the near-future, five years after the nanite-pocalypse, in which every living thing on the planet was infected with nanites that usually are dormant but occasionally get activated and mutate their hosts into nightmarish monsters. Yes, it's very anime, down to the hero's pre-canon amnesia, though the characters and general sensibilities are much more American superhero.) It makes me miss scifi shows - especially space shows; with BSG and SGU off the air, as far as I know there are no TV shows currently set in space, no Star Trek, no Farscape or Firefly. (Doctor Who only halfway counts, because it's not always in space and not always in the future.) I like fantasy too, don't get me wrong, but I miss my space future shows something fierce.

The brother hypothesizes that procedural dramas have primed audiences to expect "realism" in their TV - the sort of plausible semi-pseudo-science that sounds convincing, that can be hard to write. Scifi shows couldn't get away with just crying "tachyons!" and having time-travel, in the current TV environment. gnine suggests that it's due to reality outpacing the past's vision of the future. We don't have a moonbase or FTL, but a lot of the trappings of classic space opera, the giant computers and video phones and such, have become ordinary or even quaint in this age of ever-advancing electronics. So a modern space opera would have to reinvent the old tropes, and maybe no one's figured out a good way how yet, or no one's dared to take a risk on a show that might have. Except on kids' shows where realism isn't considered a concern - and cartoons can more easily present futures anyway, when all sets and such are drawn from scratch anyway.

Personally I really want the USA network to do a sci-fi show - I doubt they'd have a budget for space opera, but maybe a smaller show, set it on a colony world - Mars? - in the nearish future (say a century ahead?) - and in keeping with their other shows, character-focused rather than f/x, mostly small enclosed sets. Make it a crossover-genre, perhaps, cops, or doctors, or whatever - but show me the future, show me where we could be going, the endless possibilities humanity has to look forward to.

Meanwhile, at least I've got my silly kids' cartoons! (I could also ask why American kids' cartoons are doing better than most TV on the race front - the eponymous hero Rex is a fairly obviously non-white Latino, though I'm pretty sure the toys are marketed to any kids that'll buy 'em - can't figure out if that's because it's a kid's show and they think kids won't care, or because it's a cartoon so they they think no one will notice, or something else, but kids cartoons are still some of the only non-specific-racial-demographic-targeted American TV in which the lead character isn't always white?)

There has been much AAAAAARGH of late, all for stupid first world problems (like livejournal taking away my default icon a couple days after my paid account ran out, despite their FAQ saying they don't do that. And no one has answered my support request after a week and arrrrrgh I don't want to delete all my icons just to get that one back, but I miss my book-reading!Chopper :(:(:( And then this weekend I spent, I don't know, 20 hours, 30? handling some OTW stuff, which felt at points like running a bucket brigade with cupped palms trying to extinguish a forest fire. Or several forest fires, because everyone's got their own bugbears, and some are mutually incompatible, and also Googledocs hates me, personally, and yeah, AAAAAAARGH.)

But then there is sara_tanaquil squeeing about One Piece and reminding me why it is still THE BESTEST SERIES OF ALL TIMES. And there has been regular new Homestuck, which is also THE BESTEST in totally different (also sometimes the same) ways (this page made me laugh so hard because, just, AH is just totally GIVING UP and not caring and then Crabdad and hellmurder islands and TINKERBULL NOOOOOOO and I have no idea what is happening because this is just what I expected except not at all and yeah, okay, I know people are like HS whatever overhyped nonsense shut up already; but I have drunk deep of the koolaid and you guys it is sooooo delicious~...)

...And also I want desperately to read the latest chapter of Gintama except, despite it being listed in SJ v51's contents and there being a posted translation so I know it exists somewhere, I have utterly failed to find a raw scan on any of the usual sources. ;__________;

--Yes, this post is just to have something posted at 11:11 11/11/11 :P

...and of course to say ZOMGZOMGZOMG HOMESTUCK UPDATE! Which is pretty much exactly how I expected it to go, but still dying to know what happens next!

(also, seriously, how the hell does this fandom have such amazing fanfic? The baseline quality is higher than average - especially since I'd have expected HS demographics to be similar to the anime crowd, which tends to be weighted toward the badfic. There must be badfic in HS, too, but then there's stuff like ˃Connect which is seriously awesome. ...And I'm not just saying that because it practically OT4s the kids. Or because it has John and Jade double-black-romming Karkat, which I didn't even know I wanted until I was reading it. But seriously, even putting that aside, awesome O_O)

The bro (who just finished "Labyrinth" and came up giggling, "Miles is a furry!") describes the entire series thusly: "Unstoppable force meets immovable object - and then they have a kid."

(I've finished Memory and started on Komarr - if Memory isn't my very favorite then it's definitely in the top 3 or so...I have such a hard time picking favorites, would need to reread the series to decide, but yeah, I totally get why everyone loves Memory - so much <3!)