xparrot | Entries tagged with recs

(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.

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...)

Even if you're not into Smallville or Clex, you may want to check this out:

I Swear (Smallville - Clark/Lex) - VVC 2011 Challenge

No srsly. Keep watching past the minute mark. Because there is crack. AND THEN THERE IS THIS.

In other news, the next part of Tiger Hunt is posted (not quite done!). Also in OP, an amazing enterprising fan translated all 50K words of Seven Deaths into Chinese. (While I'm at it, if anyone out there has translated any of my fic and would like to post it on AO3, just let me know; I can get you invitations!)(A bunch of awesome folks have also podficced some of my stuff, I need to post about that! Same offer goes for podfic, if you want yours on AO3, just ask!)

In other other news...so I finally finished playing the 3rd Phoenix Wright game. Anybody happen to have any recs for that? Especially would like a good long plotty and/or h/c story, either gen or Phoenix/Edgeworth (...and I haven't played Apollo Justice (or the Edgeworth games) and am not sure I want to, story-wise, so...)

So if you're not subscribed to me on ff.net or AO3 (erm, and if anyone is subscribed to me on AO3, my profound apologies for all the random test-archive spam you may have gotten - there is a major deploy coming within the week and I've been rather busy with the testing, and the bug of notifications going out from Test was just discovered ^^;) - there are 2 more chapters of Tiger Hunt posted - it took me a bit to get back in the groove, but this is about the point it picks up again, I feel.

Otherwise I have succeeded in ~~dragging more victims into the dark abyss~~ getting a few folks into Homestuck, to which I can only say ~~MWAHAHAHAHA TRIUMPH~~ umm, sorry if you actually wanted to, y'know, do anything besides read webcomics for a week solid ~~(but really, why would you?)~~

(Or you can be like me and put Descend (a.k.a. the end of Act 4) on loop six times in a row! And then boggle at the guy playing it on a keyboard by ear.) (Actually Umbral Ultimatum is what I've been looping lately - better known as the music for the animation of OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOD.)(Youtube dude plays that one too. Someone needs to get this kid a grand piano and a concert hall.)

If you're curious about fic, I've got bookmarks on AO3 (for a smaller fandom the amount of quality fic is seriously impressive.) If you love Karkat as much as me check out askvantas (Tumblr, I have discovered, is possibly more dangerous than Pixiv. If you are not careful you may lose several more hours to going through all the archives of certain blogs and wondering how squeeing over thirteen-year-old kids making out with six-sweep-old trolls is apparently now your fannish life.)(but come on, AWWWW!)(Though honestly this is the most beautiful JohnKat that will ever be.)(This is a close second.)

(John/Karkat is not in fact my OTP; my fannish soul continues to confuse and baffle by not offering me one. I love everybody and everybody with everybody. Especially if there are hugs. Need more hugs!)

Addendum to my Homestuck pimping: Go watch this to give you a taste; it's basically a preview, a remix of some of the original music matched to some nicely remixed animation. Will only take you a minute and it's totally worth it.

Homestuck has a crazily huge and active fandom for a web~~comic~~ ~~cartoon~~ production thing. In addition to remixes and original animation (obligatory Carameldansen!), there's some standard music vids, with varying amounts of creative vid editing to accommodate the media. So we get Weird Al's That's Your Horoscope for Today - starring the trolls, naturally. ...and then there's Lament, a Karkat vid to Mumford & Son's "Little Lion Man", and yeah out of context I'm sure it looks ridiculous with the oft-goofy art and all...but, erm, it's actually kind of perfect? No really. ^^;

And then there's the fic (broken 1,000 on AO3 and counting!) Which I've mostly just poked at from afar (and am not feeling particularly inspired by it myself - partly it's the media; partly it's teetering on type-A fandom for me anyway, so...) but have already found some first class writing. Though I get a bit weirded out by the chat logs - it's the same reason I have trouble reading fic for novels; there's something about reading fic that's the same format/media as the original canon that confuses me. Almost like enjoying the fic is betraying the original novel, because why would I read one when I can read the other? I don't know, ask my crazy fannish brain. (While you're at it you can inquire as to why doujinshi for manga doesn't do this to me. Maybe it's because most doujin-ka don't try to imitate mangaka's styles, and those that do, even the best, I still can tell? While as prose can be less definite? I dunno.)

Homestuck is a particularly odd case because regular prose fics don't throw me, but chat-logs do (though I'm also finding that they illuminate just how, er, unique the writing of Homestuck is, because while imitating the colors and typing quirks is relatively easy, getting the dialogue to sound right is tricky - haven't found anyone who can pull off a convincing Dave, for instance.) That being said, SeptimusMagistos's "We're All Doomed" has a lot of spot-on moments of characterization, most of them hysterical. And urbanAnchorite rocks the prose with both comedy and ~~completely OTT delicious~~ aaaaaangst.

(Bonus mention of this for featuring my One True Blackrom for Karkat - totally canon, yo! Just ask Nepeta's shipping wall...)(...Really, I haven't figured out if I have any actual ships. Mostly I just want Karkat to get lots of hugs and am happy seeing him with anyone who might provide such, platonic or otherwise. :P)

As threatened! And because I can't be the only one who's been noticing the growing number of fic on AO3 and wondering what was up with that (I got it confused with Homestar Runner for a good couple months there...) and then if/when you do look it up, you end up on MSPaint Adventures baffled (or possibly worse, the MSPA Wiki, which in my experience is terrifying to the uninitiated.)(And then I spent two hours on it last night when I ran out of new pages...)

The brief explanation: [mostly spoiler-free, provided you don't click the links; I mention a few future things but trust me, there's a lot going on and I'm not giving any of the surprises away.] Homestuck is the latest and longest-running story on MSPA (unrelated to previous adventures, none of which I've read.) It's nominally a webcomic, insofar as you have to call it something; it might be easier to think of it as a detailed walk-through to an illustrated text adventure game that doesn't actually exist. It's not particularly interactive (with the exception of a few fun little RPG-style flash mini-games); it's not a game but an unusual narrative device, with the story being told mostly through text-adventure style descriptions and commands, and chat logs.

( This got long, so I'm cutting to spare you. )

So, that's Homestuck. If you're still not sure, I'd suggest going to the beginning and starting to read. The opening is mostly nonsense; the story takes a bit to get going, and you can skim until you get to the first chat logs. I'd recommend going through to the end of Act 1 before you really decide how you feel - that's only a fraction of the full work, but it'll give you a decent impression. (Oh, and I'd try looking at it in different browsers, or else turning off fonts - for some reason the primary fixed-width text is bolded weird and hard for me to read in Firefox, but looks fine in Chrome.)

Just finished watching Durarara!! and quite enjoyed it! And we watched Baccano! before that and I quite loved that one, too. One of the nice things about not being into anime for a few years is when you come back to it, there's a lot of great series to watch!

I'll probably have a bit more to squee about both of these; for now I 'll just say that I highly recommend them both (especially to those on my flist who have seen a bit of anime and are looking for more to watch.) They're basically unrelated series but they kind of come as a set, both being based on light novel series by the same author, and with thematic elements in common - massive casts of fantastic and crazy (some inhuman, and some with superpowers, though not necessarily the same) characters whose lives intersect in intriguing and often unexpected ways. And they're both wildly fun and compelling entertainment.

Baccano! is the anime you would get if you crossed The Sting with Fullmetal Alchemist and then had it directed by the bastard lovechild of Quentin Tarantino & Guy Ritchie. There's 1930s gangsters (complete with some of the most ridiculous Engrish names you will ever see - there's a character named Jacuzzi Splot. And a train called the Flying Pussyfoot) and ultraviolence and immortality. And awesome. Lots & lots & lots of awesome. It's also notable for having one of the more chronologically complex narratives I've ever watched (the story unspools simultaneously along three different timelines, with flashbacks and changing POVs on all) - once you get into the rhythm of it it's not as hard to follow as it sounds, but the first four episodes are a lot of HUH WAIT WHO'S THAT AGAIN WHEN ARE WE NOW??

A few spoilery, squeeful, & entirely nonsensical comments below ( the cut - DO NOT READ if you haven't seen the show; seriously, this one you don't want spoiled )

Durarara!! is somewhat less off-the-walls cracktastic than Baccano!, slower paced and with less clear direction in plot, but the chars are just as compelling and the animation is gorgeous. (I'm so curious to read the books it's based on because I am trying to figure out how it works in print; much of the series is so astonishingly visual...) DRRR is also easier to follow than Baccano is at first (it helps that the char designs are more distinctive; with Baccano we kept mixing up chars. Well, makes sense - in Baccano nearly all the chars are Caucasian, and so they all look somewhat alike; while as in DRRR they're nearly all Japanese, so...) It's set in modern-day Ikebukuro in Tokyo, and the chars are an eclectic mix of schoolkids and gang members and amnesiac motorcycle-riding headless horsewomen.

(Plus it's got Shizuo & Izaya, who are kind of Ikebukuro's Ban & Ginji. That is, if Ban & Ginji's IQs were switched and Ginji didn't have electric powers but was EVIL with a capital EEEEEEEE~~~ and Ban spent most of his time genuinely wanting to kill Ginji for Very Good Reasons (mostly that capital-E-Evil thing).

But they'd understand each other! ...Well, no, they wouldn't, and they'd probably all hate each other, but the point is that I want to see Shizu-chan and Ban-chan meet. ...and likely try to kill each other. But then they could all go and kill Izaya! And go out for Russian sushi afterwards :P)

(My biggest problem with DRRR!! is that there was Not Enough Heiwajima Shizuo.)

A few more spoilery comments ( below this cut - and yeah, again DO NOT READ if you haven't seen; you don't want this one spoiled, either! )

...Wait, I seem to have said a lot here after all. Heh. My point is - SQUEE~!

So I am definitely back on an anime & manga kick. Have watched or rewatched a few awesome anime (am inflicting Princess Tutu on the bro now; it remains one of my favorite series of all time. Also the bro keeps calling Drosselmeyer "Dross Whedon" which if you know Tutu and you know Whedon is...way, way too appropriate XDXDXD;;;;;) and I've also been reading manga (my Kindle is great for that, I've found, as long as it's not a series like GetBackers with tons of little tiny illegible text everywhere.)

So, for anyone looking for recs, three entirely different series I've recently devoured. (Mostly spoiler-free reviews/squee - the plot points I mention are mostly from the first volume or so.)

First up, Urasawa Naoki's Monster (there's an anime, too, but I've only read the manga). It's a seinen (adult male-aimed comics) but rather than going for the sex or hyperviolence, Monster is suspense/drama. ( Go on... )

Then there's Katsumoto Kasane's Sono Te wo Dokero (aka Hands Off!), an 8-volume shoujo manga about three psychically gifted high school boys. ( Okay, I love this series to pieces for no good reason. )

Last is the BL classic Love Mode, which is...well, if you like Boys Love you probably know it already, and if BL's not your genre then I don't think this one would change your mind. ( Uh...yeah... )

And now, speaking of Quest, gotta get back to that writing; I've got a quota to fill...!

shayera made an awesome Who vid, featuring all the Doctors and most of the Companions across time, to a song that could've been written for the Doctor (any Doctor):

Gone in the Morning

Also in Who-news, watched the Christmas special with

gnine a few days ago. Enjoyed the awesome fog-fish imagery and LOLed at some of the lines (finally told a lie too big, XDXDXDXD) and the Doctor channeling Holmes; found the story intriguing while having some issues with it, but really that's par for the course for all the specials. (With RTD's specials I tended to roll my eyes at the plots and enjoy the character moments; with Moffat I find the plots delightfully clever and pass the characters by.)

Having a good vacation, but must get back to writing soon~!

Belated Merry Christmas to those who celebrate that, early Happy New Years to those who celebrate this now, and happy holidays to all!

Am having a good vacation myself, back at my parents', but busy with all the relations about the house 'til lately. I have had time to read a bit of Yuletide fic, though I've still got most of the archive to go through:

Firstly, my gift - I got Ben 10! With Kevin/Gwen! A post-recent-finale tag (which episodes badly were in need of tagging - did love the end of this season, btw, though in classic B10 fashion it went way too fast - gotta love the way kids' shows - and that one in particular - can stuff two hours of plot into twenty minutes): Missing Kevin

Speaking of kids' fiction - much enjoyed this blast from the past: All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Science Fiction, fic for The Girl with the Silver Eyes, which book I adored when I was ten (I believe it's where I learned the word "telekinesis", in fact). This story made me dig out my old copy and reread it. It's fascinating how books read twenty years after the fact, what parts of the stories you remember, what you've forgotten (oh, how parents often suffer in kids' books, with their children always running away, whether down the block or to the Met or to outer space..)

While I'm at it, this is from last year's Yuletide, but just as sentimental - Epilogue, Part II for the My Teacher Is an Alien series, which books I also just reread and still rather love (I suspect my love of multi-species space opera comes from that series as much as from Diane Duane's Star Trek novels...)

Then, writing for Futurama last year inspired me to check out this year's batch, which lead to The Start of a Beautiful Something, which is Fry/Leela/Bender OT3 and more cute than crack. No really.

Cute also applies to The Roommate of +10 Confusion - Jason Fox meets Calvin (& Hobbes). While most of the Calvin & Hobbes fic I've seen over previous Yuletides goes for evoking the wistful melancholy of growing up, this one is just fun and adorable, and I loved it for that.

And I'm assuming you've seen the Old Spice Man writing for Yuletide, but if you've missed it: Meta Yuletide Fic (The Fic You Wish Your Fic Smelled Like)

In no particular order:

* Have finally seen White Collar! Every bit as cute and OT3-y as everyone says, I quite love it. USA is so very good at providing just the kind of lightweight fun I particularly like in my TV. And it's slightly more serious than Psych, which I like because it allows for bits of h/c. And the one thing I really want to see, (Peter getting hurt!), the show might actually be giving us, if the previews for next ep and this spoiler pic are anything to go on. If there were a little more to the show I might be actively fanning; as it is I've read through most of what's on AO3 (my favorites are bookmarked)...if anyone has any recs not on AO3, for either gen (Peter/El) or OT3, set me up? (I am fine with seeing Peter as entirely straight. Even if Tim DeKay apparently is not! :P)

* Speaking of the AO3, we've officially broken 100,000 fics! (If you want to join the fun, the invitation queue isn't that long a wait, or else ask and I can see about hooking you up with an invite ^^)

* Also watched Sherlock, as it came out, while I was visiting

gnine in London, no less, which was a trip, with all these places popping up onscreen that I'd just seen. Sadly I seem to have missed the fannish boat on this one. I mean, I liked a lot of it, thought the updating was very clever and it was well-shot and Benedict Cumberbatch most closely matches my mental image of Holmes among all the actors I've seen in the role (and he does a fabulous job with the part, too). But there were things I didn't like about it, and overall I prefer last year's movie adaption. And then, too, there's still not enough for me to fan on - I'm slow to win over; it tends to take at least a full season for me to really fall for a series. Hence me having few movie fandoms.

* Speaking of London, oh man, that was such a fantastic trip. Didn't do everything I'd have liked to, will have to go back, but it was marvelous and I love the city, it's thrilling and alive and old, it's got that sense of history, the presence of the millions of people who have walked its streets over the centuries, that the Japanese cities do and American cities don't, really (even Boston, much as I love Boston.) Also we made it to Wales, went to Cardiff and ran across the Ianto Shrine, which was very special and hysterical and I love fans, I really do.

* Speaking of other stuff, I am still not writing. It's driving me slowly insane, and then when I'm depressed I have more trouble writing, which makes me more depressed, and fuck vicious cycles anyway. Argh. There's fic I want to finish, and fic I want to write, and then there's original ideas I've been poking at, and something better congeal soon...

* ...Or I could blame the not-writing on my brother for giving me his PSP with Disgaea. It's one of his favorite games of all time and he's been wanting me to play it forever but it was still mean, as he knows how obsessive I get about games, and Disgaea feeds on the collect 'em all/keep leveling up completion instincts to cruel and unusual degrees.

* I ought to do a music post, I've been listening to a bunch of my old anime OSTs and am inclined to inflict awesome* BGM on people. Until then have a lovely cover of "Fireflies" (this kid's got a gorgeous voice!) Found through this highly entertaining musical face-off: Recorder vs Glockenspiel, fight!
* X-parrot's definition of "awesome" may not concur with anyone else's on the planet.

* No new Ben 10 until October, siiiigh. Apparently they couldn't resist delaying the hour-long special ep until 10/10/10 :P

* Ow ow ow. Kitty is kneading her claws into my bare leg. She could just be being affectionate but she might be hungry (Anna only really loves me for my opposable thumbs) so I better go make sure she has food.

(I would apologize for spamming your flist, but...this is like the first time I've really posted in a month, so...) I forgot to put this in the last post, so it gets its own, in the name of positive squee about fandom - if you haven't seen, after six years,

lanning is posting the next story in her Identical series, one of my favorite fanfic series of all time. I assume if you've read any Smallville or Clex fic that you've read Identical (if you're like me, half a dozen times), but in case you haven't - Identical is a Clex canon AU, diverging from the end of SV's first season but incorporating later canon, and future Superman canon as well, and I tend to forget that it's not the real canon because dang it, it should have been. It's got h/c, it's got angst, it's got true love, it's got the Kents slowly adopting Lex into their family, it's got wicked evil villains. It's got Eli Cohen, my favorite fic OC ever, and he is as awesome as ever, if not moreso. It's got this fantastic and gorgeous trailer vid. And now it's got a new story, which is shaping up to be as good as anything before it!

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Okay, fine, enough meta already, okay, brain? Instead, talk about reading! One advantage to working a temp job far away (other than the money, which is a Good Thing, even if I wish it were a Better Thing, or at least a Better-Paying Thing) is that the lunch breaks and bus rides offered me opportunity to actually sit and read books, which I haven't done enough of lately. Finally finished Rob Thurman's Trick of the Light - which frustrated me in various ways for most of it, but the end redeemed at least half of the issues for me. Which was an interesting enough turn-around that I ended up liking the book, in the balance. ( Mild spoilers, but everything major is blacked out )

It's intended to be the first of a series, and I see how it's set up for more, though I kind of feel it works better as a one-shot - I feel the same way about Thurman's other series as well, that the characters' drama gets overplayed after more than a book or two (and Trick of the Light gets pretty repetitious even within just the one volume); but urban fantasy thrives on continuing series, so...

Then I started reading Mary Brown's The Unlikely Ones, which I'm only partway through but really enjoying so far - it's one of those books that I look at the page count and go yay! I've still got hundreds of pages to read! <3 I'd never heard of it before but it was recced to me by my roommate in response to me reccing her Howl's Moving Castle, fitting as it's in that tradition of Dianna Wynne Jones and Robin McKinley, fairytale/folktale-inspired fantasy, which is probably my favorite fantasy subgenre. Mary Brown has her own style that's quite different from either of those others, yet is reminiscent all the same. It's a dark fairytale, with witches and curses and terrible monstrous things, but also unicorns and talking animals and helpful(?) magicians. It's not a kid's book (the sexual imagery gets way too explicit for that) but it sort of has the feel of one anyway, the genuine wonder of magic - the book-flap likens it to Watership Down and yeah, I can see it.

(Though oh man, I was looking on Amazon and it's hard to explain how incredibly wrong this cover is for it...! I'm reading the hardcover, the one I linked, and its illustration is about the most fitting-to-a-book I've ever seen, not only in spirit but the details, down to the knight having a mustache and curly red hair...)

And now I am going to go read the latest Dresden Files!

Yuletide is posted! I lucked out with two fics, both wonderful fun friendshipping - for Sapphire & Steel there's Quiet and Peace (an Epilogue in Dialogue), a lovely post-series tale - Steel being a comfort for Sapphire in his own special Steel way, and bonus Silver FTW! And then for Red Dwarf there's Upgrade, which is perfect, with dialogue and plot that had me literally LOLing, and then it winds up sweet in just the terribly wrong Dwarfish way of being sweet.

Holidays with the family have been nice, and now that I have given my gifts I will have to post them (have gotten into amigurumi - I've known how to crochet for years, but it never quite occurred to me to make cute stuffed toys before...)

And Sherlock Holmes was exactly what I wanted it to be, e.g. awesome and fun and funny and slashy as hell (or unbelievably old-school smarmalicious! pick your poison!) and I hope it inspires a legion of ficcers, because I've secretly been into Holmes/&Watson for years and it would be great to have company. Also, sekrit message to Ritchie, Downey, Law et al: with the sequel? Please to be including Reichenbach Falls! <3

gnine has made another vid! At my, er, suggestion. My wicked so-wrong-it's-SO-RIGHT suggestion. (Come on! It's Russian! It's perfect!) In case you've been wondering: yes, here is definitive proof that MUNCLE (and Illya) really is that gay. Seriously, it was the Merlin of its time.

Malchik-gey

(And then there's the delightful My Brown-Eyed Boy, which offers compelling evidence that Napoleon is in fact even gayer than his partner, or at least swishier...)

Just finished watching the Scrubs finale. Loved it myself (I think this season's been really strong, am hoping it is the last, because it would be nice for it to go out so brightly) - the themes of goodbyes, the way life inevitably changes...yeah, resonating really strongly with me now. It was pouring all day today, and the the streets smelled clean and wet when I went out tonight, more like rain-damp stone than concrete. I never thought that a city could smell good, but Kyoto can. I'm going to miss my city...

We have thoroughly succeeded in bringing

utopiantrunks over to the MUNCLE dark side - Illya is far too blond and tiny for her to resist. She responded by writing her own fabulous tag to "The Gurnius Affair" - and unlike certain slash fans, she can actually write the NC-17, and write it well. Hot stuff, and awesome character insight, what more do you want?

I keep forgetting to say it - big huge thanks to whoever nominated my fics for the Stargate Fan Awards! Very cool.

Last Thursday's Supernatural (4x18) entertained us as much as it entertained everyone else - as

naye relates here, with five fangirls in the room it was quite the deafening experience. We kept having to pause and rewind to catch lines missed due to the squealing. Ah, I am gonna miss our fangirl gatherings so much...

Does anyone know a good song with lyrics about being tied up, or knotted up, or some other thinly veiled bondage allusion? Preferably a lighter, faster song, ideally from the '60s-'70s.

[I could say this was for some purpose other than a wild bid to convince

gnine to make me a MUNCLE vid, but, well, that would be a blatant lie.]

It tickles me that there are vids for this fandom. Oh, Youtube, you are so kind! This one is a rather wonderfully fast-paced, violent Napoleon/Illya (with NCIS and Hustle clips, no less)...off to watch more!

ETA: There are not only vids for this fandom, but good vids! \o/
(these are all, how shall we say...pretty dang slashy. There might be some gen vids out there...though with this show? Yeah, maybe not. This, for example, is Illya's reaction to the prospect of girl smoochies...)

The Youtube Affair - By the same vidder as the above (you have to download the mediafire version, as the original song was pulled. It's worth the download. Also, adorable!)

The Russian Angel Affair - Just in case you've missed that Illya is in fact gorgeous. (4th season has given me a disturbing and unnatural fetish for the Beatles cut, at least on tiny attack-cat blonds. Oops?)

The Masochism Tango Affair - hee! (I still want Gnine to do her own take. But Tom Lehrer is always for the win!)

The author reveals for

sga_santa have been posted - go, read, enjoy! There's tons of great stories there, I'm still working through them. I definitely recommend "my" story, Mended by

sheafrotherdon, featuring sleep-deprivation and lovely Rodney-comfort. Yays!

While I'm at it:

aesc's Faith Healing is a cool AU with Ancient tech and the Trust and Rodney & John coming together.

argosy's Five Stories Jeannie Miller Tells is angst-with-a-happy-ending.

leupagus's Happy Tails To You is the kind of really silly crack SGA fandom excels at (it particularly got to me because it was posted only two hours after

gnine and I happened to be musing about what John & Rodney would do with prehensile tails...)
And

lillyjk's My Other Car's a Puddlescooter has a puddlescooter, which has to be one of the cutest names for a vehicle.

And there's my own fic:

SGA: Out in the Open {~22,000 words}
PG-13, McShep + Team gen, set after 5x14: "The Prodigal"
It's Situation Normal for the team when they're caught in an avalanche, but digging themselves out uncovers more than they counted on.

While this is technically a John/Rodney fic, it's really much more of a team action story with a sprinkle of McShep for flavoring. It was meant to be more McShep-focused, but then, there's plenty of McShep out there, and not nearly as much Teyla kicking ass and taking names. So, here's Teyla! And Ronon, too, dealing with their idiot teammates as best they can. ...Oh, yeah, and it starts with an avalanche on a snowy mountainside. Because, y'know, I'm contractually obligated to write one such story in every fandom I'm in (or more like when I flail for ideas, that's always one of the first to pop up...)

I should be working on holiday cards, but there's a Cold Outside SGA fic-fest going on, for which I dunked John in a river. Yeah, again. It's December, what do you want out of me?

And

sga_santa is live, with a ton of great stories in all genres (mine own will be revealed come January.) Meanwhile I've had a chance to check out a few (these mostly happen to be McShep, though there's plenty of other pairings and gen to choose from):

Stargazing - Wow. Gorgeous AU scifi, beautiful romance in only a few thousand words. One of those stories you wish were a novel, so you could give it to your friends to read and gush about.

The Bumblebee Myth - another AU, this one proving the old adage: no one does CRACK the way SGA fandom does CRACK. They're all insects (plus one arachnid). Frighteningly adorable insects. Having hijinx! and gender identity crises! at a university! Put it this way, John is a walking stick who wants to fly. Yeah, this is why I might never leave SGA fandom - where else am I going to get a fix like this?

Broadcast Signal - Rodney is imprisoned and his team's supposedly killed, but Sheppard is an awfully lively hallucination for a dead guy. Fun bit of scifi, just enough angst for spice.

Shrapnel in his Skin - (Rodney/Ronon and Rodney/John) On the other hand, if you're looking for major angst, look no further. Ow. Not totally depressing, but dark.

The Daniel and Rodney Snark Fest of Pornographic Doom - Bwahah! Mostly worth it for the Woolsey/Desk. C'mon, you know it's ~~really disturbing and potentially mentally scarring~~ canon!

As all of SGA ficdom is probably aware by now, Big Bang 2008 has officially gone live.

Being on vacation, I haven't had the chance to read any of the stories yet, but if you're looking for a fantastic read I can guarantee "A Clear and Different Light" by

friendshipper and

naye. I was privileged to beta this one and am almost as eager to share it around as they are. It's high/urban fantasy Atlantis, The One Where John's ears are pointy for a reason, and Rodney is a long-haired golden-skinned tattooed swimmer who talks to whales, and Teyla's a Patryn, and Ronon's got wings. Yes, wings. Also the Wraith are truly genuinely freakishly scary as the Wraith of the show only wish they could be. It's Team with a touch of McShep for flavor (mmm) and worth every minute.

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X Never Marks the Spot

excavations of a fangirl mind

Entries tagged with recs

On heroes, villains, and double standards

on vid-squee

Insta-rec!

on fic and fast fingers

on fanworks

on trying to pimp Homestuck

on Baccano! & DRRR!!

on manga

vid rec!

Good Yuletidings!

misc.

in which I rec

in which I do a bit of reading

Happy holidays!

must see t-v!

notes in passing

musicality

SGA fic: Out in the Open

SGA fic & recs & such

drive-by SGA rec/pimping