Arctic Light

My shows are back! \o/

... Both on the same night now, too, which is going to be a bit weird. I would prefer to have them spread out instead. But they are BACK!

Flash 3x10:

( Spoilers for Flash )

Legends of Tomorrow 2x09:

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow )

1. I read an Agents of SHIELD-related interview this morning with Jeph Loeb (the head of Marvel TV) in which he said he's "optimistic" for an Agent Carter renewal. \o/ Obviously that's not the same as an actual renewal announcement (we probably won't know one way or another 'til May), but it seems like a good sign that the head honcho is on board with a new season of the show, which means that even if ABC decides not to pick it up, it also has a pretty good shot at getting a new lease on life at Netflix, Hulu, or something like that. Right???

2. Homestuck is back! And into the endgame updates, apparently. It's going to be really weird not having this comic around anymore. Not that I remember anything that was going on when it stopped updating last July, besides "apocalypse". But it's great to see the characters again.

3. I can't remember if I've posted about this here, but one of my new favorite things is the webcomic Stand Still, Stay Silent. It's basically the zombie apocalypse meets Scandinavian mythology. (Not Norse gods and things of that nature, but trolls and spirit animals and such, through a post-apocalypse filter.) Despite the depressing premise (and very high body count in the first chapter), it's character-focused and very sweet and funny, though it also has moments of gore, body horror, and general creepiness. The art is absolutely gorgeous and it updates 5 days a week.

4. I was in Barnes & Noble yesterday, and I wasn't going to buy anything except a hot chocolate, I SWEAR, but they had this shelf of Japanese import stuff, and, uh, I saw a really adorable little Bulma figure (grown-up Bulma, with the short hair). And there was also a Vegeta, and she couldn't just be alone, right ...? I haven't bought DBZ stuff in forever (almost a decade and a half), but now they're on the shelf above my desk, and they're tiny and adorable and both scowling, it's great.

5. Signups are still open at SSR Confidential 'til the end of the week! We have 17 people so far (and I still need to write mine, so that'll be 18 when I get that done). I'm really delighted with the variety of character and pairing options that people have selected; it looks like there will be something for everyone.

Okay, finally a proper post about the new episodes ... well, no, not a proper post at all; a flaily post laden with belabored bullet points and fueled by two large glasses of merlot. There were going to be a bunch of screencaps as well, but I ran out of steam (and wine). I'll save the pretty for a future post.

( All the spoilers obviously )

Just a run-by post before heading out the door -- I am doing two back-to-back craft/pop culture shows with ellenmillion today through Sunday (SO MUCH ORNAMENT PAINTING) -- but I realized that today is my 10-year Livejournal anniversary!

I got this journal on Nov. 6, 2005. When I first noticed last summer that this was going to be the 10th year, I meant to do something special for it. Then I got busy, and busier, and spent most of October being ill, and all of a sudden it's the 6th and ... I have to be staffing a table in a couple of hours. >_>

But still, I figured I needed to pop in and say a little something about it. This wasn't the first Livejournal I got; the other, my real-name journal, was the one I considered my main one for a long time. This one was just for posting fanfic. But over the years I realized that nearly everyone I actually wanted to talk to was here -- all I did with the other one anyway was post Alaska photos and project updates, which I am now doing here -- and the handful of people from the other journal that I wanted to stay in touch with (and didn't think would look down on me for my fan activities) I told about this one, so I really only update the other a couple times a year, and there's nothing I post there that I don't post here.

The reason why I got this journal in 2005 was because I was starting to do fandom stuff again, after a dry spell. I wrote a TON of anime fanfic in the early 2000s, then got out of it in the 2003/2004 time frame. I moved to a new city, I was starting a new job and buying a house, I was super busy ALL the time, and I'd also managed to convince myself that in order to be a ~serious writer~, I needed to knock off this fanfic crap. (Pretty much ALL the pro writers I knew at the time believed that; I didn't know anybody who openly did both.) Then, with the original-writing thing going nowhere, I started falling back into it, a little bit at a time, and I got this journal just to have a place to put that kind of thing if there turned out to be anything to post. This journal was called "friendshipper" then, and my very first post here was basically "I have no idea what I'm going to do with this journal". (And sounds so ridiculously young to me now; omg, self.) I think the only fandom person I knew who was on LJ then was xparrot, having met her via ff.net.

.... aaaaand then I got back into Stargate (an old love, that I fell away from for several years), and got bit by the fanfic bug again in 2006. In retrospect I'm glad I fell into a big fandom right away, because it meant my journal started getting active pretty quickly -- people friended me, and I friended them, and I started learning proper LJ social etiquette and talking to people a lot. And over the next few years this journal became my main online hangout and social hub. Many, if not most, of my closest friends now are friends I made through LJ -- and DW, which I'm really not considering a separate thing here, since it was a social offshoot of LJ in the first place, and my flist/circle were almost 100% the same people in the beginning. (It's since differentiated quite a bit.) It hasn't all been roses, and there have been ups and downs, but I have had SO MUCH FUN here, and I know I wouldn't be the same person today without it. I wouldn't have met most of the people I cherish now, or have had a lot of the opportunities I've had.

So thank you for being here, and most especially for STILL being here, even as the fandom/blogging/social media world is shuffling off to Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and even weirder places. I am in all of those places too, but LJ/DW is still where my hat is hung. I'm very glad you're all still here to talk to. ♥

... about Engrenages season five is that I'm becoming thoroughly enamored of the way that Fred Bianconi (Tintin) lounges around on things.

I'm pretty sure one reason why is just to get everybody's heads into the same shot, because he's taller than the rest of the cast. Still, there is just something about that loose-limbed way he's always draping himself over filing cabinets or sitting on tables ...

Visual aids under the cut - generally nonspoilery (though taken from the low-quality season five Youtube videos, which is the only way I've been able to watch that part of the show).

( Picspam under the cut )

I am crushing so hard on the Agent Carter show right now, you guys. I think it helps a lot that it's only a self-contained 8 episodes, so there's a complete story arc and I can kind of just tuck it into my brain and give it some happy space there. I really hope there's a season two, but at the same time I almost feel like a season two would be a mixed blessing, because it gave me so much of I wanted already, and I would hate another season to leave it in a much worse place. (But I could have another season of their FACES! I am torn.) Let's face it, I will be sad if it's cancelled, but I'm also very happy with the 8 episodes we got.

I've been thinking about the aspects of the show that appeal to me, and while there are many reasons why I like it so much, I think part of it is that ... let me see, there is literally NO way to phrase this without sounding (for me) uncomfortably buzzwordy, but it's woman-centric and non-male-gazey not just in a way that most superhero stuff isn't, but even most genre shows starring female characters aren't. I think the big thing I kept feeling watching the show is This show feels like it's written FOR ME. I feel like I, me, my demographic is the target audience of this -- and I don't mean just "women generally" but "women like me"; this show appeals to me in a way that, say, Sex in the City type shows which are also aimed at a female demographic simply don't. I feel like I can relate to women like Peggy and Angie in a way I can't to women in most sci-fi stuff -- I love the female geniuses and leather-clad action heroes with impeccable makeup and so forth, but I don't really feel like "hey, that's me!" And while I don't have any particular problem empathizing with characters who are not like me, I can't remember the last time I've identified with a woman in sci-fi media as hard as I do with Peggy. I love many, many fictional characters, but there is a sort of coming-home comfort to this show (in spite of all the terrible stuff that happens on it) that just makes me feel like this is a sci-fi action show where PEOPLE LIKE ME are welcome and wanted.

That's not even a feeling I go around craving in particular. I literally don't care about that stuff most of the time! I just like what I like, and since I'm a female fan of sci-fi and superhero stuff, a ton of what I like is technically aimed at boys. But in all my many years of loving superheroes, and particularly throughout however many movies and shows I've enjoyed in the MCU, this is the first time I've really felt like somebody made a superhero thing FOR ME, and I had no idea how good that feeling is.

This obviously is not the only reason I like the show or even the main reason(s). It's more like something that snuck up on me and became a substrate underlying everything else I like about the show, if that makes any sense.

( And now the spoilery stuff - illustrated with screencaps! Many spoilers for all episodes herein. )

I floated the idea of doing a Diana fest back in August and then got too busy with the semester. It seemed like it would be a good way to deal with the winter blahs and kick off January, though!

So, presenting: The Diana Squeefest!



Everything Diana-related is encouraged: prompts, fic, picspams, recs, meta, or just comments about how awesome she is!

Especially welcomed: Prompts and fills on the theme of sending Diana undercover in better roles than she tends to get on the show. (This was the idea that we'd originally kicked around back in August; it seemed too limiting to stick to just that, so anything is welcomed, but prompts/fills on that topic would be especially lovely!)

A couple of house rules:
- Feel free to post fic etc in comments or linked from your journal, as you prefer
- Gen or f/f only, please (other pairings fine in background)
- All comments may contain SPOILERS for all aired episodes.

Finally, please feel free to signal-boost this, using the gorgeous banner very kindly created by kanarek13!

aqwt101 posted some screencaps of Neal raising his hand in the conference room that were so adorable I asked her if I could share them.

( Caps from 1x10 - under the cut mostly to avoid spamming the non-White Collar people )

ETA: Also, a White Collar fic rec! I already rec'd this over at whitecollar_rec, but Shared Breath by Sandra S is lovely old-school h/c, all about the shared peril and the worry and .... eeeeeee. :) Just wanted to spread the joy!

No new White Collar tonight. WOE. So I come bearing pretty pictures to ease the pain. This is all Peter and Neal under the cut (well, Matt and Tim in some cases). I have another collection of group shots and pictures of everyone else, which I'll post shortly (after I go be a responsible grownup for a while *g*). There are a few from season four, but they're not particularly spoilery. The most recent picture is from 4x14.

( Pictures thisaway! )

The discussion in the comments to my recent White Collar post got me thinking about this (again), so I decided to make a separate post on it.

There's a trope I absolutely love, that I only recently became aware of -- actually, it was watching White Collar and considering the characters' relationships that made me aware of it. I have known for a long time that I really like the general trope of "enemies working together and becoming friends", but it took me awhile to realize that there is a specific subtrope of it that I simply adore, and variations on it tend to pop up in my original fiction all the time: enemies/opponents who really like each other, although they don't ever plan to switch sides.

(Also, surprisingly, TV Tropes doesn't seem to have a page for this -- at least I can't find one! Their "vitriolic best buds" trope is about the closest I can find, but it really isn't this one.)

Basically, this isn't "redeemable bad guy", or "characters who hate each other at first and then become friends", or "characters who fight all the time but really care about each other deep down". This is, specifically, two people who are technically on opposite sides, but like each other from the beginning (for no reason either of them can fathom, usually), despite remaining devoted to their respective causes. They don't ever plan on joining the other one's side -- either they can't, because the conflict is inherent in what they are (angels and demons, say), or they believe that they're on the right side and the other person is clearly wrong (but still a friend, for all of that). Usually, they're in a position where switching sides would be, if not impossible, then difficult and dangerous and require a total rethinking of their life philosophy. But what makes this trope work for me, I think, is the "friends across the gulf between them" aspect of it. They're not really trying to change each other. They just like each other.

(White Collar actually doesn't hit this trope most of the time, at least not directly, because Peter and Neal are a little too much on the same side for it to work. It's close to it, but it isn't it, because Neal changing and becoming more a part of Peter's world is a big part of the series, and that's exactly what this trope isn't for me. Pre-series, it hits it, however, especially in the various fanfics that have Neal and Peter drifting in and out of each other's lives before Peter catches him. And at the very end of season three, it hits it again -- which was the moment that made me go "Oh!" and realize that this trope is actually a Thing That I Like.)

One of the most archetypical examples I can think of is Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. They're a demon and an angel; they can never be on the same side, and they don't want to be. But they seem to have gotten along from the very beginning, despite knowing they probably shouldn't, and their amiably friendly, "we're probably terrible people to be meeting like this, but we don't care" sort of no-strings-attached relationship is exactly what I'm thinking of.

There is an inherent tension in this kind of relationship, because usually the characters belong to groups, agencies or causes that are directly opposed to each other, so at any time they might be ordered to do something that threatens the other one (or might choose to do it themselves, depending on what happens). And it can evolve into something else, but usually it stops being this if it does (though I might still really like it for whatever it's become, of course).

I can't, off the top of my head, think of any (canonically) romantic examples that fit the trope -- probably because romance is usually all about overcoming the obstacles so that the couple can be together, and the whole point to this trope is that the characters don't particularly want to overcome the obstacles between them. The only way you could write a romance this way is if the couple had an on-again, off-again relationship that could be terminated at any time -- which is basically how these friendships function -- and most people don't write romance that way. (Though frankly I'd love it if there were more canon romances that worked like that ...)

( Various examples from books, comics, TV )

Thoughts? Additions? Who else you can think of? :D I'm sure that I'm overlooking some really obvious ones, but this is what I came up with off the top of my head. I keep thinking that there must be quite a few from anime and manga, due to their large casts and generally sympathetic villains, but I can't think of any.