five (vaguely yuletide-centric) things make a post
1. I am woefully behind on everything in my life, including reading LJ. Hopefully someday I'll catch up, but it won't be this week. Please feel free to point me at interesting things you've posted that I might otherwise miss! I'm behind on reading Yuletide stories, too. Busy being social, mostly, but also feeling just a little awkward about the whole thing this year. The politics of being in fandom keeps clouding my thought processes. But I might rally before the reveal! We will see.
2. Speaking of Yuletide stories, I'll write a prompt ficlet for anyone who manages to guess one of the ones I wrote without having inside knowledge of that particular story. I kind of doubt any of them are obvious, but I guess you never know. :)
3. Incidentally, I'm curious. Is there a reasonable rundown somewhere of why people dislike OTW/AO3? Preferably as fair and balanced as possible, but I'm interested in all the perspectives. I don't want huge flaming discussion (please don't link to communities), but it feels like something I perhaps ought to have a deeper understanding of.
4. Sherlock Holmes was delicious. RDJ did an excellent job as Holmes and Jude Law's Watson was astonishingly perfect, and their relationship... well, let's just say that if I hadn't already had Holmes/Watson ship tendencies, I sure as hell would now. The banter! The annoyance! The obvious affection! Just, wow. I liked Watson's fiancee Mary quite a bit, too. I... didn't like Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler as much as I had hoped I would, but I think that was mostly a combination of accent issues (a modern Canadian playing a 19th century American in a cast full of solid British accents = accent inconsistency; I suspect this sometimes reads like line delivery problems to me even if that's not actually what's happening) and the film falling squarely into the Woman in a Refrigerator trap. Seriously, film, the whole point of Irene Adler is that she's competent. She still had her awesome moments, but grr. (Note: I might be wrong about the accent thing -- it sounded problematic to me, but maybe I'm just overly critical of American accents in British films, and I don't know that much about 19th century American English.) Even beyond the misuse of Irene Adler, I wasn't especially thrilled by the plot, though I did think a couple of the main bad guys were very pretty. It was successful as a vehicle for the character interactions, gritty Victorian London, and the drop-dead gorgeous art direction (cinematography, music, sets, costumes, the whole shebang), and for me that was more than enough. I kind of want to see it again! And note it down for possible Yuletide nomination next year.
5. Besides Sherlock Holmes, I've been jotting down some other notes for next year's Yuletide fandoms. I am inclined to keep The Obnoxious Jerks, Athena, and Mysterious Skin, and I'm thinking about resurrecting A Tale of Time City and Initial D. There's a lot of other stuff discussed previously, but the things that keep occurring to me lately: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants really needs more Carmen-centric fic, the Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix needs more Sabriel-centric fic, and I'm highly tempted to nominate the School Daze series by Jerry Spinelli, which just might be even more obscure than The Obnoxious Jerks, for all the more people probably know the name Spinelli than Manes. Castle will probably be too big next year for Yuletide, which is good in a lot of ways, but I feel like there needs to be way more Ryan/Esposito (slash or gen, either way!) fic out there. I'm not against the Castles and Beckett (and more Beckett/Parish wouldn't go amiss), I like them a lot, but I think my love of Poke from Generation Kill has sort of adhered itself to Esposito, too -- I just have a thing for Jon Huertas now, no way around it. I am also still kind of attached to the weird cross-season Project Runway pairing I've been considering; it's one of those things I kind of doubt will ever occur to anyone else, so I should probably just write it or request it. *ponders*
2. Speaking of Yuletide stories, I'll write a prompt ficlet for anyone who manages to guess one of the ones I wrote without having inside knowledge of that particular story. I kind of doubt any of them are obvious, but I guess you never know. :)
3. Incidentally, I'm curious. Is there a reasonable rundown somewhere of why people dislike OTW/AO3? Preferably as fair and balanced as possible, but I'm interested in all the perspectives. I don't want huge flaming discussion (please don't link to communities), but it feels like something I perhaps ought to have a deeper understanding of.
4. Sherlock Holmes was delicious. RDJ did an excellent job as Holmes and Jude Law's Watson was astonishingly perfect, and their relationship... well, let's just say that if I hadn't already had Holmes/Watson ship tendencies, I sure as hell would now. The banter! The annoyance! The obvious affection! Just, wow. I liked Watson's fiancee Mary quite a bit, too. I... didn't like Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler as much as I had hoped I would, but I think that was mostly a combination of accent issues (a modern Canadian playing a 19th century American in a cast full of solid British accents = accent inconsistency; I suspect this sometimes reads like line delivery problems to me even if that's not actually what's happening) and the film falling squarely into the Woman in a Refrigerator trap. Seriously, film, the whole point of Irene Adler is that she's competent. She still had her awesome moments, but grr. (Note: I might be wrong about the accent thing -- it sounded problematic to me, but maybe I'm just overly critical of American accents in British films, and I don't know that much about 19th century American English.) Even beyond the misuse of Irene Adler, I wasn't especially thrilled by the plot, though I did think a couple of the main bad guys were very pretty. It was successful as a vehicle for the character interactions, gritty Victorian London, and the drop-dead gorgeous art direction (cinematography, music, sets, costumes, the whole shebang), and for me that was more than enough. I kind of want to see it again! And note it down for possible Yuletide nomination next year.
5. Besides Sherlock Holmes, I've been jotting down some other notes for next year's Yuletide fandoms. I am inclined to keep The Obnoxious Jerks, Athena, and Mysterious Skin, and I'm thinking about resurrecting A Tale of Time City and Initial D. There's a lot of other stuff discussed previously, but the things that keep occurring to me lately: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants really needs more Carmen-centric fic, the Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix needs more Sabriel-centric fic, and I'm highly tempted to nominate the School Daze series by Jerry Spinelli, which just might be even more obscure than The Obnoxious Jerks, for all the more people probably know the name Spinelli than Manes. Castle will probably be too big next year for Yuletide, which is good in a lot of ways, but I feel like there needs to be way more Ryan/Esposito (slash or gen, either way!) fic out there. I'm not against the Castles and Beckett (and more Beckett/Parish wouldn't go amiss), I like them a lot, but I think my love of Poke from Generation Kill has sort of adhered itself to Esposito, too -- I just have a thing for Jon Huertas now, no way around it. I am also still kind of attached to the weird cross-season Project Runway pairing I've been considering; it's one of those things I kind of doubt will ever occur to anyone else, so I should probably just write it or request it. *ponders*