fannish things
I haven't made a fannish (or public) post in ages, it seems. Mostly this is because I'm only mildly engaged in fannish things at present, but that doesn't mean I have nothing to say. To wit:
1. femgenficathon stories are beginning to be posted today!!! I've read nothing so far, but I'm excited.
I'm also vaguely confused, though: I signed up for this ficathon for the first time this year, but so far I haven't had a chance to write my story. Moreover, I'm not sure I'll have a chance before the final deadline (July 31). :( This makes me sad because, well, you know how I feel about gen fic about women! But real life is intervening pretty emphatically right now, so it looks unlikely. Because this is not an exchange ficathon, I figured no one cares if I default. But I was glancing over the rules again and there are murmurings about letting the mods know if you need an extension, etc., which sounds like heavier modding than I was thinking this involved. Is someone going to ban me forever if I don't post a story??? I would hate to be banned! If anyone has insights, I'd appreciate it!
2. All the brouhaha about purging inactive accounts seems to be less problematic than it initially sounded. There's some relatively clear info from soph here about what constitutes "inactive"--basically, accounts and communities that have more than one post's worth of content, regardless of how recent that content is, are okay. Which alleviates my worry about galpalficathon--though beanpot and I were talking, and we think we might try to do another round of that in the fall if people are up to it.
Now that things have been clarified, I'm not particularly up in arms about the purging. I do see some bad repercussions for RPG journals in which the journal owners have left and/or cannot be induced to at least log in once every 2 years, but otherwise, it doesn't look like much of substance will be lost and it may well free up some usernames. I'd have been happier if they'd left it alone, of course, but if I'm going to fight a battle with LJ, it's not going to be this one.
3. Because chaila43 and beccatoria are usually good barometers of the kinds of characters I am likely to fall for, I have, on their recs, been watching the episodes of Doctor Who that feature River Song. So far I'm about halfway through the eps, and I'm intrigued. My brain has not yet exploded from awesome, but I'm not yet ruling out the possibility that it will. I'm loving the non-linearity of the relationship between River and the Doctor, and I also really love the casting. After all, when was the last time a middle-aged woman was cast as a love interest of a young man (I looked it up on imdb the other day but can't now remember the specifics--but Alex Kingston is at least 20 years older than Matt Smith), and this is treated as normal-(ish, given that time and bodies are all a bit relative in this 'verse). Anyway, I am intrigued. We'll see if this accelerates into flailing at some point.
4. Speaking of shows where I'm fannishly behind the times, I've been watching a bit of Leverage, and once again am intrigued but not flailing. Fun, teamy goodness, yay! I love Hardison rather a lot, and Sophie almost as much, and last night I watched an ep in which we learn that Nate once wanted to be a priest, and, well, you know how I feel about fictional characters (especially male characters) and religious faith (particularly when said faith has been substantially challenged or lapsed). Funny, though, the big thing I knew about this show through fannish osmosis, other than "yay, teamy goodness!" was "Parker! Parker! Parker!!!" and...maybe I haven't seen the right eps yet, but so far Parker does very little for me. What am I missing? I don't dislike her, certainly, but of the five, she's the one who pings for me least. Why is fandom so enamored of her?
And here's the other thing that has surprised me in the little poking around fandom I've done so far (which has not been substantial since I've not actually cared much about reading fic; I just wanted to see what was there): where are the Nate/Sophie shippers??? In the 5-6 eps I've seen so far (a couple from season 3 and then the first few of season 1), Nate/Sophie is totally the canonical pairing. And while I wouldn't say I'm shipping them, I'm definitely seeing the chemistry and am fairly intrigued. Yet it seems that in the fandom, Nate/Sophie is a very minor pairing. Again, what on earth am I missing? I get that fandom, being fandom, will be slashy, and it doesn't surprise me that this fandom seems pretty slash-oriented. And apparently there's some great appeal of Parker that I have not yet quite cottoned on to, so maybe it's not surprising that she figures in most of the het I've found so far. But the laws of fandom would still seem to dictate that somewhere there's a thriving community of crazy Nate/Sophie shippers. Since the laws of fandom also dictate that crazy shippers are usually not too hard to locate when you know what you're looking for, and I've so far failed to locate more than a lackluster LJ comm and a fairly paltry number of fics on the Pit, I must conclude that there is NOT in fact a thriving community of crazy Nate/Sophie shippers. And thus I am confused. (And also concerned, because I can see where, at some point down the road, I might decide that I would like some cliched Nate/Sophie fic. Hasn't happened yet, but it might.)
5. I'm feeling very lackluster about Lie to Me these days. "Sweet Sixteen" was a really fabulous ep. Everything else thus far in 2.5 has been really mediocre. I'm still watching but starting to care less. Have they forgotten that Loker and Torres are supposed to be main characters???
1. femgenficathon stories are beginning to be posted today!!! I've read nothing so far, but I'm excited.
I'm also vaguely confused, though: I signed up for this ficathon for the first time this year, but so far I haven't had a chance to write my story. Moreover, I'm not sure I'll have a chance before the final deadline (July 31). :( This makes me sad because, well, you know how I feel about gen fic about women! But real life is intervening pretty emphatically right now, so it looks unlikely. Because this is not an exchange ficathon, I figured no one cares if I default. But I was glancing over the rules again and there are murmurings about letting the mods know if you need an extension, etc., which sounds like heavier modding than I was thinking this involved. Is someone going to ban me forever if I don't post a story??? I would hate to be banned! If anyone has insights, I'd appreciate it!
2. All the brouhaha about purging inactive accounts seems to be less problematic than it initially sounded. There's some relatively clear info from soph here about what constitutes "inactive"--basically, accounts and communities that have more than one post's worth of content, regardless of how recent that content is, are okay. Which alleviates my worry about galpalficathon--though beanpot and I were talking, and we think we might try to do another round of that in the fall if people are up to it.
Now that things have been clarified, I'm not particularly up in arms about the purging. I do see some bad repercussions for RPG journals in which the journal owners have left and/or cannot be induced to at least log in once every 2 years, but otherwise, it doesn't look like much of substance will be lost and it may well free up some usernames. I'd have been happier if they'd left it alone, of course, but if I'm going to fight a battle with LJ, it's not going to be this one.
3. Because chaila43 and beccatoria are usually good barometers of the kinds of characters I am likely to fall for, I have, on their recs, been watching the episodes of Doctor Who that feature River Song. So far I'm about halfway through the eps, and I'm intrigued. My brain has not yet exploded from awesome, but I'm not yet ruling out the possibility that it will. I'm loving the non-linearity of the relationship between River and the Doctor, and I also really love the casting. After all, when was the last time a middle-aged woman was cast as a love interest of a young man (I looked it up on imdb the other day but can't now remember the specifics--but Alex Kingston is at least 20 years older than Matt Smith), and this is treated as normal-(ish, given that time and bodies are all a bit relative in this 'verse). Anyway, I am intrigued. We'll see if this accelerates into flailing at some point.
4. Speaking of shows where I'm fannishly behind the times, I've been watching a bit of Leverage, and once again am intrigued but not flailing. Fun, teamy goodness, yay! I love Hardison rather a lot, and Sophie almost as much, and last night I watched an ep in which we learn that Nate once wanted to be a priest, and, well, you know how I feel about fictional characters (especially male characters) and religious faith (particularly when said faith has been substantially challenged or lapsed). Funny, though, the big thing I knew about this show through fannish osmosis, other than "yay, teamy goodness!" was "Parker! Parker! Parker!!!" and...maybe I haven't seen the right eps yet, but so far Parker does very little for me. What am I missing? I don't dislike her, certainly, but of the five, she's the one who pings for me least. Why is fandom so enamored of her?
And here's the other thing that has surprised me in the little poking around fandom I've done so far (which has not been substantial since I've not actually cared much about reading fic; I just wanted to see what was there): where are the Nate/Sophie shippers??? In the 5-6 eps I've seen so far (a couple from season 3 and then the first few of season 1), Nate/Sophie is totally the canonical pairing. And while I wouldn't say I'm shipping them, I'm definitely seeing the chemistry and am fairly intrigued. Yet it seems that in the fandom, Nate/Sophie is a very minor pairing. Again, what on earth am I missing? I get that fandom, being fandom, will be slashy, and it doesn't surprise me that this fandom seems pretty slash-oriented. And apparently there's some great appeal of Parker that I have not yet quite cottoned on to, so maybe it's not surprising that she figures in most of the het I've found so far. But the laws of fandom would still seem to dictate that somewhere there's a thriving community of crazy Nate/Sophie shippers. Since the laws of fandom also dictate that crazy shippers are usually not too hard to locate when you know what you're looking for, and I've so far failed to locate more than a lackluster LJ comm and a fairly paltry number of fics on the Pit, I must conclude that there is NOT in fact a thriving community of crazy Nate/Sophie shippers. And thus I am confused. (And also concerned, because I can see where, at some point down the road, I might decide that I would like some cliched Nate/Sophie fic. Hasn't happened yet, but it might.)
5. I'm feeling very lackluster about Lie to Me these days. "Sweet Sixteen" was a really fabulous ep. Everything else thus far in 2.5 has been really mediocre. I'm still watching but starting to care less. Have they forgotten that Loker and Torres are supposed to be main characters???