via annavere

"TV questions: pick your five favourite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!"

I don't know if these are literally my fav's, but they're the ones that came to mind (excluding anime). There may be spoilers below.

1. Blake’s 7
2. Andor
3. Game of Thrones
4. Crusade
5. Doctor Who
( Read more... )

I was watching a YouTube video by So Uncivilized dissecting the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and I came across this comment by pacoramon9468, basically agreeing with the video (spoilers, I guess): in the SW Sequel trilogy...

-Palpatine wasn't killed
-The Empire wasn't destroyed
-Luke didn't bring back the jedi order
-Han Solo left Leia and return to be a criminal
-The New Republic was a failure that a group of neonazis ended in a week
-Anakin didn't bring balance to the force.
The sequel trilogy made pointless the original trilogy...

And I kind of agree. This video/comment made me reflect on my own experiences trying to square the sequel trilogy with the SW in my head. Short version: I still can't. I didn't hate the sequel trilogy. In the moment, in the theater, I quite liked most of TFA, loved much of TLJ, and was decently entertained by much of TROS. I didn't (and don't) like the rabid hating they all got, especially TLJ. But while I've never been emotionally furious about the illogical non-story these three together presented, they have hurt my SW experience. Light spoilers behind the cut and light references to my weird personal head canon.( Read more... )

Disclaimer: This is a personal reflection, not a prescription for what anyone else should do.

So there's a certain social media storm about certain author's views and to what extent they warrant boycotting or completely "giving up" her works. (I'm not going to spell out the specifics out of regard for the effort to not increase her platform—but you know who I mean.) For the record, I am not in this fandom. For me, giving up her works is like someone who once smelled weed giving up pot [Edit: And that semi-pun was unintended]. But the general discussion of ethical responsibilities has been fraught for me.

I totally get the boycotting idea. I get the value of showing protest by not financially supporting her and not engaging with her works in a way that would increase/maintain her huge platform while she is actively using that platform in a way that hurts others. I do not get the rather common response that someone is going to "give up" her works, i.e. never read them again (even if already owned), never enjoy them, never talk about them with friends, or perhaps even think about them fondly without guilt. I hear comments like, "They're tainted" and "A group of people is more important than a franchise" as if an imaginative world that has been foundational to many people's lives since childhood is just a "product," like a washing machine, and not a piece of their minds. It's fine for people to feel this way; it's just very alien to how my mind works. ( Spoilers for The Mists of Avalon and its author's horribleness )

Fandom meme via umadoshi

Your main fandom this year?
One of the reasons it's been kind of a depressing year is that I haven't had any new fandoms to squee over, but honestly I think it's going to end up being Star Wars (the sequels time period) at the end 2019 and going into 2020. It's not brilliant, but it's moving to me.

Any new secondary-fandom feelings?
I did have some fun revisiting of Mirage of Blaze, mainly through the plays on DVD and rereading some of the earlier volumes—which are surprisingly good quality. ( Read more... )

I was coloring in my daughter's coloring book when inspiration hit me. vilakins recent and very good Avon/Cally fic galvanized me to go ahead and post this. Possible B7 spoilers behind the cut...( Read more... )

(EDIT: Apparently people can, indeed, see the image. Yay!)

via umadoshi

Your main fandom of the year?
Mirage of Blaze again! This amazing BL light novel series has been resurrected in English language fandom after its substantial death from dwindling translations around 2012. Now the series has been summarized in detail up to the end! Almost as good as translated. And this year I discovered that they’ve been doing stage plays since 2014, and the stage plays are awesome. If you love angsty boys love, check it out!

Your favorite film watched this year?
The Last Jedi. It is, indeed, not perfect but it has given renewed charge to my Star Wars fandom and imagination, quite a bit more than The Force Awakens did, though I enjoyed it too. This is the first time in a long time I’ve actually wanted to check out Star Wars books.

Honorable mentions: Logan and Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman is a very important, very well done film, but Logan meant more to me emotionally.)( Read more... )

I loved this article on fan and critical responses to The Last Jedi and why the film is so divisive.

I see myself a bit in both camps (fan and critic). I liked it on the whole and like it more the more I think about it. Some of my niggles are fannish niggles: concerns that Luke and Leia wouldn't behave this way, etc. I think part of the what makes this surprising film easier for me to embrace than for some fans is that I'm very used to running parallel Star Wars fanon and canon. I've been off-canon in my head since the Expanded Universe started being canon in the 1990s(?). I'm even off canon a little bit with regard to the original trilogy. And right now, I'm glad about that because it makes the surprises easier to absorb. I can appreciate them without feeling that they have assaulted "my" Star Wars.

I am surprised, however, that there's so little talk about this film on LJ/DW. I mean, I know LJ, DW, and long-form fan meta in general are fairly dead, but... it's Star Wars. Are y'all not seeing it?

Jumping into Day 11 with apologies for not doing the whole thing in order. I just don't have time to do the whole thing properly.

Day 11
In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I think this means fan creator? I want to extol several.

The amazing astrogirl2 is the one who introduced me to LJ-style fandom in 2004. I came across her site somehow in searching for Blake's 7 fandom and was captivated by the wonderful community (doing B7 and Farscape RPGs at the time). Astrogirl herself--still posting regularly on LJ and still with quite a following--has always been such an intelligent, balanced, caring, engaged fandom presence, as well as a dashed good fan fic writer. (Alas, we are no longer in the same fandoms, but my admiration remains.)

Apart from Astrogirl, I want to use this space to praise some of the amazing people who have brought Mirage of Blaze fandom into English because I have been revisiting Mirage with much enthusiasm lately.

One of the first Mirage fans I ever encountered was petronia, first on her website, later through LJ. I long considered her--and pretty much still consider her--a celebrity I am rather shy about talking to. As far as Mirage goes, it does not get better than her humorous summaries. Across the years, I find I would usually rather read her account of Kotarou being mistaken for [Spoiler] than read the original. She captures very much the tone of Mirage itself when it self-satirizes with just a nance more meta and comedy. Utterly delightful.

The most professional-like of the many wonderful people who have taken a stab at translating the 40 volume epic of Mirage is Asphodel. Check out her amazing site of Mirage and other translations, complete with giant glossary and numerous hyperlinked footnotes. She is still at it! She has been at it for ten years or more now. The going is slow. (This is not her day job.) But the product she posts is always exceptional.

Also an excellent and voluminous translator is quaint_twilight. She is no longer active on LJ or DW, which I totally understand but makes me sad. I miss her wonderful translations and her enthusiastic fan presence, and I applaud her for keeping her account active so that we can continue to access the fruits of all her hard work on Mirage.

Other folks who have put in many long hours of translating work include 99me, tasha_poisonous, and demitas, as well as many others who have translated some wonderful bits in English and other languages--and round about 10 years ago, a whole host of people doing amazing multi-page meta. I can't name everyone, but I appreciate it all.

As for traditionally published creators, hands down the most influential in my life over the past eight-ish years or so is Yasuhiro Nightow. I must admit, I don't really relate to his latest work, Kekkai Sensen (3B), but both of his two major earlier works, Trigun and Gungrave, have been not only big fandoms of mine but have transformed my life. Each has been a means of profound revelation about myself, my patterns, and how I can better address my life. I am extremely grateful for that. It's a rare and precious gift.

It's that time again, when I get really frustrated with my inability to find anything to fan over and ask for your help. It's worked in the past, bringing me such great recs as Banana Fish and Trigun in recent memory. So please, help me, please! Here's some info on my tastes:

* I'm looking for a story that has at least two very well-developed characters (ideally more or less equally well developed) who spark off each other in an interesting way that is a major part of the story. It needn't be romantic. It should involve some sort of interesting tension/contrast. Both characters should care about something besides just each other. (Mirage of Blaze note: yes, Naoe does care about things other than Kagetora; for example, he cares about his own ego.)

* Genre: sci fi, fantasy, historical, mythical are my favorites, followed by non-Anglophone/foreign cultures, with least interest in contemporary Anglophone texts (though I may go anywhere for a really great story). Basically, I like to get beyond the daily external world I run errands in.

* Medium: any really, though I'm rather in reading mood just now. Movies tend to be a bit short for the necessary character development, but you never know.

* Women: I truly love it when I find a story with a good female character I can invest in... but this is so rare that I tend to have a knee-jerk wariness about male/female pairings. (I don't know that I have a single female/female pairing high on my personal fannish list, but there's a first time for everything. I would have had one with The Innkeeper's Song, except...)

Random stuff I've liked in the past: I've been subsisting on renewed Les Mis love this past year (it's great but I need something new). Japanese stuff includes Mirage of Blaze, Trigun, Blade of the Immortal, Gungrave, Banana Fish. Space opera TV shows: Blake's 7, Babylon 5, Crusade. Other: The Lord of the Rings, The Brothers Karamazov, The Left Hand of Darkness, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, the Iliad, X-Men.

Help appreciated!

This video (by the Doublechicks) should be everywhere: