If you're just looking for my fic, head on over to adams_ransom or my AO3 profile.

This is just a heads up that sometime over the weekend I'll be doing a cull. I'm not using LJ for fandom these days, and so I'm going to unfollow the majority of the fandom/fic journals. I'm one of those people who bookmarks journals as well as friending them, so this is not me cutting you out of my life forever! It's just that all of the posts that I skim over of fic, and episode reactions, and flailing for fandoms that I'm no longer in is making it hard for me to keep up with the lives of my buddies.

I put this up on tumblr a few days ago, and someone asked for it to be posted over here, too. Now with a handy-dandy cut'n'paste box! (Let me know if I've ballsed up the formatting.)

1. Do you keep track of hits/subscriptions/bookmarks on your fics?
2. Is there a particular kind of comment you hate getting? (Concrit, short comments, detailed comments etc.)
3. A character that you currently have a love/hate relationship about writing.
4. One trope you will never write.
5. One trope you think that you write too much.
6. A fic that you have a special relationship with.
7. A fic that you regret posting.
8. A fic you will never write because someone else has already done it better.
9. How good are you are predicting the reactions to your stories?
10. How do you feel about other people writing fics set in one of your stories or writing a remix etc?
11. What is one good rule for writing that you always break?

<b>1. Do you keep track of hits/subscriptions/bookmarks on your fics?</b> <b>2. Is there a particular kind of comment you hate getting? (Concrit, short comments, detailed comments etc.)</b> <b>3. A character that you currently have a love/hate relationship about writing.</b> <b>4. One trope you will never write.</b> <b>5. One trope you think that you write too much.</b> <b>6. A fic that you have a special relationship with.</b> <b>7. A fic that you regret posting.</b> <b>8. A fic you will never write because someone else has already done it better.</b> <b>9. How good are you are predicting the reactions to your stories?</b> <b>10. How do you feel about other people writing fics set in one of your stories or writing a remix etc?</b> <b>11. What is one good rule for writing that you always break?</b>

Pick any passage of 500 words or fewer from any piece of fanfic I’ve ever written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it, what’s going on in the characters' heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

My fic journal | My AO3 | Or you can just say "You know that fic where..." and I'll brain dump at you (assuming it's one of my fics).

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not a fan of the Nolan Batmans, and yet I have spent NINE HOURS watching all three this evening. I don't actively hate them, and I actually really like and respect the way a lot of comic arcs have been folded into the films. My biggest problem with the trilogy is best seen in the last twenty minutes of The Dark Knight. You know, right at the end, where everyone is monologuing and none of it makes a whole lot of sense? And people keep talking AT one another without talking TO one another? And the whole big emotional climax of those monologues doesn't make any sense because the foundation is all flowery bullshit rather than a solid concept?

If I am listening to a monologue in a 'serious' comic book movie, and tearing my hear out because the monologuing is ridiculous EVEN BY COMIC BOOK STANDARDS, then I consider that to be a problem.

But, you know, each to their own. And like I said, I don't actively hate them so much as feel a great deal of 'meh' about them. And I feel very meh about DKR. I think that there is some REALLY interesting stuff in there. Bruce Wayne/Batman's story is really boring, but thankfully there are more interesting things going on a lot of the time. In fact, I would be interested in watching a Batman-free edit of this movie (the same way I'd love to see an edit of the office that cuts out all of Ricky Gervais). There were some characters that I really loved - John Blake (JGL's character) and Selina Kyle, as well as some great characters from the previous movies and a few wonderful scenes with a past villain - so they kept me interested. I think that Tom Hardy did a GREAT job as Bane, but, sadly, I really hated the way his audio was handled. Idk what was going on there, but any time Bane wasn't facing the camera, I had a really hard time making out what he was saying. I could follow the gist of things just fine though, so I'm going to assume that - as with most characters in these films - the actual words aren't that important.

Okay, you should also know that while I 'know' Batman comics, I know them through ye olde scans_daily and by reading a lot of blogs maintained by Robin fangirls back around 2004-2007, so my comics knowledge is far from comprehensive. And yet I still called a bunch of the plot twists. I don't know if that's due to the movie being predictable, genre savvyness on my part, or me just having lucked out and read about a few of the arcs represented here. But I was actually pretty bored during the big reveal scenes. I was just sitting there thinking Can I have more of JGL being a plucky detective? That would be great.

I think the biggest weakness of the film is that there is a lot of stupidity going on. If you don't mind ignoring questions of the "why would you even DO that?" variety, you won't have a problem. Visually, the movie is just as stunning as the first and second. Character wise, there is some very good stuff here. I honestly think this movie was cast by someone from fandom, because the faces that were turning up... there were a lot of people I was happy to see on the big screen (including Aidan Gillen - omg!). And I swear to dog that Nolan has seen one cracky piece of artwork that did the rounds around '06, because I saw a spoilery thing in this movie that was a fandom joke at the time.

So... yeah. It's a film. It's keeping in the same theme as the others, so if you loved them then you'll probably love this one! Now if you'll excuse me, it's nearing four am and I am dying of Batman right now.

It's good! I honestly wasn't sold on Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker before I saw the film, but he does a really great job of playing Peter as this awkward, adorable kid who is full of all of this mixed-up energy. Emma Stone does a really great job as Gwen Stacy, and my one quibble there is that Gwen didn't have a bigger, active role in the movie. Not that the character of Gwen is passive - she actively engages in the plots around her - but this movie is very much Peter's story, so of course the rest of the cast get limited space. But they're all good; there wasn't a single character who felt to me like the actor was just there to get a paycheck.

I thought that it had a really tight story - there are some loose ends and some plots that get dropped, but in terms of following Peter's growth and Peter's change in priorities, the film does a good job. One thing that I loved is that Peter Parker and Spider-Man are very much the same person - Peter finds such glee in being a hero and finds such potential in himself. I guess I'd compare it to the Nolan-verse Batman movies, wherein Bruce Wayne become more and more Batman until Bruce is less a person and more of a cover. In contrast, it's through putting on the costume and being Spider-Man that Peter Parker learns how to be Peter. (And speaking of the story - all of the press that assured you that this is a prequel, not a reboot? Lies. It's totally a reboot.)

This movie was honestly a pleasure to watch, and I think it ranks up there with the Marvel films that led into The Avengers - it's funny without being flippant, filled with character without being slow, and action-packed without being plotless. Not gonna lie, I cried twice during the film. Once during a sad moment, and once because there was a scene that was just. So. Beautiful. I am secretly a massive sap like that.

I think that the 3D works really well in this film, and probably adds to the experience a little. I really think that the director understands the importance of depth, rather than just the novelty of things jumping out at the audience.

So it's not a perfect film - the character arc is tight but the story of the movie is a little loose in places. There's a great article about the stuff that was cut: Was the Untold Story cut from The Amazing Spider-Man?, thought this article is obviously spoilery as hell, and has a points that are a little nitpicky for my tastes.

This movie was a LOT better than I was expecting. Admittedly, I was not expecting much, but this is a film that has layers, and a lot of attention to detail, and is quite meaty when you start picking it apart. I do have a bunch of problems with it, but that's more to do with what the movie isn't opposed to what it is.

I was really hoping for a feminist Snow White. I didn't get one, but I think that this is very much a movie about feminism. It is 100% about the ways in which women must structure themselves/are structured by others in order to move in a patriarchal world, and about how women are pitted against one another by men. I would love to do a long post pulling this movie apart, but that will need to wait for the DVD release. And by then I'll probably have forgotten.

So, I recommend checking this one out. Don't feel pressured to run out and catch it at the cinema, but I fully endorse renting it when it comes out or watching it on demand.

(I saw it with friends, and one of them commented at the end, "The evil witch, man, she just really needed to let go. Like, I know you got hurt by a dude, but move on". It was really depressing to know that someone missed the point of the entirely of Ravenna's character and story arc by a lot.)

Wow. My first topic-specific convention. Before the con, I was disappointed that it was only a one day affair. In retrospect, a weekend con may have killed me. There were some great moments and some shitty moments, though I'm going to do my best to focus on the good here. A lot of the things that I didn't like had to do with small-sih quibbles with Hub staff - like, at the opening ceremony I felt that the emcee was talking to us like we were a bunch of naughty seven year olds who were this close to getting a smack, but still had to be talked to with big smiles so there wouldn't be tears and tantrums from us. Maybe that was accurate, maybe some stuff went down at the Sydney con the day before that gave context to her attitude. However, I don't like being patronised at the best of times, and I certainly don't appreciate it from a glorified customer service rep who has received about a thousand dollars from me in exchange for one single good day. Okay, that's my rant done. On to the good stuff :)

( Cut cut cut - summary, part oneCollapse )

This actually happened ages ago, but I was reminded the other day that it still makes me cranky. This is not any kind of insightful, intellectual, or particularly coherent post. It's written mainly because I can't make my frustration fit 140 characters and just tweet it.

I listen to a podcast that is two women talking about Star Trek and comics and sci-fi, and sometimes about being women, and I generally like it a lot. But back when they reviewed 'Thor', one of them commented that she really didn't like the non-white Asgardians (Asier?) because "I'm sorry, but this is Norse mythology and the Norse just didn't have black people or Asians running around".

This critique of a movie based on it having people who aren't white in it actually shocked me to the point that I stopped listening for a minute and had to go back and listen again. This is largely because on this same podcast the same two women had previously discussed whether Tuvok from 'Star Trek: Voyager' was a black Vulcan, or a Vulcan played by a black actor. That is, whether the features of the actor were necessarily the features of the character. These are people who understand the importance of the presence of minorities on screen and also understand that actors =/= characters. I honestly like the idea that getting the best actor for the role is a little more important than whether they look like the role, and I was surprised in high school to learn that Kenneth Branagh's 'Much Ado About Nothing' caused some confusion in my classmates because you had characters played by non-white actors who were related to characters played by white actors.

Which links nicely back to 'Thor', in a way, as it shares the same director. Were Hogun and Hemidall COCs, or were they white characters played by POCs? More importantly, why does it matter? They were characters played by actors who gave really solid performances. Also, this is movie-verse-based-on-comic-verse not original-Norse-mythology-verse - things are allowed to be different. You are allowed to not completely whitewash this movie. Did having a black actor or an Asian actor or an actor who isn't 100% white and familiar to you on screen really ruin your ability to enjoy the movie? Were you really struck down by a sense of "this is wrong" that took you out of the viewing experience? Because if so, the problem probably wasn't with the casting.

I was reading a blog last night written and maintained by Lee Goldberg (I initially didn't know who he is, but in reading I discovered that I've seen a lot of the shows he's worked on and heard of two of his novels before). I was cruising the fanfiction tag of his blog (spoiler: he's not a fan of it). While there were certainly posts that I agreed with, there were the same old tired arguments about why fan fiction is inherently immoral and illegal and so on that I just need to address so I can get it out of my system.

1. "Fanfic is worthless because it's all badly written"
No, it isn't. There is good fanfic and bad fanfic, it's just that no one who hates fanfic does enough homework to find the good stuff. And, while this may come as a surprise to you, there is badly written everything out there. Writing an original story will not somehow improve the quality of the writing. If the writer is shit, it doesn't matter what they turn their talent to. It will all still be shit. There is badly written original fiction, badly written non-fiction, badly written poetry, badly written academic articles.

Fanfic is not unanimously badly written, and bad writing is not unique to fanfic.

2. "Fanfic steals money from the original creators"
I have never, ever had this one properly explained to me, but as an idea it tends to lurk out there. You may often instead see it presented as "fanfic infringes on copyright, and is therefore bad". Keep in mind that copyright is in place to protect the original creators from other people a) making money off their work, and b) taking credit for their work. Neither of which are things that fanficcers are known for doing. Every now and then someone will try to flog their fanfic on Amazon, but I really can't see any fan buying fanfic and, as a direct result of that purchase, not supporting the core text financially. If I pay four bucks to own a soft cover of "Auto-erotica volume 7: the revved up bedroom adventures of Dean Winchester and Ianpala", that does not mean that I have four dollars less to spend on actual Supernatural products.

(I would, however, have four dollars less to lose in my couch, which could be a serious blow to the couch economy.)

3. "You need to stop wasting your time with fanfic if you ever want to be a REAL writer"
I'm not a real writer. I'm a real technician. I write for fun and, in my eyes, nothing would suck the fun out of writing more than having it become my job. Why is there this obsession that you should ONLY write if you want to be published and have being an author become your job and one calling in life? Do people who draw constantly get told that they should give up this doodling bs because clearly what they really want is to be a professional artist?

Writing can be a hobby. Stop trying to force your career goals on the smut I write when I should be working.