thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-05-29 06:59 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-05-29 06:59 pm
Candy Assortment
Although I hate doing these poke-my-head-out-of-the-gopher-hole posts, they're about all I'm going to be capable of for awhile. My deepest apologies to being behind on responding to comments, and also to being semi-brain-dead when I do make them (which seems to be the norm these days).
While I still have some lucid neurons firing, though, some items.
Save Nazanin. I've been meaning to post this link for awhile. Please, read and sign the petition. Because this type of "justice" should NOT just go by without even an attempt at protest.
X-Men 3. I liked it, although I had to agree with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rusty_halo's reasons for not liking it too. It's a movie that skews toward rewarding knowledge of the comics on one hand, except for one major difference.
Dark Phoenix.
Speaking as someone who has read quite a lot of the comics. I do know this story well. It's actually what got me back into comics after a long hiatus from childhood, when I read my brother's old stash of Superboy and Legion of Super-Heroes and Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Avengers. So here's what I noticed about the way the Phoenix story was changed.
It's no longer about Phoenix. It's about Xavier and Magneto. And Scott and Logan. Not Jean. Jean is...
Well, in the movie, she's sort of like Sadako/Samara from The Ring, somebody who really wants to hurt people because she's a) just bad and b) been mistreated. That's a pretty radical change from the original story. It made sense in the context of the movie, BUT--
Okay, here's the deal. The original comic-book story featured a self-determined female who made her own choice to die a hero (as replicated in X2, although modified), was resurrected with absolute power which then spiraled out of her control (thanks in part to villainous meddling with her mind), which ended with her again choosing to die a hero by killing herself, thus removing the threat of her evil id-monster that she couldn't control (essentially, the classic Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" crossed with Forbidden Planet). It's a story about Jean triumphing and failing and then triumphing again over her own best and worst impulses. It's a story about Jean.
The movie story, however, featured a self-detemined female being used as the rope in a tug-of-war in a methodology dispute between two men. Jean is essentially a pawn, to fit the chess analogy, in X3. She's not given much choice about any of it. Xavier, who she trusts to help her, violates her mind and reprograms her; Magneto, who firmly believes in living up to one's potential, sees her as a weapon to be used. Even Jean's status as the centerpoint of the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle becomes another push-pull - did Jean choose Scott of her free will, or was she reprogrammed to want the 'good' choice? would she have chosen Logan, if her mind was free (the conclusion the movie seems to draw, but also not quite, since at that point she's out of control, which also equals.... evil?)? From the point of view of an Xavier vs. Magneto story, there's great material here, BUT... it's a male-centric story. Jean practially disappears as a character with any free will - that her only free act in the movie was to beg Wolverine for release, which means that even her fate was decided by a man in this version. As a story, it works... but it's different. Jean as frightening power-of-woman-as-destructive-force (that she herself solves through her own heroism) vs. Jean-as-power-of-woman-as-destructive-force (that she asks someone who loves her to solve for her). A changed nuance there, you know?
So, low marks on the girl power. High marks in other places, such as the ethics discussion bewteen Xavier and Magneto, but....
New topic: I've seen several people's answers to this one, but the latest entry I grabbed the text from wasbogwitch's:
The Writing Meme
1. What is your penname/nom de plume/author name/alias/handle?
The Deadly Hook
2. How did you choose it?
The full explanation is on my user info page, but it's from a kung-fu movie, one of those things that was such the joke of the moment that when it came time to pick an LJ handle, it was the first thing that came to mind. That said, though, I've come to rather like it for the odd symbolism one can read into it. None of which was intentional, which is I guess why I like it. Feels like there's a narrative lesson there somewhere.
3. What fandom(s) do you write for?
BtVS. That also includes AtS as a rider, but Buffy is primarily the thing.
4. What fic(s) are you currently working on?
Oh, geez....
WIPs in progresss:
*Does It Have to Mean Something (just needs the finishing chapters, but they're taking forever to get right)
*Jack the Giant Killer (supposed to have been a fast shorty, but of course it spiraled up and out, and now I'm struggling with the ending)
And WIPs on the back, back burners:
*Life Happens (Kinkathan fic that I never quite got around to finishing... one of those Spike-gets-the-Shanshu fics, but with my own whole mini-drama in Dawn's POV worked in, plus flashbacks to post-"The Gift," and... ugh, it just got difficult to maintain the angst. When I get back in that right state of mind, I will finish it)
*Bad Eurotrip (on hiatus for... actually, I'm not gonna look how long it's been, but I do so want to get back to it, because the story as plotted was damn cool)
*The Dead Walk (Spike, Connor, and Illyria fic I started way back when that I want to revise and continue when I get a moment to get in that AtS mood, and rewrite Connor so he sounds less like Xander)
Cooking in the Brain-Kitchen:
*Sequel to "The Center," picking up in the "Does It Have to Mean Something?" continuity. This one's got a title and everything, and I've written big swatches of it, but DIHTMS has to be finished first. God only knows when this one'll get off the ground, but I really want to write it.
More Brain-Kitchen, in the 'May Never Get Written, But Fun to Think About' Category:
*An AU S6 story in which Buffy gets caught outside the police station whilst beating Spike's face in, and arrested. Things proceed to get thoroughly messy from there. I wrote an outline for this one in a feverish white heat one day, and it still surprises me how much detail just boiled up out of nowhere, although I didn't write down what I'd planned for the ending - whups!
*Another AU S6 story of that classic favorite, Halfrek grants a vengeance wish to Buffy. A little too terribly close in some ways to a story thatfer1213 is already writing, so not likely to happen, but I'd had this whole bunny about Buffy wishing that Spike wasn't a vampire and that he really wanted to help people, and that ending up translating into a) a human Spike who b) goes straight to the media and outs himself as a former vampire on the talk shows. The idea from his POV would be to help Buffy lighten her load AND assist the average person by alerting them to the dangers lurking in the darkness, setting up a neat little discussion about the logic of keeping the reality of vampires secret if your real goal is protecting people. But in story terms, also a huge excuse to show a media circus in Sunnydale looking for "real" vampires, ala Blair Witch, and Buffy fuming over Spike's sudden celebrity. Almost more potential than I think I could pull off.
Clearly I have a case of great ambitions vs. limited ability. : (
5. What fandom did you start in?
This is my first "real" active fandom, as in writing fanfic, but I have deep roots in comics and anime fandom (sort of dancing around the sidelines, more or less). I would've probably been involved in something for Star Trek: The Next Generation had I found anyone else to talk to about it at the time.
6. What is your deepest darkest fic-writing secret?
Hm. Probably that I have this tendency to write Spike as sort of... jerky. Not perfect-prince-y. I'm kind of bad at romance in that regard.
7. Do you have any particular quirks/habits to your writing?
The vomiting thing probably counts. *g* And it's probably becoming clearer over time that I'm not much for prose, really, and would be almost happier writing scripts if I could, but I can't get away from all the stage directions. I should really be drawing all these stories as comics. As if they don't take me long enough to write!
8. Do you have any fanfiction pet peeves? (Anything that appears in fiction that irritates you, anything at all)
Unambiguous Buffy-the-bitch stories that aren't trying for darkfic - in other words, Buffy-bashing. One-dimensional Demon!Hater!Xander. The word "'splainy" as a shorthand marker for wacky-Buffy dialogue (a canon word, I know, but it does make me grate my teeth every time, because I think it's dumb-sounding and makes Buffy sound dumb, unlike a lot of earlier Buffy jargon, which tended to be sharp and witty).
9. Do you have an OTP?
Writing, Spike/Buffy. Reading, I'm pretty easy, as long as the writer sells me on it, although some pairings just don't do anything for me in terms of larger resonance, and I need the connection to the bigger world for it to work for me. Hot chemistry alone is never enough. And I'm kind of a canon whore.
10. If you could get someone to write a fic for you right now, what would it be? (please include fandom, characters, scenario, as much detail as possible)
My significant other,toysdream keeps coming up with cool ideas that I'd love to see him actually execute, such as the Buffy/Immortal fic he promised me once, and the Angel story he's been talking about for about a month now, and the other Angel story which spins AU during "A Hole in the World" after that scene on the bridge (where Angel says "the hell with the world," and this time he means it!), not to mention getting back to "Bad Eurotrip." Otherwise... sheesh. There are WIPs I'm still hoping to see continued, but as tardy as I am on my own, I shouldn't even open that can.... although irfikos's sequel to "Chain" is perhaps topping my list.
How are all of you guys?
While I still have some lucid neurons firing, though, some items.
Save Nazanin. I've been meaning to post this link for awhile. Please, read and sign the petition. Because this type of "justice" should NOT just go by without even an attempt at protest.
X-Men 3. I liked it, although I had to agree with
rusty_halo's reasons for not liking it too. It's a movie that skews toward rewarding knowledge of the comics on one hand, except for one major difference. Dark Phoenix.
Speaking as someone who has read quite a lot of the comics. I do know this story well. It's actually what got me back into comics after a long hiatus from childhood, when I read my brother's old stash of Superboy and Legion of Super-Heroes and Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Avengers. So here's what I noticed about the way the Phoenix story was changed.
It's no longer about Phoenix. It's about Xavier and Magneto. And Scott and Logan. Not Jean. Jean is...
Well, in the movie, she's sort of like Sadako/Samara from The Ring, somebody who really wants to hurt people because she's a) just bad and b) been mistreated. That's a pretty radical change from the original story. It made sense in the context of the movie, BUT--
Okay, here's the deal. The original comic-book story featured a self-determined female who made her own choice to die a hero (as replicated in X2, although modified), was resurrected with absolute power which then spiraled out of her control (thanks in part to villainous meddling with her mind), which ended with her again choosing to die a hero by killing herself, thus removing the threat of her evil id-monster that she couldn't control (essentially, the classic Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" crossed with Forbidden Planet). It's a story about Jean triumphing and failing and then triumphing again over her own best and worst impulses. It's a story about Jean.
The movie story, however, featured a self-detemined female being used as the rope in a tug-of-war in a methodology dispute between two men. Jean is essentially a pawn, to fit the chess analogy, in X3. She's not given much choice about any of it. Xavier, who she trusts to help her, violates her mind and reprograms her; Magneto, who firmly believes in living up to one's potential, sees her as a weapon to be used. Even Jean's status as the centerpoint of the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle becomes another push-pull - did Jean choose Scott of her free will, or was she reprogrammed to want the 'good' choice? would she have chosen Logan, if her mind was free (the conclusion the movie seems to draw, but also not quite, since at that point she's out of control, which also equals.... evil?)? From the point of view of an Xavier vs. Magneto story, there's great material here, BUT... it's a male-centric story. Jean practially disappears as a character with any free will - that her only free act in the movie was to beg Wolverine for release, which means that even her fate was decided by a man in this version. As a story, it works... but it's different. Jean as frightening power-of-woman-as-destructive-force (that she herself solves through her own heroism) vs. Jean-as-power-of-woman-as-destructive-force (that she asks someone who loves her to solve for her). A changed nuance there, you know?
So, low marks on the girl power. High marks in other places, such as the ethics discussion bewteen Xavier and Magneto, but....
New topic: I've seen several people's answers to this one, but the latest entry I grabbed the text from was
bogwitch's: The Writing Meme
1. What is your penname/nom de plume/author name/alias/handle?
The Deadly Hook
2. How did you choose it?
The full explanation is on my user info page, but it's from a kung-fu movie, one of those things that was such the joke of the moment that when it came time to pick an LJ handle, it was the first thing that came to mind. That said, though, I've come to rather like it for the odd symbolism one can read into it. None of which was intentional, which is I guess why I like it. Feels like there's a narrative lesson there somewhere.
3. What fandom(s) do you write for?
BtVS. That also includes AtS as a rider, but Buffy is primarily the thing.
4. What fic(s) are you currently working on?
Oh, geez....
WIPs in progresss:
*Does It Have to Mean Something (just needs the finishing chapters, but they're taking forever to get right)
*Jack the Giant Killer (supposed to have been a fast shorty, but of course it spiraled up and out, and now I'm struggling with the ending)
And WIPs on the back, back burners:
*Life Happens (Kinkathan fic that I never quite got around to finishing... one of those Spike-gets-the-Shanshu fics, but with my own whole mini-drama in Dawn's POV worked in, plus flashbacks to post-"The Gift," and... ugh, it just got difficult to maintain the angst. When I get back in that right state of mind, I will finish it)
*Bad Eurotrip (on hiatus for... actually, I'm not gonna look how long it's been, but I do so want to get back to it, because the story as plotted was damn cool)
*The Dead Walk (Spike, Connor, and Illyria fic I started way back when that I want to revise and continue when I get a moment to get in that AtS mood, and rewrite Connor so he sounds less like Xander)
Cooking in the Brain-Kitchen:
*Sequel to "The Center," picking up in the "Does It Have to Mean Something?" continuity. This one's got a title and everything, and I've written big swatches of it, but DIHTMS has to be finished first. God only knows when this one'll get off the ground, but I really want to write it.
More Brain-Kitchen, in the 'May Never Get Written, But Fun to Think About' Category:
*An AU S6 story in which Buffy gets caught outside the police station whilst beating Spike's face in, and arrested. Things proceed to get thoroughly messy from there. I wrote an outline for this one in a feverish white heat one day, and it still surprises me how much detail just boiled up out of nowhere, although I didn't write down what I'd planned for the ending - whups!
*Another AU S6 story of that classic favorite, Halfrek grants a vengeance wish to Buffy. A little too terribly close in some ways to a story that
fer1213 is already writing, so not likely to happen, but I'd had this whole bunny about Buffy wishing that Spike wasn't a vampire and that he really wanted to help people, and that ending up translating into a) a human Spike who b) goes straight to the media and outs himself as a former vampire on the talk shows. The idea from his POV would be to help Buffy lighten her load AND assist the average person by alerting them to the dangers lurking in the darkness, setting up a neat little discussion about the logic of keeping the reality of vampires secret if your real goal is protecting people. But in story terms, also a huge excuse to show a media circus in Sunnydale looking for "real" vampires, ala Blair Witch, and Buffy fuming over Spike's sudden celebrity. Almost more potential than I think I could pull off. Clearly I have a case of great ambitions vs. limited ability. : (
5. What fandom did you start in?
This is my first "real" active fandom, as in writing fanfic, but I have deep roots in comics and anime fandom (sort of dancing around the sidelines, more or less). I would've probably been involved in something for Star Trek: The Next Generation had I found anyone else to talk to about it at the time.
6. What is your deepest darkest fic-writing secret?
Hm. Probably that I have this tendency to write Spike as sort of... jerky. Not perfect-prince-y. I'm kind of bad at romance in that regard.
7. Do you have any particular quirks/habits to your writing?
The vomiting thing probably counts. *g* And it's probably becoming clearer over time that I'm not much for prose, really, and would be almost happier writing scripts if I could, but I can't get away from all the stage directions. I should really be drawing all these stories as comics. As if they don't take me long enough to write!
8. Do you have any fanfiction pet peeves? (Anything that appears in fiction that irritates you, anything at all)
Unambiguous Buffy-the-bitch stories that aren't trying for darkfic - in other words, Buffy-bashing. One-dimensional Demon!Hater!Xander. The word "'splainy" as a shorthand marker for wacky-Buffy dialogue (a canon word, I know, but it does make me grate my teeth every time, because I think it's dumb-sounding and makes Buffy sound dumb, unlike a lot of earlier Buffy jargon, which tended to be sharp and witty).
9. Do you have an OTP?
Writing, Spike/Buffy. Reading, I'm pretty easy, as long as the writer sells me on it, although some pairings just don't do anything for me in terms of larger resonance, and I need the connection to the bigger world for it to work for me. Hot chemistry alone is never enough. And I'm kind of a canon whore.
10. If you could get someone to write a fic for you right now, what would it be? (please include fandom, characters, scenario, as much detail as possible)
My significant other,
toysdream keeps coming up with cool ideas that I'd love to see him actually execute, such as the Buffy/Immortal fic he promised me once, and the Angel story he's been talking about for about a month now, and the other Angel story which spins AU during "A Hole in the World" after that scene on the bridge (where Angel says "the hell with the world," and this time he means it!), not to mention getting back to "Bad Eurotrip." Otherwise... sheesh. There are WIPs I'm still hoping to see continued, but as tardy as I am on my own, I shouldn't even open that can.... although irfikos's sequel to "Chain" is perhaps topping my list.How are all of you guys?
no subject
no subject
no subject
However, apart from Wolverine, the other characters were very ill-served. Dark Phoenix was considerably less proactive and scary than Dark Willow in BtVS season 6. Also, it was so obvious they got rid of Cyclops so they could have that whole 'I had to kill the woman I love' conflict thing with Wolverine instead.
Oh, well. I can't say I didn't enjoy it but it was still a bit of a mess.