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1. Both The Good Place and the Connors disappointed me these past two weeks. I knew where they were headed of course, but I'm annoyed at the writers for going the predictable route, and basically hitting the reset button.
For me, a story is only interesting if it continues to evolve, and the characters get explored in new ways. Reverting back annoys me.
Well that, and ...
* ( spoilers for the Good Place )
* ( spoilers for the Connors )
2. My Dad is getting worse. Like the news, I'm trying to ignore it. I can't. I have to call my mother nightly and listen to her tell me about it. It is both insanely painful and weirdly amusing, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms, but the universe apparently has a wicked sense of humor.
( Read more... )
4. Speaking of guilty cultural comforts...and as mentioned, briefly above, I'm a huge X-men Cyclops fan. I think you may have figured that out by now? (If you've been reading this journal since 2012, you must have.) No one else on my flist appears to be - a fan. (I know I asked for fanfic and icons, and the fandom did NOT deliver. Loki and Iron Man, yes. Killing Eve? No problem. Doctor Who? Not a problem. MCU movies...not a problem.
Cyclops, no. Folks? I only like Loki and Iron Man, because I like anything Tom Hiddleston and Robert Downy Jr decide to do. I'd watch those actors read the phone book. The characters...shrug. Can someone please friend me who is a die-hard Cyclops fan? Please? Preferrably someone who agrees with my perspective on the character? So I can have long insane discussions about him? And squee over his return?
The comics fandom universe hates me. {Or just isn't into the X-men comcis and only watches the movies...and television series, because, hello, cheaper.) Or I used up all my fan privileges with Spike.
Oh, well, probably for the best. Sometimes guilty pleasures are best kept to oneself.
Besides fandoms can be weird about characters. I remember getting into weird arguments with Spike shippers. They did not view Spike the same way I did nor like him for the same reasons. I have a feeling I'd have the same problem with Cyclops fans. I tend to like characters that are really complicated, tragic, and deeply flawed. Also with a dry wit, smart, and pro-active.
Anyhow, in case there happens to be someone lurking out there who loves Cyke.
Here's a link to a cool bunch of blog posts that I've been reading that defend the character. I really like the one I just linked to, because it basically provides my argument to the Cyke haters ...and yes, my favorite character has the haters. (Fandom. Sigh. Fandom. Is it possible to love a fictional character in a fandom and not have a bunch of people who hate that character with the same passion? To date? I have not found one character in which this is not the case. Why this is, I don't know. I think it's just par for the course of being human -- there's always going to be someone out there who disagrees vehemently with you on pretty much everything, even if it is something as innocuous as the difference between cream and beige paint.)
( Read more... )
A bit of back story? Unlike most comic book fans that I've met, I came to my love of the art form late. I did not fall in love with it as a kid. It wasn't that I wasn't exposed. I was. My brother and his friends used to draw comic book superheroes when they were ten years old. The comic books they had were -- I thought -- boring, male centric, and the art crappy. Tintin was probably the best of the bunch, and it was male centric, boring, British and not in a good way, and didn't do a thing for me. (Sorry Tintin fans.) Asterix, which I discovered in France, was just silly -- it did help with my French, however. (It was comic about an ancient Gaul tripping about Rome and fighting Romans...reminded me a bit of the comic strip BC both in style and humor.) But that was it.
Then, my freshman year of college circa 1985 -- I was hanging out in the lounge watching Star Trek. A group of us would watch Star Trek at 3PM every day after class. Then discuss the episodes. We also watched Star Trek Next Generation. One of the people in the lounge, a fellow freshman, Jessica Betterly, was a X-men comic book fan. So we started talking about comic books. I phoo-phooed them at first, until she began to regale me with the history of the X-men. I was enthralled. So one day, we went up to her dorm room and she pulled out her treasure chest. It was a brown box filled with comics, in nice clear plastic cases. Together we'd pull them out and read through them. I was hooked.
She invited me to tag along to the comic book store, and I began to buy my own and search for the older issues...the RA on that wing, Maria Nazarro, who was about 4 feet tall if that, was also a huge comic book fan. And she'd discuss the character arcs with me and the back stories. And there was another gal in the group who collected them -- who I've reunited with on FB. (I don't think she collects them now.)
It opened a new world for me. These were not the male centric, poorly drawn crappy books that my brother was looking at -- these were cool and adult. They had political themes. Dealt with human rights issues. A long story arc. Experimental issues. I fell in love. And I haven't really fallen out. Did go on hiatus at different points -- when I fell in love with something else. Buffy for example, who ironically had Scott's last name, Summers, and was to a degree modeled after him by Joss Whedon, who also based various characters in the Buffyverse on his first loves, the X-men, borrowing heavily from that verse. So it's probably not surprising that I flipped over to Buffy eventually.
I didn't come into it during the Silver Age or 1960s, with the boys club and Marvel Girl, I came into it during the 1980s, and read the 1970s arc -- Dark Phoenix was the first arc that I read, along with books that came directly before and after. Dark Phoenix was the arc that I fell in love with.
And from it, I read Watchmen, Dark Knight, etc. But none of those came close to the X-men. I haunted comic book stores in Overland Park, Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, Colorado Springs, Colorado, London, England, and New York City. It was my treat. My guilty pleasure. And I didn't tell anyone. I hid them in long white boxes, inside pristine clear covers. Until one day I finally gave them all away to my Super (at the old apartment) George Moonpark, the next door neighbor's kid, and a comic book store in Hilton Head, SC. I collect them now digitally, which is easier space wise, and easier to hide.
Much prefer the digital -- it's also easier to read.
I love them like I love chocolate bars, and chocolate mousse, Buffy, daytime soaps, romance novels, fantasy and science fiction. Like I love writing stories, even if I'm the only one to read them. And live theaterical performances, and musicals. I love them the same way some people love football or Doctor Who or collecting baseball cards.
We love what we love. The Universe be dammed. And it's good to love things and people in a world blasting you with hate on a 24/7 news cycle. I'm learning to focus on the love and to...ignore the hate...let it roll on by like an angry thunder cloud threatening rain.
This morning I saw a giant white moon floating in a rapidly lightening blue sky...until it suddenly disappeared. I remember standing there near the subway stop, in the crisp cold air, thinking aloud...wait, where did it ago? Where did it go?
Life is like that full of wonderful things...that disappear, float like sand through fingers, impossible to hold onto. I think because of that...I love the things I can read over and over again, always seeing something new. That don't seemingly disappear...like the moon.
For me, a story is only interesting if it continues to evolve, and the characters get explored in new ways. Reverting back annoys me.
Well that, and ...
* ( spoilers for the Good Place )
* ( spoilers for the Connors )
2. My Dad is getting worse. Like the news, I'm trying to ignore it. I can't. I have to call my mother nightly and listen to her tell me about it. It is both insanely painful and weirdly amusing, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms, but the universe apparently has a wicked sense of humor.
( Read more... )
4. Speaking of guilty cultural comforts...and as mentioned, briefly above, I'm a huge X-men Cyclops fan. I think you may have figured that out by now? (If you've been reading this journal since 2012, you must have.) No one else on my flist appears to be - a fan. (I know I asked for fanfic and icons, and the fandom did NOT deliver. Loki and Iron Man, yes. Killing Eve? No problem. Doctor Who? Not a problem. MCU movies...not a problem.
Cyclops, no. Folks? I only like Loki and Iron Man, because I like anything Tom Hiddleston and Robert Downy Jr decide to do. I'd watch those actors read the phone book. The characters...shrug. Can someone please friend me who is a die-hard Cyclops fan? Please? Preferrably someone who agrees with my perspective on the character? So I can have long insane discussions about him? And squee over his return?
The comics fandom universe hates me. {Or just isn't into the X-men comcis and only watches the movies...and television series, because, hello, cheaper.) Or I used up all my fan privileges with Spike.
Oh, well, probably for the best. Sometimes guilty pleasures are best kept to oneself.
Besides fandoms can be weird about characters. I remember getting into weird arguments with Spike shippers. They did not view Spike the same way I did nor like him for the same reasons. I have a feeling I'd have the same problem with Cyclops fans. I tend to like characters that are really complicated, tragic, and deeply flawed. Also with a dry wit, smart, and pro-active.
Anyhow, in case there happens to be someone lurking out there who loves Cyke.
Here's a link to a cool bunch of blog posts that I've been reading that defend the character. I really like the one I just linked to, because it basically provides my argument to the Cyke haters ...and yes, my favorite character has the haters. (Fandom. Sigh. Fandom. Is it possible to love a fictional character in a fandom and not have a bunch of people who hate that character with the same passion? To date? I have not found one character in which this is not the case. Why this is, I don't know. I think it's just par for the course of being human -- there's always going to be someone out there who disagrees vehemently with you on pretty much everything, even if it is something as innocuous as the difference between cream and beige paint.)
( Read more... )
A bit of back story? Unlike most comic book fans that I've met, I came to my love of the art form late. I did not fall in love with it as a kid. It wasn't that I wasn't exposed. I was. My brother and his friends used to draw comic book superheroes when they were ten years old. The comic books they had were -- I thought -- boring, male centric, and the art crappy. Tintin was probably the best of the bunch, and it was male centric, boring, British and not in a good way, and didn't do a thing for me. (Sorry Tintin fans.) Asterix, which I discovered in France, was just silly -- it did help with my French, however. (It was comic about an ancient Gaul tripping about Rome and fighting Romans...reminded me a bit of the comic strip BC both in style and humor.) But that was it.
Then, my freshman year of college circa 1985 -- I was hanging out in the lounge watching Star Trek. A group of us would watch Star Trek at 3PM every day after class. Then discuss the episodes. We also watched Star Trek Next Generation. One of the people in the lounge, a fellow freshman, Jessica Betterly, was a X-men comic book fan. So we started talking about comic books. I phoo-phooed them at first, until she began to regale me with the history of the X-men. I was enthralled. So one day, we went up to her dorm room and she pulled out her treasure chest. It was a brown box filled with comics, in nice clear plastic cases. Together we'd pull them out and read through them. I was hooked.
She invited me to tag along to the comic book store, and I began to buy my own and search for the older issues...the RA on that wing, Maria Nazarro, who was about 4 feet tall if that, was also a huge comic book fan. And she'd discuss the character arcs with me and the back stories. And there was another gal in the group who collected them -- who I've reunited with on FB. (I don't think she collects them now.)
It opened a new world for me. These were not the male centric, poorly drawn crappy books that my brother was looking at -- these were cool and adult. They had political themes. Dealt with human rights issues. A long story arc. Experimental issues. I fell in love. And I haven't really fallen out. Did go on hiatus at different points -- when I fell in love with something else. Buffy for example, who ironically had Scott's last name, Summers, and was to a degree modeled after him by Joss Whedon, who also based various characters in the Buffyverse on his first loves, the X-men, borrowing heavily from that verse. So it's probably not surprising that I flipped over to Buffy eventually.
I didn't come into it during the Silver Age or 1960s, with the boys club and Marvel Girl, I came into it during the 1980s, and read the 1970s arc -- Dark Phoenix was the first arc that I read, along with books that came directly before and after. Dark Phoenix was the arc that I fell in love with.
And from it, I read Watchmen, Dark Knight, etc. But none of those came close to the X-men. I haunted comic book stores in Overland Park, Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, Colorado Springs, Colorado, London, England, and New York City. It was my treat. My guilty pleasure. And I didn't tell anyone. I hid them in long white boxes, inside pristine clear covers. Until one day I finally gave them all away to my Super (at the old apartment) George Moonpark, the next door neighbor's kid, and a comic book store in Hilton Head, SC. I collect them now digitally, which is easier space wise, and easier to hide.
Much prefer the digital -- it's also easier to read.
I love them like I love chocolate bars, and chocolate mousse, Buffy, daytime soaps, romance novels, fantasy and science fiction. Like I love writing stories, even if I'm the only one to read them. And live theaterical performances, and musicals. I love them the same way some people love football or Doctor Who or collecting baseball cards.
We love what we love. The Universe be dammed. And it's good to love things and people in a world blasting you with hate on a 24/7 news cycle. I'm learning to focus on the love and to...ignore the hate...let it roll on by like an angry thunder cloud threatening rain.
This morning I saw a giant white moon floating in a rapidly lightening blue sky...until it suddenly disappeared. I remember standing there near the subway stop, in the crisp cold air, thinking aloud...wait, where did it ago? Where did it go?
Life is like that full of wonderful things...that disappear, float like sand through fingers, impossible to hold onto. I think because of that...I love the things I can read over and over again, always seeing something new. That don't seemingly disappear...like the moon.