I Suddenly Remembered My Charlemagne

All of this is true. And brilliant. And possibly I now 'ship (grown up) Toph and Iron Man?

So I'm not sure what the Big Influences were, besides LotR, 10 years ago when the internet exploded with movie-inspired fanfic. I don't even know for sure if there WAS a noticeable outside influence. The internet, and Tolkien fandom, was a different place then.

Now, though? With the Hobbit? It absolutely sings with Game of Thrones. And I don't know how I feel about that.

On one hand, everyone seems to know the proper terms for things like "smallclothes" and "cuirass", but on the other hand, HOLY GOD, SOME OF IT IS DEPRESSING.

(I was thinking about the quote "the law is hard, but it is the law", except that turns out to be from The Mortal Instruments, so...not so much.)

Anyway, think it's interesting how these things evolve. It doesn't just happen in fandom (for a related example, there's LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, which was mostly the same people as XENA and HERCULES, but with all the experience of LotR), but the Hobbit is very close to my heart. It's relatively easy to copy the style of LotR or GoT (she says, having not read GoT, but assuming they're similarly in High Style), so I think it's worth pointing out that there are VERY, VERY FEW fics written in the style of the Hobbit. I don't know how many times "Not for the last time!" (or some variant), appears in the text, but you RARELY see it in fic, even when that fic is mirroring the quest directly.

I remember seeing some complaints that Peter Jackson had taken a book written for six-year-olds and made it into a PG-13 movie, and I didn't really pay that much attention to it, because movie ratings are such a bear in the first place (and because 90% of the reason the movie was doomed to a PG rating anyway was because of the smoking, which you can always get away with in the book, so once they had it, they used it). Fic is usually more "mature" than the source anyway, so I'm not saying that's a good correlation either, but compared with most of the LotR fic I read, the Hobbit fic is much more "dark".

(Aside: GOD, I HATE DARK FANTASY. I get it. I really, really do. But OMG, it is not the be-all and end-all of good fantasy writing. SOMETIMES THE GOOD GUYS JUST WIN, THERE'S LIMITED SUFFERING, THE BAD GUYS DIE IN FIRES, AND IT'S STILL VALID LITERATURE. ARGH!)

So Hobbit fanfic has me in a weird place. Thank goodness Sanctuary (and, you know, growing up in general) taught me to be a patient and understanding fan. I can appreciate good writing more than I could ten years ago, and I am more likely to read a well-written dark-fic than a poorly-written fluffy one. I cut the Hobbit fandom a lot of slack, because I'm just so happy it's here. And it's doing some REALLY COOL THINGS (as I've said before, about gender and social standing and economics and racism and and and).

Thank goodness there's a book, really. And thank goodness I love it so much. I love what's grown up around it, of course, and I love it a lot, because it's collaborative and pretty and fun. But when it gets dark, and it always gets dark (because it's TRENDY, now, and also because HAVE YOU SEEN PETER JACKSON'S OTHER MOVIES*?), there's a place I can go and hide, until wanting more gapfillers drags me out again. :)





*That said, one of my FAVOURITE conversations to have about LotR is the one where people are all "Trust Peter Jackson to make the most of decapitated heads!" and I'm all "TOTALLY IN THE BOOK, SUCKERS!", because REALLY.

Last night, I started re-reading melyanna's semi-epic Season 8/Season 1 SG-1/Stargate Atlantis crossover THE CROSSROADS OF ESHU, wherein Sam gets transported to an Alternate Universe where Elizabeth is still in charge of the SGC and...well, much awesomeness transpires. This wasn't the first AU I ever read, but it's a really good one. Lots of consideration went into picking the divergence point, and then structuring the world and the reasons for it. And then the ending is just excellent. :)

Plus, THERE IS A SHINY TRAILER, which will always have a special place in my heart, because that is how I met faith_king:



(Jack and John have a conversation in an elevator that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I love it.)

(Also, melyanna has both a Mitchell AND a Caldwell in this story...neither of whom had been introduced to the audience when she wrote it.)

Anyway, I'm now in full out Atlantis-mode. I gave some thought to re-reading stargate_ren, so I read up to the Solstice story, and then scrolled down the page to see how many more were left and, WOW, THERE WERE A LOT. But I guess it's been half a decade. ;)

FANDOM, I LOVE YOU. That's basically what it comes down to. As usual. :)

*fights off Atlantis vid-bunnies for "Run" and "4 Minutes"*

This March Madness is entirely sci-fi/fantasy!



While there are inevitable omissions and first-time kinks, I'm still excited! I'm also really pleased that someone thought to do this. I can't wait to see how it pans out.

ETA: If you are going to snark about someone who was left out, this is NOT THE PLACE TO DO IT. You may be positive about the Cage Match, or you may not comment here. No backhanded compliments either, thank you.

Wow, apparently everything I like is mainstream now.

I'm losing Tortal, Percy Jackson, Narnia, Sanctuary, Adam Lambert (okay, I actually don't care about that, but IT IS KIND OF FUNNY!), Avatar:TLA, Castle, Leverage and Veronica Mars.

BUT MY LITTLE PONY IS STILL SAFE!

Now I need to think of new fandoms. Besides Revenge, I mean.

So the Remix happened.

( I have thoughts )

Will: "I guess he just didn't want to breathe the same air as the Nazi high command."
Helen: "Some of them didn't even breathe air."
Kate: *high pitched squeals*

...apparently I have a thing for World War II. Who knew?

+++

Also, "The Five" will never get less awesome, and neither will "Kush" or "Requiem". I should definitely watch this show more often. ;)

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And apparently you can subscribe to me on AO3, where I am still grav_ity, and would give you my link directly except I fail at coding.

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ETA: Warriors is a bit easier to watch this time, though it only gave us one more date for Gregory, and it was not a useful one.

I neglected to mention this last night (probably because I didn't read the fic I'm going to recommend you all read until this morning), but another really fascinating aspect of Shared Personal Canon is the part where we come up with things independently. I'm slowly making my way through the Sanctuary archives, and finding fabulous fics that other people wrote that use conclusions I drew without having read them first.

Again, let me start with something simple. I assumed that Nigel was never really part of the Ménage à Quatre that Helen, James, John and Nikola seem to fall into (again, we all seem to agree that it's James before the Ripper and Nikola after). I have nothing to back this up with, aside from his non-presence on the show so far, except that he got married and had a kid and, after 1908 anyway, seemed to sort of...get out and do his own thing without getting tangled up in their complete insanity.

The COOL thing, however, and the thing I did completely on my own, was to decide the nature of Helen and Nikola's relationship as seen in Venatus Debitum. On the surface, it's a bit obvious. But then this morning, I discovered Understanding, by penknife, and it provides the EXACT HISTORICAL BACKDROP for what I tried to get into in my own fic.

(BTW, if you haven't already, you should read it. Because it is just heartbreaking, and also really awesome.)

I suppose what I am saying is that we all rock, but mostly I'm just over the moon to be immersed once again in so clever a fandom. Brain sharing for everyone! Brandies all around! Bring on the back half of season three. ;)

There's a thought I've been having for a few days now. It started after the "Mash Up" episode of Glee where we didn't actually get a mash up of a) I Could Have Danced All Night/The Thong Song or b) Sweet Caroline/Bust A Move. And I want them.

We have fanfiction and we have fanvids and we have fanart...WHY don't we have fanmusic?

And I wouldn't just limit it to playing with music from Glee.

I would include here every song you wanted on a soundtrack that wasn't there. For example, on the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack, the ONLY character with their own theme is the White Witch). Why don't brilliant people write me a song called "King Edmund the Just" that incorporates the existing "canon" elements within the published soundtrack, but introduces a theme that is entirely about Edmund?

I realize that this would be incredibly difficult. I know that scoring a piece of music would be infinitely harder and more complex than fiction, art or vidding, but...I still think it's a REALLY GOOD IDEA. And I can't possibly be the first person who has thought of it!

So...is there such a thing as fan music? And where do I find it if there is?

ETA: Apparently there is something called "filk" which is not entirely what I meant, but is probably close enough.

Post a comment and I'll tell you five things I associate with you, and then you get to post about them in your own lj.

I ended up with input from havocthecat, gabolange and abyssinia4077 for this. As relative newcomers to my f-list, I wasn't entire sure what to expect! I ended up with: UF, archaeology, cake, toasters and Boomer; Korea, Canada, bookstore, travel and cake; and BSG, cakes and the making thereof, my default icon and my thoughts on Madeleine L'Engle, Daniel/Janet, and my favourite pairing ever.

( UF )

( Archaeology )

( Toasters )

( Boomer )

( Korea )

( Canada )

( Bookstore )

( Travel )

( BSG )

( My Default Icon and How I Feel About Madeleine L'Engle )

( Daniel/Janet )

( My Favourite Pairing Ever )

The more astute of you will notice that ALL THREE requested Cake and this has not been explained. The reason for this is simple: the pictures of my latest endeavour are still on the camera, and I haven't got to them yet. It will be up in the next couple of days, along with a post about the random things that brought me to cake making. :)

ETA: The Cake Post