shatfat

1. Just found out that Dwayne McDuffie died (in February). Major bummer. Dwayne McDuffie alone did a lot to even get me into comics in the first place. His writing was witty, his pacing workmanlike, and his characters were people you couldn't help but love.

Hell, this guy was so talented he made JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED actually watchable.

I should post a picture of STATIC, but my internet-fu is weak. So just imagine him. I should stop here but I just wanted to observe that STATIC (or Virgil, actually) was a very PETER PARKER-like character, but people rarely make that comparison because unlike the 500 SPIDERMAN reboots, when you read STATIC you never felt like you'd read it all before. STATIC experienced real jeopardy, in both his personal and alter ego lives, just like SPIDERMAN in the very early days. SPIDERMAN in the comics today can be downright annoying with his detached wisecracks, whereas when STATIC got smart with his rogue's gallery it was a desperate adolescent apostrophe to a world that seemed incomprehensible and terribly unfair. And yet, it was a hopeful story. The clever hero comes out on top of the bully. Such a simple story--and so hard to do right. R. I. P.

2. Geoff Johns and his use of racist racial tropes
Finally, somebody else noticed this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I thought it was blindingly obvious in his JSA run, but all anybody ever talks about is his character assassination of Obsidian. What nobody seems to mention is that in Johns' hands, the African-American incarnations of both Mister Terrific and JJ get turned into indecisive, easily-influenced, incapable non-players too consumed by their personal drama to be anything other than foils for the real heroes... such as Johns' pre-pubescent Mary Sue from STARS AND STRIPE. I could go on and on, but seriously... just read his JSA run and you'll see what I mean.

ETA: Or maybe I'm just pissed because Johns turned Mister Terrific into some sort of strawman for atheism and then knocked him down. Note to Johns: the "atheist in the world where gods exist" has already been done. (Cf: Terry Pratchett) Not to mention, done better. Not to mention, your straw man makes YOU look like an idiot and a tool. (Unless you actually intended to score an epic own-goal on Christian ontologies, in which case, Sir, may I offer my sincere congratulations.) Not the mention, Mister Terrific is fucking AWESOME and you aren't worthy to ink his boots.

Does anyone else hear wakka-chikka music when reading this? Note: this is an introductory scene in a piece of fanfiction which is truly intended to be an innocent domestic scene between two erstwhile TV characters, not a giant double-entendre along the lines of the opening to the movie The Bird Cage.

"I love you, Uncle Jim, but honestly, I think you're nuts." Peter Kirk shook his sleek auburn head, his faintly quirked mouth softening the pronouncement. The knife in his hand never stopped flashing silver, and the pile of chopped vegetables on the table before him grew steadily.



"Oh you do, do you." A slow grin edged along Jim Kirk's mouth. The oil in the pan spat at him, and he slid the thickest and largest of the vegetables in first.



"Not that my opinion will stop you. I think you've been crazy for years and, I admit, we've all benefited. And-oh, do the calawari seaweed last. It cooks fast." Peter leaned his tall, lanky form over the cooking island and set two overflowing bowls next to Kirk's elbow.



"Get the na'waht sauce from the cooler, would you? And speaking of nuts...get the Andorian bacca nuts, too." Kirk stirred the food with a rare economy of motion, relaxing in increments as the air filled with wonderful scents and a hypnotic sizzle.

The author is not a native English speaker, but the people who "edited" and "published" this story are. Seriously!

Ha ha, LJ wants me to label this as "adult" content, or not. I can't find "adolescent" in the drop-down menu. Drat.

Farfalla and I watched The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges wr. with Henry Fonda as a socially awkward nerd and Barbara Stanwyck) and we were elbowing each other all the way through. I queried the internets today and came up dry.

REALLY??

The movie is about a grifter named Jean who falls in love with her mark. When her beau finds out that she and her family are card sharps and worse, he dumps her, prompting her to initiate an elaborate (and risky) revenge.

The thing is... her family consists of her biological father and Gerald, his partner in crime and domestic affairs. Although the Hayes code was well in effect by 1941, the movie slyly never says a word. We see them scheming together, gambling together, eating together at home, and significantly, at one point father Harry asks Jean not to reveal their true identities to her boyfriend for another day "for the sake of your father and Gerald." On the heterosexual side, the movie pushes the envelope quite a bit (not in 1920's terms, but at least in Code Years terms) and ends with, well, a very clever strike at the code itself.

Seriously, watch this movie. Gerald is Jean's stepfather! He doesn't appear in the initial scene II which introduces the characters, but is carefully slipped in, and then his presence goes unquestioned. (A third, rather, er, flamboyant conman is clearly introduced as an old family friend.) The domestic scenes are very cute.

This movie stands up well over time. Unlike some of my other favorite 1940's movies, there are no offensive racial jokes, and nothing to get the feminist blood boiling. Yes, there's a woman putting off a man by making up stories about how she's been with 500 guys, but the man in question is a socially-inept nerdboy virgin. Sorry, gals, but I can point you to about 500,000 of them posting daily on the Chans. Don't have to like it, but there it is. His reaction is 100% in character.

(Compare-contrast this to that other classic war-of-the-sexes movie, The Awful Truth, in which Irene Dunne gets her revenge on playboy Cary Grant by pretending to be his lush partygirl sister, except that partygirl business is not an act at all. Cary Grant's character knows he married a sorostitute, and loves it--well, up to a point. Hence the war, & then the making up.)

SERIOUSLY INTERNETS, HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE?

If you like TOS and you like long stories and you like Sci Fi, I think you'll like this. It's an AU of the new movie: Nero has gone back in time and changed history, but Kirk and Spock were NOT in command of the Enterprise after the battle of Vulcan trying to figure out how to defeat him. Nero didn't get Earth, but he is making war on the Federation still.

I like it in part because it does what a story can do and a movie can't, which is to take time to develop characters and the story, so the deus ex machina elements of the STXI movie have been chucked. (Kirk running into Old Spock at just the right moment, etc.)

But never mind that. I actually like this story because the characters are so human, yet so inspiring. None of that "Kirk as a bro'" bullshit that makes me want to gag. Neither does Spock let it all hang out. He's much more the super serious Spock of TOS. The situations (from an interpersonal point of view) are realistic and speak to me. This is miles away from the teenybopper fic that the new movie inspired so many mountains of. I told the author that the story reminded me of Bujold and I meant it.

http://community.livejournal.com/triwislinthis/tag/leave%20no%20soul%20behind

Does it bother anyone else that the STXI credits giving Nimoy's Spock as "Spock Prime" is just another stupid mistake? That the Nu!Spock should, logically be Spock Prime? Hear me out. Anyone who's taken high school math should know that the zeroth iteration goes by its name and the first iteration is marked by a ', which is pronounced "prime", the second by '', which is "double prime" and so on. For more iterations than this it is typical to use subscripts, sub zero, sub one, sub twenty-one, etc. TOS Spock is the ur-iteration, making him simply Spock. The new universe which is created by Nero's time traveling should be the Star Trek Universe Prime (STU') and everyone in this new timeline who is parallel to the first should be '. Hence Spock', Kirk', Sarek', etc.

Now does anyone else see this or am I just crazy?!

I've been awfully neglectful not sharing my favorite aspect to STIX fandom: The Sarek/Winona Kirk pairing. Here are two awesome stories and feel free to share in comments any awesome NuTrek Sarek stories I might have missed. Oh yeah, bad news, I had to lock down comments to friends only because some post I made last year got really out of control and I don't have time for this crap. Make cheeky comments about the RCC: get invaded by funny-farm fest of nutty trolls. Start a Spock/Sarek fanpage (yes, incestuous slash fiction): crickets. No respect, I'm telling you.

Common Bond by florahart. Slow building Winona Kirk/Sarek romance, takes place in San Francisco, background K/S, duh, like that episode of Simpsons, hehe. I wish I could leave positive feedback but I don't have OpenID and don't care. Oh well. Hm, she probably had to block anon commenters for some similarly stupid reason.

Affliction's Sons by Stella Andrea. Similar to above but takes place in and around New Vulcan and I think it's more sudden. Foreground K/S, with your standard array of misunderstandings. Had some unintentionally funny moments. Also had intentionally funny moments. Because what the hell, the idea of Kirk picking up Sarek as father in law because of his mother is hilarious.

Maybe I ought to post these to my website. Yeah, I'll get on that. Tout de suite. What with it being tax time and everything.

This is probably the first time I've ever recced a work in progress, but here goes: "Fighting Gravity" by pantswarrior? Is really amazing. It manages to be in character without being annoying. (Easy to do with nuTrek characters, because they are pretty annoying.) Instead the author manages to bring out the characters' good points in a subtle way. I love the use of Chris Pike. I'm now convinced that he's a much more compelling character in the STIX universe than in the original.

Anyway, this is the first story I've found in the STIX universe that would really appeal to a TOS K/S fan that doesn't focus on Spock Prime or Kirk Prime. It's a slight AU: it follows the movie until the very end, but when Spock Prime encourages Spock to stay in Starfleet, Spock rejects this advice because he wants to be in charge of his own life and resigns his commission. The story begins five years later, when the Enterprise has returned from its first mission under Captain Kirk.

Somebody give me a title, please.

Oh, and NSFW. Duh.

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Title: Four Times Spock Didn't Nail Anybody (And One Time He Totally Did)
Author: Hypatia Kosh
Universe: Abrams Star Trek, aka AOS, aka STR, aka Reboot...
Characters/Pairings: K, S, U, Spock/Uhura, Kirk/Spock
Rating: R/Mature
Summary: Spock is asexual before his first pon farr, but he still finds a way to show the people in his life that he cares. Then pon farr shows up and changes everything.

This is an attempt at a short response to my own prompt at the st_xi_kink community.

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Title: So Be It
Author: Hypatia Kosh
Series: TOS, AOS XOVER
Characters: K (TOS), S (AOS), K&S (TOS)
Genre: General/Adventure, Friendship
Rating: PG
Summary: Like "Mirror, Mirror", except with the AOS and TOS universes.

SO BE IT

( Gary's arms were spread wide as he described a scant semi-circle, taking in the wastes of that uninhabited world. Nothing but bacteria and stem plants for 150 square kilometers. )