Avoiding schoolwork

[elspethdixon]

Must peer-edit fellow seminar student's research project. Don't want to (I can't think of anything to say but, "This is good and better than mine. I like how, unlike me, you did your historiography in the footnotes rather than the text. Also, you remembered to space between the footnotes, again, unlike me.").

It has occurred to me that, despite my longtime avoidance of RPGs (which always sounded to me like they generally descend into randomness and OOC-ness, sometimes through the use of many, many in-jokes), the original "outline" for Fixit Fic is essentially an RPG of two, complete with in-references ("and they they do the S&H forehead touching thing") and things that are only there because we thought they were funny ("are you certain we have the right body this time, Skull?").

And the 13+ page "outline" for Denialverse (the five roughly plotted virtual seasons of an imaginary Avengers cartoon branching off from the Iron Man animated film) is even more RPG-like, since it exists mainly for the fun of having our own little happy and Disassembled/Civil War-free Avengers world, and may or may not ever actually be written (five virtual seasons would be longer than a novel). And includes things like the almost-as-well-developed AU where everyone is the opposite gender, because Stephanie Rogers/Tonya Stark makes me happy in an emo-porn-licious way only equaled by Dicken's Hard Times.

Comments

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Who are S&H, anyway?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

S&H= Starsky & Hutch. They did this thing in several episodes where they would stand about 2.3 inches apart and lean towards one another with their foreheads touching. This was general accompanied by at least one of them putting a hand on the back of the other's neck or head. From the right angle, it looks an awful lot like kissing.

It's about the most intimate thing I've seen two guys who aren't canonically either brothers or sleeping together do onscreen.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Wait, scratch that and replace it with "one of the most intimate things." I wouldn't want to leave out the clinging and cradling on that show, plus that one scene with them in bed together.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I do think that there's sometimes a thin line between co-writing/collaboration and RP (when RP is well-done, anyway). And I don't know about RPG-s in general, but one of the joys I've been finding in theatrical_muse is that there's hardly anything we can think of that isn't a logical extension of something Marvel has done.

I mean. . .you can say that SHIELD wouldn't hire Mr. Sinister, but is he really a weirder choice to lead a team than Norman Osborn?

*raises eyebrows innocently*

Though my real need to comment on this post is. . . HARD TIMES? Do tell!

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

That scene where Sissy goes to the man who's "ruined" Louisa and convinces him (through the power of her pure deeply femmslashy love for her friend) to return to London and leave Louisa's reputation unstained is Right Up There in the annals of Victorian emo-porn. Also, Sissy totally heals Louisa's soul, and then they set up house together and live happily ever after.

It's not a perfect parallel for the genderswap-au-of-an-au scene where Stephanie and Valkyrie go to Tiberius Stone and threaten to main him if he ever comes near Tonya again, but the "don't fuck with the bonds of sisterhood" concept is there.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

IIRC, at least one of the S&H actors has cheerfully admitted that he played the slashiness quite deliberately.

But yes, there was much slashiness in that show, though I haven't seen an episode for years.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

If Starsky & Hutch were airing nowadays, the deluge of Paul Michael Glazer/David Soul RPS would eat fandom (fed by the many, many publicity stills of them touching each other and in general seeming to be really good friends).

There would be more fic written about the two of them than about the actual characters.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

And, having given it some thought, Dr. Essex is at least a more rational kind of insane than Norman Osborn, and less likely to fly off and kill somebody (instead, he'll just quietly collect DNA samples from them, for human cloning purposes).

As long as SHIELD gave him state-of-the-art lab facilities and access to human test subjects, it could be a match made in... well, not heaven. Someplace, though.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Hee, I thought you meant Sissy/Louisa!

That's such a sad book for Louisa but yeah, it all makes sense.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

That was Tony's argument! The X-men can't figure out a way to kill the man, so keep him busy and supervised.

Cable however, was not amused. (Though that probably has a lot to do with the fact that Tony is sleeping with Jean and Cable wishes he were is very protective of her reputation).

Okay, some of it is a little cracky. But only in the best spirit of the canon. *evil grin*

[harmonyangel.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have anything more constructive to say but "Mmmm, genderswap." I seem to have developed a small obsession with picturing Tony Stark as a woman/in women's clothing. Mighty Avengers has not helped to curb this obsession.

And I used to agree with you about RPGs, but I'm having a whole lot of fun over at theatrical_muse and I like to think I'm not playing it too OOC. It's fantastically fun writing practice, if nothing else.

(And I'm working on that beta for chapter 2 for you guys, by the way; school is killing me at the moment, but I'll get it to you as soon as possible.)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Is it sad that I know exactly what body type, hairstyle, etc. all the Avengers would have if they were genderswapped? And what they'd have if they had been the opposite gender to begin with (in some cases, not the same, given the differences between body fat percentages on physically fit men and women--if Steve were turned into a girl, he would be seriously flat chested).

We even worked out code names. Miss America. The Iron Maiden. Wasp (is nicely gender neutral). Giant-Girl. Valkyrie. Then we moved on to other silver-age Marvel teams and started coming up with things like "Laser-Lass" and "Marvel Lad" for the X-Men. Then we spent, like, fifteen minutes deciding whether Miss America would wear a domino mask like Winter Soldier's or the same kind of head-thing Jean Grey and Wiccan have (so that she could retain the little wings, so vital to proper Cap characterization). Since long hair wouldn't work all that well with a cowl, Batgirl notwithstanding.

Valkyrie (Girl!Thor), of course, would dress like Xena.

[harmonyangel.livejournal.com]

Laser-Lass and Marvel Lad! Ahahaha.

I think you can put wings on a domino mask. A friend's husband drew a picture of Sally Stark-Rogers (the, um, adopted daughter Steve and Tony were raising in the universe Wanda created when she went batshit again in our RP... I suddenly see what you mean about RP devolving into crack, but, you know, it's not like it's something Wanda wouldn't do), and Sally had a domino mask with wings. (And iron gloves. Her code name was Liberty Belle, because of the patriotic connotations and the fact that the actual "liberty bell" is made of iron.)

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm curious! What do "Tonya" and "Stephanie" look like in this AU?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Oh, it went on from there. Professor Charlotte Xavier and her arch-enemy, Erica "Magnetia" Lensher, the Mistress of Magnetism. Piper "Spiderwoman" Watson (married to male model Michael John Watson). Norma Osborn. Renee Richards-Storm. Mary Murdock and Frannie Nelson. Orestes Natchios. Walter "The Red Wizard" Maximoff. Kitty Barton. Nikolai "The Widowmaker" Romanoff. And on, and on.

Stephanie Rogers essentially wore Steve's costume, but with heels on the boots and a more feminine mask (we eventually did go with a winged Domino mask, I think). The Iron Maiden had a more stream-lined version of the armor, with a breastplate designed to allow for breasts. Really, the entire AU idea mostly consisted of me wishing I could draw so I could do fanart of gender-swapped superheroes.

Hannah Pym always wears long sleeves because she tried to slit her wrists in grad school, and Tonya Stark wears backless halter-top-style dresses to formal affairs because the shrapnel scars keep her from showing off her cleavage but, damn it, shoe's going to show off something(seriously, we actually worked this stuff out). Jerry "Hulk" Walters wears Armani suits custom tailored to fit seven-foot-tall green lawyers.

The Red Wizard had a cape like Dr. Strange's and a pointy hat a la Rincewind (because stupid things on her head have been a consistant feature of Wanda's costumes, though that's gottten light years better since that box-wimple-thing from the '60s). Magnetia had a kind of bondage theme going, with a boustier and very tall, high-heeled boots. Kitty "Hawkeye" Barton would dress pretty much like the Huntress from DCU (also in purple, similar pointy mask, but midriff-baring).

[harmonyangel.livejournal.com]

*glee*

That is phenomenal.

What did Laser-Lass and Marvel Lad look like?

And I secretly like Wanda's stupid headpiece, but I love the idea of Walter's pointy hat even more.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Stephanie looks a lot like a taller (5'11") and slightly less stacked Ms. Marvel (since a serum designed to transform a woman into "the peak of physical perfection" would probably produce someone who could model for Victoria Secret, but no one with that much muscle and ability to do gymnastics is going to be a D-cup). Since Steve has the whole noble, square jawed thing going, "Stephanie" has very strong, 40s movie-star bone structure (think Ingrid Bergman). She's got shoulder-length blonde hair, and isn't exceptionally curvey, but has awesome legs, and is occasionally disconcerted by the fact that, societal standards having changed, she's no longer considered as butch as she was in the 40s. She almost never wears skirts.

Tonya is about 5'6," a little curvier (thin, so also not much in the way of breasts, but she has hips and a Barbie-doll waist), and has the kind of eyelashes and cheekbones most women would kill for, and curlier-than-nature-intended hair. She keeps intending to cut it off short, because it gets all sweaty and tangled under the helmet, but Stephanie once told her it was pretty, so she never does. And she dresses as provocatively as the need to still have S.E.'s board members take her seriously (and, you know, the shrapnel scars all over the front of her torso) will allow. She has short, un-painted nails, though, because spot-welding is hell on a mannicure.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

They pretty much just swapped costumes, but Laser Lass had the visor instead of Marvel Girl's pointy mask (and a ponytail or braid). Marvel Lad had a plain, yellow domino, and floppy, parted-in-the-middle hair.

The old-school X-Men uniforms were pretty standardized, and they'd pretty much stick with them (Bobbi "Ice-Girl" Drake also pretty much had the old blue-and-yellow-with-a-skirt Marvel Girl costume), except for Wendy "Angel" Worthington, who would wear something midriff-baring and revealing and claim she needed the bikini-style top because it worked better with her wings.

We also decided that Daredevil and "Frannie" Nelson would look kind of like Willow and Tara, except that "Mary Murdock" would have the exact same ugly-and-uneven-and-kind-of-sticks-up short haircut Matt's got. But her expensive yet always subtly-the-wrong-color-for-her suits would have skirts. Frannie would wear tacky jewelery to substitute for Foggy's unfortunate bowties.