The Culture Channel

"You can tell it's a good Iron Man comic if Tony is naked and crying, possibly in the rain, because he thinks none of his friends love him." - Sineala

( Other Signs of a good Iron Man comic )

… is Rick Remender’s theme song, sung to the tune of the Monitor Lizard’s “I’m gonna eat somebody” song from Fern Gully

I’ve had no access to the internet since going home for Thanksgiving on the 27th. I do not know who Remender killed last Wednesday, and I’m afraid to find out.

I hope it was one of the X-men characters, because they tend to come back from the dead faster and more often. (Maybe it was Rogue, but it will turn out that it was actually Mystique-disguised-as-Rogue and that’s why Remender’s Rogue was always vaguely OOC, and also that Mystique didn’t just fake being Rogue but also faked her death for ‘reasons’ and is really still alive. Preferably ‘reasons’ involving one of her periodic horribly failtastic attempts to actually be some kind of parental figure to Rogue - I love it when Mystique tries to be Rogue’s mom and ends up just being utterly creepy and invasive and horrible but in a totally well-meaning way.)

Recently, via metanews, I read an article which was about one-third correct and two-third completely wrongwrongwrong (bearing in mind that my definition of "wrongwrongwrong" and others' definition of same may vary):

How Superheroes Girlfriends Burned Me Out On Love Stories


The gist of the relevant part of the article for those who don't want to click links: Pepper Potts's role in the third Iron Man movie consists solely of providing emotional support to Tony Stark, making her yet another example of fictional women who exist only to serve as rewards for/aid in the self-actualization of fictional men.

( If anything, the Tony/Pepper relationship IM3 struck me as pretty much the exact opposite of that description )



*Which is much better than what struck me about their relationship in IM2, which was "Why the hell does Pepper want a relationship with Tony after he's spent the entire movie being, from her perspective, a total dick," but the first rule of Iron Man movie fandom is that we do not talk about IM2.

So, in the past month, we've moved almost completely into the new apartment (there are still some boxes that need to be put away) and continued to fail at keeping up with fandom or, you know, answering reviews or posting fic in anything remotely like a schedule. We'll see if we manage to complete the big bang without defaulting. At the moment, it's a toss up between whether we'll even manage to start on "dieselpunk Avengers WWII AU fic where they fight Nazi zombies/mummies/cave trolls/something appropriately Golden-Age-y and teenage!Bucky crushes on Natasha" fic by the deadline, or will just give up and go with the Living Armor fic we already have outlined but will still probably not finish in time. WWII AU plotbunny currently has a whole backstory where Jan is half Chinese and she and Hank are hanging out in Shanghai with Clint The Former River-rine who was kicked out of the marines over something embarrassing that he won't discuss and Natasha the supposed White Russian exile who is actually a Soviet intelligence agent in Shanghai to spy on the Japanese that will require far too much research and that currently has no real connection with the Steve and Bucky and Tony side of the story other than "wouldn't it be awesome if..."

If we kick this idea around much longer, Rhodey is going to end up a Flying Tiger, and Gene!Mandarin from Armored Adventures will also show up somehow. And then we'll run smack into the problem of "WWII on the Pacific front is pretty much the complete opposite of pulpy Dieselpunk fun where Steve and Tony fight Nazi trolls. And these two story halves still have nothing to do with one another."

We saw Thor with grey_bard, onlybythenight, et al. I really liked what they did with the sci-fi-ish version of Asgard and Birfrost, and the Warriors Three + Sif were perfect (the moment where Thor, Jan, and co. turn to see them standing outside the window waving was possibly my favorite in the whole movie). The final battle at the end, with the electricity/ice combo looking like a gigantic tree, was really nicely done, and... okay, really my impression of the whole thing is mostly Warriors Three & Sif squee, plus the fact that Thor was adorkable and Darcy is awesome, and now I'm thrown every time Heimdall shows up in Earth's Mightiest Heroes and isn't Idris Elba. Also, Cosmic Cube!

RL family stuff will follow in a separate post, to spare those of y'all who don't want to look at pictures of military aircraft or read squee about the same.

I missed National Coming Out Day yesterday, but I'm pretty sure most people reading my journal already know that I'm dating a sockpuppet that I'm bi.

Am I the only one out there who feels the paranoid need to qualify "bi" with "but I'm dating/married to/etc. a person of the same gender" in fandom discussions lest people decide that I fail to meet their standard for sufficient queerness and dismiss me as a poser? Or is occasionally tempted to lie and say they're lesbian/gay instead of bi, because then people would be less likely to assume you're lying?

The weird thing is that, IRL, I feel awkward about correcting people's "so, when did you realize you were a lesbian" etc. statements with "actually, I'm bi, not a lesbian," because I'm afraid it will sound like I'm backpeddling ("But I like boys, too! Really!"), but it never occurs to me that saying it will cause anyone to think I'm secretly straight.

( Click for comicon babbling )

For some reason, paragraph spacing on Tales of Suspense has died a strange and mysterious death -- but only on some pages and some stories. seanchai, being the one of us who actually understands these things, is looking into it.

Also, there were like twelve fics/fic chapters awaiting verification, which made me feel really bad (for going so long without checking - gah, I don't even want to think about how long those poor people had to wait for their fic to go up). All subimissions are verified now, as are the authors who sent them (verification, FYI, is basically a rubber stamp to keep out spambots. There are no SPaG, formatting, or subjective quality requirements for a story to be posted as there are on some other moderated sites, because that would mean we actually had to *read* every story and then pass potentially wanky judgment on it before clicking "yes, let it be posted" rather than just checking that it is in fact a story and not some kind of weird advertisement thing).

Title: Backwards and in High Heels
authors: elspethdixon & seanchai
Gift For: lupus_dragon
Rating: G to PG
Pairings/Characters: Carol, Wanda, assorted other Avengers in the background.
Labels/Warnings: All fluff, no plot.

A/N: Set at an indeterminate point in late Volume 3, post when the chaos entity possesses Wanda but pre-Red Zone.
Written for the chamberofschills prompt "Avengers; fluff; femslash Carol/Wanda: Carol hates magic, even her teammate's magic. However, even she has to admit that magic can come in handy sometimes. Real witches, magic spells, and Carol admitting her feelings for Wanda."
Summary: Carol and Wanda dance at the Avengers Halloween party. There, um, aren’t actually any witches or spells, really, but there is admitting of feelings.


(Backwards and in High Heels)

As with the previous installments, some content has been paraphrased & quoted from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen."

Story the First: The Steel Mirror
Story the Second: The Soldier and the Smith
Story the Third: Of the Library At the Young Woman's Who Understood Witchcraft
Story the Fourth: The Prince and the Princess
Story the Fifth: The Little Robber Boy
Story the Sixth: The Far North, and Who the Soldier Met There

( Story the Seventh: Of the Metal Woman's Palace and What Happened Afterward )