{ but I ain't seen nothin'. }
Apr. 14th, 2008 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
delgaHaha, top 5s. Any more for any more?
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perverseparagon asked me about my top 5 fandom peeves, fanfic kinks and smells.
05: entitlement issues. Oh, please. I love you, I am you but seriously, sometimes I feel like yelling: get over yourself, fandom.
04: campaigns. Campaigns irritate me. Everything gets a campaign now. "Bring back X!" "Protest the return of Y!" "Propose execution of Z!" Your show probably got canned for a reason. I'm not saying I don't sympathise (Raines, I ache for you still!) but campaigns are as common as salt; they've begun to lack meaning.
03: anonymemes. I dislike these IMMENSELY. Just... SO MUCH.
02: ship wars. Why oh why can a person not ship a/b AND b/c? Fandoms where pairings alienate one another are so hostile! (Hi, CSI, I'm looking at you.) Numb3rs fandom is pretty good in that respect because most people are pan-shippers, but even there you have the really hardcore shippers who are allergic to anything that isn't their otp, so much so that you get ridiculous ship camps. Which: whatever. I don't have time for that kind of bullshit.
01: character bashing. (unless it's H0Caine, in which case, please continue.) Nothing winds me up so badly in fandom as character bashing. Nothing. It's nearly always vitriolic and makes my stomach turn. I really fucking hate it. Character bashing is the reason why I hate the Doctor Who fandom. Character bashing is the reason why I'm glad I'm not in the Supernatural fandom anymore. It's just so... unnecessary! So superfluous! So PETTY. Gah. Now I have a bad taste in my mouth.
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Some of these are general short-story kinks, but they apply.
05: five things format. Except it doesn't just have to be five. I like the short lists that do the rounds in the memes; I like the "four times...and one" fics; I like the ones which have more than five. I just like the numerical format because it's easy to read, and sometimes it exploits the idea of AUs, and sometimes it runs as a full story (which is great), and sometimes it tells you a handful of stories in one go. That's awesome.
04: second-person fic. I remember someone once said that they really disliked using second-person because people used it a lot in fic. I— is that true? I love second-person, and I don't think people use it so often. I mean, it can be really clumsy; it shouldn't be a list of directives, it should be a story. But it's also so... it lands the reader in a state of distanced intimacy. The narrator is talking to you, you're in the place of the protagonist but you're also really conscious that it's not you, so there's that remove there. I don't know, I really love seeing it. I also love future-tense fic but fuck if that isn't a bitch to pull off. (I know: I tried.)
03: apocafic. Who doesn't love a good apocalypse? I have read countless Atlantis apocafics and I love them all. I don't know why - it's a little perverse, actually - but I guess I like the way settings get deconstructed. I also like the range of apocalyptic scenarios on hand. So. Yeah.
02: twist endings. I love being tripped by a story; holding the reveal to the end isn't a difficult or radical idea in short stories/fics, but sometimes it's done so well that it's almost a smack in the face. Damn.
01: character pieces. I read shippy clichéd pieces when I feel like shit. I like those pieces to adhere to a specific pattern. It's very much like some people's relationships with trash romance. I just want it to end with more angst or satisfying fluff. I read a lot of this kind of fanfic and never rec a single piece (mostly because they're bad). BUT. The stuff that I read the most are character gen pieces. I can't get enough of them. One of my recent Atlantis stories was written for last year's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
femgenficathon and was all about Teyla. I LOVE it. I also love reading Friday Night Light fanfic which centres around single characters, mostly Tyra and Tim; there needs to be 100% more Ziva gen fic in NCIS fandom; someone needs to write me fic about Omar from New Amsterdam.
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This was really difficult because on the whole I don't really pay attention to scents/smells unless they're annoying me. So I had to think pretty hard. Nailed it, though.
05: roast potatoes. My toes curl with glee when I can smell roast potatoes, not just because they're so yummy but just because roast potatoes tend to bring out a good atmosphere in the house. Roast potatoes = the bond of love, obviously.
04: well-made cheese/chili/pepper toasted sandwich. Totally delicious and makes me really happy. A toasted sandwich is difficult to fuck up and yet surprisingly difficult to get perfect.
03: dry erase markers. I get SO HIGH. I love that smell.
02: exhaust fumes from old diesel buses. Poisonous? Probably. Fantastic? Definitely. (I also love that smell in old garages where the petrol has aged and seeped into the brick.)
01: spring-is-coming smell. Right at the end of winter the sun is out, the breeze is so crisp, and girls all over England are holding down their school skirts against the wind. There's something unique about the air at this time of year and I've always recognised it but not been able to name it. Anyway. It sets my pulse racing and I always feel fresh and invigorated when it comes around. Marvellous.
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raeyashi asked me for top 5 pretty pictures of Thandie and five things I wish I'd thought of first (!)
I really have way too many pictures, so I ended up going for the photoshoots. Um. Except for #1.
I have no idea where this shoot sprung from but it's a delight. There's another picture where she's on a piano, but I prefer this one because there's a story and a half going on right in front of you. Plus, it looks so joyous,
I'm using this whole shoot in my current layout because I just love the way they all look together. Thandie's short crop - I don't know if that's an actual cut or a wig (I can't remember seeing her with a crop?) - but it looks so damn good on her. This picture stops me every time I look at it.
Another really recent shoot, also used for my layout. This was on my desktop for ages, too. I love the concept, and I think the whole shoot is hilarious. But this is probably my favourite because of Thandie's face. Um. I mean, the one on the far right.
This is one of my all-time favourite celebrity portraits. I love the lighting, I love the pose, I love that she's barefoot. (I have a similar picture of Michelle Yeoh. Damn these dancers; I love them all.) She looks quite young here, too, although it was taken in the past 5 years.
So, basically, Thandie is gorgeous and also the hugest dork, and I like her because for all the stardom pomp, she's basically a normal woman with a husband and two (adorable!) kids and a house in London somewhere. (She tells anthropology jokes! Talks about flatulence! Hates handbags but loves shoes!) And, you know. THE HUGEST DORK.
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I'm fairly certain I misinterpreted this one, but I'll take it anyway.
05: leg warmers. Man, you know that episode of Dead Like Me when you find out how Roxie died? I feel so bad for her! I mean, not juts because she died, but because leg warmers: GENIUS IDEA. (I know, I know, they look AWFUL in the 80s. But that's because that was the 80s. I totally saw a girl pulling them off the other day.) Also: dance kink, so.
04: elastic bands. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. What would we do without lackys? Why can I never find one when I need one? How do people make those lacky-band balls, and do they bounce?
03: bread. Wow. Bread is kind of awesome. It's also delicious. You can do a surprising amount with it - you can eat it fresh out the oven, with spread, with veg/meat/fish; you can drunk it, toast it, make croutons, use it to make things crunchy. You can make it in different flavours (oh god, cinnamon ♥), you can make it in different shapes. You can eat it with just about everything. You can use it to measure inflation and deflation. It's so versatile!
02: rubber ducks. NO COMMENT.
01: the alphabet. The alphabet is kind of insane, no? Also: totally, ridiculously marvellous.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 04:30 pm (UTC)Oh god, I know what you mean. They were fun at first, but now... no. Plus, they've become an excuse for people with entitlement issues to character bash -- I still remember the epic "keep Bela and Ruby off our show" debacle of Supernatural fandom. Before we even knew anything about the girls, other than they were... well, girls!
Ship wars and character bashing irritate me. I mean, I sort of naturally ship everybody with everybody else but... yeah. Ship wars confuse me. Especially in Torchwood fandom, between the Jack/Gwen and Jack/Ianto camps. Or either side justifying their views with: "Gwen is a useless bitch!" or "Ianto is too uninteresting!". It's like, dude: it's Jack Harkness. Why is it even an issue? Where on earth did people get this idea of Ianto or Gwen being Jack Harkness' ~*one true love*~ from!?
(I admit, I love when people are all "JACK ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR IANTO". The cynic in me goes: "well, duh. Haven't you ever been in a relationship before?").
Haha, I agree about roast potatoes: they always remind me of Christmas, which is silly because we eat them every weekend for a year and they only ever remind me of one day. But they just bring such good cheer!
Also: I quite like the smell of petrol stations and garages, so I understand your thing about exhaust fumes on old diesel buses.
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Date: 2008-04-14 08:12 pm (UTC)And this is why I love you.
I love those pictures; fantastic!
And there was really no way you misinterpreted it. I am totally down the with leg warmers love. And bread! I'm having such a carb thing going on right now.
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Date: 2008-04-14 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 10:12 pm (UTC)dude YES. they bounce hugely! it is awesome. i made a huge one at work and me and other guy throw it around the office and bounce it. it like bounces at odd angles. but made of win!
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Date: 2008-04-15 03:32 pm (UTC)Where on earth did people get this idea of Ianto or Gwen being Jack Harkness' ~*one true love*~ from!?
Christ, exactly! You know what also really gets me? Even if you do ship one pairing, what the fuck does the other pairing have to do with you? AND - you just reminded me what this meme was going to include instead of anonymemes - I hate it when someone refuses to acknowledge a canon ship. Dude. It's FANDOM. The whole point is that you can play in the spaces. (Example: CSI fans who refuse to acknowledge a Gil/Sara ship when it was canon. I didn't like Sam/Martin in WaT but fuck me, IT WAS THERE. ON SCREEN. Jeez.)
/ranty
I made roast potatoes last night: SO YUMMY.
Haha, that's awesome because most people are like, "MEISHA THAT IS GROSS" and I'm all "NO WAI!" Or something.
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Date: 2008-04-15 03:34 pm (UTC)I am ALWAYS having a carb thing. I had panini at lunch today - goddamn, that was marvellous. !
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Date: 2008-04-15 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 02:15 am (UTC)its totally easy and the most fun EVA!
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Date: 2008-04-17 06:44 am (UTC)