Guh.

Some of the rest in that gallery are cool, too.

Rewatching The Trilogy for the first time in a few years. It's amazing how well it's held up. Also amazing how much I can pick up watching it without the slash-colored glasses*. It's not half bad! ;)

Also:

Poll #1491579 Badass Gandy
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Which Gandalf is more badass?

* That said, Aragorn and Leggy are SO doing it. *nods*

I admit to some level of ongoing trepidation about what's happening with The Hobbit, but after reading this interview with Del Toro?

Yeah. :)

This is not going to be LOTR, and I do hope people don't expect that (the source material is very different, for one!) But I think he's clearly aware of what he's working from, and, as he says, the "DNA" of the world he's rebuilding.

I of course expect shrieks of dismay--perhaps even from me--depending on who they cast for Bilbo, but I think the end result will be satisfying to those of us with a deep enough understanding of this process.

Starting to catch up on my tv backlog, and will have more thoughts later, but as for tonight's FlashForward, three things:

1. How hilarious is it that they're calling out Dom by name in the promos?

2. Navi Rawat girlkissing? Yes, please. Oh, my...

3. Sister. Christian. Ahahahahhh

I need icons for this show.

I really should post more here. Working in entertainment media these days has kind of drained me of the need to talk about it much, I suppose.

That said, there is one little note to make, after seeing tonight's Heroes season premiere: Ray Park is kinda cute. Hm.

If I get some time later, I may blather more about what I've been watching lately (Torchwood, Wonderfalls, Avatar, and a bunch of currently airing TV.)

So those pics of Dom arriving at CCon? He was there because he's going to be in Flash Forward.

Sweeeeeeet!

According to Ausiello, this ISN'T a Lost hint. But instead, Dom's going to be a star on some other ABC show coming up.

Taking all theories!

Kal Penn is joining the Obama administration? Wow!

I've noticed that the people who are bitching the loudest about the BSG finale tend to fall into three camps:

( All of which come down to, wahhhhh, RDM didn't write this JUST FOR ME )

Is there criticism to be had? Sure. There was clumsy execution, a few unnecessary add-ons and a few moments that strained even the most fantastical probability. I think it's a damned shame that the writers' strike kind of truncated what they could do with 4.5 and thus they had to stuff a lot of resolution in a too-small package. And I think Jane Espenson should've had more of a hand in some of those scenes. RDM, for all his genius, doesn't write great dialogue.

But the show wasn't bad just because it didn't cater to specific subsets of fans who apparently thought the show was being written primarily for their tastes or their OTP. Grow the frak up.

( Before I read anyone else's thoughts on this )

I feel like I've lost friends, though. Even though I know all the actors and creators and stuff are still alive, there's a vague sense that they're now lost forever to me. I always feel some of that at the end of every story, and I've been preparing for this ever since I knew this was the last season, but there's still a grave sense of loss, now. Moreso than I've felt in a long time.

I know the show will always be available for me to rewatch, and I deliberately left a lot of the extra scenes and features from the DVDs to be savored later. I also look forward to The Plan. But the story of these characters is now over. They have come to their end. And I will dearly miss them.

So Say We All

Thanks to Dollhouse, and its creepy "let's mindwipe a bunch of hot young chicks" fetishism, other folks are finally starting to see what I've seen for years about Joss Whedon's alleged feminism: He allows his female characters to have power (violent power, usually) only if they've earned it by being suitably victimized, either literally, or figuratively in being forced to remain young, beautiful and sexually available to the male gaze.

One of the comments on the video in question made an excellent point: If you made a similar video showing all of Whedon's male characters being victimized or visually exploited, the vid would be about 30 seconds long. Meanwhile, if you created a vid of his male characters who have power without having to be exploited first, it'd probably take an hour or so.

As I mentioned in the comments there, there is next to nothing about Whedon's work that's any different from the stable of female superheroes we've seen in comics for several generations.* Most of us (I hope) recognize the inherent sexism present in the female superhero archetype (scantily clad, wearing heels, sexually submissive, defined in great part by her relationships to men), yes? We know that it's been a long, hard road for female genre fans to find characters we can truly identify with that don't require them to strip down and get het male approval of their fuckworthiness before they're allowed to have power. Yet somehow, a whole generation of young fans just doesn't get the connection between the age-old Babes with Weapons image and the characters Whedon creates.

Seriously, folks: I challenge anyone to come up with a female character of Whedon's who is:

1. 35 or older or otherwise not traditional nubile babe material

2. Not sexually exploited or otherwise victimized

3. Not defined in large part by her relationships to men

They just aren't there. Believe me, I've looked. And no, I don't buy the excuse of Whedon having to cater to the shallow tastes of the public. Yes, that shapes everything that makes it to a studio, but even within those constraints, many, many other genre creators have found a way to have female characters who didn't fit that mold. Many of these existed decades before Whedon started working on his own stuff. Name ONE character of his that's even as self-defined and relatively unexploited as Beverly Crusher (granted, she did have that obnoxious kid to mind, but she also had a huge life of her own outside of her interactions with him.) Does he have an Ivanova? Does he have a Zhaan? A Beka? A Samantha Carter? Hell, does he even have a Xena? Because yeah, she had the scantily clad thing going on, but she was also a butch Amazon who didn't remotely define herself by her relationships to men (when she even had those.) And heaven forbid he EVER create a character like Laura Roslin.

Whedon's female characters exist for one reason only: Wank material for the man himself. If a woman doesn't give him a stiffie, she doesn't get a job in his shows. I really, really wish more of his fans would start seeing through his pathetic "but I'm a feminist!" defense shields and see the guy for what he really is: A drooling fanboy with his hands down his pants who gets off on hot chicks kicking ass.

( * )

I stumbled on this while attempting (futilely) to find decent fic or slash art for Robin Hood.

I LOVE this site. Heee.

Also, how did I ever miss seeing this?



That is a thing of beauty.

I blame Boris Vallejo for the fact that so few games/movies/shows/comics featuring female characters who engage in combat actually give those female characters useful armor.

Discuss.

So, if you're a Whovian and you don't already follow the amazing creations of vandonovan, you must see this:

( Big pic )

What the fuck is wrong with people who insist on posting fic--especially porn--on generic fan communities?

There are probably six dozen places in which fic is accepted and even welcomed for virtually every fandom. Why would you be so clueless as to think that people who really just want to discuss the object of the fandom itself want to read your poorly written wank fodder?

Y'know, it's kind of annoying to see people spam their other fan-created works on gen communities. Yay, so you know how to edit video or make a few icons. We're all really impressed. Honest.

But fic? That shit is just aggravating. Go paste your fantasies somewhere else.