Once a Stranger

Most of those are Yuletide fics; but perhaps not all. So yeah I finally finished reading all the Yuletide fics I meant to read this year - four months late! - but on the plus I'm pretty sure it's the first year I actually manage doing that instead of letting the last fics trail into forgettingness.

( norse mythology, marvel comics, the administration, death gate, book of the raksura, cyteen, amber, left hand of darkness, lion in winter, princess tutu, mad men,vorkosigan, revolutionary girl utena, dc comics  )

Basically it's an update on my previous post: Recs to newcomers to X-Men comics for the First Class fans but more generic about it.

So you want to read X-Men?

X-Men is one of the hugest and often most confusing corner of the Marvel Universe. Therefore despite its popularity it can be hard to get into. I’m hardly the most well read X-Men fan ever – yet – but I’ll try my best to give some pointers.

( looooooooooooooooooooooooooong )

First! Did I ever got around to plugging comics_reviews_etc and comicsmod? Comics_reviews_etc, modded by the lovely bethbethbeth is a community for discussions and reviews of comics issues for people craving meta and discussions (where has all the meta gone?); and comicsmod is a comics anon meme. They both look pretty neat!!

Second, short meta/rant I wrote on tumblr about the events regarding Daken at the end of Remender's Uncanny X-Force
( spoilers for UXF's final )

And third, I wrote a review for the first six issues of All New X-Men over on comics_reviews_etc

I caught up with volume 6 of Ooku, and while it continues being very good; it does feel like the big edge and quality of the manga faded out after the first two or three volumes. The point of the gender reversal in the setting is less prominent and it becomes a lot of political & some romantic intrigues with too many characters that it is hard to keep track of.

I've also caught up with vol 4-6 of Black Rose Alice, and while I love, it is very very id ficcy.

I also read the second volume of Brides Story, and it's still ridiculously good and gorgeous. Lots of wonderful silent panels that are so expressive and they went and OMG the scenes about the embroidery motives transmitted through generation *GUSH* I kind of love that the author sort of apologises in the annex about fan service. Oh, Kaoru Mori, here, you have my express permission to put in as many female naked bodies in anything you do as you want. Srsly she draws the best naked female bodies ever.

Inanna's Tears
It's a decent story (though the person who decided on the font of the first few pages should be shot), but not as good as what I was hoping. It lacks something, I dunno, some sort of twist to truly make it a story. It's all too predictable.

So I did go a read Stumptown (it's shorter than Q&G), at least the first one (is the second a mini too? I think I'll wait for it to be over to read it); and it's brilliant. Don't have much to say beyond that ^^

Did I mention reading the recently finished run of New Mutants yet? I don't see it in this thread so I assume not. I remember the first time I tried it, while I was starting to get into Marvel, and I was confused and had a hard time getting into it. Man, it is so much better when you already know and like the characters!! Wells' run overall is excellent, very strong and focussed and epic. DnA's has a much more hazier sense of plot and characterisation although it does also have good moments (at least they did try to develop Cypher past bringing him back even if some of those development were weird and still lacking the answer to the question "did anybody bother telling his parents he's not longer dead?"). Some very random shipping though.

Also I read the first volume of Peter Madsens' Valhalla which is... hmm, less good than I was expecting? A bit too much of the sort of humour I don't care much for; but still good and funny.

Iron Man - Armor Wars
Solid enough story, but not very engaging. I think I might just have to give up on Iron Man and stick to fanfics when it comes to him.

Himitsu: the Revelation v5-9
So long since I'm catching up with this one. As always the stories are very good in all their dark & morbid glories (and the storytelling so much more understated than the animated adaptation, what a relief!), with some very fine tension and horror. I'm struck by how much more slashy than I remembered it is though. And somewhat surprised that I don't remember any of the stories from the anime, I guess they made up quite a few.

Also Captain America & Black Widow which was pretty good, if a little bit... quick? I dunno, not everything was, but sometimes it skipped forward in time in a way that felt a bit off. Anyway good characterizations and good use of alternate universe and alternate characters.
I think I ended up shipping evil!Natasha with the person she was working for ^^

Emperor Doom, brilliant in a tragi-comic way and loads of fun.

Super Villain team-up 1-4 (The one with Namor & Doom)
Loads of fun! Those two are so cute together.

Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment
Holy shit that was good. Gorgeous art, gorgeous storytelling, brilliant characterisation. A beautiful bittersweet tragedy lacking the usual comedic tone that Doom's usually got but without trading them for lack of clarity.
The only thing I disliked was the way all the multicultural magicians were made to look like fools and then fawning all over Strange.
Anyway I ended up posting some scans & commentary of this one on tumblr if anyone's interested: http://demoiselledefortune.tumblr.co...ph-and-torment

So an Anon dropped this in my Ask Box:


( My answer )

Well, that was horrible.

( spoilers )

Let's try to get it under order.

I don't think I ended up saying what I thought of Community S2 & S3. Basically S2 was brilliant and even had glimmers of characterizations here and there that made me think those were real people, but then S3 was a let down.

Then I watched Downton Abbey, which wasn't exactly what I expected it to be. Given the glowing terms in which I had heard spoke of it, I was thinking it would something quite sharper and deeper - Gosford Park or Mad Men it ain't. It was pure sentimental soap and sometimes of a quite conservative bent. However it was ridiculously and additcively entertaining, with solid storytelling, and lots of fun dialogues; so there was that.

Finally wrapped up Mouretsu Pirates. It is definitely solid, fun, and sometimes even refreshingly clever, despite the too leisurely for my liking pacing and sometimes overplayed cuteness. I probably wouln'd mind reading some Marika/Chiaki fanfics.

X-Men Evolution S3 finally gets some more proper plotting on board. And yet still completely miss the beat in term of how it addresses X-Men themes. However some of the stories aren't bad. Definitely liked X-23 showing up. I still hate how they do some of the characters.

Otherwise I've started watching Damages, I gobbled down both first seasons at a ridiculous fast space - that was some delicious mindfuckery and intriguing storytelling. Grounded down to a crawl for the third season however, it just starts feeling too depressing for me, I think. But it is a brilliant show.

Started watching Sinbad. So far I am not very convinced. There are a few things I like in the premise - historical fantasy adventures, lots of PoCs in the cast, rag tag band of misfit - but the storytelling is really not up to par. Still, I'd like to give it a chance. Besides, I watch it for the pretties.


Anyway, I failed to check on any anime series this season. Did I end up missing anything good?

Lupin III - The Woman named Fujiko Mine ended up on a high note, actually fixing many of the issues I was starting to have with the narrative. Mind, it's still a very trashy story, but sometimes I love that. And it was stylish and cool, and the voice actress for Fujko Mine was AWESOME and mostly I loved it. I think the main weakness was the lack of cleverness in plotting, too often resorting to a sort of surrealistic plotfiat to drive the ending. Sometimes it was fun, but often I like better thought out stuff from heist/con stories

Sakamichi no Apollon was a very good coming of age story revolving on romance polygon + jazz. It was especially very well realised as far as characterization go in a very touching way; and the soundtrack was amazing. I wish the jazz part had been more at the forefront though, because I just didn't have that much interest in the romance triangle, well realized though it might have been. It also kind of felt like some plot threads and themes were just dropped, which was a bit disappointing, good at the anime in itself was.

I've also finished watching the second season of X-Men Evolution. The writing quality does take a huge bump, to the point I wonder if they've added a few better writers to their team at this point XD There's a couple of episodes that really work great in term of tension and characterizations. Loved the addition of the second class, especially Boom Boom. However, it does feel like they've stretched thin the stuff they can do without Mutants being public knowledge, sorts of feel they should have gone ahead and out them at the end of S1. Xavier continues being a hilariously creepy headmaster, this time by failing to try to recruit the abandoned brotherhood. >_> Also i continue to hate what they do with Magneto in this series. A LOT. Oh, and Storm finally gets an episode that focused on her and they use it to 1/ damsel in distress her, 2/ get her attacked by a bunch of racist stereotypes. WTF, XmenEv

Lessee...

The Good Wife has been very, very good. Not a perfect season still, but I think one of those I enjoyed most. Easily my favorite show currently.

The second season of Game of Thrones I have found disappointing, mostly. It was badly paced (may have been a problem with the books already), and the adaption really focused on stuff I was less interested with in the things they changed. Theon's story is the only part I felt was done really well. Tyrion was okay, mostly, but I'm really not sure about what they're doing with Shae (some of the changes have been interesting in making her more easily sympathetic, but I'm afraid that sets up a worse turn in the end); Sansa's story (one of my favourite in Clash of Kings) was shamelessly dropped; I hate the changes with Cat and Robb - they are insulting; Arya was good thanks to her actress being great and the chemistry with Tywin's actor but still rather weakened her character. Cersei was also very much weakened. Can't say I'm crazy with the changes in Jaime either (kinslayer, lol); and while Stannis is pretty great, I don't think Davos comes across with enough charisma. The changes with Daenarys are probably the worst - while they needed to buff up her storyline, the way they did it was incredibly weak and boring and barely coherent. Her scenes in the finale had a nice atmosphere to them at least, even if they came very short of the power of the visions in the book.

Overall I find that this post sums up a lot of my feelings.

Mad Men was very good this season; although I feel it is a bit aimless, like the main story's already done, and now we're just going on, and it's still interesting to watch, but I'm not sure it's been adding anything of note. I'm not sure I'll be able to watch the show if we don't have Peggy as core cast either, so I'm a little bit dubious about what they're going to do next.

Miss Fisher Mysteries was overall a very nice and very fun series. As I got more attached to the cast (and they are very charming) I found myself enjoying it much more. The plots weren't great, and sometimes felt too "issue of the week", but otherwise lots of fun. Dot was my absolute favourite, she is totally adorable and such a fierce one when called on to. I rather feel like she's totally wasted on Hughes, though, who does nothing but irritate me with his bumbling sidekick act. I'd ship her with Phryne if I didn't love Phryne's interaction with Jack so much (he's so cute when he gets flustered and long suffering). Anyway, I look forward to a second season (we do get one, right?).

Anime wise, I'm currently watching Sakamichi no Apollon and Lupin the Third - Mine Fujiko to I Onna, which are both very good. Mine Fujiko is a little bit on the trashy/exploitation-y side with how not coy it is with the main character's use of sex & sex appeal to do things - but I don't really mind that - Sakamichi no Apollon is just, very well done. Often I felt I wasn't in the mood for a love triangle / high school romance kind of deal, but it works anyway because the characterizations and storytelling and of course the soundtrack is just that well done. And the OT3 is strong in this one ♥ Also I think I'm going to give Mouretsu Pirates a second chance (I had initially dropped it after the 3rd episode because I found it too slow/boring) since it continues to get a lot of enthusiasm. And, apparently, canon lesbians.

Otherwise, I've been trying to watch the kdrama Emperor of the Sea, but I have had troubles getting into it. Not because it's bad or anything, but I don't seem to manage to invest myself in the storyline. I think the problem is I find the main character to be utterly blah. There's an awesome female villain, and the female love interest is also pretty cool, but I'm not sure it's enough to keep me hooked, and i'm afraid I'm going to end up dropping it out of lack of motivation.

I've finished watching the X-Men series from the 90's, which, yeah, does get a big drop in quality by the last seasons. Although it continues having a few great episodes and I very much don't regret watching it - it really goes to the heart of the characters and the themes most of the time, I really dig that. And of course all the Magneto episodes are awesome ♥ (I found it hilarious the 4th letter did a blog post mentioning:

I always found it weird how despite being the X-Men’s #1 bad guy and leading the villain army in the intro, Magneto did shockingly little in the villainy department on that show. He fought them in the third episode (where Xavier defeated him by MAKING HIM RELIVE THE HOLOCAUST, which is extremely fucked for a kid show), but all his subsequent appearances had him fighting alongside the X-Men in some fashion. Granted, there was a lot of reluctance from both sides, but he was there.

Because I was thinking the same thing XD And he still works great as a foil to the X-Men!

So of course I move on to X-Men: Evolution, which, yeaaaaah, doesn't work so much for me. I've just finished the 1st season so for now, besides that I don't like what they do with Magneto, I find it quite a bit too shallow. I don't dislike the high school thing as much as I thought I would (although having both the "good" kids and the "bad" ones in the same school really stretch the suspension of disbelief. What, did they concerted each other for that sake for some... purpose?), their Mystique comes across as wayyy too weak, Kitty feels also like she lost a few levels in badass, Rogue's better than I thought she would be despite how I dislike the goth charadesign; but she still comes very much short from the 90's X-Men series' Rogue, and Storm has yet to really demonstrate a personality (whereas Wolvy has had plenty of focus, grrr). Also Xavier comes hilariously creepy in his methods of recruitment. Scott and Jean are pretty good, and Nightcrawler is absolutely adorable. Oh, and then there's Spyke. He's, errr, there. As for the villain team kids, I reserve judgment; they come across as overly petty in a way that feels hamfisted at times, but they also seem to have potential, so I'll wait and see (at least unless the portrayal of Magneto doesn't make me drop the show before that).

So sad that Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been canceled. Although the second season has been weaker and especially uneven, it was still a very entertaining show, and I loved getting Ms Marvel on the team. Depressing that all of Marvel's good cartoons seem to get canceled so easily x_x

I've also watched the Archer cartoon series (for those who don't know, it's a flash animated parody of spy stories with a very dark & sarcastic sense of humour. Think South Park like. Everyone in the cast are assholes.) which is absolutely hilarious and well done. If in a frequently horrible way (and sometimes offensively, though I think they got better on that as they went).

And I've started watching Community, which is also very funny and well written, but in neat contrast with Archer, I don't feel at all anything for the characters. Which is funny considering Community actually tries to do some heartwarming scenes/characterizations and I feel like they all fall patheticaly flat. But still an entertaining show to watch, especially for Abed.

Essays & meta:
coffeeandink on Avengers (especially liked the bits on Thor and Loki):

Loki is both Thor's brother and an alien, a friend and a traditional enemy, every strangeness and every unfitting (unfit) aspect now an answer instead of a puzzle. So long as Thor can only comprehend the Asgardian narrative, the Allfather's narrative, he cannot acknowledge that Loki the Liesmith has been lied to all his life; Loki the usurper has been kidnapped from his home, Loki the ambitious has always been treated as innately not-quite-right.

brownbetty on Loki in fandom

The thing is, I have the idea that what Loki is suffering is among other things, a crisis of morality. The Asgardian moral decision making flowchart seems to look more or less like this:

Should I do $thing?

Is it something Odin would do?
if yes: Goto 2.
if no: Goto 3.

Are you Odin?
if yes: You're Odin! Do what the hell you want!
if no: No way, man, that shit ain't right.

Will it make you sound awesome when it is immortalized in epic verse?
if yes: Do it! Definitely the ethical course.
if no: Don't do it. Unless it's punching a Jotunn. That's always hilarious right.

experimentalmadness on Magneto and the Frankenstein's Monster in XMFC:

The thing that all these stories have in common is whether it’s a Monster, a Golem, or Magneto, you are dealing with the pure unadulterated result of what happens when you ostracize a minority to the breaking point and then instead of realizing that you created this destructive force to begin with, you turn around and blame the very creature itself and call it the monster.

I think everyone's seen this one already but just in case, cluegirl On Sentiment:

When I saw The Avengers the first time, Loki's scornful "Sentiment" as he shanks Thor, (accompanied by the tear he will deny until the last breath is wrung out of him,) is the one I remembered. It was a beautiful line, and it was a beautiful, breathtaking moment, and it was meant to shine.

However upon second watching, I noticed an even more beautiful pattern to Joss's use of that word in other places. Sentiment. It's not a two dollar word, really, is it? You don't lay even odds on getting to hear it on any given day, because it's not an everyday word, or notion -- unless you own or work in a gift shop that specializes in engraving.

But that word is used in the Avengers four times. And each time it's spoken with scorn about something the speaker is trying to disprove -- and each time, the speaker fails to disprove anything at all, and in fact that point goes on to be staggeringly proven later on. It is, if I may say so, a beautiful evidence of Joss Whedon's actual skill as a writer well beyond snappy dialogue.

minnaway on the Avengers movie. I especially loved her observations about the way food/drinking was used in the movie and a few other things like:

9. If Loki/Bruce/Tony are one triangle, Bruce/Tony/Steve are another. Coulson tells Steve that Bruce isn't just the "thing" but a very smart person; Tony tells Steve that even without the suit he's a genius etc. etc. etc.; Bruce was trying to be Steve; Tony says everything special in Steve came from a bottle.

10. And Odin/Thor/Loki are mirrored by Fury/Steve/Tony. Loki notes that Odin had to summon...dark energy? dark matter? something or other? whatever, the point is, expend a shitlot of energy to get Thor to Midgard without the Bifrost; Fury has to call in cards and negotiate with the powers above him to get the Avengers Initiative in process. Odin traded his eye for ravens; Fury has a zillion electronic eyes keeping the earth under surveillance. Fury and Steve and Tony post Coulson's death, marking out the points of a triangle, and Tony with his chair half swiveled away.

(And Loki and Clint steal an eye specifically.)

Greg Rucka on writing women. (I have such an admiration crush on Greg Rucka)

Gender isn't simply a biological trait; it's a societal one. The female experience is different from that of the male, and if, as a male writer, you cannot accept that basic premise, then you will never, ever, be able to write women well. A man walking alone through Midtown Manhattan at three in the morning may have concerns for his safety, but I promise you, it's a very different experience for a woman taking the same walk, and it's different again for a man wearing a dress. Think about it. That's a societal factor, and it's a gendered one, and this is not and can not be subject to debate. If you're looking to argue that sexism is a thing of the past, that the world is gender-blind, you're not only wrong, you're lying to yourself.

rexluscus's page of Loki fanfics recs.

And some fics recs of mine own:

Móðir (2559 words) by what_alchemy
Summary:

When Odin places his Jötunn foundling in Frigga's arms, she knows what is to come.

Beautiful story about Frigga and her relationship with Loki.

When I Say Jump (12539 words) by lc2l

AVENGERS SPOILERS!!!

One minute Clint's reaching for his gun to stop Loki stealing the Tesseract, the next he's shooting Fury and taking it. Easy as switching sides.

mindcontrolled!Hawkeye/Loki. Wonderfully twisted and yet very honest.

and get him to swap our places (28734 words) by Mici
Fandom: Young Avengers
Relationships: Billy Kaplan/Teddy Altman, Billy Kaplan/Other (sort of), Teddy Altman/Other (sort of)
Characters: Billy Kaplan, William Lensherr, Tommy Shepherd, Thomas Lensherr, Teddy Altman, Kate Bishop, Cassie Lang, Eli Bradley, Jonas (Young Avengers), Julio Rictor
Summary:

Billy casts the most dubious of spells and gets into a shitload of trouble when he switches places with William Lensherr, Prince of Genosha, member of the House of M.

Great exploration of the House of M reality, and especially what it would mean for Billy and Tommy (if, you know, they had been in it as anything more than shadows). I just love characterisation here, they have a lot of subtlety. The only criticism I'd make against it is that it has no real plot and it gets resolved too easily. I especially love how, while not appearing in this story, Magneto casts a large shadow.

Zhashtar (3095 words) by epistolic
Fandom: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Relationships: Loki/Thor
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Clint Barton
Summary:

Love is for children.

I just love the writing/atmosphere in here. Very evocative and sort of... sword & sorcery in a way that feels almost poetic. You know, Tanith Lee-like. Very & short insta portrait.

Family Ties (84560 words) by skiesovergideon
Fandom: Thor (2011)
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), Iron Man, Captain America - Character, various and sundry OCs
Summary:

After his fall from the Bifrost, Loki finds himself taken in by a suburban family and lacking most of his magic. He resolves to escape them as soon as possible. This does not go the way he planned.

Pre-Avengers movie Loki redemption (mostly) epic fic. Lots of OCs, very ingenuous plottig with a kickass finale and it mostly works well in term of characterisation without cheating (too much, and what cheating there is has intra-story justification).

Like with other issues of sexism in comics, the problematic narratives revolving around female characters becoming dangerous and insane / evil (the insane=evil thing in itself would be very much worth the examination and could be easily seen as worse than gender issues, but I’m not sure I’m up to it) as a result of their power was something I’d heard of before I started reading comics; mostly revolving around Jean Grey, and a little bit around the Scarlet Witch with Disassembled and Decimation. Now that I’ve just read the X-Men storyline Inferno, I found it interesting to see how many characters are present in it which plays in various ways along those lines, and how really fucking bad it looks.

Now most of the characters in Inferno have more to do with a theme of corruption by evil than by insanity (though again, the two are too often seen as nearly equivalent), but power, though in not an obvious way, definitely plays a role in each one of those.

Those characters are Madelyne / Goblin Queen, Illyana / Magik, Lorna / Polaris & Warren / Angel. Two of those, Madelyne & Illyana, are placed right in the center of the story; whereas Polaris and Warren are more peripheral but still make an interesting counterpoint.

( Read more... )

I'm due an update I think. I haven't been reading much lately, but I just started reading Checkmate; and mostly, I've been continuing reading Claremont era X-Men stuff.

Liked a lot of the X-Men stuff - I'm up to issue #200 - though the art is starting to get very uneven. Let's not even mention the hairstyles. I kind of really liked the meeting between Storm and Forge.

I find the New Mutants stuff a bit more uneven; some stories are great (the Legion one, the whole Asgardian stuff, some of the standalone stories) others less so (the Nova Roma arc especially, that whole fatphobic thing with Karma was disturbing, and the introduction of the Hellions was a bit weak though not without potential). I especially like Dani and Illyana.

Read Secret Wars which is extremely dorky, mostly in fun ways but also in awkward ways. Gotta love the Aliens Made Them Do It premise.

Read the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries which was pretty good.


That's all for now; you can continue reccing me stuff