swatkat

I have been super impressed by the five (or was it six?) episodes of Korra S3 I've caught so far, not in the least because they seem to have not lost their pacing after picking up magnificently mid-S2 and taking the mytharc to epic AtLA-worthy levels in the S2 finale. More than ever, it feels like an organic extension of the Avatar 'verse - does, in fact, make it richer in its exploration of the ( spoilers )

So far, my only complaint seems to be NEEDS MORE CHIEF SOKKA. But that's always my complaint.

I CANNOT WAIT

HOW SO PRETTY SHOW

(NEEDS MOAR BEIFONG HOWEVER)

This is serial-killer-making weather. Dear rain gods, please make this stop. Can it be October already?

1. Morning Glories is one of the most disturbing comic books I've ever read (not that I'm very well-versed in comics outside the Big Two), but also good and strangely addictive. I keep thinking Casey is Steph (damn you, Morrison, for giving us that glimpse of AWESOME *weeps*), but I like her even if she's not-Steph. Also, ( spoiler for a recent issue, I forget which )

2. ( Wonder Woman #11 )

3. I'm really enjoying the new BoP. I miss the old team so much it hurts, and I found the conclusion to the earlier arc rather lacklustre, but Duane Swierczynski gets a few things right, like team dynamics and character moments, and that's what make it work for me. ( Birds of Prey #11 )

I actually enjoy Barbara more in this book than in Batgirl. I mean, ( Batgirl #11 )

4. BRYAN KONIETZKO REBLOGGED THIS, PEOPLE. DOES THIS MEAN APRIL 14TH IS THE DATE FOR THE SEASON TWO PREMIERE DOES IT? *\0/*

+ (via zorana)A fantastic review of Brave:

Far be it from me to say that the film is perfect, or that there aren’t real critiques to be made of it. The pacing is sometimes off and there are stretches that are less compelling than others. But there are three things Brave absolutely isn’t, and there’s something pernicious about the fact that reviews repeatedly refer to it as precisely those three things. Whatever Brave is, it’s not predictable, it’s not Just Another Princess Movie, and it’s not — my God! — lacking for deeper layers.

Insofar as Pixar is a teenager fighting its ancestor, this story needed to be written. They needed this story in order to be able to write a different kind of story. Having fought through the strangling thicket of princesses, it’ll be easier to fill the space on the other side with many more female characters, most of them commoners. We need them, badly, and it’ll be interesting to see what they do now that they can start work on a less exhaustively populated canvas.

Note that it contains a major spoiler for the movie.

+ The Korra renewal for a TOTAL OF FOUR SEASONS! \0/ We all knew this was coming but OMG, so nice to have confirmation.

+ Korra panel on SDCC, with ALL THE JUICY INFORMATION: ( spoilers )

+ I'm glad DC Comics has saved me some money on the Smallville comic by benching Steph AGAIN - their generosity and thoughtfulness, it's unbelievable. /sarcasm

+ WAREHOUSE THIRTEEN IS ONLY A FEW DAYS AWAY!

+ I have been slowly watching, among other things, the second half of HIMYM S6 (I am, even after all these years, a staunch brOTP shipper, and I have many angry feelings about Barney asking everybody but Robin to play laser tag with him) and the first season of Xena (♥).

My bookmarks folder is getting too big. Also I'm procrastinating. So, some Korra/AtLA fanfic:

( snip )

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Cliff Chiang is a life-ruiner. He ruins lives. The fill-ins in Wonder Woman #10 were decent enough, but I can no longer be satisfied by anything less than his Diana. ( spoilers )

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Right, I'll try and work now.

I have a lot of feelings. This is tl;dr and image heavy, a vague attempt to ensure things aren't lost in the vast ocean of Tumblr.

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( that lady is my hero )

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Part II

Korra doesn't 'swoon' and Lin is not a man: 3 Fangirls and a Rant| DW (tanndell)

This was written - after a lot of feelings and asides about beer - in response to this post on Tumblr (which might be a little hard to read, given all the reblogs - but worth it, in my opinion). zorana has it up on Tumblr here, if you'd prefer to read it there. Very rarely do I respond to posts with this sort of a knee-jerk wrong on the internet feeling, but in this case? It had to be said. If showing weakness/failing makes you a useless girlie girl and throwing a punch makes you a man, then it seems there is no middle ground, no right way left to be a girl at all, and there is something seriously wrong with that assertion.

There's one element not really addressed here (it didn't fit, and we were exhausted by our feelings at that point), and that's the statement that Korra's apparent failures vs Aang's apparent successes is somehow 'racist' because Korra is 'darker' than Aang, and I don't even know, guys, just what. The OP sees a 'Western story of the pampered noble who has no real training ON TOP OF what should have been the grueling story of a youth filled with training, training, training', which makes very little sense to me, given how it is clear that Korra has had a youth filled with nothing but (combat) training. I don't think I'm over-reading when I say that the narrative of clueless privilege* parallels that of Siddhartha, and I'd be very disappointed indeed if you claimed that that too is a 'Western story'. AtLA/LoK does not exist outside the American culture industry and there are valid discussions to be had in this context**, I think, but the bid to co-opt everything into a 'Western = white = EVIL' frame - if only to criticize it - is rather unfortunate.

* Does brown skin somehow repel cluelessness and/or privilege somehow? And if that's the case, how come no one told me? Or is 'privilege = white privilege' in every discussion?

** For instance, how does jazz fit into Republic City's culture? How does AtLA-verse come up with a name like 'Republic City'? Etc.

I think it has been established at this point that Lin is the Avengers, and the writers are just messing with my head. ( Legend of Korra 1.09 Out of the Past )

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And now I will leechblock LJ/Tumblr/Twitter/etc and return to work. Ugh.

Gah, Avengers fandom, what have you done to AO3? No more playing with Thor's hammer (no, not that hammer), you guys. You're breaking my favourite archive.

Speaking of Avengers, I might not be reading a lot of Avengers fic, but roga said that Natasha/Thor could be as much fun as Angua/Carrot, and she's right. I want this story, fandom. CATER TO ME.


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Nick has a promo clip for the next episode of LoK! The bad news is that it's tiny, but hey, still a promo. ( embed under cut )

Is it Saturday yet?


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In a bid to keep writing, there were ficlets:

To Bedlam, Lin, Tenzin. Episode tag for 1.08. Lin has a visitor.

Green wind, green branches: Korra/Lin, post-canon. Perhaps Lin is growing soft in her old age.

Lin is great fun to write. I want fandom to write me volumes about Lin Beifong and the Republic City Watch - the mundane everyday paperwork (piles and piles of it - no thanks to Avatar Korra), the thieving scum and the Triad, the Council and their politics, Korra being alternately exasperating and endearing (not that Lin is telling her that).

There was, I am also pleased to say, some work on long-stalled projects as well! \0/ (Funny how I write fanfiction when I'm avoiding studying. Shh, don't tell anyone I said that.)

I like that ff.net has a bazillion epic Azula redemption stories.* I love a good redemption arc. I like it when a narrative takes a character who has done horrible things/is a horrible person apart, piece by piece, and then makes them something far more than anyone ever thought they were capable of. It's a narrative kink. And I'm even willing to trawl through reams of badfic to fulfill that need because hello, narrative kink! But ugh, I hate it when well-written stories - stories I have invested sixteen chapters in - end up with things I like the least, causing me to backbutton: Marty Stu OCs, ~past sexual abuse and healing penises**, not to mention a botched Ursa-Azula reunion. And it was going so well! It had the right build up! It had one of the best Character is Accidentally Heroic/Jaded Character Receives Benediction moments ever. *wails*

I get that sexual abuse/healing penis is a standard h/c trope that many readers are fond of, but I wish it wasn't such a cliched shortcut to ~explain away a character's shortcomings. That's just lazy writing (see also: Korra fandom's FIXATION with miscarriage/infertility in Lin's backstory. BEING SINGLE/CHILDLESS IS NOT A TRAGEDY).

And while we're complaining: Tahno is not Zuko. Tahno/Korra is not Zuko/Katara. Please stop.

* It's an interesting phenomenon, sort of like how Buffy fandom had a bazillion epic Faith redemption stories, a lot of them action-y stuff written by fanboys.

** I don't always mind healing penis/vagina. But not an OC and healing penis.