It's near a reasonable hour of the morning and I haven't slept. I'm too old for this. Really. I'm not sucking down caffeine. I wasn't even watching a movie. I've just felt out of sorts. Actually I've felt tired.
Everytime I think of posting to Seeking Avalon, I've felt all sorts of exhausted, pained, weak even. My brain does not want to deal with jackasses. Or even the reminders of jackasses. I've used up all my extraneous race spoons for 2009 already. And by extraneous I mean the spoons I don't need for my day to day, face to face life.
I've not followed up or pushed for a new PoC in SF Carnival. There are things happening, good things. Things I should link. Things I will link when the thought of it doesn't make my chest seize up in wonder of what jackass fools will follow and try to show up all goatse over there.
For now, however, I want to talk about my bulletproof kink. And no, it does not involve asses. Well, not directly. I've never quite gotten the fascination with Green Lantern Butts.
Willow's Bulletproof Kink - Ensembles.
For years in fandom I've been hearing about people's BulletProof Kinks and how it led them to read terrible stories online and in terrible books by terrible authors [ insert your own hated author here ]. And I kind of didn't get it. I knew I sort of got it. But I wasn't sure why I wasn't getting it completely. I just knew nothing clicked. And it's not as if I couldn't understand the concept. I do have other kinks.
I have Comfort Kinks and Relationship Kinks etc... Maybe I"ll write about those one day.
But I've finally realized that my hands down, absolute, total BulletProof Kink, is Ensembles.
I read Annihilation Conquest for the Ensemble, even though I knew absolutely none of the characters involved.
Green Lantern Corps - Rainbow Wars, keeps catching my eye like a girl in a short flouncy skirt, despite the fact that the rest of DC gives me stomach burn. I mean, I'v been avoiding hearing about Batman that's how bad the stomach burn has been.
But GLC has - Ensembles. I don't give much of a frigging crap about most of those guys individually. I'm sorry folks (Fickle, Kalinara [also I think]) but I don't drool over Kyle. I also kind of want to - ok, not shove a stick up Hal's ass. But I would not at all be opposed to watching a very sadistic woman tie Hal up and do unspeakable things to him. I'd bring sparkling apple cider and possibly a change of underwear. (Sorry, Daddy. Avert your eyes. Or uhm, have some mental bleach).
But I like seeing Hal and Kyle as part of the Earthmen Green Lanterns (also - at some point in the future someone has to just frigging go for 7 and make a girl who isn't Jade and is thus stable and formidable etc).
I like seeing whole swathes of Lanterns I've never seen before if the plot has to do with something that must be faced by the Corps as a team; Something that affects the ensemble that makes a whole.
I've realized that I enjoyed Buffy The Vampire Slayer, for the ensemble. Angel: The Series - again, I loved the ensemble and my favourite configuration will always be: Angel, Cordelia, Doyle. It holds a special place in my heart.
The LOTR movie trilogy? Yeah, I like it more than the book (though expect me to be a stickler annoying fan when it comes to the Hobbit. Oh boy.) I like the emphasis on ensemble there as well one group, split and then split again and coming together and gathering others and just....
Hmmm Willow is happy in her happy place.
Some people might point out I've professed to being bored with the Fantastic 4. And it's true. But they're a family, not an ensemble, at least to me. An ensemble can be created family, but it's an ensemble first. It's about remarkably different people coming together for a cause, having it bind them to each other and create shared experiences no one else might understand.
I've a friend who calls her BulletProof Kink - "The Arranged Marriage". She likes when two people are bound like that, growing in ways outsiders can't understand and supporting each other for reasons other people won't comprehend.
I used to think my BulletProof Kink was "The Unexpected Soulmate", wherein two people discover that the someone who is extremely different from them, with different life experiences and attitudes, beneath the surface has the same needs and desires, hurts and sore places. Soulmate makes it seem solely romantic. But Kindred Spirit always strikes me as just a touch too Anne of Green Gables.
"The Unexpected Soulmate" might still be my BPK for relationship stories. But for stories in general? What will get me to pick something up and keep reading it is the Ensemble.
And as I began to think about it, I realized that even with characters I heart extremely, my favourite stories about them happen to be Ensemble stories. It's just that when the main focus is on one character, the ensemble gets called "Supporting Cast".
Wonder Woman: Down To Earth. (by Greg Ruka) Love it. Love it. Love it. But not just for how WW is represented, but because of the Ensemble around her.
Batman? I love him best interacting with others, whether his Ensemble is the Nolanesque Fox, Pennyworth & Gordon. Or the Batclan.
And I think it's easier for me to find stories like that for Batman than for Superman. Since stories about him, are usually stories about him and to get what I want the story would have to include Lois Lane and Perry and have Jimmy not be annoying. Lois & Clark the tv series gave good Ensemble. Especially the tag team Martha and Johnathan Kent each on one end of the house landline on Clark's calls home.
Starship Troopers: Roughneck Chronicles.... That happy space is PURE Ensemble.
Of course while it's great to realize this about myself and why I'll be attracted to certain books (Harry Dresden - again, seriously good Ensemble) it'll be better to figure out how this factors into my own writing. It's bound to change my perspective on things. Or I hope it will.
So besides telling me I have to get my hands on Rainbow Wars (y'all know if I can't have digital access I'll wait for Trades and borrow them from the library - yeah, DC has seriously hurt and burnt me. Marvel too). What else is out there that you think has good Ensemble work?
And what are your BulletProof Kinks (reading wise, folks, reading wise)?
How far have you gone, what horrible things have you read because your kink was going strong and good?
Who do you consider part of the Ensemble around your favourite characters? Gotham counts for me, when it comes to Batman and the Batclan. And often if Gotham isn't living and breathing, then I can't enjoy the story.
What supporting cast characters have you loved and missed who have since gone the way of limbo's foyer/waiting room - you hope and not the way of the dodo?
What addition to an Ensemble made you turn away? I know I couldn't read X-men with Emma Frost in it, way before I gave up on Marvel.
Wow...I'm actually soliciting discussion and conversation here. I must be tired.
*goes to sleep*
Friday, April 24, 2009
Kinky Thoughts
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I love ensembles like you WOULDN'T BELIEVE -- both the Wee Sister and I do, which is good b/c we share all our media. *g* Stories that are just about Batman bore me to tears; throw Nightwing or Oracle or a Robin in there, and I'm instantly more interested. Homicide, Rome, X-Men, Twin Peaks, Futurama, Deadwood, QaF, Buffy, Dark Tower, Simpsons, Arthurian legend ... just about all of my favourite fannish sources ever have ensembles. There's just so much more interesting stuff to me, when there's bunches of people and they all need to interact and negotiate and work around and with each other. The only real solo performer I was nutty about was John Constantine, and that's because he's special. *g*
ReplyDeleteThat said, even *with* the other characters running around, Red Hood was the death knell of the Batverse for me. So much focus on him! And he was so fucking TEDIOUS, ugh! I hate those storylines, where there's just boring fight after boring fight and no interpersonal stuff; it's like the writers thought, "what kind of storyline would make comic readers (all dudes of course) feel like they have massive cocks?" and lo and behold, endless issues of Batman and Red Hood metaphorically wanking at each other.
Also, Lil' Lobo made me annoyed with Young Justice. That dumb private school girl whose name I can't remember made me hate Generation X. Fred totally fucked up Angel for me. Most of the time I can work around people who are irritating, but not when they become the focal point!
Ensemble stuff I love:
ReplyDelete- BPRD (way more interesting than Hellboy)
- Early Dragonball & Dragonball Z
- Giant Robo (my favorite anime of all times)
- The Inhumans (They fulfill my separatist fantasies, Silent War was particularly good)
- Earlier Naruto
I don't know if it's bulletproof, but I am a sucker for stories that show off a character's full epic-ness. I was drawn in by The House of M storyline along with World War Hulk, both of which were great until the end...
Yeloson:
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you on BPRD. I've tried to read a few of the novels and have enjoyed the animated movies. I have found it more interesting when there was focus on who was around Hellboy rather than HB himself. (For the record I did not enjoy the second live action movie)
I too loved early Naruto. I can remember my disappointment that after such a lead in from 'These Band of Brothers' in the hunt to bring Saske back home, it ended up shifting into this other tone all together. I don't think I even finished the second episode of Shippoden.
Oh! I also loved when Sakura cut her hair way, way at the beginning. That was a moment of 'FOR THE TEAM' that while in itself was cliche, as part of her character development was AWESOME.
Hhmm. I'm not sure what to call the Epicness. "Saga of a Hero" is a possibility. Where you know that what you're getting is the evolution and eventual culmination of all the experiences in the character's life to make them who they're meant to be. Sort of like how the sagas say all Conan's adventures made him a worthy King.
If I'm understanding you correctly, that is.
In which case you want to see broad strokes and hints that this is coming, with every fall and every rise up that it's leading to epicness?
Bossymarmalde:I would actually not be opposed if someone just wrote two alpha males actually whipping it out and pumping it up to see who was longer, bigger, fatter and had the most ejaculate and then y'know, all the pissing contest would be ended and the hierarchy of masculinity set.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I think that will only happen in porn and possibly not Slashy Original Fiction. SOFt m/m writers don't seem to go the grunting, sweaty man place and instead seem to lean towards bishies.
I didn't follow the whole Red Hood thing. Todd was more interesting to me dead. And then when I accepted there were possibilities to flesh him out and make him more than an objection lesson - all I saw were objection lessons.
Why can't there be more fight scenes that involve saying things like "You were my Yoda" (BTVS. Spike to Angel)
You should at least check out the Puppetmaster storyline from Naruto. It had pretty awesome Sakura section and after that, boringness.
ReplyDeleteThe BPRD comics have been hitting really, really great character development on the last few mini-series, worth checking out.
For me, the epicness is not so much the Hero's Journey as much as the simple geeky "But if this character can do THIS, then what does that mean for the world?" Which is why House of M (Scarlett Witch rewrites reality, because she can), World War Hulk (yes, he IS a world threat), and anything with Black Bolt, fits. In some ways it's geeking out on a power trip, but it's more like the kick from a good horror story when all the implications hit you ("But, if she could have done this all along... buhbuhbuh...")
Yeloson:I have to confess to not enjoying the comics because I don't like the art style. Of course I go to find it now to explain and all I'm seeing are coloured versions I could read.
ReplyDeleteI somehow had the impression they were black and white, manga style. And I had difficulty with the art style in that context due to the heavy inking.
Re: Epicness
I think they only possibly similarity/analogue I have is how I think of Dazzler. I love stories where it only just hits people how powerful she is. That she could in fact so absorb all the sound in an area to propel her powers that she'd cause a horror movie like absolute silence but combined with blinding, mind overloading brightness.
Though I think for me personally with that character (or similar light using gals) I get a lick from the similarity to angelic awe due to the radiance of unearthly heavenly presence.
Sometimes? I'm kind of Catholic.
Huh. I need to get your IM name at some point. There are obviously conversations we could be geeking out over.
Dazzler? Yes! Right there with Cloak & Dagger! Or Jubilee! That's exactly it. Or when Storm took over the Morlocks without her powers- it's just about how badass a character CAN be, that most people don't think about.
ReplyDeleteI've always had a thing for ensembles. I think it's because, as you mention, they're created families. Having a non-traditional family set-up myself, I find that a hopeful thing; that you don't necessarily have to have the 'proper' mother, father, brother and sister to be able to be part of a family. I idealised and aspired to the traditional families in books I read as a kid, but stuff like the X-Men actually seemed like something achievable and relatable to me. With hindsight, created families in fiction legitamised me in my own eyes.
ReplyDeleteNowdays I'm not sure if I have any one bullet-proof kink. I'll grab a book if a character has a chronic illness or disability or something which, in that world, is analogous, but I come across that incredibly rarely!
1. What's your opinion of Dwayne McDuffie and his recent work on JLA? Also, have you heard of the Milestone comics line, which he was heavily involved in? (Sadly, most of their stuff's out of print, but you might be able to find a trade or two.
ReplyDelete2. Erm. I hate to do this to you, given your post about your blood pressure being massively high, but there was a full-issue preview of Mark Waid's new comic, "Potter's Field", put up online recently. Let me put it this way: the (hopefully unconscious) racism in it was bad enough that I realized how offensive it was, and I'm just getting used to this whole "being aware of my white privilege" deal.
I'm providing a link, but I'll warn you, odds are you're going to be VERY angry.
http://forums.boom-studios.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=317
About your blood pressure: Take up weightlifting or get a punching bag -- those do wonders as ways to work off the physical reactions involved in anger. Make a habit of it, and your blood won't be trying to do an imitation of Old Faithful.
Actually, while I love the character, Kyle does nothing for me in that sense.
ReplyDeleteBut seeing a sadistic woman do unspeakable things to Scott Summers? I'd totally go for that...especially if we can throw Wolverine in there too. I've a thing for rivalslash.