As always, the longer entries never seem to get finished....

[corilannam]

So here are a few shorter snippets:

* Spartacus! I mainlined the entire series of Spartacus in under two weeks, and fuck the gods, I am completely obsessed. Not just with Agron/Nasir (although, hello, awesome), but the entire show and everyone in it. It's always been on my to-watch list because I love anything set in the ancient world, but I also thought it was pretty much blood spatter and boobie porn. It is both of those things, but also much more. The historical accuracy is relatively impressive, the characters are complex and fascinating, and it raises a lot of fascinating questions about society, survival, and self-determination.

And peeking over the fourth wall, the cast and producers seem utterly delightful. Though I have to say, they all seem just a little too chipper on Twitter about the emotional devastation they're going to be wreaking upon their fans tonight with the finale.

The fandom seems very scattered, but I guess, what fandom isn't these days? I found a few good stories on AO3, but it seems depressingly sparse compared to the Merlin treasure trove I've been wallowing in for the last 5 years. Gratitude for recs you may have.

Also, it means I have to start actually paying attention to the flashback scenes on Arrow, since Manu Bennett is in them and I have developed quite a thing for him.

* Writing! My story for Paper Legends is plodding along very slowly. I have the plot all outlined, but I feel like the emotional storyline hasn't gelled yet. This has slowed me down to a crawl. On the brighter side, I just have to do some editing for Perverse Bang, and then my 20K gangbang will finally see the light of day, for better or worse.

* Torvill and Dean! Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the legendary British ice dancers, were my fandom back when I was 17. Now they're on Twitter. Yes, they both use the same account. Yes, they tweet the most mundane things imaginable (the weather, workouts, pictures of lunch and coffee). Yes, Chris tweets much more than Jayne does. In short, they are exactly what you would expect them to be and I find it hilariously charming.

* Fake school! The last several months, I've started to pine to go back to school. I found a way to at least dip my toes back in with the recent rise of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) from coursera.org and edx.org. Fake courses from real universities! Or maybe real courses for fake students? I dunno, but it's fun. I'm taking a bunch of random stuff like calculus, statistics, computer programming, and Greek history. Definitely overextending myself, which is a good lesson to learn before I try it for real.

* And everything else I had thought about posting is now either out of date or too boring to even interest me. How are you all doing?

Comments

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

I totally fangirled Torvill and Dean when they were competing and I can see why the mundane posts would delight you. They delight me and I haven't even seen any!

I don't watch Arrow very closely, but I certainly do watch Manu Bennet. This makes me want to see Spartacus even more. I have too much television going on right now though Along with my regular suspects, I have three seasons of Mad Men to catch up on as well as all of Downton Abbey. I hate when my hobby feels like a chore :D

Fake school sounds awesome. I need something productive to fill my time when the refrigerator and cookie tins are filled with my creations!

[giselleslash.livejournal.com]

I am absolutely IN LOVE with Spartacus. I really wish fandom hadn't moved so much to tumblr and other sites because I would've loved to join an LJ comm that was active. I mean there's a few, but not a huge amount of fics are being posted, sadly.

I started out watching it going, 'wheee! fights! blood! boobies! cocks!' and then it turned into this really amazing show and I'm going to be utterly devastated tonight. No more Spartacus. D: D: D:

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

I know, there is always too much TV! I only just got around to Downton Abbey a few weeks ago myself. I do try to be careful not to overload too much, though, because like you say, it's no fun when supposed leisure activities feel like work. Fortunately, Spartacus and all the rest of the great TV will still be available when we have time to get to them (I love modern technology!)

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been trawling AO3 for fic, but it's clear there's not really a centralized fandom for the show or any pairing the way there is for Merlin. I know a few people who are into it, but almost certainly not enough to hit any kind of critical fest mass. Woe. It's practically begging for a pornathon at the very least!

I really was stunned at what a fantastic show it ended up being. I had kind of dismissed it as just eye candy to get around to at some point, and then wham! Excellence. And tonight is going to be SO BRUTAL. :-(

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

Spartacus suffers from the same problem as Buffy, in that it has been produced to look fluffball on the outside, and so everyone has dismissed it as such.

(I'm amazed that I still come across people who think Buffy is a vapid show.)

Spartacus is brilliant, one of the chewiest-themed shows I've ever seen, fantastic character arcs, consistently good (not one lame or out-of-place episode) and my personal feminist icon.

I've cleared my schedule tonight. I'll be crying like a baby.

8^-

[(Anonymous)]

I really loved Andy Whitfield in it, and when he died I was devastated. I watched that whole first series in one day/night and then had a big emp crash when I found out he was dying, then just didn't recover in time to get into the second series. I've never watched the Agron/Nasir series :(

[alby-mangroves.livejournal.com]

That was me above ^ I just forgot to sign in.

ALSO, 20K GANGBANG. DO WANT, OMG.

[phoenixacid.livejournal.com]

I need to watch Spartacus - I keep hearing good things about them and I love medieval shows!

Good luck with the writing! And the fake school! :D

[destina.livejournal.com]

I have some Spartacus fic bookmarked, because it was better than the average crap fiction, but to be honest, I have yet to read a Spartacus story I really love. And I've read a whole lot of them. Most of them just don't do what I want fan fiction to do for me. For whatever reason - my guess is the stilted dialogue - people seem to find it difficult to really do more than write exceptionally superficial stories in this fandom. I think also it has to do with the limited circumstances. There aren't that many situations to put them in unless the writer goes AU, and the very last thing I ever want to read in this fandom is a Regency AU. No, no, no. *g*

Hi!

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking the other day how they really didn't ever have a bad episode. Maybe a couple that weren't quite as mind blowing as the rest, but all very consistently good. Amazing.

Which character is your personal feminist icon? Naevia? Actually, it's just damn cool to have a show where you can ask that question because there's actually more than one option.

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

Andy Whitfield was so amazing, and it's just heartbreaking what happened to him. :-( I watched the whole first series in one day, too, and it was really hard to adjust to a new Spartacus after that (though I ended up loving him, too).

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

Spartacus is wonderful! I highly recommend it (to anyone who isn't too sensitive to violence, at least).

[corilannam.livejournal.com]

I see you posted recs! Yay!

I've read a few decent stories, but yeah, there aren't really any brilliant, meaty ones so far. I think you're right about both the language and the limited circumstances. I did read a couple of canon divergence stories where Nasir ended up in Batiatus's ludus, which weren't bad, but I have a hard time with anything more AU than that.

Though I have to admit, I really want a cracky AU where they're all professional wrestlers. *g*

[the-emu.livejournal.com]

The pilot was a little slow; I've tended to start people on the second episode, but after that, they've all ranged from really good to amazing.

My feminist icon is Crixus. All the women are amazing, any one of them worthy, but such a great boy-feminist is such a rare and stunning thing. The way he stood back and respected Naevia's right to fight Ashur is probably my favourite moment of the entire series. My bouncing was here.

8^-