(no subject)

In a heroic effort to ignore my school work, I just marathoned season four of Entourage.

Ari/Mrs Ari = OTP! They're the cutest couple of potty-mouthed mother-fuckers in Hollywood.

Eric/Anna Farris is also awesome. He needs to get her back on his client list. She's actually better for him than Vince, at this point. Sure Vince essentially made Eric's career, but at this point he's holding E back. His co-dependency and jealousy are basically crippling E, even in regards to Vince's own career, and his support for Billy Walsh not only fucked everyone, but may have caused permanent damage in their relationship.

He trusted Billy the crazy artist's instincts over Eric's, and he asked Eric to compromise himself professionally.

Billy has basically taken over the Ari role, in terms of being a threat to Eric and Vince's relationship, but this time, Vince isn't supporting Eric. He's choosing Eric emotionally, but not professionally. And that's bad. Boo.

(Anyway, all of the above, with the exception of Ari/Mrs Ari, I mean in a non-shippy way - because Eric/Anna, Eric/Vince or anything else would be bad. holy-shit-train-wreck-bad.)

***

So I signed up for Yuletide, and my assignment is pretty ridiculously open-ended. Karma for having not even bothered with prompts on my own requests, I suppose. But going in, I didn't really want anything specific, or even specific kinds of stories. Especially in the context of Yuletide, when we're talking about obscure fandoms, all I really want is more fic.

My requests:

Avengers (comic) - Henry Pym, Janet van Dyne, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark

There's such a dearth of non-X Marvel fic! DC fandom churns out fic for everything from Batman to Doom Patrol, but Marvel fandom doesn't even write much Spiderman fic. Weird. Anyway, I really like old school Avengers. I wasn't around to read the book way back, but I'm now reading my way through the back canon, and I've developed an affection for the long-term Avengers, the ones who keep coming back. It's really interesting to follow their comings and goings - you know they're going to return, because the team has become a part of them. A part of how they identify themselves. And too, they've become a part of the mythos of the team.

I picked Hank, Jan, Steve and Tony because a) I really like them; b) they're friends and actually like and respect each other; and c) they have a lot of really fucked up history together. We're not talking Scarlet Witch levels of fucked up, but a more ordinary and human kind of fucked. They have all the problems that friends who work and fight together for a couple of decades are bound to have. And they're all really different people. At the same time, there are enough overlapping character traits to make it interesting. I made a list - it's freaky.

CJ Cherryh, Fortress series - Barrakketh, Mauryl, Tristen

iirc Cherryh doesn't like fanfic. But I'm going to totally disrespect her wishes and promote Cherryh-fic in all shapes and sizes, because nearly all of her 'verses are eminently ficable. Fortress has been a minor fictional obsession of mine for a few years now. There are very few characters in this 'verse that I wouldn't like to learn more about (with the exception of the kids in the new series - ew), but my favourite character is definitely Tristen.

Tristen's dual nature is probably the most interesting thing about this series for me. He is both Barrkketh and Tristen, in the sense that he's a Shaping, made from Barrakketh, and in the sense that he's a creature for whom space and time hold no essential meaning. Tristen is always Tristen(s) and Barrakketh(s). As Mauryl's Shaping, and in his earlier earthly incarnation, he's both a 'man' (sort of) and a Sihhe. He's both terrible and wonderful.

And then there's Mauryl Kingmaker/Kingbreaker. There's the Mauryl who fought his own student, freakin knocked on the Sihhe's door, and ordered the murder of children, and then there's the Mauryl who's essentially Tristen's gruff, exasperated dad. I think that just as interesting as Tristen trying to reconcile his multiple selves, are his attempts to understand where his Mauryl ends and history's Mauryl begins.

Brick (movie) - Brendan Frye, The Pin

I really want to see more fic for this fandom but the problem for writers is finding the right tone. The movie is a modern, noir, murder-mystery, set in a high school, so yeah, it presents a challenge. I think the key is to not try for naturalistic characterization, but to just embrace the conventions of noir. Go all Dashiel Hammett. Because if you take the characters out of the noir context, some of the logic of the story starts to fall apart.

Anyway, the real question is - how do I find a beta?

ETA: Ha! I just found two possible betas. Fan-freakin-tastic.