Twisted Sanctuary

Whoo. 

It's been...surreal. Hopefully the next one will be. 

Anyone else been watching Scandal? I have.

( Here there be mild spoilers in the form of plot arc construction discussion. )

But I digress. I really posted this because I wante to get out the ludicrous plot bunny that hit me while I was watching tonight so it doesn't keep gnawing at me and I don't have to write it.

Because affairs are just no fun and Melly is willing to work with Olivia and also crazy and sympathetic. What if... Melly had originally know Olivia from way back. What if Melly and Liv'd had a thing and Melly was the one to nudge Cyrus into bringing Olivia into the campaign? How awesome would it be if Olivia then fell for the president? Sure having a woman in love with a married man is fun Story but why not have a woman torn between loving two different people? ...who just happen to be married to each other. It's the ultimate triangle and there's nothing soaps love more. ;)

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

I just wanted to say, today was a good day. That's not a big deal. There have been about the usual mix of good days and bad days here lately and there was nothing particularly special about today. 

Just, today was a good day and sometimes it's nice to just notice that and appreciate it. Hope everyone else had a good one too. :) 

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS...for the promo. As I know of no actual The Grove spoilers.

( Squeeing fangirly thoughts on the promo )
If you're interested in seeing more about The Grove, be sure and check out their website. There's a plot summary and character guide available. The number of big name soap stars (amazing actors) working on this project is ridiculous and I for one CANNOT wait to get to see this thing. 

...I need a Nico/Ivy icon. /dreamy sigh

Snagged from shadadukal


Pick a number from the list and I'll (try to) answer it in the comments.

1 - Your current OTP.
2 - A pairing you initially didn't consider but someone changed your mind.
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will.
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can't.
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom; if so, what?
6 - What's the longest you've ever been in a fandom?
7 - Do you remember your first OTP? if so, who was in it?
8 - Do you prefer characters from live-action series or anime series?
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms? if so, which and why?
10 - Name a fandom you didn't care/think about until you saw it all over your social network sites.
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom?
12 - Your favourite fan artist/author gives you one request; what do you ask for?
13 - Your favourite fanart or fan artist.
14 - Your favourite fanfiction or fan author.
15 - Choose a song at random; which OTP does it remind you of?
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
17 - A ship you've abandoned and why.
18 - A pairing you ship that you don't think anyone else ships.
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon.
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can't watch anything without shipping?
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms.
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms.
25 - A fandom you're in but have no ships for.
26 - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go.

M'kay, let's make this clear: I'm not a fan of that old style country music that was so damn depressing and sad that I wanted to like gouge my ears out after thirty seconds. But this song? This really might be the best country song ever. 

The story from the middle of the song and the awesomest verse ever: 

Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song
and he told me it was the perfect country and western song
I wrote him back a letter and told him it was NOT the perfect
country and western song because he hadn't said anything about
Momma, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk.
Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent
it to me and after reading it, I realized that my friend had written
the perfect country and western song. And I felt obliged to include it
on this album. The last verse goes like this here:


  Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison.
  And I went to pick her up in the rain.
  But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
  She got runned over by a damned old train.

So I have this habit of getting into fandoms really late. Like, I hear about some new tv show/movie/book and I hear the hype spread all through fandom about how awesome it is and, at some point, I got burned by the hype. I'm not sure when or where. Maybe it was nothing major, but I developed a habit of not giving new fandoms a chance until they were better established. I think to keep from being perpetually disappointed. 

The downside to this is that when I discover fandoms - Otalia, West Wing, Iron Man, everything-ever - by the time I get to them, if the fandom isn't new longer producing new canon materials then the end is still nigh. Fandom production is going down hill, and if there is still new canon materials being produced then there's a good chance that the creator's of said material are gonna screw it up on the way out. Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes that is a good thing. The rest of the time it's just fucking things up in new and incredibly suck-i-fying ways for fans. Wheeee. 

I say this in the context of Iron Man. Iron Man 3 is in production now. Robert Downey Jr. is currently fulfilling the last movie of his contract and the Iron Man series so far has been fucking perfect. RDJ IS Tony Fucking Stark. He sells better than any other actor I've ever seen and he makes it look like a hell of a lot of fun. But...Tony and Pepper are established. RDJ even comment on that at comic con himself, something along the lines of Iron Man being the only superhero ever really shown in an established relationship. This knowledge makes me antsy as fuck. I looooooove established relationships. When done well, they are the payoff that every shipper has been waiting for. They don't have to be boring, sucktastic and full of unrealistic drama. They can be awesome. 

But every television writer ever has seen the established relationship get boring and instead of reinventing the fucking wheel to reflect a non-boring, sucktastic established relationship, they try to reinvent the wheel where they break the established relationship in some new and awesome way. Only there's this. There are only so many ways to break an established relationship that has that much fan support so as to make it worthy of OTP status, without making the breakup either a) contrived as fuck or b) making us hate the characters beyond all hope of ever liking them again. Then? Some shows get repeatedly almost canceled (looking at you Chuck) so they have to find multiple ways to break the characters up again and again. Until we just fucking hate them and all the contrived bullshit and want them to "die in a fire." A phrase that I hate, but seems entirely apropos at the moment. 

This contrived bullshit happens to me a lot when I enter formerly awesome fandoms that are heading out the proverbial door. So what I'm putting out there in the universe, is for Iron Man to please not fuck this one up. Because I seriously <3 Tony and Pepper and can someone please do this established relationship thing, rightly already? I'm sure there's at least one example out there that's not obviously coming to mind for me, but that's another excellent reason to do it right. Show them how it's done. I'm begging you. 

Does anyone know how to use Handbrake? Copy DVDs?  I've been playing around with it lately trying to make a back up copy of some of the DVD's that I own (RotS has seen better days.) and I've run into a weird problem where the movie plays from beginning to end and then at the end there's a partially complete version of the movie attached to it. Which is weird and I'm assuming makes the file abnormally large. Any suggestions? 

Holy shit, Avengers rocked! I was afraid it was over-hyped, but...um...that was a movie that was a hell of a lot of fun. And I gotta admit I'm really an Ironman fangirl now. The amount of fic that I've been consuming for it for the last week has been massive. Epic, even. RDJ is hoooooot. And snarky. A combination that I can totally get behind.

Avengers SPOILER?

( Here there be SPOILERS )


I wonder if there's an Avengers novelization...


I should post about RL sometime. There's a couple things I wanna lay out for my own...processing, but shit. The Earth's spinning fast these days you know? To mangle like Yoda, Fly, time does.

So I got Perfect Blood, the newest Hollows novel, yesterday. I'm gonna be reading it today and probably tomorrow, live-tweeting some of the most frustrating, amusing, Rachel/Ivy containing parts with commentary and page numbers as I go.

If  anyone wants to follow along, I can be found over at @HollowsRant rather than my usual twitter. This one will be full of spoilers and I think there might be one or two spoiler free peeps on my usual twitter. I'd love to hear thoughts and comments as I go!