readerjane

January Talking Meme: Current Fannishness

Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:38:14 GMT

Just to recap: I ran out of prompts for this meme, so I'm shamelessly raiding friends' prompts. If you'd like to ask me a question, feel free!

sperrywink asked rahirah, "What's got you fannishly excited at the moment?"

I'm really enjoying James Spader's new show, The Blacklist.

I haven't been a big Spader fan before. Frankly, I've always thought of him as "inferior Daniel", the guy who played Daniel Jackson in the Stargate movie before it was turned into a TV series with the awesome Michael Shanks as Daniel.

Spader is older now, and the extra years have added gravitas. On The Blacklist he plays Raymond Reddington, long on the FBI's wanted list, who sells secrets and provides services to the highest bidder. One day Reddington walks into FBI headquarters, announces his presence, and says he'll only speak with a rookie agent named Elizabeth Keen, currently late for her first day on the job.

I like Reddington's confidence. He's arrogant, but one gets the impression he's thoroughly in control of his arrogance. Red's perfectly willing to accept restrictions that might feel humiliating to some, when they serve his purposes. He answers the questions he wants to answer; makes only deals that are acceptable to him. He's very secure in his hubris.

Red's on-my-terms relationship with Liz Keen is the emotional core of the series. I'm eager to see where that goes. ( Cut for spoilery discussion )

I haven't got involved with Blacklist online fandom, and probably won't. I don't have the energy for another fandom. But I'll happily rec the show to anyone and everyone who will listen.

comments

A Mosaic of Devotion

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 03:26:57 GMT

This is a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope, made by many fans in fifteen-second slices. It must have taken a mountain of coordination. The video is full-length; over 2 hours long. Some fans filmed their segments with low-res animation. Some dressed up in costume. Some used action figures or Lego characters. Some dubbed in the original voices; some used their own. Production values shift every few moments. And it's brilliant.

I love what this says about fandom. That we're passionate, creative, goofy, a little obsessive. We're those nerds who say, "This is cool! Isn't this cool? Let's make our own!" We share. We cooperate. And even though we squabble, sometimes we band together and achieve marvels.

comments

Guys! SF Coexist!

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:01:59 GMT

I came across a link to this on Whedonesque and was absolutely charmed.

I've seen many other versions of this bumper sticker, usually based on religious symbols.

In this case, the C is formed by the Death Star, eclipsed to make it look like a crescent. The Enterprise, seen from above, forms the O and the E. X is an X-wing fighter, again from Star Wars.

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is the letter I, and then we have the swooshy S from Farscape credits and Serenity, my favorite space ship, as the T.

What I love about this version (besides the fact that the artwork itself is beautiful) is how much it says about fandom, and SF fandom in particular.

Because fandom is so very much like religion. All our squabbling sects, large and small. We get passionate about them. We evangelize. We hurl anathemas at one other. But we can get along, if we want to badly enough.

And look how well this image reflects SF fandom itself. The first four letters in COEXIST are drawn from two of the oldest and largest camps: Star Wars and Star Trek. Then there is the smaller, but still well-recognized Doctor Who. And off to the side, the fringe cults of Farscape and Firefly, whose adherents' fervor is fed by the martyrdom of cancellations. Hee!

I'd love to see this done with a greater variety of sources for the letters. What a beautiful picture of our multiverse.

ETA: Son says that the dot above the I is a Stargate. I had seen it as the glow from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, but now that he has pointed it out I see he's right. Also, Son says that is not an X-wing from Star Wars. He doesn't know exactly which show the x-shaped ship is from, but Son knows his ~~theology~~ canon, so I'll take his word for it.

comments