sienamystic: (iron man)
So, my comic book dorkiness never actually encompassed the majority of the Avengers in their solo works, let alone their group books. As a little kid, I read Batman, Superman, and Spiderman almost exclusively (with a smattering of Scrooge McDuck and other Disney comics), and mostly those were comics picked up on my family's many cross-country drives. And then, in the late eighties, I went through a big X-Men thing where I read a ton of stuff and bought a bunch of back issues (and holographic trading cards, god help me), with just a tiny sprinkling of Sandman in after a friend recommended them. (This era is why I have an unabashed love for Gambit/Rogue, Pryde/Wisdom, Polaris/Havoc, and Banshee/White Queen, by the way.)

My love for the Avengers, separately and together, has all come from the movies. Since I'm on Tumblr and following a bunch of more dedicated comic folk, I've gotten to see some backstory in panels people put up and comment on, but I'm ok with just knowing rough outlines. So really, how did I end up so excited about all these characters? Without that knowledge of the comics, was I coming into the story without the spearpoints that Jo Walton described, which can be so important to emotional impact in storytelling. I might not have enough forward momentum to bring me into the story on a level deeper than "ooh, 'splosions and funny!" But the movies (barring the various Hulks, which I didn't watch) have been so excellent in their own individual ways, and interconnected just carefully enough, that I fell in love with them in this particular medium, and came to this movie with as much excitement as if these had been my nine-year-old self's favorite comic book purchase at the Stucky's somewhere off a highway.

So, the movie )

The thing is, if you build up this kind of connective tissue, it makes all the big action setpieces resonate. It makes them live, it gets us invested. Otherwise they just turn into emptiness. There's probably nothing I like better than a really smart genre film, and this is a pretty good example of that. I ranted earlier in someone else's LJ about a condescending-as-fuck Slate reviewer talking about how clearly Joss Whedon's brand of humor had been brought to bear on this movie because it's the only way adults will excuse themselves for watching this sort of silly tripe meant for kiddies - if we couldn't say to ourselves, "But it's ironic!" than of course we'd stay away from the big pretty popcorn movie only meant for kids. Screw that. I've never been particularly attached to a nerd identity, but there's no better way to get me to fly into a pure, unholy nerd rage than people who think that if a story fits a "lesser" genre, the story automatically has no value.
sienamystic: (Default)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel The Series

Little Plastic Snowflakes (Buffy, Willow, Giles, Xander, Angel)
La Serenissima (Darla, The Master, OC)
This Useless Unhappiness (A:TS ensemble, Faith)
Baggage (Cordelia)

Firefly

Everything Tilted and Still (Kaylee)

Little Green Apples (Kaylee/Mal, adult)

Iron Man

Human Resources (Pepper, Tony)
Untitled Ridiculous Mary-Sue Crack (Tony Stark/a thinly disguised me)

Constantine (Movieverse

Things Known and Unknown (John, Angela, the beginning stirrings of John/Angela)
I Haven't Gotten Used to That(Angela, sort-of sequel to the above, adult)
50 themes, 1 sentence (John Constantine)
Untitled Angela drabble (Angela)

Lord Peter Wimsey

Poor Hardworkin' Pleeshman (written for Yuletide, Charles Parker, Peter Wimsey, Bunter, Dowager Dutchess)

Harry Dresden

Bad Ideas (written for Yuletide, Harry/Murphy/Thomas)

Anita Blake
Equilibrium (1/9, simply click "next entry" to get to the rest. AU set after Obsidian Butterfly, Anita, Edward, an OC)
sienamystic: (Default)
Now look what you all have made me do. I take no responsibility for this ungodly Mary Sue. And there's not really any explicit registrar-on-genius-billionaire action because I wrote it in a hurry last night and got all self-conscious. Which means that even as crack fic it's probably not good for much. And I should probably mention that this was all mentally triggered by the briefest of mentions in the movie that Tony had an art collection (the Pollock-purchasing discussion).

Title: I don't know art...
Characters: Tony, ME AS A VERY THINLY DISGUISED MARY SUE
Rating: PG
A/N: Well, at least it's short. And full of art. And I really didn't have anything better to do last night.
Disclaimer: Tony Stark is not mine, but if he was mine I'd totally be gunning for the job of managing his art collection. The benefits would be fantastic.

I'm pretty sure I hired you because you know about art )
sienamystic: (Pepper)
Title: Human Resources
Characters: Tony, Pepper (movieverse)
Rating: PG
A/N: Every great relationship has to start somewhere. For Pepper, it was the HR Office of Stark Industries.
Disclaimer: Not mine, dagnabbit.

Mr. Stark is simply a bit, shall we say, eccentric. )
sienamystic: (Default)
So in lieu of fic, you get wallpapers! Well, one wallpaper, three variants. Behold:

The fire of creation )
sienamystic: (OMG octopus attack)
I've been pecking away at an Iron Man fic for a couple of days now, and while bits and pieces of it please me, I keep reading other, really well-written pieces, go back and look at mine, and wonder why the heck I'm bothering. The few times I've written fic that pleased me and that I didn't hesitate about posting were all prompt-driven, and their general outlines mostly leapt unbidden into my brain. I could get it all out, tweak it a bit, and then feel comfortable with the results.

My first attempt for an Iron Man fic was deemed too sentimental by my sharp-eyed sister, and I knew she was right. And the one I'm working on now is...well, as I said, it's ok, but I wonder if I'm covering ground already taken care of by better writers. Not to mention the fact that the whole beginning-middle-end thing is not exactly working itself out for me.

That's the big issue, isn't it - the writing isn't coming magically from some corner of my brain. I'm having to work at it, and that means I'm very distrustful of the results I'm getting on the screen as I type. I find myself quadruple-guessing myself. I moan to myself about triteness, bad dialogue, verb tenses that wander back and forth like lost puppies.

Anyway, this is just a bit of a processing noodle-through. I'm not entirely sure why I write like I do, and I think all of this, failures and all, is probably good for me. At least it helps me identify my own habits so I can work on them...and maybe the end result will be that I finally finish that barely-written urban fantasy I've been trying to hash out for so long.
sienamystic: (red iron man)
Some first attempts under the cut:

I want expensive sadness )

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August 2019

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