(no subject)

So... I've been mostly gone these last several days and I haven't looked at my flist for about two weeks... and people are striking tomorrow? It appears to be a big hullaballoo.

IF I don't post tomorrow, it will just as likely be because I'm busy (helping GrandmaShaka move) as because of the strike. I'll let you know after the fact.

Edit: apparently basic accounts might get eliminated? HuWHA? What if we had a paid account for two years but lapsed into basic again? Would we get warnings for this kind of thing? I don't want to wake up one morning and have my LJ gone.

Fuck. Well, good thing I have an Journalfen account. Even if I have never used it except for f_w... damn this is annoying. And the comm fee subscriptions suggestion? WTF was that about? I can't think of a more off-putting idea, and I've been a mod for a long time.


Sometimes thinking about LJ's technical drama is just too worrisome. I haven't personally gotten stricken for content yet, so I forget that this drama stuff affects me, even though it does.

Planet Earth: "Fresh Waters"

Giant Salamanders! Holy Shit! SIX FOOT LONG GIANT SALAMANDERS! I didn't even know such things existed! THEY FRIGHTEN ME. Look at that one just swallow a fish... what if it were feet?! What if I went wading in a river in Japan AND MY LEGS GOT EATEN BY A GIANT SALAMANDER? How do you explain that to Grandma? "Uh... my legs got eaten by giant salamander. PASS THE SYRUP!"

Aaaawwwww bear cubs!

I want a pack of otters. I want to have a river in my backyard, and have a pack of soft-fur otters live on it, so they can play and fish and defend my house from gators! Swell.

The river scene of the crocodiles attacking the wildebeasts... I've never seen anything like that. How often can I keep saying "amazing"?

Needing a fandom Pick Me Up ...(It's not midnight yet, right? Not by my timezone.)

I was browsing this old Mega Rec List for Cowboy Bebop fanfiction and idly skimmed some old fics, and it reminded me of how much I miss certain fandoms that I'm not active in anymore. I miss CB fanfic in particular, which I was seriously into in my senior year of high school and first two years of college. I adored fayeandspike, which barely gets any activity now. Just like I used to be seriously into the Vash/Meryl segment of Trigun fandom.

Anyway, while browsing all this great old CB fic with its massive epic chapter fics and its insane resurrection storylines and the incredible talent base of Bebop fandom and the Spike/Faye faction in particular, I had a terrible, gasping moment of regretful nostalgia. And I know exactly what it is.

I miss being in an adult fandom.

It happens, just because things do, that the fandom I'm most active in right now is a youth-based fandom. It's not my first (I spent quite a lot of time in HP fandom, and various anime series), but it's the one I'm into now that I've been involved in for the past two years. It's been longer-lasting for me than even Doctor Who, which suffers because you only get 13 episodes a year.

It's not the fact that ATLA fans are young that's particularly the issue I'm brooding over tonight (many of them are my age or older)... it's that the characters are young. For the last two years I've been writing fic about teenagers, be it ATLA or Harry Potter or Naruto or FMA or Veronica Mars or even DW's Rose Tyler who is, for all her wisdom, only twenty at best.

Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Buffy... these were shows about adult characters and thus allowed for adult situations. I don't just mean sexualized stuff, I mean adult on all levels and in a variety of contexts. I haven't been "into" a fandom with a full adult cast in a long time, be it television or anime. Even in series like HP, Naruto, or Fruits Basket the adult characters are secondary and often less-developed supporting characters rather than a driving force in the story.

I need something new to get into, something that inspires me to fangirl it like crazy and also something that puts out mature, elegant, quality fanfic on a huge level. While there's good and bad fic in every fandom, the range *does* differ, and the styles or modes each fandom culture puts out differ as well. ATLA fandom, for all that I love it, doesn't have as much high-quality fic as I would like to read, or as I've found in other fandoms before it, even reading multiple pairings.

Also, I want to have a cool, fun series that makes me love it AND makes me fic it (I don't fic every show I love) that isn't about teenagers.

The only problem is that all the good and really popular anime I've come across in the last two years is about teenagers, and most of the live-action tv shows from America or the UK just don't inspire serious fangirlism in me. I may watch Robin Hood or BSG or Sarah Connor Chronicles but I'm not, if you care to notice, particularly fannish crazy for them. And I've zero desire to fic them.

Ah, woe is me! Whining about a lack of well-written serious fanfic is always a good way to end your day.... because tomorrow or next week you just MIGHT discover a previously unread epic drama that takes your breath away with its style, sophistication, and panache. It could happen!