eruthros: Super Mario Galaxy: Mario staring at his creepy cosmic twin (Mario and Cosmic Mario)
[personal profile] eruthros
1. [personal profile] thingswithwings wrote a how-we-vidded-yuletide retrospective post that is ... pretty much exactly what the vid project was like, but shorter.

2. I want a new term for a particular kind of pairing-fic. See, there's best friends!fic (Blair/Jim, Starsky/Hutch, Gus/Shawn) and there's what I think of as enemies!fic (Harry Potter/any Voldemort supporter, Mulder/Krycek, Johnny Smith/Stillson, John/Kolya) and then there's this other thing, this sort of sniping-but-on-the-same-side thing. And sometimes people call it enemies!fic, and I'm always a bit "huh?" because these guys aren't enemies. They're just not best friends! If one of them hasn't killed the other's mentor, if one of them isn't trying to bring about the apocalypse, if one of them isn't busy creating an evil clone army, it's just not the same! It's "sometimes we bicker" fic! And yet people keep telling me that it's the opposite of the bff fic, that if you don't write best friends this is the other option, and I am continually weirded.

Some example pairings that I thought of just now:
- Psych, Shawn/Lassiter. Listen, they are both on the same side, neither of them has killed the other's father, they just kind of dislike each other. They both want to arrest guys! They sometimes work together! But not as much as Shawn and Gus.

- The Dead Zone, Johnny/Walt. They are kinda suspicious of each other, okay, and Walt sometimes thinks Johnny's a big weirdo, and they are both in love with the same woman, but ... not enemies. Not BFFs, either.

- Eureka, Jack Carter/Nathan Stark. They are both in love with the same woman (sigh) and they don't like each other but they, you know, save the world together a lot.

- The X-Files, Mulder/Skinner. They're on the same side -- well, most of the time, depending on what side Chris Carter thought Skinner was on today -- but they disagree sometimes. Mostly they do Stern Authority Figure/Snarky Subordinate. Like, in fic, when Skinner spanked Mulder, it was for How Dare You Break Into That Military Base Without Telling Me, I Worry About You reasons, not Damn You, Stop Trying to Take Over the World With Evil Robots reasons.

So what should I call this? Clearly "guys who kind of don't like each other and are a little bit snarky but neither of them killed the other one's father fic" is a little long. [personal profile] thingswithwings suggests "cantankerous acquaintance fic," which certainly gets at the part where these aren't guys who are BFFs and aren't srs enemies.

Like, is it just my fannish history? Is it just that I read Mulder/Krycek and Harry/Snape (when Snape was supposed to be evil)? I feel like these aren't the same things as what I'm used to calling enemies!fic. I want more archnemeses in my enemies!fic.

3. I am sad to say that Super Mario Galaxy has been rejected from yuletide -- the Mario universe was added to the list of ineligible franchises after nominations were over. I am full of woe, for I wanted to ask for cool genre-bending fic (Freudian meditations on Cosmic Mario! kinky Star Bunny fic!), and also because it means I wasted a nomination -- I went and looked up the fandom before I nominated, and was pretty sure that it would count as small enough on its own, and Mario wasn't on the franchise list. I could have nominated The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air instead! Or Uzak (Distant), where there should have been HUGS. I know that betrays the premise of the movie, but after I watched it, I wanted hugs. Or Carol Emshwiller's Carmen Dog, which was my favorite book when I was in junior high. (Finding out that Le Guin loved it, in that article, made me all starry-eyed. Ursula K Le Guin! Carol Emshwiller! Together! It was like, baby!eruthros does RPF.) So now I am a little sad.

4. I watched White Collar the other day; here is some spoilery talk about it.

So, I liked the White Collar pilot and all, but if the rumors I've been hearing are correct, and Diana is not going to be on the show anymore, I will cry, because she is awesome. Like, ten minutes after the end of the episode I started spitballing slash crossovers with [personal profile] thingswithwings -- Teyla! Faith! Martha! any of them could be in NYC on fake IDs and credit cards and things and possibly be involved in complicated forgery schemes and come to the attention of the FBI! And then there would be plot and drama and (most importantly) makeouts!

The show premise had me at hello, of course; give me a Catch Me If You Can style of social engineering with prison breaks and occasional forgery and awesome rat pack hats, and I am THERE. I hope I can keep on being there, and that the show doesn't change too much from the pilot.

Mickey Bricks walked off with a car better, though. (<3s Hustle)

Date: 2009-10-29 03:41 am (UTC)
general_jinjur: (chicken)
From: [personal profile] general_jinjur
2) "fractious colleagues"? i agree, it isn't that they are enemies, but that they are more like rivals...and weirdly, somewhere along the line "rival" and "enemy" get conflated, when they are enemies only in the loosest possible way, and only for the space of a given argument. "antagonists" maybe?

Date: 2009-10-29 04:13 am (UTC)
torachan: (Default)
From: [personal profile] torachan
No, I agree. That's not enemy fic. Not sure if there's a good name for it or not, because I don't know that they all necessarily fit the same mold. That sort of pairing is more defined by what it's not: best friends or enemies.

Date: 2009-10-29 04:21 am (UTC)
livrelibre: DW barcode (Default)
From: [personal profile] livrelibre
Hmmm, maybe frenemies!fic? And I could be wrong about the rumors (or there could be AUs)!

Date: 2009-10-29 01:48 pm (UTC)
livrelibre: DW barcode (Default)
From: [personal profile] livrelibre
Ah, damn! I hate it when I'm right. I shall have to console myself with Natalie Morales and the AU adventures of Diana (she was too awesome for this world TV).

Date: 2009-10-29 10:44 pm (UTC)
livrelibre: DW barcode (Default)
From: [personal profile] livrelibre
I do like NM but seeing Diana was like having someone wave candy and snatch it away.

Date: 2009-10-29 09:13 am (UTC)
cesare: john sheppard of stargate atlantis as a baker (sga - bakery au john)
From: [personal profile] cesare
Cranky!fic?

Date: 2009-10-29 07:24 pm (UTC)
theleaveswant: text "make something beautiful" on battered cardboard sign in red, black, and white (Leverage)
From: [personal profile] theleaveswant
I was going to suggest "rivals" but I see it has already emerged in the discussion.

Date: 2009-10-29 07:56 pm (UTC)
m_shell: glasses (queer slugs)
From: [personal profile] m_shell
I vote for indifferent!fic. Cumbersome, but accurate.

Date: 2009-10-29 08:45 pm (UTC)
isagel: (xf m/k)
From: [personal profile] isagel
I think when your first fannish experience involved Mulder/Krycek, there can be no such thing as enemies!slash in your world unless one guy killed another guy's father and/or one guy is responsible for another guy losing a limb. We were harsher back in the day. *does fistbump of slashy hardcoreness*

(And you are so right about the defense-against-cries-of-racism angle.)

I was so immensely happy about Diana, too, but I am very fearful she will not make it as a regular. Which is entirely evil and wrong.

Date: 2009-10-30 07:23 pm (UTC)
gloriamundi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] gloriamundi
No Diana? Booooo! Diana ROCKED.

Am in that weird state re White Collar where it was the only thing in my download folder that I could actually concentrate on watching (off sick this week with flu). And it really hooked me. And I'm not entirely sure why -- apart from the whole Capable Establishment Type =spiky=frisson=with= Laid-Back Criminal Type. And the way they are careful of one another's feelings! And the way they forgive one another's trespasses! and the pretty Irish-American!

Date: 2009-11-04 12:47 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] chagrined
I think my favorite genuine!enemies!pairing was probably Agent Smith/Neo from The Matrix. Although this may be more so b/c it drove my BFF ttly nuts that I 'shipped them. Haha.

Profile

eruthros: Delenn from Babylon 5 with a startled expression and the text "omg!" (Default)
eruthros

October 2024

S M T W T F S
  1234 5
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 9th, 2025 07:14 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios