some stuff about television, as if I'm in fandom or something

[eruthros]

1. Okay you guys, I need HELP. Where is the Avatar: tLA fanfic? I have checked out the AO3, and the old yuletide archive, and some of the multifandom reccers I know, but I have found very little. There must be some post-series worldbuilding fic, right? Surely?

Unfortunately, all my routes to fanfic have taken me to stories that basically start off:

"After Aang decided to travel the world saving people with his Avatar powers and not appearing in this story, Zuko was sad."

Or sometimes "Zuko's life was very hard, so Katara shouldn't have been so mean to him." (As I complained to chagrined, I keep finding fanfic that takes a Draco in leather pants approach.)

Or sometimes, "She and Aang were meant to be together, Katara thought as she sighed wistfully."

And I'm not saying I wouldn't read those stories, but I'd like them to also care about the world, and the characters who aren't Zuko or Aang, and hello Toph is also on the show, guys. Srsly, I will take any genre! Gen, slash, het, post-series, pre-series, world-building, Toph rebuilds Earth kingdom villages, the future of the Western Air Temple, anything, so long as it respects the world and the characters and doesn't put Zuko in leather pants. (Well, unless it actually puts Zuko in leather pants, which I would probably be all for.)

2. I watched the Man from UNCLE episode that guest stars Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner the other day, and let me just say: n'awwww. It's a first season episode (The Project Strigas Affair), so it predates Star Trek and is in black and white and is totally about pulling a giant con and they barely encounter each other in the course of the episode but it still made me go "awww." (Especially because I am pro giant cons and Ilya undercover in awesome moustaches.) Anyway, if you're in a nostalgic mood (and are willing to put up with some really heavy-handed eastern European stereotypes) it's pretty amusing. William Shatner plays the innocent young chemical engineer turned exterminator! Leonard Nimoy smokes cigarettes with a holder and does expansive arm gestures!

3. I'm kind of weirded out by the fact that basically all the tv I'm looking forward to is on a summer-airing schedule --Mad Men, White Collar, Leverage, Psych as long as someone prescreens the episodes for embarrassment squick -- and that none of it includes spaceships. I mean, there are three whole cop/con comedy-dramas on that list, geez. Could I get just a little spaceship?

Anyway, if you've been watching a neat speculative fiction tv show, or are looking forward to a new one, I'd love a rec. Especially if it includes women and characters of color and queer people who also have cool powers/are on the spaceship/do neat things/aren't the backup, the love interest, or the funny neighbor. I'm told that I have to start watching Fringe, among other things.

Comments

[torachan]

It's a huge fandom (23,254 fics on ff.n), so it didn't qualify for Yuletide except maybe at the very beginning.

I am vaguely interested in fic, but not enough to go searching on my own, so I have no recs.

[eruthros]

*g* yeah, that's part of the problem -- there's a lot of fic, so it's not like it's a tiny fandom where I could read the first paragraph of everything. And I'm not opposed to reading on ff.n, but I find it really hard to search there -- like, 23,254 stories? And I can only search by broad genre? Not happening!

[wychwood]

Have you tried delicious? I find that searching for appropriate tags in the "popular" section is a pretty good way of winnowing out the better stories. I don't know how well it would work for a mostly-FFN fandom - because it's obviously dependent on readers using delicious, and that may be more an LJ-fandom thing - but it could be worth a look, anyway.