This week's edition of shiny things

I have literally woken up about an hour and a half ago. Back on antibiotics, and my body hates me. Regular sleeping schedule, I miss you so... :(((

Yesterday I got really fucking aggravated by a comment I read in the journal of one of my flisters, with regards to the recent LJ changes. ( Feel free to skip, it's just me blowing off steam, I suspect. )

Anyway. Onto more better things. I am about to spam you with links to fun things! :D Like I spammed zolac_no_miko last night at 3am... WHAT CAN I SAY, WHEN I DON'T SLEEP, I DON'T SLEEP LIKE A BOSS. I hadn't been on my favourite site (because yes, I am a geek, and guess what -- so are these people, proudly so, and they do everything they can to spread the joy! HOW NOT TO LOVE THEM FOR IT) for far too long, and last night when I was posting JEREMY RENNER AND GEMMA ARTERTON IN LEATHER, I went to take a look. AND OH MY GODDDDD ALLLLL THE SHINY!! *________* And because I love you all, I thought I'd share! AREN'T YOU HAPPY YOU'RE ON MY FLIST? :D :D

Let's start with something I know a lot of you are well excited about: The Hobbit Trailer Breakdown and The Batman Trailer Breakdown. These all go into awesome details, sort of paring out clues from what we're being shown, and they make for some pretty fab reading! :)

Then there are these Movie Recipes, including Francis Ford Coppola's spaghetti sauce from The Godfather that I'm making for my dad, because he's such a huge fan, Julia Child's Boeuf Bourginon, and a recipe for beignets that I am itching to try out.

Then there is Robert Downey Jr: A Viewer's Guide that is all kinds of shiny, and I need to re-watch half the films on it. And with that, we move into Avengers territory! IS ANYONE SURPRISED, I ASK YOU. Okay, this feature BLEW. MY. MIND. Because you're talking to a seriously die-hard Whedon fan, HE IS MY ABSOLUTE HERO, and look, this is why I love Empire so much. Because they get me. Us. They get their fans. They know we're all geeks and nerds to a certain degree, and they know about Joss Whedon, they get what he is. And so they have given us this: How do The Avengers fit into the Whedonverse?, which is THE BEST THING EVER, and drew from me all kinds of embarrassing squeaky noises of delight (not a huge surprise, as it's written by Helen O'Hara, whom I adore -- she is this incredibly awesome film journalist who also has a Law degree and appears to have the same taste in movies and TV shows as me, and just, she is my internet girlfriend. *_______*). WAIT TILL YOU GET TO THOR. In fact, they are all awesomesauce in one way or another. <3<3<3

And last, to cap off this edition of The Shiny, have some eye candy. I am sad that there is no Phil BAMF Coulson, or Pepper shots, but oh well, I'll take what I can get.





But for me, the real winner of the piece is Helen's (yep, her again <3 Just one more reason I am helplessly infatuated with her) poll that goes with the banners, which I shall recreate here for the benefit of humanity (the Fury thing made me snort tea, trufax. As did the Thor thing :D):

[Poll #1805098]

And now to finish my secret_mutant story and the last read-over of cop!Erik AU. I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M GETTING SO CLOSE TO POSTING IT. It hardly seems real. :')

Ugh I want this SO BAD

So I've just watched this episode of Criminal Minds (while what I should be doing is finishing edits on my secret_mutant assignment, goddamn it X/), BUT. Okay, it's season 3, the one where there was this genius comic book artist that had a psychotic breakdown and murdered the guys who attacked him and his girlfriend/fiancee six months ago? Anyway, it's not important (although it's a bloody brilliant episode) -- the important thing is the last few minutes, as the team flies back to HQ (people who watch the show will know what I'm on about), and one of them muses how the guy was just an ordinary man not long ago, before he was forced to turn into this cold-blooded killer by circumstances, and wonders whether we all have that potential in us.

And now I'm having these thoughts, tangled up in Metanoia-influenced musings, of cold-blooded killers that murder with a steady hand because their victims are bad, bad people who damn well deserve it; of heroes tangled up in villains, The difference between a hero and a villain is one really bad day (I'll be damned if I know where that comes from; this particular version of events is Jesse's, I think -- zolac_no_miko, correct me if I'm wrong); “The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.” (that one is Frank Miller). And now I have an absolutely debilitating craving for fics like that -- utterly sane, smirking men with bloody hands and a moral compass that only points due justice, if society won't do it then he/she bloody well will; of a good guy that's trying desperately hard to remain on the right side of the law even as he senses the lure of the other side. Of that good-ish guy meeting that other guy, the connection, the electric, magnetic spark between them (see Luther/Alice for example). Of someone so broken (Star), yet with the potential to be made slightly less so by the judicious application of a good man (Zan). UGH, IDK WHY I WANT IT SO FUCKING BAD, BUT I DO.

Tropes for the win, I guess! :) But I can't, I just can't help but think, Cap and Bucky, where Bucky isn't quite Winter Soldier but is close, the other side of the coin, getting his hands dirty because someone has to and it can't be Steve, Steve who is everything that is good in the world that Bucky sees -- bleak, dark, uncompromising, no rose-tinted spectacles for me, pal; the perpetual push-and-pull of them, jahfdaljkghajkghjhg OH, GOD.

#why, brain, why? If anyone has any story recs for me, in any fandom, pass 'em here, please! <3 Because I really, really fucking want it, bad enough to write an original story if that's what it takes. But come on, in all the world there's got to be someone as wonky as me that's already thought of something way better than anything I could come up with.

Also see: The Administration, which is the perfect example, and I'm going to pimp it out until everyone out there has read it, because Manna, man. Gal's a genius. You know I'm all about the fluff usually, but sometimes I need dark, blood-tinged fluff, I love you as certain dark things are to be loved-fluff (also, that poem, amirite? A perennial favourite, carved somewhere inside me). Because that's beautiful, too.