Arctic Light

We haven't checked in with the mini-Defenders on the shelf above my desk lately. Let's see what they're up to.

Yes, this is TOTALLY what I should be doing with the rest of my evening.

( Three pictures )

Back when I was in anime fandom (lo these many years ago) I was kinda into buying action figures. I lost interest for a long while, except for occasionally buying one that I just couldn't say no to (like the Misty one which you'll see below). But I got back into it in a major way with the Defenders ones. I couldn't help myself. THEY'RE SO CUTE. ♥ At this point I have all of the main characters except for Matt. I'm holding out for one with his mask off; there are several different Daredevils, but the only one that shows his face is a limited-edition Comicon one that's expensive and I don't really like it; I want one where he's in street clothes, not the Daredevil costume. (This is the Matt one and believe me, it's the best of a generally terrible bunch.)

But I have the other three in their Netflix versions, and have also picked up a Netflix Claire and Colleen, as well as the comic Misty that I already had since I'm a fan of hers (and this particular subset of the comics in general) from way back in the 80s. There is no TV Misty action figure (yet?).

And, uh. Then I decided I needed accessories for them. I am just at the beginning of this slippery slope but I'm starting to be able to see that it's a loooonng slippery slope and at the bottom is me turning into the dollhouse equivalent of a cat lady, with each dollhouses full of superheroes.

But at the moment I'm having a great time picking out furniture on Amazon and Ebay, and rachelmanija made me some custom accessories out of Fimo clay when she was here, and they are AMAZING.

See all the adorableness under the cut!

( Pictures )

Misty! She was one of my favorite minor Marvel characters back in the day. I have an action figure of her that I got in the early 2000s, in her red comics outfit. I was so worried about not liking the live-action version of her, and then I LOVED her; Simone Messick is the perfect Misty Knight. Making this vid made me heartbroken all over again about never getting more of her.

Title: Monsters and Angels
Fandom: Defendersverse (Defenders, Luke Cage, Iron Fist)
Artist: Voice of the Beehive
Pairings: Mainly Misty/Colleen, some incidental Misty/Luke and Misty/Ward, but not really a pairing vid as such; mainly it's focused on Misty, her found family, and her search for her place in the world.
Summary: I'm nobody's wife and nobody's baby. The true OTP of this vid is Misty/happiness.



Download: 151 Mb MP4 (zipped) | 33 Mb MP4 (zipped)
Tumblr: At my Sholiofic tumblr
AO3: On AO3 here

Subtitles will be added a little later today.

( Lyrics under the cut )

The Netflix Defenders universe continues to be an absolute delight for me. I finished Defenders day before yesterday, which I loved - although I had somehow osmosed that it was 10 episodes, not 8, so as it got into the 8th episode I was thinking "wow, they're wrapping this up awfully fast, are they really going to have 2 episodes of aftermath?" No. The answer was no. XD

But anyway, yeah, I loved that, and then I decided to just watch ( some light spoilers for the second seasons of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones )

And now I am moving on to the second season of Iron Fist, and so far it is just as much of a delight as I hoped it'd be, still just as earnest and charming as season one but with a much better plot. You know, I had this feeling in season one but it's even stronger in season two, that alone of all the Netflix Defenders protagonists, Danny is explicitly about reaching out and making connections to people. Luke kinda does this too, but he's also trying hard to hold himself back from really getting attached, whereas Danny is just this little ray of sunshine who helps random strangers on the street and forgives people who have hurt him and tries to get along with people wherever he goes. I love how Iron Fist is at heart about family, messy families who hurt each other and sometimes even try to kill each other but are still a family. It feels, at the moment anyway, like Danny has a stronger, so to speak, emotional support staff on his show than the other Defenders protagonists do, because he doesn't push people away, he gloms onto them instead. You even sort of get that with other Defendersverse characters who wander onto their show too, e.g. Claire or Hogarth, where the IF characters are just like "stay with us and be our new friend! ♥"

... I mean obviously this is not to say there's anything wrong with the other shows, I like them too! It's just that what I want from a show right now is EXACTLY what this sweet dumb kung fu soap opera is giving me, and I really love it a lot, and I hope it doesn't go to hell in the last few episodes of the season.

(No spoilers past 2x03, please; that's as far as I am right now!)

I think it's interesting what hooks people on a show and what doesn't. I'm watching Luke Cage now (I'd saved that one for last because I knew Orion wanted to see it, but he's never gotten around to it, so you snooze, you lose, Orion XD). But as it turns out, my read on this show was pretty accurate: it's an Orion show, not a sholio type of show.

Objectively it's really well written, I recognize that. And I LOVE Luke, Misty, and Claire. But as of about 6 1/2 episodes into it, I'm just "meh" on everything apart from them.

Part of it is that a serious, gritty show about corrupt cops and mobsters is not precisely what I want right now; I'm more into candy-colored escapism given the current state of the world. But honestly I think the biggest reason why the show isn't really snagging me that hard is because I fall for character relationships, not individual characters. You can hook me hard on a mediocre show or one in which I haven't really learned the characters yet by having them be intense about each other. Iron Fist, despite being objectively a worse show than Luke Cage -- I completely recognize this! -- hooked me from the beginning by having really intense relationships between the characters (Danny + the Meachum siblings, Danny and Colleen, Colleen and Bakudo, Ward and his dad, Danny and Davos ...).

And I basically love that Luke Cage EXISTS. Like, it's a great show, I love that it doesn't have a white character in sight and that's just no big deal, I am really enjoying the music and the aesthetic and the characters individually. But ...

( Spoilers for Luke Cage )

And I'm talking about this not to talk down Luke Cage and talk up Iron Fist, but I just think it's interesting because of what makes me fall for a show, or not -- and it's not necessarily anything to do with the writing or even the protagonists (I mean, as a character, I love Luke whereas I merely like Danny, and Luke's actor is amazing), but all other issues aside, emotional intensity of certain types is about as close to a bulletproof narrative kink as I have. And watching these two shows back to back is like a case study in quality writing that pulls back from the really iddy, emotional stuff, vs. a show that is objectively not so great but is a hammerblow to the feels. And feels win. >__>

(And the thing is, I know it'd be the other way around for plenty of people, e.g. Orion. I've watched enough stuff with him by now to know that he would find the emotional OTT-ness of Iron Fist dull and uncomfortable, and prefer the lower intensity/higher plot ratio of Luke Cage. Whereas I'm the other way around.)

Anyway, after I finish LC, Defenders is next up and I'm really looking forward to it. :D

I cannot BELIEVE that Punisher and Iron Fist are currently my favorite parts of the Netflix Marvel universe. HELP. That being said, somebody come flail with me about Frank and David and Ward and Colleen!

I haven't seen the second season of Iron Fist yet, so nobody spoil me, please!! THE FIRST ONE THO'. It started out uneven and sagged somewhat in the middle, but it was dynamite by the end. Or at least, it was delivering exactly the feels I wanted it to deliver. And the plot twists were killer.

And Punisher is just some of the best damn TV I've seen in awhile.

And they're both really freaking hard to recommend to people, because both of them are essentially a laundry list of Stuff Fandom Doesn't Like (in some ways) and yet total fannish catnip in others.

Why does my heart want what it wants??