it's a magical world

Ugh, being back at work sucks. Oh, well.

Failed to do any more vidding over the weekend, but I do have more than 7k words of fic now -- not quite a full chapter, but close. Once upon a time, I would have considered 7000 words to be a complete fic, and of respectable length at that. Now it's barely even a good start. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.

But anyway, I just had to say, sometimes the crossover moments really just write themselves. Here, have an out-of-context snippet. (All you need to know is that the XMFC characters are an extraction team in the Inception universe.)

( snippet from XMFC/Inception fusion sequel )

Everyone on the internet has already seen this, of course, but on the remote off-chance you missed it: the infamous Erik-in-drag cut scene.

Honestly, what makes me so gleeful about this isn't Fassbender in drag; it's how McAvoy clearly cannot even sort of keep a straight face. OH MY GOD CHARLES WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

Also, I already have a huge soft spot for Angel, and her reaction to Erik here is beyond adorable. ♥

Dear X-Men: First Class fandom,

I know you love the 1960s. I love the 1960s, too. It was a fun decade. Here's the thing: if you are setting your fic within the timeframe of the movie, we're specifically talking 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October 1962. Now, I'm well aware the film played rather fast and loose with actual history, and this is probably not the place to nitpick. And I'm going to flat out ignore all the ridiculous kinkmeme requests for things like Charles and Erik posing as a married couple in order to be able to adopt a child (I have actually seen this one, and it wasn't requested as an AU, which, just -- do you even know what US adoption laws in the PRESENT DAY look like?), or getting groovy in a club to Lady Gaga. Because crack!AUs absolutely have their place, and that's fine, whatever floats your boat.

But I'm halfway through an otherwise well-written recruitment roadtrip fic, and I've already been jarred out of it by multiple blatant anachronisms that I was able to double-check in approximately five seconds each on Wikipedia. Look, we're not all experts on life in the US in 1962. God knows I'm not. We're all likely to commit minor errors, and okay, no biggie. But seriously, when it's obvious enough that a non-period-expert-by-any-stretch is pulled right out of your story -- mrf. This is what betas are for. This is what stopping and thinking and doing a quick internet search are for. And, sure, you can fudge things, but none of these were crucial plot elements, just throwaway references, and all it would have taken was a tiny tweak and hey, we're all good.

I don't in any way mean to pick on this one unnamed fic in particular, and otherwise it really is well-written. Which is probably why I am so annoyed, actually -- if it were just sloppy writing all around, I wouldn't care. But this rant has been building for a while, and this came along just in time to be my outlet.

For the record:
1. Yes, the Beatles were playing actively in 1960-2. Mostly in Germany, a bit in England. Their first hit single in the UK was "Love Me Do", released in October 1962. Would our First Classmen have heard of the Beatles? Sure, that's within the realm of possibility. Would the Beatles be playing nonstop on their car radios in the US? Nope. Especially not before October, if we're assuming the roadtrip was more than a week before the beach scene, which I think we can, and even then they didn't really make it onto US airwaves until 1963.
2. "Hippies", as a subculture, did exist by 1962. But that term would not be created by the popular media until the mid-60s, and Charles certainly wouldn't use it in an offhand reference in 1962. "Beatniks" would be a far more likely word to choose.
3. I'm a little hazier on this one, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but while "credit cards" did already exist, they were much rarer and not used in the way they are today. Charles wouldn't slap down his credit card at the airport and have it be declined. That's a much more modern (in)convenience. ETA: I stand corrected -- it's possible he would use a card like this, though uncommon.
4. Cirque de Soleil DID NOT EXIST until the 1980s. No excuse here. Why could this not just be a generic circus?
5. Grey Goose vodka, by that name, was not marketed until 1997. Patrón tequila, 1989. Five seconds on Wikipedia to check that.

Yours in obsessive nitpickiness,
kaydee

Finally got around to installing shiny new Final Cut Express yesterday, then spent a couple of hours futzing. WOW this is nowhere near as intuitive as iMovie, though I found some tutorials on YouTube, which help take the edge off. I get the feeling I'm going to be banging my head against this software for a while before I'm finally comfortable vidding with it. Surely somewhere on the internet some wonderful fannish person has made a tutorial for vidding purposes? Because I'm looking for a somewhat different sort of functionality out of this than the software is marketed toward, and no tutorial I've found directly addresses the aspects I want to use, so it's hard to sort through the information overload on features I will never use to find brief factoids on what I do need. (For example, it took me WAY too long to figure out how to display audio waveforms, and I still haven't figured out a quick and easy way to split long clips into multiple cuts. A slow and tedious way, yes, but that will quickly drive me to drink.) Any fellow vidders have any helpful links for new users?

And then I got distracted by X-Men again. I hope we're approaching the collective fandom point where the kinkmemes are quieting down a bit and people are starting to actually write longer, plotty fic. Because I love me some good long fic with PLOTS and CHARACTERIZATION and stuff that I don't have to dig through 25 pages of commentfic for. Yes please?

I also realized that my femgenficathon prompt is eerily perfect for this fandom, and with my unintentionally epic Charles/Erik fic in beta, I'm already poking at a gen Angel fic. I know I've really landed in a new fandom when I'm writing gen fic about female characters that approximately five other people will be interested in reading. \o/ Ironically, the prompt is a quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross -- and at the time, the only fic I'd posted so far this year was a gen Tosh fic inspired by Kübler-Ross. Apparently I've got a theme going. Whatever, I'm just so happy to be writing again.

Yeah, I saw X-Men again. I kind of cannot handle how much I love this stupid movie, despite the race!fail (which is admittedly appalling) and, to a lesser extent, gender!fail. ( spoilers again )

Now I have two fannish dilemmas to resolve:

1. Fic. I'm partway through another kinkmeme fill, and revisiting the source made me realize I made a pretty noticeable continuity error in one of the parts I've already (anonymously) posted. This is why I never post WIPs, guys -- because I EDIT CONSTANTLY as I write. So do I just go on finishing the fill!fic as is, and then post a link to the edited non-anonymous version once I'm done? Or do I stop posting, finish the damn fic, edit it thoroughly, and then post the link to it at the kinkmeme? I'm inclined toward the second option. I hate that I can't go back and edit the parts I've already posted, I'd much rather have a complete and coherent fic. Thoughts?

2. Vid. Of course, of COURSE I have a massive X-Men movieverse vidbunny eating my brain. The entire movieverse, mind -- including X3, which I despise but has some shots I know I want, and the Wolverine movie, which I haven't even seen, what the hell. Problem being, while I have X1 and X2 on DVD, I don't have source for X3 or Wolverine, and then -- well, obviously, First Class just opened like two weeks ago, any bootlegs roaming the internets are of deeply subpar quality. (I have not actually seen any bootleg versions, by the by, but people have been making GIFs out of SOMETHING.) ARGH. I guess I'll be sitting on this one for a few months at least. But in the meantime, does anyone know where I might find source for X3 or Wolverine? (You can PM or e-mail me if so -- and hey, if anyone owns the physical DVDs and lives in the DC area and would be willing to lend them to me super-quick...)

In conclusion: RESISTANCE PEACE WAS NEVER AN OPTION.

I'm sorry, is there a reason no one seems to be talking about how freaking cool the Wolverine trailer looks?

I know the X-Men fandom got badly burned by the steaming pile of crap that was X3, but you cannot deny the awesome power of Hugh Jackman's biceps. And also Liev Schreiber.

In other news, it is almost 70F outside, and that is a glorious thing.

Dominic Monaghan's gonna be in the Wolverine movie.

WHAT.

Okay, so we already have Ian McKellen in both LOTR and X-Men universes, it's true. But this BLOWS MY MIND.

DOM! AS AN X-MAN! Well, not technically, but Marvelverse mutant, at least.

In spite of everything that was bad about X3, I'm really, really tempted to see it again just for the Charles/Erik and Bobby/John bits. REALLY tempted. Even though I know I'll just walk out ranting about all the bad things again.

Oh, god, I'm so totally going to wind up getting this on DVD just to watch the first scene about a bajillion times, aren't I?

I'm...not quite sure how to respond to X-Men 3. Parts of it I absolutely adored, but then, parts of it made me want to pull a Phoenix and pulverize the movie theater. So.

( X3 spoilers like whoa )

For those of you who know more about X-Men than I do -- how long has Xavier been in that wheelchair? Was he already crippled when Jean was his student, or did it happen later? And was Magneto responsible, or am I just making that up?

It's for my xmmficathon fic, so while I'm cool with just making up a backstory that fits my fic, I'd rather go with canon if I can...

First off, Happy birthday, natasha1805! Hope it's a happy one!


...In other news, I am so going to finish this X2 fic tonight. Seriously. If I start slacking off or procrastinating or something, cyberslap me. Right. And while we're on the subject, anyone willing to beta this thing once it's done? Iceman/Pyro/Rogue? Anyone? Bueller?

Oooh, and bought X-Men 1.5 DVD today. On impulse. Will sigh over less coolness and amuse myself with special features when I have time. But I figure it's a good DVD to have. Right?

I was thisclose to starting an X-Men fanfic community. Fortunately, I saved myself the headache of community-starting by looking to see if one already existed. And I found x_slash. Which was apparently created yesterday, and has no fic yet, but much promise for goodness. So join it and write many happy ficcies. You know you want to.

X-Men 2 is nearly upon us. I am so very ready to embrace my not-so-inner geek. The Iceman/Pyro icon is back and raring to go. Now feed me slash!