(no subject)

Simon is in his crib for a nap, Nicholas is downstairs watching Arthur, and I'm sitting here in front of the computer with a cup of English Breakfast tea and a slab of freshly warmed saffron cake.

Even though I'm coming down with a killer cold, life is good. :)

What's wrong with the big-eyed, shock-haired, androgynous males, anyway?

drmm wrote, in response to Point #5 in my unpopular fannish opinions post:

But I like anime-style fan art. Of course, I like anime, which probably makes a big difference.

For the record, I like anime, too -- in fact, I was practically obsessed with it between the ages of eight and fifteen. Back then I had no idea how much of it there was, or what it was properly called: I only knew that on the French channel there were these gorgeous cartoons like nothing I'd ever seen before.

I didn't understand more than a couple words of French, but every Saturday morning I paid rapt attention to Albator (a.k.a. "Captain Harlock") and Capitaine Flam (otherwise known as "Captain Future" -- I just went to look up the English equivalent, and found this brilliant French site where I am now listening to the theme song I remember -- oh, the nostalgia!).

I was also a devotee of Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets a.k.a. Gatchaman, though I was thoroughly disgusted by the cheap and obvious patch-up job they'd done with American animation for all the "7-Zark-7" bits in the latter. And I watched the entire Macross saga, or at least as much of it as my local station showed -- to my horror they broke off halfway through the third part and I had to run out and buy the novelizations to find out what happened to my beloved Lancer. :)

So yes, I do like anime. I haven't time or opportunity to get into the fandom (and that's a good thing, because I could easily see it becoming an obsession), but there's nothing lacking in my appreciation of Japanese animation or manga.

The point I intended to make was not that anime-style art is horrible and wrong -- it's perfectly appropriate in anime-based fandoms, or if you happen to be a Japanese artist -- but I don't understand why there's such a preponderance of this style of art in fandoms which have no anime connection, such as HP. And there's a lot of carry-over from this, too, where writers and artists seem to take it for granted that the HP males are all bishounen -- which is so at odds with canon it's just weird.

A few anime-type drawings in a non-anime fandom are one thing; an overwhelming flood of them is another. I can find pretty pictures of pretty boys anywhere. But in HP fandom I would really like to see some more realistic illustrations of the characters as JKR describes them. That's all I meant.

Um... that was... interesting...

I've just seen Episode Three of "Scream of the Shalka" (the newest webcast Doctor Who episode) and as before the Ninth Doctor was simultaneously funny, snarky and angsty and I'm liking him more all the time. Plus, more UST! Whee!

But that answering machine message in the TARDIS?

O_o

Paul Cornell is a daring, inventive and teddibly clever lad, but sometimes he just does not know when to stop...