From the inthewildwood comm: A Commentfic Meme

[valiha]

I want to read about awesome women, dammit!

Comments

[slavelabour.livejournal.com]

Me, too. I was just talking to a friend about Nikita (which is the Femme Nikita reboot with Maggie Q) because she's so good and so capable and fast and badass, I totally forget she's a woman. She's just that awesome. Rizzoli and Isles are really good, too, (and they started in fiction prior to tv) but they remind you they're women while being strong which is cool, also, but Nikita, wow. It's been a long time since I've fangirled a woman like that. I've missed it!

[dj-aida.livejournal.com]

Is it a reboot of the original movie or the series? I heard some talk about it, but over here we're so dismally behind the shows that are current in US and UK that we either see them two years later or they're never even shown. I'm aware of all the Rizzoli and Isles fangirling, but never saw them. I didn't even know they were book based - I can't tell you how much it kills me that I've stopped reading books! I haven't read an honest-to-God novel in two years probably. All I read these days are student essays and textbooks. What little time I have for reading I spend on fic, and my criteria for what fic I will read has risen enormously.

I left a prompt for Allianora from the Invisible Man, who was so despised that the fandom held a kill-her-off contest. She was beautiful, morally ambiguous, and was in a love/hate relationship with the main character. Guess those are justified reasons for the hate, don't ya think? *muttergrumble*

[slavelabour.livejournal.com]

It's a reboot of the television series and there are actually more strong recurring female characters than there are strong men in this version. :)

Is there a strong slash pairing in IM fandom? Sometimes a woman, any woman, who has some sort of canon tie to a male lead is considered soooo threatening to a slash pairing and the stronger the m/f tie, the more the fandom will hate on the woman. I don't like character bashing but it bothers me more when women are hating on strong female characters in fandom just because she's in the way of the imaginary m/m pairing.

[dj-aida.livejournal.com]

Is there a strong slash pairing in IM fandom?

You know, now that you mention it, there is, between the I-Man himself, Darien Fawkes and his partner, BobbyHobbes! who is paranoid, medicated and talks about himself in the third person.

And oh God you'd probably love I-Man to death! I'm copying the following from International Hero (Warning: long text is long, but I want to play with the layout and pics):

Meet Darien "Aw crap!" Fawkes:

"Darien Fawkes was a career burglar until he robbed an old man's house and was discovered, the old man promptly suffering a heart attack. Darien attempted to to revive the man, but, just as he succeeded, the police found him, and in a position that made it look like he was raping the old man. Under California's three strikes rule, this would mean he would be imprisoned for life, if his brother, Kevin, hadn't come to his rescue.

Kevin Fawkes was a scientist working for the government on a prototype implant originally developed by his and Darien's uncle, who had figured out a way to create a working bio-synthetic gland while working for the government under "the Official". After his death, Kevin came in and took his uncle's research and made a Quicksilver gland. A gland that secrets the synthetic hormone called Quicksilver (not the same as the element Mercury). The project needed a guinea pig, so Kevin arranged with his bosses to have Darien released from prison in return for agreeing to be the test case. Believing that since his brother was head scientist for the experiment, the surgery would have to be safe, Darien went along with this.

The gland was implanted at the base of Darien's skull, allowing him to release quantities of Quicksilver into his body, allowing his body to bend light and thus become invisible. The operation was a success - but the doctor died. Another scientist, Arnaud De Fehrne, had also been working on the gland, and he proved to be a traitor, partially sabotaging the process and killing Kevin while doing so. He had mutated the gland before it was implanted into Darien to release toxic chemicals causing a terrible side effect - the chemical would cause a state of growing paranoia and psychosis dubbed Quicksilver Madness, unless Darien got daily injections of Counteragent, an antidote - and even this could only slow the drift into insanity.

If Darien stays invisible too long he risks permanent psychosis - "Quicksilver Madness" (in fact, even without being invisible, the chemicals would eventually cause madness if not treated daily with a counteragent), but a tattoo of an ouroboros (a snake eating its tail) on the bottom of his right wrist under his watch band helps his Keeper keep track of how far the Quicksilver has slipped into his system. When his system was clear of the toxic quicksilver it was green. As the toxic chemicals built up in his system then the snake would slowly turn red starting from the tail to the head. When the head finally turned red then he would hit stage one Quicksilver madness. There were a number of stages and symptoms to the Madness - for example, in the earliest stage Darien's eyes would turn red; by the fifth stage the eyes would be silver, and the Madness would be irreversible and incurable.

[dj-aida.livejournal.com]

Here's BobbyHobbes!:

With the only man who could have removed the Gland (his brother) dead, and a secretive government operation known only as The Agency his only source of Counteragent, Darien became a reluctant secret agent. Partnered with cynical ex-FBI man Bobby Hobbes, answering to The Official at the "Department of Fish and Game", and relying on the Keeper for his doses of counteragent, his cases would see him encounter the villainous Chrysalis organisation; Catevari, another experimental agent whose touch was deadly poison; Allianora, a Chrysalis operative who could drown men with a kiss; China's invisible woman; and of course, the evil Arnaud De Fehrne. However, some of Darien's most interesting cases included him discovering two rather interesting details about the Quicksilver gland; namely, where the gland had been before, and where the Quicksilver had come from."

And Allianora, aka Aquamama:

There's much banter between the characters, coming from both good writing and a lot of improv by the two actors. At first, BobbyHobbes! resents Fawkes' higher pay grade, and is not impressed by his ability to turn invisible, but they soon become good friends who would do anything for each other. Hobbes takes Fawkes under his wing, and teaches him about the undercover world ("Was I in Beirut? I was Beirut!"). He carries a torch for the Keeper (Terry Greer from "Safecracker", hee!), but since they work together, he won't make a move. ("BobbyHobbes! doesn't fish off the Company's pier, my friend.") There's nothing in the world Darien wants more than to get the gland out of his head, which has a 90% chance of killing him, and even if it weren't that dangerous, The Official isn't keen on letting him go. There's a lot of angst all around (Darien: "I believe the glass is half full. Unfortunately, it's filled with blood."), as Darien gets extremely violent when under the influence of Quicksilver Madness and remembers everything once he comes out of it.

Most of the hate against Allianora is justified by saying that her ability is ridiculous: she is basically an assassin for a terrorist organization, and was surgically altered to breathe under water and hold large quantities of it in her stomach, using it to drown men she kisses. She was drawn as an ambiguous character, sometimes foiling Darien's plans, sometimes helping him, and she saved his life on two occasions. She got recruited in a hospital, where she was dying of lung cancer. Once Chrysalis had her, there was no way to walk away ("You know, you once asked me if I regretted it, what they did to me... I don’t need to bond with you, okay? We already did that when they cut us open and they took out the part that makes us normal."). The writer who mostly wrote her character has publicly stated he hated her, which, WTF?? Also, I just realized the character is played by a woman of color, so that may have had something to do with the hate. I don't know, since living where I live I'm not exposed to questions of race.

[slavelabour.livejournal.com]

You know, I recognise both of these actors! I'm a total sucker for old-school comic book type heroes and the IM has such interesting history to him but this is a total reboot, obviously. I like what they did with the chemicals and the madness (and his need for a Counteragent). It's somewhat similar to something in one of my video games (part of the Metal Gear series) how what makes you stronger WILL kill you, eventually. Tragic but dramatic, too. Bobby Hobbes is reminding me of Stark from Farscape (who was also paired with Crichton but Crichton/Aeryn were one of my big time ships), what with the crazy but hardcore friendship. :)

I have to say that Allianora is GORGEOUS. So she's a siren with crazy abilities and this is somehow less viable than the IMan's? She's as much a victim of what is going on as Darien, isn't she? If she chooses strength over the bitching and moaning and endless why me, well heck, I love her just for that, lol. But serious WTF about the creator who hates her?! How can anyone create a character they hate? So is the fandom based mostly here in America or the UK?

[dj-aida.livejournal.com]

Watching Vincent Ventresca go through the whole range of emotion is just amazing, and Paul Ben-Victor is just as good. If you ever find yourself with some extra time on your hands, I'd recommend getting this and spending 42 wonderful episodes with The Agency.

Yes, she is, and I love her muchly. She's known as the Mermaid, a.k.a. Aquamama. And, yes indeed, WTF at the writer. He wanted to create a character with vampiric powers, but apparently TPTB, didn't want to go that route; they wanted a beautiful woman instead. Hee, Fawkes is often all "Why me?" :) But I love him too! ♥ Go and find the show! Wait no more! Not seeing is believing!

The show is long gone, it was on in 2000, I think, and I wasn't involved with the fandom then. I came in when it was all over, but the virtual season was going strong. There were fans from all over the world. It seems to have died out, but every once in a while I hear some news about the fans trying to get some sort of a reunion film going.