Apparently IRON MAN movieverse is the hip new fandom. People are writing it like crazy. And a lot of it's quite good. Most of the stuff out there is Tony/Pepper of some variety, but there is variety: gen to romance, with even the non-romantic fic focusing on their relationship dynamic and, to some degree, UST, with banter a-plenty (see, for example, "Coming out of His Shell" by confusedkayt or seren_ccd's "Spicy"). There are some other nifty things out there as well; left_arrow wrote me a quick Pepper-and-Alfred crossover with BATMAN BEGINS (yay!), and bacchae23 wrote a flawed but earnest attempt at Yinsen fic.

And there are the things that just make me go "oh, fandom" in various tones. Such as the earnest, wishful request for "REALLY fluffy fics for a poor fan girl": "could someone do a Pepper/Tony fic that had them... have children? A little boy would be really cute..I just thought that Mr. Stark would be the best dad (Not including the whole drinking, womanizing thing)"

Well, yes, *not including that.*

(Seriously, people. Equal parts *facepalm* and *adorable.* I am half inclined to try writing it for her.)

But there are seriously good fics out there, so if you're looking for something new, check 'em out. Such as "Four Times Pepper Considered Quitting and the One Time She Did," by seren_ccd. *points to fic* Yes, that.

(Don't forget: OH JOHN RINGO NO, the T-shirt, benefitting the Helen Bamber Foundation!)

That's right. They're here. GET 'EM NOW.

These shirts are absolutely dandy, folks. The artist/designer is the awesome vito_excalibur, and when her email hit my inbox I went from zero to happy in about a tenth of a second. ( Look at this: )

dafnap linked "Proof," which is a really good IRON MAN movieverse fic. It got me thinking. The movie was a lot of fun, surprisingly modest in a lot of its aims, and did an excellent job of presenting the character and his world to the filmgoing audience. Plus, Gwyneth Paltrow did a wonderful job with a part that would be *really* easy to make come off as weak and fawning; instead, she comes off as gentle and a little vulnerable, which sometimes feels a little odd in a character who thrives in high-pressure environments but mostly makes her a good contrast to the hero and an essential part of his support system. (I kind of want her to meet up with Michael Caine's Alfred, so they can have tea and compare notes.)

( Very minor spoiler. )

Yesterday, May 6, was the 66th anniversary of the fall of Corregidor. I meant to post this then.

A while ago, I found a recording and translation of the Morse Code message sent out by Corporal Irving Strobing as the Japanese took the island. It's one of the most harrowing things I've ever heard. Corporal Strobing was clearly freaking the hell out, and while he held it together enough to send the message and report on the condition of affairs, the effects of the constant bombardment and the pressure of the moment are evident in the tone and content of his reports. He also asks that the receiver of the message send his love to his family.

Strobing lived, and was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese. He stayed a POW until the end of the war, but he survived his captivity and made it home.

Last night was pretty awesome. Ash, Denise and I went to MONSTER JAM, which in small-town Florida basically means a few minutes of monster truck action punctuated by ATV races and a race by beat-up old cars tearing around the track and smashing into one another until their wheels fall off (literally). I honestly don't know if I'd ever been to a monster truck thing in my life. I may have, as a kid, but have no memories of it. I do remember going to see rodeos, and the circus (featuring Gunther Gebel-Williams), and a personal appearance by Spider-Man, but I don't remember any monster trucks. So maybe last night was a first.

We made bets on what the crowd would be like. It was overwhelmingly white and redneck, sure, but it was still far more diverse than any of us had expected. There were a fair number of black folks, and I heard people speaking Spanish; at the same time, the Confederate flag was out in force: T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers on the fifty gazillion pick-up trucks in the parking lot. You would never have guessed that the South had lost the war. My favorite display of the Stars'n'Bars? No question. This guy.

I'm guessing that grinning, behatted dude is the truck's owner, and I'm going to cling to that belief in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. Because that is so ludicrous it's *awesome.*

The demolition derby race was pretty fun: the winner entered as Car 55, the police car seen memorably in a truck in THE BLUES BROTHERS, and a station wagon billed itself as THE GRISWOLD FAMILY. One car lost a wheel halfway through, but kept going until it lost another and was beached. Probably rigged to happen, but nicely done even so. There were some interesting choices in the music they had blaring from the speakers; I expected stuff like "Bad to the Bone" and "God Bless the USA," but I was a little surprised to hear Disturbed's cover of Genesis's "Land of Confusion". Maybe they had a Ron Paul fan on the soundboard?

I watched SUPERNATURAL last night, and I just have to ask: that was a new episode, right? I mean, I dunno about you guys, but I think I saw that Sam-and-Dean conversation where Dean is prickly but eventually admits he is scared about the bad mojo he's under and the brothers bond in the moment of newfound vulnerability ONLY ABOUT SIXTEEN TIMES this season. Really, I think they peaked with that angle a while ago; you'd think the writers would've figured out the next stage in their main characters' relationship dynamic by now.

I know there are lots of folks who *love* the show's emoporn moments, but one of the reasons I liked SUPERNATURAL when I first came to it was that they avoided so much of that annoying stuff and just got down to the business of investigating weird things and beating the daylights out of monsters. Maybe it's helped that they've had only two main characters, and relatively few recurring ones; they couldn't get bogged down in subplots the way some shows with ever-growing casts have (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, I look over my shoulder in your direction -- YOU DID ME WRONG, SHOW). Yeah, it's hard as hell on the two leads, because they're in every damn scene (I read an interview with Jensen Ackles where he described his reaction to a Matthew Fox interview about Fox's shooting schedule on LOST, which Fox said was great -- he got paid well, worked two or three days a week, and spent a lot of time on the beach in Hawaii; Ackles, who works 34-hour days in Vancouver, plunged into the depths of misery for the rest of the week), but it makes for a much better show dynamic. Because they pretty much have to keep moving. Which means it's kind of glaring when they don't.

So I invited people to tell me their favorite stories I never wrote as an excuse for me to write a corresponding drabble (cyano, I'm still workin' on yours), and cmar_wingnut stepped up in style:

The bed romantically strewn with ammo was a nice touch in your amazing Hammer/Cameron love scene!

...SLEDGE HAMMER! crossover with TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.

Okay, I can do that.

( This got way longer than I anticipated. It's too big for a comment, so you get a ficlet here. )

Apologies for low activity; it's been a busy couple of days. I know some folks still have drabbles outstanding -- I'll try to finish that off tomorrow.

Today was busy, but productive. I am now a certified range safety officer, or will be when the NRA processes my paperwork. It's the first step for me in getting a bunch of instructor qualifications. I'd like to be able to teach people, at least on a basic level; I've taken people shooting for the first time before, of course, but it'd be nice to be able to give them a certificate at the end.

In other news, I found STAND BY ME in a cheap DVD bin. Now *there's* a great movie. Best film Reiner's ever made, and it's just a wonderful flick. Great adaptation of Stephen King's novella, wonderfully shot and acted. "Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a Duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?" "He's a dog, man." "No, he's not. He wears clothes and drives a car. Pluto doesn't do that." "Damn, that is weird. What the hell *is* Goofy?"

Apparently there is interest in an "OH JOHN RINGO NO" T-shirt. Okay, folks, I hear you. Ideally, if enough people want them, we can print up a bunch. I'd like to see about doing something charitable with this, if we do it -- maybe the Helen Bamber Foundation, which angevin2 mentioned in the comments of the review post, as well as a veterans' charity (maybe John could suggest one he'd like), could benefit. If only a few people are interested in shirts, we could try a print-on-demand thing.

So, let's make it a community project. If you'd actually buy an OH JOHN RINGO NO T-shirt, post a comment to that effect. If you think you've got a good design for an OH JOHN RINGO NO T-shirt, post the image in comments below. I'll winnow down to the finalists, and we can have a poll. Sound OK?

UPDATE: It's official. The T-shirt project is now JOHN RINGO ENDORSED, and he's approved the Helen Bamber Foundation as the charity beneficiary for the T-shirt sales. (Yes, they'll probably be horrified, as they complain about Gitmo on their web page, but the Foundation helps a lot of women who've been forced into prostitution -- and I ask you, isn't that exactly what Mike does? ...in his way.) No design entries so far, so I'm going to talk to some fanartists and get something nice drawn up. I'll send the word out when we're ready to go.

UPDATE AGAIN: Design work is in progress by a surprise artist! Will let you know when we're ready to go.

UPDATE YET AGAIN: Apologies for the delay -- two artists are sketching, and both have had lots of other things come up. Remarkably, people who have skills seem to be in demand.

UPDATE: THEY'RE HERE!!! You can now buy OH JOHN RINGO NO shirts, to benefit the Helen Bamber Foundation. Details here; shirts are here. Shirt design and artistry by vito_excalibur, of story and song.

Good drabble suggestions! Will have more up tonight. Hi to the new folks; just so you know, I don't just post about John Ringo and SF; I tend to post about guns a lot.

Case in point! ABC News has a story up that has gun-bloggers up in arms. (Figuratively.) The upshot is that, per ABC, Mexico's drug lords are being armed by weapons from the US. If this is accurate, it's a problem we should look into doing something about. (WALL ALONG THE BORDER! ...I kid.) But first, we need to know how big a problem it is. And ABC's accuracy is not inspiring confidence. Check out their accompanying pictures. Note the 40mm grenade launchers. And grenades. Just so you know, each one of those grenades is considered an NFA weapon; if you go through the expensive licensing process required to purchase those, you have to find a dealer licensed to sell 'em who's willing to sell 'em to you, as a private citizen (and good luck; those guys make their livelihood on military and police contracts, so they're not going be inclined to spend time with you). Then you have to pay the (high) price, with a $200 tax on each one. The ATF can come out and inspect them at any time, and if you fire one you have to send the pieces back to the ATF so they can verify you shot it. To prove that the problem is lax American gun laws, ABC is showing a picture of some of the most tightly-regulated, hard to buy, heavily-scrutinized items of military hardware on the market. Oops.

They also emphasize the FN Five-seveN's ability to pierce body armor with a pistol round. Which it can! ...if you've got the armor-piercing rounds that are, gosh, only available to police and military in the US.

The article does have some interesting items in it: apparently, the Colt El Senador is a popular pistol among Mexican gang types. I'd never heard of it, but the fact that it's in .38 Super got me suspicious. That's the maximum legal handgun caliber in Mexico. Turns out, yup, the El series are high-end 1911s made in .38 Super for the Mexican market.

...I kind of want one.