Fanfiction Fridays: A Fickle Heart

Usually when I suggest fics they are complete, but today I am instead offering one which has just begun. A Fickle Heart is the latest story by one of my favorite authors, Candid-Canoe, and it has everything I love: Kogan, Fate, Mystery, and Romance.

So far only the first chapter has been published. Logan Mitchell, a doctor, wakes up after his heart transplant with pain, confusion, and the nagging thought that something is, if not exactly wrong, then at least different. The new heart seems to be the obvious culprit, but Logan knows that the human heart is not the poetic store of emotion that artists make it; it is an organ which does a job and nothing flows through it but blood. The story is an AU and so far we know that Logan is a doctor who buries himself in his work, using it as an excuse to not take care of his personal life so that his friend Carlos is kept at arm’s distance and his mother only gets to see him when something’s wrong.

This kind of behavior is so typical of Logan’s canon personality in which he fears personal interaction and hides behind excuses or altered personas, and this is what I love about Candid-Canoe’s AU stories: even when the situations are changed to affect the characters we know and love from the show in new ways, there is an essence which remains true to who they are. However influenced it may be by the situation, it doesn’t feel like an unrecognizable character. I think that’s so important in any fanfiction but especially in AU’s where the author needs to get the reader to make the leap from the established world in which we fell in love with the characters originally and now follow them in a new and different set of circumstances.

The above link goes to Candid-Canoe’s tumblr, but the story is also hosted on fanfiction.net where it will probably be easier to follow updates, so check it out here as well.

Fanfiction Fridays: “Grounded”

Grounded by tumblr author Jackasslow is a three-part Big Time Rush fanfic about two of my favorite aspects of the show: Kendall and Logan’s relationship and Mrs. Knight’s parenting.

The story begins with Kendall disrespecting his mother (bad move, bro) so she grounds him. He is grounded not only from the usual privileges like television and cell phone, but also from something far more important: Logan! This is extremely difficult for Kendall, and Logan too. To be honest, their attachment to each other bordered on unhealthy in the early days of this show, constantly needing physical closeness and reassurance from each other, and this story takes place during those young, clingy days of new love, so they’re not handling it very well.

The reason I enjoy this fic so much is because it highlights Jennifer Knight’s ability to handle her children. What I’ve always loved about Mrs. Knight is that she is not the absent, neglectful, overbearing, flighty, or otherwise ineffective parent that tends to appear in Nickelodeon shows, and most shows aimed at the teen/tween demographic. In most of these shows, if a parent is present (and many times they aren’t) they’re usually the butt of the joke in their magnificent ineptitude, but Jennifer Knight has been an exception to that rule since the beginning of the show. She demands respect from her children and the other boys in her charge and makes them take responsibility for their actions. She’s actually, you know, parenting. She doesn’t always know what to do but she manages, and that portrayal of a parent who disciplines and loves and struggles is one of the most unique and beautiful aspects of Big Time Rush to me.

Even though this story is primarily about Kendall, it’s the attention given to Mrs. Knight that makes it stand out to me. She is the one who gets the plot going and causes the personal growth in the main character which finally leads to the resolution. The story is also hosted on fanfiction.net as a single chapter rather than broken into three parts if you’d prefer to read there rather than on tumblr. Check it out; it’s a great little piece celebrating some of my favorite characters.

Fanfiction Fridays: When the Music Stops

Hello readers, it’s me, Fiyero3305, bringing you another wonderful AU Big Time Rush fic. Today’s story comes from the very talented author candidcanoe and is titled “When the Music Stops“.

As I’ve mentioned in my reviews of the show, the boys of Big Time Rush started out as four friends growing up together in Minnesota before unexpectedly ending up with a trip to Los Angeles to become a boy band for a desperate record producer named Gustavo Rocque. This story is AU because it explores how things would be different if one of the four guys never moved to Minnesota, making for a completely different dynamic for the trio of friends as opposed to the quartet we know in the show.

In this story Logan suffers an accident as a child which leaves him deaf. Because his parents don’t want to uproot him in light of the situation they decide not to move to Minnesota as planned and Logan instead grows up in Texas, never knowing the three boys who would have been his best childhood friends had he gotten to meet them. Up north, James, Carlos, and Kendall grow up loving each other but never having the proper symmetry to their friendship. This is felt most keenly by Kendall, who has to deal with knowing James and Carlos share a closer bond with each other than they do with him while he has no one to call his own, to be his best friend.

Logan’s absence affects the group in another way: they never become Big Time Rush. Gustavo Rocque still comes to Shakopee, Minnesota on his talent search but instead of accepting Kendall’s terms of making his friends into a band in order for him to sign on with the producer’s label, he passes on the offer of a three-man boy band. The trio does feel the call to music, however, and try to make themselves a band and move to LA on their own.

Music also becomes very important to Logan in his adolescence. Growing up without his sense of hearing he has a unique appreciation for music in that he feels it rather than hearing it but it fills a need in his soul. Logan in this story grows up very differently than Logan in the show. He’s isolated and relies only on himself. He has trust issues and doesn’t express himself very well or put himself at risk of emotional pain but finding music gives him an artistic release. He pursues his dreams of being a drummer by attending school in LA.

From here, I’m sure you’ve guessed that he meets up with Kendall, James, and Carlos but things don’t go so smoothly. Read the story to find out all the twists and turns of how these four friends find each other and how differently they work together having grown up apart. It’s not so easy as one may assume and I love that candidcanoe keeps the story character-driven and doesn’t make things easy or clean when the four finally meet. There’s no magic moment of fitting in and understanding; it takes work and not everything is perfect harmony. I love it when authors don’t sacrifice characterization for a neat and pleasant story, so if you’re like me then you should definitely give this story a read.

Sexualized Saturdays: “Straight guys don’t do that!”

I’m sure our readers know that I am a big fan of Big Time Rush, but you may not know that I am also a fan of Supernatural. In fact, I was the one to tell Ladies Geek Girl and Saika about the show in the first place and encourage them to watch it, so…

I’m not very active in the SPN fandom anymore, though, because my work schedule makes it difficult to keep up with the show, which is why I don’t really post about it. (I am watching the anime version right now though, so expect a post or two about that once I finish the series) Back when the show started, however, I followed the fandom pretty closely through LiveJournal and forums (these were pre-tumblr days folks!) so I was very aware of the shipping and all that in the fandom. One of the things I noticed that irked me, which I’ve also noticed in the BTR fandom, was that any time Sam and Dean (or Jared and Jensen, for that matter) showed affection or concern for one another everyone jumped all over it as being proof that they were gay for each other.

 

Why does this bother me? Well, for one, I related strongly to the family dynamic in Supernatural. I saw myself in Sam so much and the relationships he had with Dean and John hit really close to home with my own relationships with my brother and father. It was wonderful to see them try, fail, try again, make headway, etc. in their relationships with one another and the strength of familial love between them reminded me of my own and gave me hope that no matter what troubles may exist in my own family we could get through them because we loved each other.

Then I went online and that love was turned from something purely familial into something lustful and I was made to feel uncomfortable and confused. Why did it seem no one could believe that these men loved each other as father and son, brother and brother? Why did any sign of affection have to be turned into something romantic or sexual? One of the phrases I saw thrown around a lot in the SPN fandom and even more so in the BTR fandom is “Straight guys don’t do that.”

And any time I see that phrase, or some variation thereof, I want to ask “Says who?”

Big Time Rush: The Show (Continued)

 

I finally get to talk about Big Time Rush again! After that self-imposed restriction of only talking about Halloween-y stuff last month I can finally post about other things I love which means getting back to BTR.

You were all waiting with bated breath, I just know it.

Last time I talked about the show I gave kind of a cursory glance to various aspects of it and today I’d like to dive a little more deeply into a few of the things I mentioned in that post.

One of the things I have loved about this show from the very beginning is the characterization. This is something I go absolutely crazy for in any media (be it television, literature, film, or theatre) and the writers of BTR put great effort into creating worthwhile, rounded characters in their show right off the bat. I’ve already talked about the four main guys’ basic character traits so today I’d like to talk more about their development along with the other characters in the show.

Fanfiction Fridays: Hanging On (At the End of the World)

Whenever I hear the word “epidemic” in conjunction with post-apocalyptic stories I assume “zombies”. This story does not have zombies but I still chose to write about it as one of my Halloween-themed posts because it’s awesome and the collapse of civilization is still a pretty frightening subject so I think it counts.

Hanging On (At the End of the World) is an AU Big Time Rush fanfic written for this year’s Big Time Big Bang by author CerinityKS with artwork by teh_emowaffle.

WARNINGS: I must warn for violence, a graphic almost-sex scene, and mentions of offstage sexual abuse. It’s rated M for a reason, this story ain’t kidding around, but I think these situations are handled pretty well by the author.

The story follows the four friends as they deal with the aftermath of a deadly black market drug which causes either death or animalistic homicidal rages in its users. The premise has a very 28 Days Later feel to it and definitely has some similarities to other pandemic films but it doesn’t feel unoriginal and Cerinity’s writing is strong enough to make the story very much her own.

I wanted to finish introducing Big Time Rush the show before posting any fanfiction about it but since those posts have been put on hold in favor of my spooky October posts I had to give up on that hope. Thankfully the story is fully AU so it doesn’t matter too much if the reader is unfamiliar with the show’s canon. CerinityKS has written a piece that I believe is complete on its own and doesn’t rely very heavily on the reader knowing the characters beforehand since they have new backgrounds anyway.

The story involves shipping, namely Kendall/Logan (my OTP) and James/Carlos but what I love is that it’s still a story independent of these relationships. It’s not just relationship drama, it’s a story that has relationship drama included. The story gives focus to these aspects but it’s not just one character yearning for another and then confessing his love at the end. Instead, it’s a very character-driven piece which I absolutely love.

Big Time Rush: The Show

 

The pilot episode of Big Time Rush premiered on Nickelodeon in November of 2009. It told the story of four best friends attending high school in a small town in Minnesota, getting into mischief, playing hockey, and caring for each other. These four friends are Kendall Knight, Logan Mitchell, Carlos Garcia, and James Diamond and their personalities are established fairly clearly in their first escapade: soaking the girls’ field hockey team with a sprinkler prank. Kendall is our leader, Logan is cautious, Carlos is reckless, and James is ambitious.

It is James’ ambition to be a popstar which eventually leads all four boys to an audition for former boyband manager Gustavo Rocque, who is looking for a new solo artist. Though Kendall, Logan, and Carlos only attend the audition to support James they all end up on the audition list thanks to an exasperated assistant by the name of Kelly Wainwright, who has already travelled the country with Rocque and found no one worth signing. After James, Logan, and Carlos are all berated by Gustavo for their auditions, Kendall takes the stage and mocks the record producer’s sappy pop ballads and cheesy dance routines which haven’t been popular in the last ten years.

It is in this show of contempt that Gustavo sees the necessary “fire” in Kendall and offers him the contract with Rocque Records. Kendall quickly and defiantly tells the man he can forget about it.

After his friends tell Kendall he would be stupid not to take this opportunity and assure him they each would if they were in his position, however, he accepts Gustavo’s offer on the condition that he take all four boys and make a singing group rather than a solo act. Faced with heading back to LA with either a group or nothing at all, Gustavo begrudgingly allows Kendall’s terms and he takes the four boys along with Kendall’s mother, Jennifer, and younger sister, Katie, to Los Angeles to work on the new pop group.

Big Time Rush: The Guys (Continued)

Logan Henderson

Logan is quite an interesting guy. He’s very funny, probably the sharpest comic of the group, and is often ready with a sarcastic comment or carefree antic to liven up an interview or just entertain his friends. When he gets serious though you can really tell because the smiling face evaporates and he gets a genuine, almost serenely determined look in his eyes and speaks from his heart. One of the first times I noticed this change was in an interview in which he and Kendall were drawing pictures to be auctioned for charity. While drawing his picture he let Kendall field all the questions until the interviewer mentioned they’d appeared on Ellen and asked what they thought about her sexuality (Real classy, interviewer. Real classy.) Logan suddenly stopped what he was doing and looked up answering that “we’re all operated by love” and saying that basically neither her sexuality nor anyone else’s is weird or noteworthy because it’s just who we are. It was one of the moments that made me respect Logan more because while he’s not someone who’s really vocal about his moral or political views (possibly due to being a nickelodeon star and feeling pressure to not make those kinds of waves), he thought that this was significant enough to voice his opinion, and he did so in a simple but effective way.

Logan Mitchell has been my favorite character on the show since the beginning. He’s the brains of the group, a certified (can’t remember if that’s canon or not but whatever) genius who dreams of being a doctor. His character has grown so much over the course of the show. He has always been a careful planner, and was at first paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty, but his best friend Kendall taught him “A life without risk is a life unlived” and he has slowly become more independent and confident. He still lacks the social graces of Kendall or James, or the complete careless freedom of Carlos, but he has learned to be his own person while still being his best self when working with his friends.

Big Time Rush: The Introduction

Alright, it’s time to talk about one of my favorite things in the world, and that is the wonderful world of Big Time Rush. I’ve posted things related to them here before, like featuring Carlos as my last Web Crush, but haven’t worked up the nerve to talk about the whole band and everything I love about them.

Ooh, I’m getting excited just at the prospect of talking about these guys and their show and their music and how much I love them. Truth be told, I’m a bit nervous too. There’s so much hate for entertainment aimed at teens/tweens, especially the music which aims for that demographic, that I worry people will write off these fantastic guys just for being a Nickelodeon band without giving them a second glance. So I ask you to give them a chance, to ignore that voice in your head saying “Look at these over-produced, auto-tuned, mass-marketed punks” and open up to the possibility that they are more than they seem.

Because they are more than they seem. They are so much more.

Big Time Rush was conceived by Nickelodeon to be The Monkees for the new millennium: a television show about a band and an actual band that makes pop music. The casting process took around two years I believe as the producers searched for the right combination of singer/actors who would work well together as a group and appeal to the right demographic.

Not only did they achieve this, but I think it’s safe to say these four young men gelled better than anyone could have imagined.

The four band members are James Maslow, Carlos Pena Jr., Logan Henderson, and Kendall Schmidt. James, Carlos, and Logan had been selected for a while before the fourth spot was finally filled by Kendall and he has been described as the last piece of the puzzle which finally fell into place. Despite being the last to join the group even after others had been tried in his role he became the instant fit and all involved knew that they had gotten the group right. Seeing how these four interact and speak so highly of each other is frankly beautiful. In a world where machismo is so valued and male friends are not exactly encouraged to be affectionate with each other it’s incredible to see these four so unafraid of hugging, sharing private jokes, and using the words “love” and “family” to describe their bond.

This incredible chemistry is a huge part of what makes their show such a joy to watch. It’s rare to see a group of males whose friendship is the focus of a television show. I don’t mean that there are no male friendships on TV, but I seem to see it always being two friends, usually a girl or two thrown into the mix for romantic tension, and the focus of the show is usually outside of their relationship with each other; the fact that they’re friends merely an accepted fact of the show and not its main thrust. This is not the case with “Big Time Rush”. The four boys share a bond which is celebrated, tested, damaged, and mended but never broken. While there are love interests and romantic story arcs it is this incredible bond of friendship which is the heart of the show.

Also on the show we see some amazing things which are almost never a part of teen/tween shows: ongoing story arcs, character development, parents who aren’t utter failures, consequences for careless/selfish behavior, and incredible role models for both girls and boys. To be sure, these are not heavily emphasized aspects of the show and over-the-top antics and slapstick humor are much more apparent, but seeing what drives the story behind those gimmicks is so rewarding, and after all, isn’t that the point of being a geek? Looking deeper than the surface appearance of something, obsessing over the details, and appreciating the nuanced heart of the matter?

So this is my brief introduction to the world of BTR. Look forward to posts expanding on the ideas I’ve touched on here and further celebrating these guys and all they’ve built. I’m excited to share my love for them with you!