I also thought that "Hallelujah" was played out for at least a decade. Wrong on both counts.

Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton sings Hallelujah

Because the horror of what Drumpf's ascendancy means to all of us is so great, I haven't really processed yet the "sadness for Hillary" part of my emotional spectrum, which is there, not least while not always agreeing with her, I've liked HRC since the very first Clinton campaign and "two for the price of one". I wasn't just rooting for Not Trump, I was rooting for her, specifically.

Finished my queer_fest Babylon 5 story last night; it's off to be beta'd, but the posting date isn't until June 1st, so there's no hurry. Going back to the B5verse once in a while, and in this case specifically to the Centauri, with Vir at the center of it, feels like getting back into very comfortable worn slippers. Though due to the prompt I was actually able to do something with the Centauri that I hadn't done before, so - old slippers with new soles? (And now I'm nearly at Londo's dancing metaphor from s1, Great Maker, as he would say.) Anyway, the other reason why writing it, delving back into the B5 verse felt so great is that it was and as far as I know still is blessedly free of shipper wars. Of course, no sooner have I written this that I expect someone to tell me that I'm wrong about this and that I totally missed the epic battles between Susan/Talia and Susan/Marcus shippers, or the mighty war between John/Delenn and Delenn/Lennier shippers, due to not hanging out in the Ivanova or Minbari centric corners of fandom enough in my Centauri and Narn centric fannish life, but - I really don't think that's how B5 fandom spent its time, back in the day, or spends its time now.

(Every time I feel like growling "a pox on romance and our cultural obsession with it that poisons storylines and fannish discourse", though, I remind myself that I'm not immune, that there are romances both textual and subtextual I was/am rooting for and enjoy(ed), and that some of these are probably just as annoying or incomprehensible in their attraction to other people.)

(I will say that I remain eternally grateful Londo was not played by a hot young actor but the divine and decidedly middle aged, plumb and not at all pretty Peter Jurasik. It meant the "omg why so mean to the hottie!?!? Death score what death score?!? Must pair him with *insert character also played by young and attractive actor*!!" crowd stayed away from what is still my favourite fall and redemption storyline on tv.)

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With two movies about to be released and a third finished with an uncertain release date, Joss Whedon seems to get interviewed basically everywhere you turn. Now love him, hate him or remain utterly indifferent, but one advantage the man has is being eminently quotable (not many writers who can write witty dialogue are also able to make it up on the spot, so I'm suitably impressed). My favourite quote from the current crop of interviews is probably:

Q: You've been said to encourage fanfiction. How do you feel about scholarship about your work and the fact that academics tend to delve quite deeply into it, perhaps to the point of publishing interpretations you did not intend?

A: All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.

He's always been consistent about this, which makes the "Let's take *character X*/*show universe Y* from the evil/incompetent Whedon" or "Joss needs to learn fannish interpretation is so superior" posts feel a bit like teenagers casting themselves as daring and rebellious when their parents, far from forbidding them to go out, are in fact encouraging them to stay up until dawn and make their own experiences. It's not something inherent or original to Whedonverse fandoms, of course, but something I've observed everywhere, though not every creator or people-in-charge-of-fannish-source-copyrights are as laid back about fannish discourse. And nothing feeds the fannish sense of outraged moral superiority so much as a creator/author/person-in-charge-of-copyright who gets possessive/protective of their characters (and extremer cases is silly enough to get into arguments with reviewers on message boards, looking at you, Aaron Sorkin). They are the man, we are the true, far better artists and interpreters of *insert character/fannish source*, and, that golden stalwart of posts, "should just shut up".

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Speaking of interactions between fannish interpretations and their source, in the last few days a tumblr containing hilarious fictional Hillary Clinton texts has been linked all over the internet. With the results that Hillary Clinton saw it as well, made a submission of her own and invited the two fan creators to meet her. Which they did. It occurs to me that if the online media are anything to go buy (always a qualified if), Hillary in the years of the Obama presidency has ended up as the most popular (living) Democrat politician. Which I don't think would have happened had she won the primaries and become President (not least because a sitting President even in a best case scenario is bound to disappoint some expectations of their electorate), but there it is. Not a bad note to go out on, if she really retires after her current term.