liken me to a pig rolling happily in mud....

Okay, I got to skip=200 and gave up. I just. Can't. Do it. I just can't. I started forgetting my own identity somewhere around skip forty. At skip eighty, I began to hallucinate. At skip 120, I began to think the world was flat. Don't ask about skip 160, because, frankly, I'm blocking that from my memory, but there's a chance I started declaring myself a Supreme Being.

And I hadn't even gotten through FRIDAY. At least, I don't think so. For all I know, I was far into next week, precognatively reading LJ entries no one's written yet.

Don't laugh. These are the symptoms of Interesting Friends Overload.

Here's my summary. If I missed anything interesting, do tell. And if you aren't ubertodd and dammitcarl, for whom I got direct links to new SV fic, if I could GET links so I could read? I'd be happy. Please don't make me beg. Though I'll grovel. Seriously. I've been locked out since MONDAY.

dammitcarl has the wednesday100 thing. Thanks to pearl_o for the sending of the info so I knew what to look for.

slodwick reads Mercy by Koi, which I only mention about once a week, rather like I do Past Grief by Te, and lookie there, I did it again! Who knew? But anyway. Slod's like, my current being of worship for all things arty, and she created a kick ass cover for Mercy.

Um. Let's see. Debate debate, personal info, story, story, story, happy griping, story, zine thing 1 and 2, LJ exhibition and performance one and two, thing, thing...there was other stuff, I swear. Infogasm. It's all the rage.

How DO people survive without checking their friends-list daily anyway? Withdrawal is NOT pretty.

And yes, I just officially LEAPED over the line between 'obsessed' and 'mental institution-class psychosis'. That line is INVISIBLE from where I'm standing. I'm okay with that. Padded walls? Bah. The easier to bounce off of to entertain yourself. And I've heard these days, the straightjackets are in fashionable colors! I look really good in purple.

My love to rageprufrock (doubly for the help last night, btw, I was contacted this morning), pearl_o, slodwick, and hwmitzy for all that coddling during this trying, trying period of time.

Anyway.

About the LJ performance thing.

This is interesting to me, because I've run this one around in my head and at my diaryland diary more times than I can actually count, and I'm still less than satisfied with my answer to myself. Either I'm not being honest with myself, which is likely (sometimes my own head is a mindfield in and of itself), or I simply can't clear out my own motives enough to know for sure.



cesperanza talks here about LJ as performace art, and twistedchick refutes some of it here.

For me, Cesperanza is almost completely right, in the performance/exhibitionism portion.

It's more of an improv for me. I rarely rehearse. I didn't even like rehearsals when I acted in high school, and I rarely, rarely write beyond a pure second draft--aka, first draft after spellcheck, once-over pre-edit, and full beta. A few posts (like stories) I've done offline first and thought about for awhile--usually things that I don't want to make a mistake on, so rewrite a few dozen times to clarify and hone down to exactly what I want to say, no more and no less. Personal things, or things that are very important to me and I need to get it right the first time. Or my recaps, recently, which are a total accident except I suddenly realized how much EASIER it is to write if I recap a show myself and can focus on the things I want to later use in a story.

But again, that's specific.

But I don't perform very often for 'people', per se, in the general sense. I perform to entertain friends--Pearl-o, Bethy, Te, Val, Caro, Koi, etc, people I like and who like me and who want to play or just watch. I like entertaining them because I like them and because they entertain me. I most often perform for myself, because I always want to play, even if the only person to play with is myself. The rest of audience is sort of along for the ride if they happen to be wandering through.

I don't think this is particularly unique, though, because above and beyond a few people, I don't think that many people wander through here for more than a brief glance on their friends list.

I don't think more than a quarter of the people who friend me ever actually read my LJ. I'm an SV writer, so people friend for that--it's a quick and easy way to keep up, since I usually try to keep up with what's going on in the fandom, sometimes with less than real success. Or they friend to see what I'm writing on atm. Or because I appear in other people's friends list. *grins* And I friend when someone entertains me so much that I HAVE to see what else they'll write. Or if they're SV authors I follow regularly. I had to call a halt again on friending, because, see the skip 200 up there? Scary.

Back to Cesperanza.

Anyway, all this to say that exhibitionism is fine, and go ahead if it makes you happy or turns you on, feel free to wangle your dangly bits in public, but here's a bit of entirely free and possibly worthless advice: if you're looking to get "any" reaction, then be don't be surprised (I was going to say, don't complain, but that's ludicrous; of course you can complain; to complain is human) when you do get "any" reaction, any one of a number of unpredictable reactions. If you don't care about your audience's reaction, then don't expect them to care about your reaction, or make the decision that you don't care that they don't care.

Hmm.

Just because I don't care whether anyone is watching doesn't mean I don't try to make sure that anyone who DOES watch doesn't get hurt. It's not fun if it's causing damage.

*shrug* I've done and written several things in diaryland that I'm not particularly proud of, though you know, badfic writers? I'm not taking a damn thing back. Leave off my badfic rants.

Anyway.

I don't think I've ever posted from a sense of malice or personal vendetta against a single person or group, though I've been tempted. I could say it's because of an enlightened sense of empathy, and that's a big part of it, and I could say enlightened self-interest, because frankly, flame wars? Not my cup of mocha. Definitely a big part of it.

But even if both of the above were false, no one so far has been worth the time and energy it would take to write out an entire post specifically to injure them. It's just not. If I don't like someone, I don't want them in my journal. I don't want to read about them, I don't want to think about them, and I can successfully do that with a very small output of energy. Like, practically none.

But as for performers….

I love performers. I love GOOD performers who can do amazing things in LJ with words and ideas and thoughts. emrinalexander hooked me in one post I read and I still is a daily check and I still giggle through some of those posts. thete1--even if I didn't love her, I'd love her LJ immensely. lexluvsclark, thamiris, musesfool, the list is endless--those are just the ones I read in the last hour. Coolest thing EVER. Smart people writing for no better reason than that they can and that they want to. They just sit down and bring off this amazing, fun post.

Um, yes, I'll spare you my romantic musings. I get REALLY romantic about fandom at the drop of a hat. Yes, I know, it's weird.



koimistress gave me permission to redo her site, which I did. And I had it all done, then went to AOL and got my ass kicked by the interface.

Seriously. Ass. Kicked. Beyond words. When she came online earlier that evening, I said, oh so grandly, give me an hour and I'll have it all up. Give me your username and password, and all the kingdoms of the world, not to mention endless supplies of hits, shall be yours!

Uh huh. When I wonder if my ego needs puncturing? This sort of thing happens.

When she got back on an hour later, I had opened her up a different webhost and started putting everything there. I mean, seriously. I've worked with I can't even COUNT how many freehosts, FTP programs, etc. and I have never actually declared defeat and left the field like that. I just couldn't take it.

So. pearl_o is responsible for the choice of webhost. Thanks, darling.

Storyteller, currently home to Mercy, A Nice, Friendly Game, and Three Fairytales of Smallville. Cover art by the alluring Alax, the spectacular Slodwick, and the lovely lifeinwords, all of which is marvelous and should be drooled over a LOT. If you'd be nice and send me your email addies, I'll add those so the page reflects proper credit. If you see this entry. *grins* I have yours, Slod, I just keep forgetting to put it up. Gah.

Um. Recs later. I've been talking to Te and Livia (maybe) or in fact, anyone on my buddy list who didn't hide from me when I came online, about the shift from mailing list to LJ in terms of the fannish hub. I'm wondering, seriously, has anyone covered this yet? I could swear someone did a while back, which got me thinking. A year ago, mailing lists were still the center of the fannish universe, but in this last year, at least through my not-very-objective-glance, there's been a definite shift toward the LJ for recentering the base fandom medium. If I can clarify my thoughts, I'll try to post something on it so someone who's really good at this sort of analysis can take over and explain how I'm wrong or right, but. Hmm.

Anyone? See the comments thing down there? This is one of those times I'd love people to use it. *g* Just throw out an opinion. Or tell me I'm a lousy performer. I don't care. I suddenly want an audience today.

*g*

Comments

LJ versus lists.

[(Anonymous)]

I see a lot of LJ discussion going on about "Smallville" (I don't follow other fandoms on LJ). Of course, from where I am sitting, most people active on LJ are writers... Plus, not everyone has LJ, right?

Thorn.
P.S. Glad you are back and not disappeared after Horrible Fever. :P~

Re: LJ versus lists.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nod* Yes, exactly. I wonder if it's just perception and so forth.

You NEED an LJ, thorn. *waves codes* Email me.... Come on, play with us. *g*

And I really ahve to clarify. Feverishness did not cause Evil LJ withdrawal. Evil Lj NOT LETTING ME INTO ANY LJ POST AT ALL did it.

*grins*

My whine is at http://www.blurty.com/users/seperis. I couldnt' even get into my diary for a few days and THAT I stillcna't figure out.

Please let LJ be nice to me. Please let LJ be nice to me. Please.....

Re: LJ versus lists.

[(Anonymous)]

I was sort of hoping that tech problems were the problem.
However, when you hear someone discussing Horrible Fever and then don't see anything from the person for days... You have to wonder.:D
That's the thing with knowing folks on-line: they suddenly dropped off the earth and you don't know what happened to them. :(

Thorn.

[meret.livejournal.com]

Jenn's back! Yaaaay!! You've been missed. I'm glad you're feeling better. :)

Here are my two latest recs lists if that helps with the fics.

http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=meret&itemid=22053&nc=5

http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=meret&itemid=17864&nc=8

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Thank you thankyou thank you!

It wasn't illness--it was stupid LJ. Monday night it locked me out for some reason, and I could not COULD NOT get into anything LJ until this morning.

I swear, I thought I was going to go crazy.

But, I did finish and start another couple of fics, so, balance. *grins*

Mmm. Recs. Love.

[chicklet-girl.livejournal.com]

Oddly (or not), I feel like I have more control over LJ. I can friend or de-friend at will, read anyone's LJ only once, or many many times, I don't have to read LJs of people I don't like. With lists, the sheer number of posts can be overwhelming, particularly with a kudzu-like fandom such as SV. Sure, I get individual emails from the Sports Night and Sorority Boys lists, but each of them averages out to, like, 10 posts a month, if that. ClarkLexFic is manageable in the time I have available; I doubt highly that ClarkLex would be. In terms of managing my scanty free time, LJ is a much more efficient way to participate in the fandom.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

You missed all the fill in the blank fun. It was a craze!

Love for LJ!

[ingridmatthews.livejournal.com]

As chicklet_girl said, I feel I have a lot more control over the tone and content of my LJ verus a mailing list. I have the conversations I want to have with the people I want to have them with without all the annoying extraneous "noise" a mailing list creates in my in-box, especially from a large, active list.

It's easy to reduce my fannish world to a virtual Nirvana, with judicious use of my friends' filters and customized default viewing. Not only that, but the feedback is a lot better. I get better warnings about kerfuffles, instead of getting my daily dose of angst sprung on me with a hundred pissy e-mails ambushing my brain first thing in the morning about stuff I could care less about.

Additionally, I'm not stuck in one huge playground with those who make my teeth grind and my stomach churn ... they're over there, I'm over here and everybody's happy. Our paths might cross via mutual friends, but again, it's easily avoidable, unless I'm feeling a glutton for punishment that day.

LJ is great. I'd sworn off discussion lists and chat rooms two years ago, and that seemed to be the end of my fannish life, so if not for LJ ...

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering, seriously, has anyone covered this yet?

Well, I sort of touched on it in my post where I mused a bunch about how LJ changes the nature of communication and all that good stuff. Here's the post (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=chlaal&itemid=176792) if you wanna check it out. Probably not really what you're looking for, but, uh, you should read it anyway. ;)

[mei-x.livejournal.com]

I'm another one who loves the control I have in LJ-land, both to say what I like and to read what I like.

[devin-chain.livejournal.com]

She lives! Hi Jenn!

Looked for you Tuesday night, but I wasn't on long. Had to go to bed early. Won't be around this Tuesday, as I'll be at Disneyworld. BUT, I'll sign on periodically this weekend. Hope to see you, but if not, I'll "see" you week after next.

Much love to you,
Devin

[plumsnickety.livejournal.com]

So dropping in to gloat that I got a Ty Nant bottle signed by Rosenbaum. Heh for porny goodness.

And I wrote a W/R drabble. This is official permission to start laughing. *g*

[fyrdrakken]

Okay, I got to skip=200 and gave up. I just. Can't. Do it.

I think I passed the skip=600 mark earlier this week making sure I was back up to where I'd left the country a couple of weeks before -- but then, I'd had LJ access while I was gone. I just was too rushed to follow up on all the links and cut-texts, and unable to save any of the pretty piccies I ran across, so a lot of the catch-up when I got home was a matter of scrolling past going, "Read it, read it -- ooh, need to download that, need to bookmark there! -- read it, read it..."

Still, took a longass time. And I think it's instructive that I was more worried about catching up on the LJ friends page (and for that matter, my own posts) than I was about my e-mail backlog. (Then again, e-mail sits there till I have time to play with it, whereas in the past I'd found that past a certain point the LJ skip function stops -- which was why I was shocked to find myself at skip=600 or whatever it was.)

[logovo.livejournal.com]

Ah, there you are!
And a long post too. Yummy.

[lestrange.livejournal.com]

I've been locked out since MONDAY.

*faints* You poor thing. Here (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=lestrange&itemid=15294) are a few SV fics. If you haven't read them yet, go!

And I agree with you about the gradual switch from lists to LJ. The good thing about LJ, when compared to lists, is that you can post as much off-topic stuff as you want, and there won't be any mods around to yell at you. And filtering what you want to read is so much easier on LJ.

Yep, that about sums it all up for me.

[siobhan-w.livejournal.com]

Welcome back to the land of LJ. You've been missed!

the shift from mailing list to LJ in terms of the fannish hub.

I'm gradually moving from lists to LJ for a bunch of reasons. One of the problems with mailing lists is that they are usually devoted to a single subject. Anything beyond that is considered off-topic and is frowned upon. But I'm interested in a lot more than just one thing. I can try to keep track of 20 different lists, all located in different places, for all the stuff I'm interested in or I can hop on LJ, friend the people who talk about the things that interest me, and get all I need in one place.

Another problem with mailing lists - I don't like reading posts that are overwhelmingly negative. I like my shows and I like my characters and I'm not really interested in listening to people rip on them. On LJ you can pick and choose who you want to read and if you want to avoid a certain persons posts you just make sure they're not on your friends lists. That's an option you don't have if your on a mailing list. Everything shows up in your in-box.

Also, it is virtually impossible to be active on a discussion mailing list and remain spoiler-free. ClarkLex is probably the best I've come across about labeling spoilers but that's pretty much the exception. People on LJ, on the other hand, are very, very good about using cut-tags when talking about spoilers so it's much easier to follow without worrying about being spoiled.

And, finally, the reason I prefer LJ more than mailing lists is because, unlike on mailing lists, I am in control. I can see what I want to see, avoid what I want to avoid and say what I want to say. The only moderator is myself. And I'm just ornery enough to prefer to being my own boss. *g*

[bexless.livejournal.com]

Jennbean!

*hugs tight*

We've MISSED you.

Um, fic. I feel very narcicisstic and egotistical, but I wrote a fic called 'Tell' (http://smallville.slashdom.com/archive/20/tell.html), if you're interested.

Okay. *blushing horribly* ANYWAY. My opinion doesn't count for much what with the newbieness and all, but I've never been active on mailing lists. I mean, I am a member of three - ClarkLex for SV, VeelaInc for HP, and SororityBoysFic for SB. But I'm on no mail and I don't post there either, unless people make me.

I chose to delurk onto LJ because that was where the fun seemed to be. It was partly superficial too - I like the icons and the prettiness, and oh - friends list? Mmm hmm. Yes please. I like the format better, and everything's kept nicely together in one place, and it's, well, prettier.

Also, it feels more like a community than mailing lists do, personally. There's more opportunity for banter etc, and while I enjoy the intelligent discussion and meta, I mainly just want to have fun.