You know, no matter how many times I watch it, it never is anything but awesome. This also reminds me why I resented Willow's second girlfriend in Season 7 so much, other than the fact she annoyed the crap out of me in her constant aggression against Buffy (Note: my liking of any character rose and feel on How They Treated Buffy; I still wish I could set Riley on fire. I OTC Buffy like whoa); I really, really, really loved Tara. But God, why did they dress her like that? Some of the outfits worked, but working on a flowy theme sometimes ends you in things that make you look like you are wearing a sack, and for the life of me I can't figure out why they did that.

I am ambivalent to report I can still sing every song, due to the soundtrack being on rotation pretty much constantly since I got it, but in context the barbed lyrics really hit me, and not just version one of "I'm Under Your Spell"; this is the first time I listened to Giles' solo and had the uneasy feeling that the bigger problem wasn't his worry that Buffy wasn't standing on her own and it was because he was playing her father; it was because he really, really didn't feel fatherly and boy was this situation going This Could End in Semi-Incestuous (Except Not!) Tragedy.

[Digression: and honestly, in the shape Buffy was in, it's not like it wasn't a likely possibility and not even, in retrospect, a bad one, considering the events of season six. I ship Buffy/Spike like a religion, and I am all about Buffy standing on her own two feet, but it pissed me off so much that no one seemed to get she literally couldn't and no amount of will in the world would fix that; she needed time and it was the one thing no one gave her. I could go on about that all day. Er, but not now.]

Which--I am not opposed to. I never shipped them, like, ever, but then there was Uther of Camelot and everything changed.

*hands* I don't even know what to do with that. I blame Merlin.

I also didn't realize how much the lyrics spell out all the events of season six either, and sometimes not even metaphorically. That was--uncomfortable.

This has been a message from My One True Fandom. Child was born the week of the first episode and I remember seeing the first ep and going "Holy shit, you mean that weird movie with Dylan from 90210? You got to be kidding me." And then five seconds later, I fell in love.

I also think I'm one of the few people who loved all the seasons, but my favorites in some ways is still seasons five and six. I like more episodes in the other seasons, but season six's themes picked up everything that I hadn't expected them to cover from earlier seasons and ran with them. It was not what I'd call enjoyable so much as "difficult to look away" and "really painful" and "Why isn't Riley on fire yet from my burning hatred" and "Fuck everyone ever, except Buffy" and "Oh my God no (many times)" and I have yet to be able to do season six in a single sitting (I break it up with bits from season five and seven; when you need to watch "The Gift" to get an emotional break and cry your eyes out, then wow, yeah)--and I didn't expect to write this much about it.

Must revisit rivak_t and mustangsally for fic happiness.

So this just occurred to me--and this is not to reopen the warning debates--but something I realized posting comments in a friend's DW today about warnings and genre.

Warning: Could potentially be triggering, as while it's a theoretical discussion of professional fiction and warnings, comments do mention specific instances, novels, and authors with triggering content.

( professional fiction and triggering )

I'm trying not to confuse the issue or take away from FA's actions, which were by any standard completely wrong, but I'm really hitting hard against how we're devaluing ourselves (and you know, other people) in response.

FA fucked up. They were asking for money for their servers and vague 'educational' somethings untyped. They weren't applying for the purpose of a concrete concept with a complete explanation of what it would need, what it would accomplish, and what the eventual goal was and who it would benefit.

The fact they are running a fanfic archive, or it had anything to do with fandom, is immaterial to that; they weren't doing it for the right reasons or in the spirit of Pepsi Refresh (I just typed the words 'spirit of Pepsi Refresh'. Some part of me just tried to die for that). Any group of any type who approached an organization this way would have fucked up; being fanfic does not make it worse or better, from an objective POV. From a concrete POV, as in, this is my community, I'm just as pissed that they didn't come to the whole community first if they were in dire straits--which I'm still not sure they are since the comments are pretty contradictory in themselves.

That disposed.

Art and community enrichment are legitimate enterprises on which to give or get money. A lot of the discussion ending up asking the question "how often do you beat your wife" in metaphor; as a general rule, unless you are either remarkably masochistic or you have an axe to grind, setting everything in the goddamn world against starving children is absolutely insane. I could have used my ridiculously large copay for surgery to, IDK, buy food for a homeless shelter; gall bladder stones are not necessarily deadly and what's pain compared to starvation? Thyroid medication isn't strictly necessary for my survival and my copay for that could feed a family of three in some countries according to certain commercials. All the time I spend learning coding and bash scripting is serving absolutely no purpose in the greater or even smaller scheme of things. The time I spent writing this entry could have been spent working in a soup kitchen.

( so this is a long special snowflake entry )

So guess how I spent my time between careful food choices and actual work (which was not as worky as one might hope:

Signal Boost for RaceFail J2 Fic by amazonziti, for anyone who happened to miss this one hitting their flists this morning. Recommended reading here where bossymarmalade pulls quotes from the J2 Big Bang fic, Caught Between the Earth and the Sky to illustrate why the premise of using Haiti as a setting for J2 romance is--well, in this case, not questionable but faily beyond fail.

Unfunny Business at Journalfen has a full report here, but I recommend amazonziti first for an excellent link round-up of early initial reactions. I also--I feel it's problematic for me to wander at the internet equivalent of three days later (time passes fast on the internet) to give my thoughts on yaoi, and I think amazonziti says pretty much everything I could think to say about it and more. She also has a pretty thorough links list on other posts made on the subject; I've read about two thirds of them, so definitely recommend reading them all.

Related to the entire Unfunny Prowriter making vague whining sounds about fanfic that we all celebrated in song and rhyme and whatnot, but much more interesting.

From comments, sapote3:

It took me a couple of days to source this, but I think it's pretty accurate. According to the US Department of Labor, there are about 43,000 people who make their living through writing (including screenwriting, ads, movies, etc), but only about 8,000 that make a living writing for newspapers, periodicals, books, and directories (all combined). According to the Writer's Directory 2010, there are about 23,000 writers in the world who have published at least one book in English, including nonfiction works. The Directory of American Writers and Poets (again, including nonfiction) lists about 8,000 names. According to Wikipedia, fanfiction.net has two million users, and I don't even know how big lj fandom is - lj searches top out at 2,000 people. Heck, there as many active Dreamwidth accounts as there are writers who have published any book in English ever - 23,000ish.

So while my numbers are vague, I think the idea that we're a smaller population then prowriters is pretty laughable. - link to comment

Can I say "Welcome to Thunderdome." in portentous tones now and be culturally relevant or is that too melodramatic? Because come the fuck on. My log alone for the last two years numbers above one thousand authors and I only read in four fandoms actively. AO3--which is in beta--has 6946 authors to date.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, yeah. This is not an improbable conclusion.

Note: non-English speaking work is not represented, though now I would be interested if we could even get world-wide statistics in publishing both English and non-English works. I guess individually pulling from each country's equivalent department would do it if it were public information, with a variable for translated works (I once read Basic Instinct--yes, Basic Instinct--in Finnish). Especially since from what I can tell, I think several of the non-English language fanfic communities are extremely robust and growing fairly rapidly.

PS Do we count non-published doujin? And someone give me the right spelling on that one, google and wiki were not helpful.

I am posting so I won't buy boots, okay? Okay.

ETA: Okay, off-topic, but there's an awesome discussion on hobby mining here. Hobby mining! Tell me that is not awesome.

Signalboost:

Via zvi_likes_tv:

I have a problem with the fact that people are creating [sexually explicit fic and art of the Surveyfail "researchers"] with the intention of maliciously shoving them in the subjects' faces, specifically for the purpose of humiliating them." -- by sohotrightnow

This is in regard to the protest art by alchemia here. Warning: NSFW, and potentially triggering. It also refers to RPS written about the researchers.

Warning: This entry may be triggery from mention of rape.

( about that )

ETA: To anyone who read this and was hurt by my lack of sensitivity in discussing kink, please accept my apology. At no time did I mean to imply in any way a judgment on kinks in general or anyone's kinks in specific. I'm very, very sorry to those who were hurt or felt marginalized or judged by my clumsiness in wording this. There's a clarification in the last paragraph behind the cut which I hope will make that clear.

ETA: Feel free to continue discussion, but I will not be participating in it any further.

ETA of the ETA: Lack of participation, however, does not equal a lack of attention. In other words, I want to use the dirtiest in the English language--play nice. I understand this is because I am a girl and conditioned to niceness or something. Whatever.

This is an unreasonable rant. You are warned. Also, I love all acafen and especially the ones on my flist and I would let you study me if you asked whenever you want, mmkay? I am just saying, this is a rant and I am not reasonable right now.

Reference: That Entire Fannish Survey Thing - Links. Oh God, so many links.

So for the last twenty-four hours, I've been slowly but surely building up to a towering rage at the entire SurveyFail in new and strange ways. I am seriously sitting here with the unflattering realization that fandom--well, me in fandom--is a freaking regency romance heroine in need of rescue like, a lot.

( i am really tired of being a regency cliche )

This entire rant is courtesy of Britney Spears Circus. How freakishly appropriate.

ETA: Comment here might clarify why this has apparently become for me some kind of--thing. IDK.

Random thought.

Well, not random, I was catching up on my metafandom and fell on top of the entire Readercon thing, which--

( like this didn't pique my interest )

I am drinking high-grade coffee and ignoring two WiPs. What else am I going to do at this late hour? You know what would help? aurora_84 reccing more Pinto, kthx.

I don't know if anyone would be all that interested at this date, but I did a few meta posts in 2003 right after I came to LJ (Novmeber 2002) about the transition between mailing lists and LJ (and in fact, I was usenet in 1999, so I was in the last three major jumps). For some people who have expereinced fandom only as LJ, I think this entire thing may be kind of bizarre and a little frightening, which yes, it is. I transitioned usenet-onenet-egroups-yahoogroups-diaryland-livejournal and away from archives, though I've always had a webpage. Every time there was a major change, it was disconcerting and confusing.

( links, fandom, changes, etc )

If anyone else has any posts on fandom migration, or changes in fandom between mediums, etc, please, please, please link in comments, especially those of you who wrote them, and I'll add them at the end of this post.

Crosspost to Dreamwidth.

Huh.

There's a part of me that's just--I guess is both irritated and resigned about the pseudo-intellectual snobbery that is anti-pop culture and anti-popularity. But it's also this.

I like the Lemming Method. I am a fan of the Lemming Method. If I could somehow acquire my own personal charisma machine and pimp everyone by sheer strength of personality into whatever fandom I'm in? I would be doing that for every damn fandom I have. I mean, sure, if you want, let divine intervention lead you to that very special text, but you know what? I found a much faster way to discover what I love.

I don't need fandom to tell me about a text I already love, though that's nice as well. I need fandom to show me what I'm missing. Did I miss spies or space cowboys or King Arthur, did I miss magical schoolboys or Superman redux or Wolverine in a cage (thank God for Diebin)? I've done both; I have dragged friends into fandoms they weren't interested in and watched them fall in love, and I've followed people where they went because I wanted to see what was so damn shiny in the other side of the hill. It's not everyone's way, but it's a lot of mine. I loved Diebin before I saw X-Men; I adored astolat before I fell on top of Stargate; I was all about cesperanza before I went near Due South.

Being apologetic because the authors interested you first? Because the fandom interested you before the source? Are you kidding? Apologize because I found a group of people so awesome and want to join in? Because the sheer rush of creativity is so overwhelming I want to be a part of it? Because there's one person that's worth watching one to three seasons of a show I wasn't too sure of so I'd get her fic?

That's what I celebrate.

Fandom cannot be done wrong, per se, but in a lot of ways, following each other around to see where they go, check out the other side of the mountain, looking in blank astonishment at a text or source you are pretty sure you are going to hate, but what the hell, brown_betty loves it, so okay--this exemplifies what attracted me to fandom in the first place. Beyond the source itself, it forces me to do what I wouldn't do on my own, makes me think outside what I'm comfortable with, and gives me nice rewards if I do those things.

Sure, I can't claim to be edgy, independent, intellectual, or special. I can claim, however, that unlike outside of fandom, if the source fails me, if the show/book/comic/medium fails me, the fandom around it never does.

Be a lemming. Jump blind over the cliff because your friends are doing it. Sure, the jump is scary, and you can't work out why the hell they thought this was a good idea, but the rush is unbelievable. You'll love what you find on the other side.

ETA: Current guild rules require me to mention svmadelyn, chopchica, and amireal as the primary lead lemmings leading me over whatever cliff they find.

ETA 2: I forgot to use my lemming icon. Lemming pride, my friends. Lemming pride.

I've been thinking on whether to post this or not, but because I'm me, and because I ended up tagging for it, and because it exists, what the heck.

( statistics in reading lists )

The thing that makes me vaguely uncertain is that my reading is highly slanted toward authors that I already know, and specifically, a group of authors I already know (and seriously, Ces makes like one eighth of my total reading; that's a hell of a curve). I read associatively and by rec page by the following priority: a.) people I know from SGA to b.) people I know from SV to c.) people who had fic I liked a lot in other fandoms to d.) rec lists to e.) things people throw at me in livejournal entries that involve kittens and help ease the pain of the loss of Handy, which I may never recover from.

House Style

You know, despite the fact I am not running a strange fannish social experiment (honestly, I am always and forever into this for the porn), I did want to share this.

I wrote a fic last week and haven't posted for dS when I was around one hundred something stories in. This was--hmm. Actually, closer to ten days ago. This weekend, however, I started writing something else, just for myself to work on voice, since pure dialogue entertains me. Ran into a problem I'm not sure I've ever run into before, and by that, I mean, not unless I've been deliberately working on something that's against what I usually write and need to adjust back.

This weekend, I couldn't remember how to write third person limited in a way that was actually readable.

It took me a couple of hours to figure out why my rhythm was off. And it was off, and not just off, but badfic level sentence structure nightmare off, weird loss of single point of view off. At a glance, it looked a mess. At not a glance and spending time trying to repair, I realized I was trying to write past tense first person instead and kept correcting myself to present while writing. I mean, that's the only explanation I can work out. The problem wasn't even the story--it was all in present with correction. But I wrote it like someone who wrote it in past tense first and then went through and changed the verbs and pronouns only, which to be honest, is pretty much what I was doing even if I wasn't aware of it. And I wasn't thinking in present at all; I was thinking in past. And there is, at least for me, a dramatically different way I visualize and construct a scene, much less write it, depending on tense.

Personally, I have no idea whether to find this hilarious or disturbing. I know as of this last week for the Doctor Who and the other dS fic, I was not doing that. But as of Sunday afternoon, I was and I'm still not entirely adjusted back.

I really want to call this fannish Stockholm Syndrome. Or Fangirl Borg? I have no idea. It's very cool in a very strange way. On one hand, I haven't changed my default style since SV and at least part of that change was deliberate (and when ClarkLex had that person come in to complain about present tense, I might have decided that God as my witness, I will never write past tense again or something). On the other, that change wasn't entirely conscious either; part of the reason I picked up third/present was that most of my reading was in that tense (aka thete1 et al) and it was, in some ways, easier to match what I was reading than it was to try to work against it.

This is vaguely in relation to the culture shock thing I was having in dS, but also something I was pondering due to the ten million or so conversations in there in community influence.

Meta, to me, is mental fanfic of a kind--you take the ideas (characters) and work out a reason for interaction (plot), then use what you have read (canon) to hold it together. Occasionally other people's theories as well (fanon). In a very loose way. I am not good at it, because I don't read it often enough to get into the flow of ideas (ie, I am not part of the fandom of meta). I am an interpretive community of one (tm cathexys), so to speak. I have no idea how to generalize outside myself as a.) wow, bad idea, b.) no, seriously, bad idea and c.) I can't explain the ocean.

That's why I can't explain this.

For me, community plays a key role in pretty much everything, from how I view the text, read the text, discuss the text, to how I argue against the text. Depending on time, place, the state of caffeine in my bloodstream, and whether I've had this argument before, it can influence how I interpret the text via fanfic. It's not so much agreement by majority, though I won't lie, majority is freaking influential both consciously and unconsciously. Leather pants fic hit every freaking fandom for a reason, no matter how strange. Every. Fandom. Has Leather Pants fic.

That's community influence. Leather pants.

So that long lead in to this: I'm weirded out that I got hit, extremely hard, in that epic way fic does when you just live and die on it and want to rec it everywhere and talk about it with everyone, by two fic that I ran across that was linked from a rec page but did not say "Also, this is going to be that one fic you have been looking for" which I find unfair. And I'm not at all sure why. Because for me, as a rule, I require both personal input (god that was good) combined with community involvement (and everything that entails).

It's not that I've loved every fanfic that broke fandom. But I don't tend to collapse over fic when there is a total lack of any kind of community context. A fic usually hits for me in this particular way because it's fantastic, because it is being discussed (so I can indulge myself), and because it speaks to the fannish community in the text in some way, in whatever arguments the community is having over whatever. Like thete1's Past Grief (apocafic, an evil Superman, debates over good and evil and his actions and/or lack of actions in the text, blah blah blah), or samdonne's Cowboys fics (Sheppard's motivation, personality, right and wrong, limits of family and friendship, the list goes on), and etcetera.

So I was really surprised to find two dS stories that had that effect when I don't have community context to work with or against, or heck, have anything to work period since I'm not part of the community either at the time of writing or technically, right now. I have to think there's some universal theme going on that they are speaking to in a very big way, but for fanfic, for me, they shouldn't without context.

And because I'm sure someone wants to know, below cut are the fics in question.

( one, two three )

You know, this is far too much meta in two weeks. I need to return to porn now.

In relation to Something's Lost in Translation....

I'm trying to work out if using fic examples would lead to chaos and horror. I went to my log tags and there are a few authors there I'm thinking of as transitional, or ones where I was confused, confused, confused, then oh! Yes! Maybe! Okay! And the thing is? I think all of them are SGA writers as well. As in, I used them to translate for me between what I knew and what I know now (though it's only now I'm getting why I read Eight Sessions by Ces fifteen times--I was home! I knew this style! Expectations were reached!)

No, really. I think it was fifteen times or something. I had it open at work for a few days so I could go back to something I knew and that flowed the way I expected it to flow.

Speaking of--I woke up about two hours ago and wow, smart people! Explaining! My life is better and less schizophrenic just knowing I wasn't having a breakdown.

Circa 1999, when I started in Voyager, fandom, and the long, dark trail that later led me to unironic mreg, sex pollen, and rentboy torture, my beta sent me two tapes of Sarah McLachlan since I'd just discovered music after several years of Alanis Morisette, which okay, not a transition that's all that easy to make. I've written approximately a quarter of my total fic output in all fandoms to some form of Sarah playing in the background at some point. You could say I imprinted hard. I've killed a lot of characters set to that tape.

Kind of realized when Due South started playing it that I was fucked.

Due South in review:

( well, that was gutting )

Mock at will. I'm kind of gutted and really really high on this and season two starts tonight and season three this weekend and I might not even get out of bed. I love this show so much

So I finished putting together the thing I want to do a challenge for, because I feel my interaction with the community should be a.) more than stories about cheese building and b.) rentboy John fic, As a sideline, I came to the horrified realization I have now officially written about someone prostituting themselves enough to add that as an actual interest.

And I don't even like rentboy fic.

The question will never be "Jenn, are you a hypocrite?" We are now at the enviable stage where "But no one beat them! ....until part sixteen." I don't even know where I set the bar anymore. I keep getting freaked out by my del.icio.us tags.

This Is a World of Women

Challenge, right. As soon as we have all recovered sufficiently from Election Drama and WisCon, which for the first time I want to attend, because any group of women who can walk away from the kind of shit that was thrown are pretty much the epitome of what we should try to be.

See A Response to Hate by purplefrog26:

So not only do you face the challenges of dealing with society but you tell yourself that you are ugly, worthless and disgusting. So it becomes a radical act when you choose to live your life and love yourself despite the negativity that we swim thorough every day.

I’m not sure what this person’s objective was in posting these pathetic attempts at humor. But I know that they did not change my commitment to living my life joyfully and abundantly. And I prefer pictures to include my face.

And this fantastic response at Fatshionista:

Do it. Take it. Take my picture and eviscerate me online. It’s just a public, out-loud, communal version of what people do to me inside their heads every single day. It’s happened to me before, online and off. It’ll happen again. It’ll happen every day I leave the house, for the rest of my life.

I am still fat, and I am still not sorry. And nothing you can say, nothing you can post, nothing you can do will change that. No matter how many times you try to humiliate me. No matter how much you want me to hate myself. Because it’s my fucking body. And I don’t owe you a damn thing.

That.

And This Is Community Standards

It's odd; the idiotic open source molestation for fun and profit, the backup project, the election, WisCon hit each after the other. I don't think there's less drama, believe it or not; I'm not even sure it's that I'm noticing it more. I just didn't pay attention.

There are a lot of parents on my flist. I'll take even odds half of us will have a child turned troll. I'll say the percentage is higher for boys, but as we have seen, the girls are catching up.

( and what do community standards do with what comes next )

A few days ago, whilst reading poisontaster's meta, Why Is There Not More Shunning, I hit a comment that I'm still thinking about. And not even due to Care Bear trauma for distraction.

vee_fic wrote here (partial quote):

On the other hand, I tend to agree with cryptoxin describing the JournalFen cluster of comms as the "rogue judiciary" -- especially now that UnfunnyBusiness is up. You show up on F_W, it's because you acted wanky; you may know what is silly behavior by what shows up on F_W. You show up on UFB, it's because you acted in a way that makes rage; you may know the borders of fandom's anger by reading that comm. The existence of the two places -- and the distinction between them -- are educations in the (changing) parameters of acceptable behavior within fandom.

One, I'd like to find the post that cryptoxin discusses this in, because wow, that is kind of the nutshell of what I haven't been able to articulate.

I kinda agree. I know Unfunny Business isn't one of the direct wank offspring as stated: more the unacknowledged bastard hate child of OTF by way of Deep Thoughts during a drunken one night stand, but it *does* have the same feeling. In retrospect, I'm also surprised it didn't pop up a lot sooner; the borderlands between snark at pretentious and anger at stupidity can be narrow and crossed easily most of the time, and I think a lot of people go both ways when we get hit with something and we'd like to indulge both. Miss Scribe (bad_penny comm) was funny as hell, but it was also, for those intimately involved, hideously painful either in present or in the past.

Examples: OSBP was enraging and also hilarious by turns depending on what time of day it was, because you couldn't help staring at the arguments and wondering if some of them really were aware what they were saying*. The SPN stealth-comm takeover arrangements leading back to a history of comm-coups in SPN. SVA Vs JKR in all it's weird glory.

Usually, I can get the general tenor how fandom is thinking if I hit Fandom Wank, UFB, Wank Report, and MetaFandom by turns and not just on the fandom-eating issues. Sure, every once in a while, like OSBP, something hits us out of nowhere, but also, I'm not really sure it does. I'd bet money if you traced metafandom over six months, you could work out a fairly good predictive model for blow up probability. Whether it goes all-fandom wide or not is trickier**.

It becomes trickier when I think of dogpile versus shun and why we wince when we see it or do it, and I'm not entirely sure it's Cult of the Nice or Geek Fallacy or even World of Women that's the base theory behind it. I think it's the same reason Miss Scribe lasted so long, why some fanpeople can get away with a *lot* of shitty behavior, and why most of us won't and don't even consider doing a reveal of someone we know who screwed us over outside filter and likely do it only over AIM to loyal parties only. Sometimes, I think no one wants to start a war and find it turned on them. It's a lot safer to wait for critical mass to get hit and have a comm pick it up.

Pretty sure I had a point here. When you find it, that is totally what this entry was about. Not rambling at all.


* - for the rest of my life, I will never understand how the OP could talk about the shy, insecure women who tentatively asked for breast-enpowerment through groping and not realize how fucking creepy that was. I don't think any phrase ever skeeved me as badly as that one in how it was both worded and that it existed at all. And there is no way that could have been worded by anyone that it wouldn't have set off every alarm I have installed, both pre-installed and society-created models.

** - I've often wondered if the explosion in OSBP is related to the Mary Jane debacle that some of us walked out of feeling vaguely shell-shocked and nauseated by turns. At least for me, seeing the same reworded statement in defense of the former that were posted in the latter under anonymous (and those charming flames, fun) was enlightening. I don't often go from zero to DIAF that fast.

Environments are in read-only for mass updates. I wish I could explain what that actually is, because it's deceivingly nothing like what those words mean according to the dictionary, but I really can't. I know it's a mass, and it's an update, and while yes, it is, no, it's really not. And it sucks.

However, this rare morning, it gives me a short, brilliant moment to surf friendsfriends.

Sarah T on the lower numbers of John/Ronon in SGA.

Actually, I've kind of vaguely wondered about that, but--the thing is, my first fandom was Star Trek and I came out of that physically incapable of not having a header (though sometimes I break conditioning and remove it) and a taste for random internet drama. I also came out of it unable to believe Kirk was heterosexual and it would still be a year before I stared blankly at my first slash OTP (Pyro/Iceman, in case you were curious).

(Sidenote: I was on there watching or posting actively 1999 -2001--wow. Just. Yeah. This is why flamewars rarely scare me and why I don't often participate; I know some fandoms have been far wankier for far longer and with greater populations and drama, but I'm not sure any fandom post-usenet can hit that same deeply terrifying intensity where there were no prisoners taken and occasionally you realized the ground was being sown with salt. Deeply awesome. Even when you had no idea what Treksmut university was and kept freaking out every time your inbox pinged.)

Right. Moving on. The OTP even in Voyager was Kirk/Spock. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but not much of one. ASCEM(L) was like, KS Central. And I know this because I didnt' read slash and contextually knew at the time the plotlines to three of the winning GO stories.

Now, my question--are there any fandoms who have had more than one major pairing of the same type at the same time? As in, more than one major slash and more than one major het?

Since Trek, I've never been involved in a fandom that did, so I'm curious. And I'm not sure my memories of Trek are accurate, as this was 1999/2000 and I spent about half that time going, oh my God this is the best thing in the world! And um, writing Paris/Seven post-Paris/Torres breakup porn. Because I didn't like Seven and that's how I deal with dislike. It felt like Janeway/Chakotay and Paris/Torres had similiarly strong followings, though J/C was a bit older and larger, and Chakotay/Paris and Paris/Kim seemed relatively even (in retrospect, the locked archives actually skew it even more; I never even *knew* about some of them before Smallville).

I'd ask what everyone thinks influences a pairing to be written, but the answers will be, invariably:
a.) Lots of feedback! OR Feedback doesn't matter! Etc. Etc. Etc.
b.) BNFs! OR BNFs turn me off pairings! Etc. Etc. Etc.
c.) Big Pairings are sheep! OR Rare pairing are boring! Etc. Etc. Wait, didn't we do this recently?
d.) Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. (insert here)

I always wondered if it was just a moment of fannish--unity, if you will, like when a mob forms. Like, remember when you went to cheer at a football game and suddenly in the third quarter and while you've never been the perkiest cheerleader and kinda quiet, you're suddenly filled with bloodlust and helping to lead the crowd in screaming BEAT THE WATERPIGS and lost your voice for a day? (They were hippos. Yes, we got in some much trouble for that one. So very much worth it.) (My algebra teacher was louder than all of us together, though.)(I don't miss being a cheerleader. I do, however, miss controlling crowds with five inches of thigh and some belled shoes. Seriously. I still marvel at that.)

Yes, I'm going to be this incoherent all day; I had no sleep. Also trying to get my John/Ronon recs together, since I kind of think I should feedback the authors and then give the fic their own page.

Today is a Ramen day. I hate to admit it, but I've been on this serious Ramen kick for like a month. Is it the delicious sodium, the rich powdered artificial flavor, the thin, sad noodles? I have no clue. But it is total, total crack. I feel like a junkie hovering over my little bowl-thing.

My day yesterday ended pretty well. Just so everyone knows.

Metaish Kinda

I'm really intrigued by the concept behind the SPN comm nostairway.

Quoted from the nostairway:

No Stairway - an introduction & overview
You know how it goes. You turn on a classic rock station, and they are guaranteed to play Stairway to Heaven at least 23 times a day. Everybody loves Stairway, but there are some amazing songs that you only hear once in a great while; songs that are buried on the b-side of out-of-print platters, songs that weren't deemed commercial or hits. Why hasn't anyone put together a radio station to play all those great songs, songs that you might love if only given the opportunity?

This project is to showcase stories that you might not otherwise see and to offer classic examples of literary fiction in the Supernatural fandom. No Stairway is not a greatest hits collection, but an anthology of work that values both style and substance, and a chance for readers to discover those unrenowned b-sides that might become dear favorites, or replay an old favorite that they lost four moves and five cars ago.

Please note that 'literary' in this instance refers to form and function and not to genre. Romances, science fiction, fantasy and all other so-called "genre" forms are welcome here. What, after all, is Supernatural if not a genre story? We are looking to share your best work with our readers. Be it prosaic or experimental, sexy or plain, featuring dragons, robots, or just two boys on the road, we want to give your songs a chance to be heard.

winterlive started the discussion here on the general concept of a comm based somewhat on objective quality standards. There are links going from there.

esorlehcar weighs in here on the subject.

I started having a moment of significant cognitive dissonance when I realized I kinda completely agree with them both. But it's complicated.

( fascinating how that happens )

You know, the reason you will never see me arguing about fanfiction as a legitimate creative enterprise is because I can't conceptualize the idea of a hierarchy of creativity. It causes a communication breakdown from the first word; I stare blankly at the counterarguments that might as well be sanskrit for all the sense they make; how do you answer sanskrit? In sanskrit. You see the problem.

As much as I support the Organization of Transformative Works and all that comes with it, I can't quite get past the fact that with this movement comes this: as a fanfic writer I'm being asked, my culture is being asked, to prove why we should have the right to exist.

I resent it on behalf of myself, who luckily won't be asked to personally stand up and represent--I leave that to those who are involved in the OTW, to the scholars and the intellectuals, what I am not and what I will never be. But I resent my culture is being asked to do so; worse, I resent the fact we are being asked to represent fandom as a single culture in itself, asked to homogenize ourselves into something singular instead of plural, and asked, in essence, to explain why we want this.

I read about the transformative process, the history of literature, Homer and Shakespeare and Chaucer; modern reinterpretations of Cinderella and Jane Austen and the Illiad. Here's the thing; they aren't my ancestors, not in what I write.

My genealogy is a long one; my creative ancestors were poor bards and village elders and traders who wandered the world and brought stories back from wherever they went. Shakespeare doesn't legitimize what I write; it is legitimate because I wrote it. I'm following in the footsteps of those who did it as I did; not for money, for compensation, for a king's pleasure or a publisher's profit. I do it because I love to tell the story I heard and I want to share it with others.

Here's the thing:

I've always wanted to be able to create a perfect sentence; a sentence that encapsulates a concept, an idea, that can speak an absolute truth. I think all writers do; we spend a million words searching for it, read for it, hope for it, and sometimes, we're so close we hurt. I'm not even close right now; I don't know how to argue something I've always known.

I respect the arguments made for my hobby: yes, Shakespeare and Chaucer and Homer. I just don't think that they are our only models.

Mostly, I want to not be tempted to read these damn discussions. It's bad enough to read how your hobby is the equivalent of letting the terrorists win; it's worse when you realize that even as a practitioner, you don't have the necessary authority to defend it.

A. The Crazy

Hmm.

Considering current events, I really think it's about time we picked a subject to be really, really psychotic over. Fannishly, that is.

I mean--haven't you ever noticed? The really crazy people seem to have a blast. Or at least a remarkably rich inner life of astral families.

(I mock out of love. Sometimes I seriously wonder about the awesome of that.)

Actually....

( the love that I can't admit to ohter people for the crazy )

B. The Less Crazy

Less being the operative word here.

Horrific realization yesterday.

I like mocking myself as much as I like writing. This cannot be a good sign. But I was sitting at my innocent laptop last night, trying to troubleshoot svmadelyn's network with Tarot cards, and suddenly realized the most fun I could think of having was making someone do a podcast of Flight with me so I can read my own commentary while they read the fic.

And I was this close to IM's Ami to ask!!!!!

Jesus. I suddenly understand reality tv. You can get *addicted* to your own humiliation. Except it's not so much. Granted, back then I would have possibly had some kind of vaguely public diva-ish break with reality (though it's a lot more fun to do that with one's lj than it ever was in mailing lists). But now, it's *funny*, and it's me when I still found this all amazing and new and it's something I tried and failed dramatically at, but that at least I was trying new things.

It's also interestingly like having found a bit of a map to a place I lived once.

Livejournal and diaryland became my history, one I can touch and see and re-read and occasionally lockdown if I feel like it, centralized and complete. Cartography's easier when you know where you've already been, and in some ways, lj and diaryland spoiled me by giving me the means of keeping my own history, chart my own journey, my fandoms, the things I did well and the things--that are like Flight and I have to admit anyway. I know the me that was in Smallville and I know the one in QaF and I know the one in early SGA and how differently I see the fandom now. (not in a bad way. Discovering ltlj is possibly the highlight of my fannish existence, along with miss_porcupine)

Before lj and diaryland and social networking, we had Fannish Histories, with you know, Signficant Historical Personages and Signifcant Flamewars, Hugely Significant Authors, and Significant Archivists. The Extraordinary, like in any history, was preserved, annotated, recorded, passed on from person to person and place to place and convention to convention, zine to zine, big massive webpage to webpage. The rest--kind of got forgotten. You don't know what daily life in Rome was like for the average shopkeeper, but we know what Julius Caesar *ate*. You see where I'm going with this.

Now we each write our own, whether we were signficant or not. We're our own autobiographers--what we contributed, small and large, is here. Our tiny archives and our small challenges, and freaking *drabbles* are documented, recorded, found by others, remembered.

There's a metaphor in this about civilization that would actually make me look incredibly pretentious, but I wnat to do it anyway. Sadly, I can't think of it. But I think it does come down to the concept of fannish literacy, the shift that's kind of like equalization; becuase these days, while the Stephen King of Fandom X might be the most read, the less-popular of fandom are known too. And we can find them pretty much on the same shelves. And right beside each other on the same newsletters.

History:

basingstoke wrote the first Five Things fic. The idea has--changed a lot, both in concept and execution and meaning, but I remember when she posted it. I remember because I posted a rec in diaryland and mentioned what it was, and now I can go back and look and think, here. This is where it started. That's fannish history, the history she gave us, a new type of story.

thete1 wrote the first story I'd ever witnessed flatten a fandom in Smallville, Past Grief. I read it and watched it ripple, watched it take hold of people's imaginations and so many of us followed her. I remember because I recced it, then I wrote one in chat for her. And I have both recorded in my diary. That's Smallville history, the history she gave us, a new type of Smallville Clex.

I wrote a fannish novel live, Somewhere I Have Never Travelled when fandom had just started moving to livejournal. I wrote for a life audience in chat every night, then posted to lj and missed only one day before it was completed. I'm sure it wasn't the first time that's ever been done, but it was the first time I had ever done it. That's my history, the history I built for myself, something I'd never done before.

And I wrote about them all. Just some of them get thought about more than others. But they're all in the same place(s), recorded with the same care, equal with entries on fannish tropes and my deep dilike of wontons.

Sometimes I miss mailing lists and forums and single-pairing groups, and being able to go no-mail. And I miss being able to killfile and usenet flamewars and fandom not being so much a part of my daily life. Sometimes, I even miss the privacy.

But I want this history more.

This is why Flight makes me wince and blush and laugh and mock ruthlessly, because I can and because I love it and I love knowing I got better. But it makes me sad, too--that's all I have of two years of my fannish life--this and a handful of fic I posted to ASC, ASCEML, and PTF. I don't remember who I talked to, who read it with me, what formed the idea of it, what drugs I was on (obviously). I don't know why I had a style change that makes it like nothing I else I'd written at that time, but I carried with me, worked on, tried again and again until I got it right. That story was a prototype for over a dozen fic I've posted, for two of the most popular fic I've ever written, In a Thousand Miles, X-Men, and Sleep While I Drive, Smallville. I tried something new a long time ago, and then I kept trying until I learned how to do it.

I just don't know why I wanted to.

Admin Post from the mods of daily_deviant.

Short version: removal of term, reversal of earlier stance, etc.

ETA: the below cut was more than I thought it would be. So it's less mod-actions at this point and more the concept of kink defintion.

( hmm )

You know, this thing going around LJ feels vaguely like the fannish equivalent of leaving a forwarding address.

If I vanish mysteriously, I am at seperis.newsite.com place!

OTOH, if we do have a fannish migration, I've decided that instead of seperis, there will be the rise of a new fangirl. I will call her Bob.

In this day and age, it's just too hard to change identities suddenly. People catch you. There are IP things. And well, let's face it, sometimes Certain Things kind of stand out--oh, say, saying your country of origin is Chile, you love Clex, and you keep friending herohunter, for example. Not that I'm talking about anything specific.

But this. With the Mad Scramble across a billion blogging sites (seriously, y'all? Let's get together and *vote* or something to see who we honor with our underaged porn presence), people will get lost. People will change names. Just think--you're sitting there, oh, two years after the--hmm. Need a name here. Ah. "The Great Fannish Scattering". Yes.--after The Great Fannish Scattering. We'll call it Scat for short.

...hmm. No, we won't. Go back.

The Great Fannish Scattering. It's two years later. You are sipping latte and thinking about your flying car (seriously, where are the flying cars already?) and your upcoming vacation to Mars for the new MediaWestinSpace convention. And you are talking to BetsyBoom. Your bestest friend ever. And you are hitting wayback machine, as people do. And you discover--

BETSYBOOM IS YOUR MORTAL ENEMY SUPERHARRYSLUT (not referring to actual person by name of superharryslut. Seriously. Is there a superharryslut?)!

You remember it all. She told you that your astral marriage to Harry Potter was invalid because she already married him there! She posted obviously photoshopped pictures of the honeymoon (you know photoshopped fakes, unlike yours, which were Divinely Inspired by His Heroness). Flame after flame. Picture after picture. Terrifyingly detailed narratives of intimate astral trysts. She touched his astral robe! Whore.

But she's your best friend now!

You see how this can only end in tragedy. there's a lesson in this I hope you all walk away from thinking about very seriously. The first would be, check out your polygamous astral plane husband's history first. Second--well. Hide better. And some other stuff.

For your assignment: imagine you are the person I didn't name, but the pov of this little story. What do you do when confronted with SUPERHARRYSLUT aka BetsyBoom's real identity? And no, astral plane assassinations are not acceptable. Those fuck up your karma, yo.

I worry about these things.

Survived the beach. Actually, it turned out almost creepily fun and good, like some kind of television miniseries on family bonding. My sister's fiance was new to the entire Our Family of Multiple Personalities experience but fit in nicely. I do miss her first husband, though, and a part of me really wished he could have come.

I do get that would be worth years of therapy, but still.

Anyway. My dad a couple of years ago was down at Port A with my mom to go on the gambling boat thing and they were looking for some place to stay. We have this one motelish place we always use for like, three freaking generations and dad was practically married to it. Every year, that's where we went.

However, when I began regular travel and booking of hotels I started looking up things like condos and etc to stay at, and when I raved about the place hwmitzy booked us in South Padre, they got interested. Anyway, short version they stumbled across a quiet place that turned out to be a lot better than it looked; very plain exterior, but awesome rooms, a huge porch, and on the first floor with a view of the beach. Dad was hooked. The room we got was expandable from one to two to three to I think four bedrooms with a neat series of locking doors. We ended up with the two bedroom, since we'd been kind of hard line on a first floor and beach view, so me and my youngest sister got futons in teh living room. I am not complaining--I had a fantastic time.

Anyway, short version--fun. Just too much.

And I am set for travel until August. I am remembering a time in my life where I never travelled. It's surreal to think of it.

*****

While continuing the obsessive tagging in del.icio.us--my main source of relaxation and entertainment, sadly enough--I remembered I'd left a few stories off that werne't archived on my website. They were part of Unspoken: A Round Robin, which was this accidental thing in X-Men Movieverse. I'd written a story for a friend who gave me very specific parameters to write in, and then kind of left the story in my WIP folder since it didn't really go anywhere--basically just an intro to a radically different AU. After posting, two people asked to continue the storyline--minisinoo and andariel. And then a lot of people jumped in.

At the time, it was a really cool surprise. Everyone picked up different characters, brought in non-movie characters and alternate storylines, and there ended up being fifty-seven stories in the series, a *lot* of which were written in the space of a few weeks. We had a lot of lurkers come out to post a story or two, make suggestions, etc. Being a small list, it was pretty high output there for a while.

*g* And it was fun.

I forgot how much I missed shared universe. That was a serious level of fun there.

And yes, random moment of the day. I am *so close* to being done editing and God, I am terrified.

*narrow eyes*

I feel as if I now have every excuse to sulk prodigiously. The job I interviewed for, again, went to someone else. I sulked in supervisor junior's office while he made comforting noises.

Also, there was pizza for lunch and thanks to bad medication, I could not eat it. I can officially recommend this for weight loss. It makes a two inch thick pizza stuffed with meat and cheese and other good things absolutely uneatable.

I resent life right now.

Okay, moving to:

Child was reaccepted to his school next year. Thank God.

I finally caught up on Fanlib because really, I'm sulking and by God, I feel the need to read things that will raise my blood pressure, such as it is. Summaries of the situation are everywhere.

My favorite post so far is by icarusancalion here. metafandom is hopping with links--Jesus, which I have read, oh, all.

Henry Jenkins checked in here.

astolat wants a multifandom archive here, run by us, for us, literally. Also has set up the fanarchive for discussion of how to go about this. We *need* to do this. Also, I have no skills whatsoever when I was trying to think of things to offer. Dear God. That is depressing.

See? Sulking. I plan to continue until at least Thursday.

And final note on Fanlib before I forget they exist, which shouldn't take long, since their main page is appalling and I try to quickly wipe trauma from my mind to prevent the early signs of aging.....

Gakked from bethbethbeth, who also beat my easy sudoku score, but I'm not bitter. Not yet

Here is a charming brochure of their corporate goals as given to the investors.

Read more in their 6-page PDF brochure, with revelatory quotes like:

See How To: Grow Audience! Enhance Brand! and Increase Revenue!
[let] a mass audience collaborate democratically in a fun online game that you control.
[Emphasis theirs]
Increase audience -- if they build it, they will come
Massive Viral Marketing
And how about Page 4, describing how their site is "MANAGED & MODERATED TO THE MAX," including the following:

1.) As with a coloring book, players must "stay within the lines"
2.) Restrictive player's terms-of-service protects your rights and property
3.) Moderated "scene missions" keep the story under your control
4.) Full monitoring & management of submissions & players

This is the only time I was tempted to submit. Just to see if they'd take Only Human, the version that existed before I removed the mutilation aspects.

Yes, a restrictive TOS isn't a bug -- it's a feature!

They conclude with the following B2B summary:

FANLIB TECHNOLOGIES (a division of My2Centences LLC) develops, markets and manages innovative social software and web services that unleash the creativity of the worldwide public and generate remarkable value for businesses.

Charming.

I will chip my fic into stone and carry it to people's houses before I'd be comfortable using this site. Though I don't know where I'd get the stone. I'll have to look around.

This is my dramatic representation of everything. I think I officially have an excuse to drink. Well, hot chocolate, but I only have one package yet and I can pretend I added rum.

Plz wake me when it's Friday. Thank you.

ALSO

Anyone who has Supernatural as their primary fandom? I need a beta. Email me please? Or leave a comment? Or possibly send smoke signals. I could totally sit on my roof today and stare dubiously at the neighborhood while reciting epic poetry. I think it would relieve my feelings. I am thinking something in Beowulf. It's not like I understood it the first time through, so maybe this will help.

Or ooh, Chaucer. Not poetry, per se, but ooh. I can mispronounce so many words.

I now officially want a unicorn. Nothing else will do. A unicorn with wings.

ETA - LJ COMMENTS STOP DOING THAT. COME AT THE CORRECT TIME. OR AT ALL. IS THIS AN ET TU BRUTE MOMENT YET? IS IT?

Random moment of squickery. And this is not related at all to anything except I got to thinking on my primary squicks and wondered if anyone else had really weird ones.

I mean, I have like, one major pairing squick (will run in the other direction and occasionally refilter my flist to avoid seeing even mention--yes, I know, My neuroses and I are one), and a few minor ones in SGA. But I developed this entire host of bizarre characterization squicks as well that always throw me, because honestly, there is no way to warn for them, some people have entirely differnet ways of seeing the character--which is fine! I swear! Except the sociopathic John thing, that is just stupid--okay, and the robot-of-no-real-emotions John thing, also mindblowingly stupid--but beyond that. And weird, *weird* plot squicks. And there's this entire *litany* of John-related and Rodney-related almost-squicks--I'll read them if this person write it, but not that person, and I'll only read it if this person was making me pre-read it early on and I'm allowed to insert such comments as WHY DID YOU DO THAT? EXPLAIN DAMMIT and then they do, and then I'm okay (see Astolat's Tango for fic that first squicked me, then much later, after a line by line with Amireal, really loving it and adding to re-read list). And I think Bone is still the only person I can read John/Ronon from, and I think a lot of that is because I was reading it well before I hardened into my OTP, and a lot of it because no other character suffered for the making of the pairing, which some John/Ronon fics I read seemed to have at least some bit of Rodney-left-out-and-hurt, which kind of sours it.

But okay, I'm asking for other people to tell me their weird squicks, I'll tell a few of the less-humiliating ones. I just want to feel less weird.

( squicks, semi-squicks, and weird-outs )