Another thing that is awesome:

"Starships!" made it onto io9 today! Thank you to were_duck for the tip.

The thrill of having the vid featured there outweighs what I'm about to say by far, but following on our recent conversation about citing creators and, more important to me personally, including or linking to vid context when posting a rec, it stood out to me that the short post by Annalee Newitz included the YouTube embed without title or attribution, a link to Nicki Minaj's official video, a link to Vividcon's website, and my excerpted source list, but only referred to "this fan video" and "the filmmakers." The result was a flurry of the "No Babylon 5/Red Dwarf/Cowboy Bebop?!"-type comments that I am now expecting and resigned to in the absence of my notes about deadlines and access to source -- they continue to stream in on the Tumblr post as well -- along with the "Ew, Nicki Minaj" comments (which don't bother me). And, not to sound ungrateful, a nice handful of happy viewers. The frustration is just that I (and others) keep trying to explain why the vid includes only what it includes, but because of the nature of certain sharing platforms and because of common reccing practices, it doesn't stick.

What also resulted, however, was that someone named eregyrn, who came to my defense on the MarySue.com post a few weeks ago, and later someone named telepresence, quickly stepped in in the comments section to provide that very context, along with links and a greensilver/anatsuno-style call for vidder credit. There ensued a confusing thread in which Annalee said she'd already linked to the YouTube page (she hasn't; there's only the embed, which means people have to know and want to click on the video and then click on the little YouTube icon to view over there; but to be fair, some people are doing that, because a bunch of comments have been coming in on YouTube this afternoon) and that my name wasn't on the vid (which eregyrn pointed out is incorrect, and also, the video title on YouTube says "by bironic" and the LJ link is in the description right above the source list she quoted, so even though it's easy to miss the opening vid credits, it isn't hard to track down who made it). But she kindly amended the post to include my name, which now links to the LJ master post. So that is cool. I need to find and thank eregyrn somehow.

In conclusion: io9! Whee! And this lovely blog post by Doctor Science on Tuesday, which expands on a comment she made to Masters of War about vids being like bouillon cubes.

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I think I've settled on a new vid to work on, finally. Not sure what it'll be for -- maybe Kink Bingo -- but after four months of lying fallow it'll be nice to get back into practice.

Thoughts on the first four chapters/64 pages of Fifty Shades of Grey

After mortifying National Poetry Month by spending it reading the Twilight series* (worst sentence from the fourth book: "Beyond words, I shrieked a growl at him"; best part: the last third, when Bella had agency and confidence and action happened), I thought it would be appropriate to continue now with Fifty Shades of Grey, since it is another extremely popular book that has been panned by fandom and about which I'd like to form my own opinions, and since it began life as a Twilight fic. A Twilight AU, I'd assume, in which Isabella "Bella" Swan-->Anastasia "Ana" Steele meets vampire student Edward-->dom businessman Christian and instantly falls for his godly beauty and inexplicable sexy power, feelings are returned much to the consternation of Native American werewolf Jacob Black-->Hispanic photographer José Rodriguez**, and readers are left to insert themselves into one of the lead roles, possibly while wondering what the foundation is for the characters' mutual obsession. (I'm pretty sure Bella would have felt way more secure about Edward's love for her if their relationship had been based on anything more than love at first sight.)

My expectations are basically that Fifty Shades will be shoddily written, the relationship will be unhealthy in that it borders on abuse instead of consent (and therefore it will make me itch to point those mainstream readers to dozens of fics and Kink Bingo metas and whatnot that show and/or explain what safe and hot dom/sub relationships can look like), the sex will eventually be constant and the prose flowery... and that there will be something appealing about some aspect of it, because it has appealed to thousands of women.

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So, okay, I'm four chapters in and the text hasn't thrust me out yet. So to speak. The prose is best read at a skim, the dialogue's often as vapid as watching kids put on an ad libbed play, and there are whole scenes that should have been cut, but it's interesting to study the signs of transition from fanfic to novel.

My biggest issues so far are that the relationship took off way too quickly and again with no foundation or reality to it, and that the hero is already flashing danger signs that the heroine alternately misses or chooses to ignore. ( Details on those: )

We've at least gone a step up from Twilight in that the roommate says he's creepy and too much for her and because one time Ana thinks, "Stalker"... but then she says she doesn't mind because it's him. So.

Or rather, her subconscious thinks, "Stalker." If you ask me, if you're thinking something clearly while you're awake, you are thinking it consciously, not subconsciously. But I didn't raise the red flag until the next page, when "My subconscious is figuratively tutting and glaring at me over her half-moon specs."

If that happens much more, I am quitting.

I suspect that it will happen much more. I hear there is also an inner goddess.

As a reward when I'm done, maybe I will make a print of the cover of Fifty Shades of Chicken for the kitchen.

(For what it's worth, the scene in the hardware store where he buys kinky supplies and she thinks he's doing home reno DIY was funny.)

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*and by watching The Raven, in which, following the recent Hollywood trend of transforming 19th century literary and political figures into action heroes, Edward Norton John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe helps a Baltimore constable catch a serial killer whose murders mimic Poe's short stories. Ugh, it was even worse than I was braced for. Especially after the opening few shots promised beautiful cinematography. I was all set to request it for festivids and invite the vidder to trick everyone into thinking the movie was good.

**For facepalming on that last name choice and for general amusement, see http://sabinetzin.dreamwidth.org/tag/fifty_shades_of_drinking, earliest post


ETA: part two of the review here