bironic

Need to write the last part of the Star Trek con report (cast panels!) but not at the moment. Just wanted to say:

(1) Started N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season this week. Bit of initial... what's the term for when there's a hump to get over and then things are good? Anyway, I'm enjoying it now. I was trying to figure out who this one character, Essun, reminds me of, and realized it's Chava from The Golem and the Jinni. ( Brief elaboration. I don't consider this a spoiler but just in case; mentions vague stuff from <75 pages in. ) It's got me picturing Essun as large-framed now, even though I don't think her physique was described.

(2) Been watching movies again, both features and documentaries and in one case a blend of the two (Jafar Panahi's Taxi). Was surprised and delighted by how much I enjoyed this one movie, Wildlike, starring Bruce Greenwood and Ella Purnell. It found a whole panel of my buttons and pressed them. ( plot description, could be considered spoilery? ) I clutched my hands to my chest in joy during the last maybe ten minutes. And then the credits rolled to one of my favorite Alexi Murdoch songs. ♥ I don't even know what to do with my happiness about it besides luxuriate in it and read reviews. There's no fic to read, I don't think I have a fic in me to write, a vid wouldn't add anything, and rewatching the movie wouldn't replicate the experience.

(3) Still thinkin' about festivids requests. I've got four movies (Queen Margot, Stranger by the Lake, Farewell My Concubine, Gods and Monsters) and one book (The Golem and the Jinni ♥), but am stumped on the last. This year I really only want to ask for things where any one of them would feel like my top choice if I got it. Haven't figured out a sixth one that would match the others. :/ Priest, maybe? The Linus Roache one, I mean. Not sure.

Are any of you asking for movies? Maybe there's something I can watch in the coming weeks to expand my repertoire of offers.

(4) Meta rec: On the Subject of Noncon Fanworks: Thoughts of a Reader, Writer, Survivor by Anarfea. Spectacularly cogent, moving essay about personal history, the difficulty of untangling experienced abuse from a penchant for power exchange/rape fantasy, the internal and external conflicts that happen before and after writing and posting a noncon story, noncon fic tagging and shaming in Sherlock fandom and beyond, and more. I'm out of oomph so if you are curious about my personal reaction just scroll down to my comment on her post. h/t to krytella and lurrel for the link.

Life Things are Happening that I will talk about soon, and that has made things busy. As usual. What is the pathology for inability to chill out?

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Anyway, the second basement-cleaning trip went well enough aside from the grime. My dad handled everything well -- I underestimated his desire and ability to get rid of a lot of the stuff down there -- and the two of us made another big dent in the clutter. Let's see if I can remember some gems. On the Why? side: five or six boxes of hanging file folders, 19 rolls of packing tape, and several pounds of paper clips. On the sentimental side: early childhood Apple II floppy disks and keyboard covers for things like Stickybear, Facemaker, Iggy's Gnees, Grandma's House, Dinosaur Dig and Muppet Learning Keys. And of course EZ Logo and, later, Print Shop. Also some more adorable schoolwork. ♥ On the What the heck do we do with all this? side: a dozen boxes of computer software and piles and piles of computer hardware going back to at least 1980.

I didn't find the piece of kinky noncon "art" drawn on the back of some elementary school homework that got me into trouble with the school psychologist, but I did find a similar one from what must have been the same era:

( cut for sensitivity )

Also, baby's first vampire creations:

 

*shakes head fondly*

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Vidding quandary. I want so badly to include scenes from The Green Table ballet in my next vid, but the quality of the YouTube file that I snagged a couple of years ago (before it disappeared, whew) sucks compared to the rest of the sources going into the project. Yet it is the only footage of these scenes from the ballet that I can find anywhere. (There are some decent clips available of the politicians arguing around the green table, but that's not what I need.) Scrunchy face.

Speaking of vidding, Vividcon is this weekend. I'm not able to go, but people's vids will happen! Including jetpack_monkey's Starships remix! Excited.

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There was all this other stuff I wanted to tell you... Oh, good movies: Fish Tank, about a troubled teenage girl who seems to have an opportunity to turn her life around when she falls for her mother's new boyfriend (a young Michael Fassbender); Bliss (Mutluluk), about a young Turkish rape survivor who wins over her would-be executioner as well as everyone else she meets while on the run; and Daydream Nation, a weird/quirky heavily stylized Canadian indie film about some outcast teens and their parents and teachers during a pivotal few months of school, which I kept thinking about for days (and which contained a joke about Atom Egoyan, helping win my heart) even though it wasn't really about the student/teacher relationship that drew me to it in the first place. Saw The Queen of Versailles, too, and was interested in that dual fascination/repulsion way, but didn't think it was as spectacular or revealing as reviews suggested.

ETA: Oh, duh. cincodemaygirl, alpheratz and corbae threw a hipster-themed party (ironically, of course) the other weekend and it was much fun. In addition to the silly theme, the snacks and the opportunity to see some local fans who've been scarce of late, like v_greyson, roga was in town (well, in country) and managed to make it down for a few hours. That was great, though short.

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*cough* So, you know, hi. Thinking of you and reading your posts even if I don't comment a lot.

Speaking of vividcon. Who among you is going? I know kassrachel is, and I'm assuming obsessive24 and anoel? xenakis?

Before I ask at the comm: Anyone looking for a non-bed-sharing roommate, by the by?

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An angle that didn't come up in the anonymity discussion at con.txt and which occurred to me again yesterday is from the perspective of someone who's posted work anonymously before, as a temporary measure during a meme round or a fest (i.e. Festivids): It gives you the opportunity to receive feedback that is more likely to be honest, or perceived as honest, especially when it's from people who know you online. When I post a fic or a vid without my LJ name attached to it and someone I know and respect leaves a positive comment, I feel better about it than I do when I post it as myself. You can be sure they're not just being nice because they're your friend/acquaintance. Also, if you ask for concrit, they might be more likely to leave it if your name's not on it. (Maybe. You guys are good about that when I ask!)

I don't think I'd like leaving a creative work permanently anonymous, though. Too much ego, as a friend put it recently when talking about her own work. This way I get to eat my feedback and claim it, too.

(The other nice thing about the anonymity period at Festivids is the equalizing factor: People don't only watch vids by the big names, because there are no big names. Everyone gets a shot. Well, given other factors in play, like which fandoms are more popular and whatnot.)

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More Kink Bingo ramp-up essays to recommend: toft's post on AUs and Kink. She describes it in her journal thusly: "It's about ways to use worldbuilding to kinky purpose, the history of sexuality, and some examples of fantasy/sci-fi AUs that alter the way kink is perceived within them." The essay covers a few reasons for creating AUs for Kink Bingo, such as '(1) The costumes!, 2) the different kinds of technology, and 3) the way the context changes the kink,' and includes a list of resources.

Also, deelaundry posted about that "peculiar bouquet," vanilla kink. Some interesting angles in there I hadn't thought about before. Full disclosure on the reccing front that she's my friend and I gave the post a quick beta. :)

In sum: IS IT TIME FOR KINK BINGO YET

Part one
Part two

Okay, we are going chronologically-ish through the rest. This doc is up to page 11 in Word; I don't have the energy to organize it in any more nuanced way!

( The Rule of Names )

( Gender and Sexuality Across Cultures )

( Size Doesn't Matter (except when it does) [reading and writing long fic] )

( Writing Trans Characters )

( Personality Typing and Character Analysis for Better Fanworks (Greg House is an INTP) )

( Subtext Is Not the Only Text )

( Femslash Fandom Faire )

( My Kink's OK, Your Kink's OK Revisited )

( Shifting Genre Lines in the Sand )

( Fandom and the Law )

There were a few other panels I would have liked to have gone to, if they hadn't conflicted with something else—Hunger Games, Going Pro, On Beyond Pairings, and Doctor Who: Moff's Long Game. Looking forward to other write-ups on these. I see duskpeterson has already done one on the Pro panel.

What else haven't I mentioned. Well, I tried to say something in each session I went to, which was unusual. It helped to know a lot of the people. Starting to read other people's reports about skipping programming and hanging out with people makes me wonder once again if my con experience will ever evolve into attending fewer panels and engaging in less structured socializing/room parties, maybe as topics become less new and appealing. It's not like the panels have a monopoly on intellectual dialogue (I must remind myself). I dunno; I've always been more of a lecture person.

Whatever: That was my weekend at con.txt in a nutshell. A... really big nutshell. Whew! As Mark Twain might have said, I would have written you a shorter post, but I didn't have the time.

( Ongoing list of links to other people's write-ups )

This month's mini-challenge at kink_bingo is "all you can kink," a.k.a. How Many Kinks Can You Stuff Into One Fanwork? (Insert joke about kink fisting/stretching here.) Lacking the time and/or focus to create something new right now, I took a look at preexisting stories and learned that my personal record for number of distinct, kink_wiki-recognized kinks contained in a single fanfic appears to be about 18.

(The mini-challenge may have inspired the creation of a spreadsheet to find out. There may have been illustrative bar graphs. Please don't judge me.)

The honor belongs to Upside Down and Inside Out (also on the AO3), an SGA Santa Madness story I wrote a few years ago for companion in kinkiness sabinelagrande and which was subsequently podficced—for Kink Bingo, even—by Sabine herself. As though anticipating this mini-challenge, one of the first comments on the fic was: "How did you get all of that into that space? Holy skamoly."*

It's odd; before Kink Bingo came along, I didn't really think in terms of individual kinks that could be strung together to make a story. I wrote what I thought was hot, or interesting, or to explore something I'd seen or heard about. The stories were all quite kinky—my early writing is filled with bondage and toys and pervertibles and breathplay and issues of consent, etc. etc.—but except for maybe bondage, the elements didn't always stand apart, like how I just categorized them, you know? Then Bingo happened, and the fic-writing process changed. Kinks got quantified. Kinks became a basis on which to build a plot. I haven't been able to shake that way of thinking ever since.

I'd like to think and write more about that one day, but the point here is that "Upside Down and Inside Out" fell somewhere in between the two story-building methods. Sabine's request included 11 kinks, and I wanted to include as many of them as possible. That meant thinking about which of them combined well and how they might lead to a scenario. The brainstorming went something like: "If John and Rodney [one of the requested pairings] are in a room because aliens demand they perform a ritual [check AMTDI off the list] that involves John tied up and hanging from the ceiling [ditto suspension + bondage], and if John's been switched into a woman's body through offscreen shenanigans and he wants Rodney to take him out for a spin anyway [gender play + bottom!John], then Rodney can do stuff like spank and finger him while he's hanging there [spanking], taking control and talking all the while [dom/sub + verbal humiliation/dirty talk]…"

The story took shape like puzzle pieces fitting together. ( I rounded it out with more stuff I thought was sexy, yet it wasn't until this week that I realized how many other kinks got folded in there. )

Comments? Thoughts? Questions?



*You will see the irony of this when deelaundry, who left that comment, posts her mini-challenge fill in the next few days.

If your tastes run to virginity/virgin-like/innocence/reluctance, major consent issues, and/or prostitution, all of the older-male-dominating-young-female variety, then may I heartily recommend Mes Chères Études (Student Services). Hooooo yes.

(It is a movie I wish more movies were like! Actors who can act, acting a lot of soft-core sex scenes amidst a plot. It could have been harder-core, actually, but I still give it an A. I swear, one scene was out of a Mary Sue fantasy in my head. Now where is the button for "If you liked this movie, you might like..."? ETA: Oh oh, it's at the bottom of the page. Sweet.)

(Actual review, what? It's a little like the one season of Secret Diary of a Call Girl I watched, the one where she tried to have a boyfriend on the side, and a little like... something with a moral like an anvil. I did not have my critic hat on. It was engaging enough all the way through. There was a lot of sexy nudity and emotional trauma, okay? *types and deletes TMI about the sort of depravity I enjoy* *leaves you to it if this is your thing*)

5. I have been sleeping so well the last couple of days; I am suffused with peace and tranquility good will. Last night brought a handful of interesting dreams. One of them involved the SGA crew being made to drink draughts of something like vodka because they'd investigated a gold beacon in a city like Atlantis, and after, Sheppard was nauseous, living/reliving painful memories, while everyone else had come out fine because the drink's effects were supposed to be temporary.

4. Last month's news, but oh my God, what a train wreck. Hey, did you know that a population with 55% women is equivalent to "Girlington"? NY Times fails again. One sane response here.

4a. Have this pre-Oscars Meta Awards list and Existential Olympics report to recover. Titles are funnier than the descriptions in the latter.

3. Today in a meeting, one of my colleagues in introducing me to a group of contractors said that I went to MIT and was therefore the smartest person in the room. That sort of comment makes me really uncomfortable. Because part of me says, Yeah, I might be. (Ten years ago, I would have thought, Yeah, I am.) And another part says, The school doesn't make the person; and school-smart doesn't mean everything-smart. And another part quails because I'm not always confident in myself. Ugh. I remember once, in my first year at my old job, everyone comparing what their SAT scores had been in high school, and me dreading the inevitable. After the guy who'd started the conversation pushed me to say mine, they were all whistle-y and wondering what I was doing working there and saying I must spend all day thinking about how stupid their conversations were. And what are you supposed to say to that? That in your own group of friends, you're ordinary? That kind of teasing or big-deal-making makes intelligence something to be embarrassed about, and when you try to disclaim the magical brilliance they pin upon you, you risk being accused of excessive or false humility.

2. The Plagiarist's Dirty Dozen Excuses. This came up on Slate the other day and made me think of those semi-annual fannish plagiarism scandals. The article is about a reporter, so some of the details don't apply, but the themes of deflection, self-contradiction, and calls for pity certainly sound familiar. Fandom could add an item or ten to the list. Or Bingo card.

1. If you really love me, you'll post prompts for tentacle_fest. I just left ten over there and feel embarrassed for my enthusiasm. Or prompt me here. Whichever. (Have I mentioned lately that I'm absurdly glad for fandom, because it taught me that it's okay to like what I like? Even when things turn around so that it's many people in fandom who don't share this particular taste, I've got the confidence to own it.)

0. Congratulations to pynelyf on clearing a huge hurdle toward her doctorate! And all my love and best wishes to S. and L., who could use something nice right now.