Miss Cellaneous

Thank you, anonymous donor! I've stocked up immediately. ♥

For the rest of you, if you need a laugh and have at one point seen BtVS and AtS, do head over to rahirah's last entry, wherein she comments quite, uh, unambiguously on sloppy spill-over characterisation in fanfic. & ;-)

toomuchplor is hosting a new twist on the old challenge:

"So - six word stories in the comments, any fandom, any pairing, any genre."

Right now, it's way too Atlantis-heavy for some of you. & ;-) Come play!

Which reminds me -- she and I had the best-ever conversation regarding Rodney so-not-bottoming, thanks, over at thingswithwings, who had the liveliest fanfic!pet!peeves discussion. I think there's a certain Need To Know element, as in: Do I really need to know this ohmygod?, but really, if canon characterisation as applied to sexual preferences and habits interests you (and if you're reading this lj, it probably doesn't abhor you, at least), feel free to scroll down to my comment and the ones following it.

I continue to looove The Sarah Connor Chronicles. ::doodles little hearts:: Evil FOX, keeping me hangin' and hopin'. Icon recs, fic recs (gen so far, I'm thinking)?



ETA: Ooh, thanks to whoever it was who said awesome / things about me in svmadelyn's Valentine's Day Game!

If you're active in fandom, you should totally check it out; there's a good chance at least one friend left you an anonymous love note.

If I were into the "x AUs I'm not writing" meme, I'd totally (not) do a Vineyard AU, you know? ( Not just John & Rodney's Big Wine Adventure... )

...but well, I'm not. I'm just trying to get my fix of John'n Rodney and tasty wine at the same time.

(Then again, what are AUs, after all, than a fic-writing way of combining two things we love--our pairing or dynamic of choice with a classic movie, the world of academia, or *gasp* high school?)

While I'm doing my exercises:

Ask me for a fannish opinion, in any fandom I've ever shown any more than a passing interest in. Ask about a character, a plot point, for speculation (whether canon or my own fanon). Ask me about some meta issue, whatever.

I omitted the sentence that wasn't true (hi, Siri).

I spent my lunch-break bitching about discussing a certain story and pondering its terminology in a general slash context. In German, sorry.

Let me throw the core question at y'all.

( Poll: Excuse me, ma'am, have you seen this acronym? )

PS: Yes, as the icon implies, I'm liking Life so far. Not terribly original, see my previous estimation, but it has more interesting (and more central) female characters than, say, Numb3rs where I've so far liked Amita and Charlie but am often stuck watching The Don & Department Show.

PPS: I really like to eat beef liver, but gah, preparing it is a bloody mess. Literally. Also, if you're interested in prettily displayed nutrition details for all kinds of foods, do check out this site: Nutrition Data (I'm eye-rolling at all the mentions of "weight-loss," mind you. As if that -- and not a healthy life & good meals -- were important. & :-)

i updated my sga genderswitch post -- if you see me missing a favourite of yours, feel free to drop me a line, always.

a propos, you can imagine the point where i squeed when watching ugly betty: "canonical genderswitch! awesome!" of course, a second later, i went, "...or is it?" awesome, yes. but genderswitch (from the show writers)? i wondered about the classification issue while updating above entry, too; it's not always so clear-cut, or at the very least the "genderswitch" label just has different definitions to different people.

( musings )

eta: forgot to mention that "has always been [gender x x/y]" stories, alternate universes, are also a different animal, and yet again, i included jenn's story (of a girl) -- same issues, different level; it's all in the meta: like modern art, such fanfiction relies on the perception of the reader, i.e. her or his background of both canon and fanon. the power and impact comes from that contrast/comparison rather than internal story developments.

I was cleaning the dishes, as one does. And I idly wondered about fannish feedback culture. As one does.

We like responses to our fanworks. That's a no-brainer. But every time there's another debate or wank about the merits of a piece or the people involved or, fine, another instance of me giving in to the urge of posting unsolicited concrit, I'm baffled anew at people's responses.

Mona, you sigh say, haven't you learned by now that most fans don't want criticism? That a large faction of fandom hates anything but happysqueeyourock! comments?

But, but, but, I respond, WHY?

The question isn't whether we like criticism -- we generally don't. I sure don't. You probably don't. Your five-year-old neighbour with the crayon set won't cherish having all the flaws in his doodles pointed out to him. And yet, to me, that doesn't account for these emotional and occasionally anguished responses. ( ... )

Saw "Be the biggest among all your friends!!" spam in my junk mail folder and immediately thought, but why would I want to-- before remembering that on-line spam (much like real life) isn't isn't from women for women, i.e. isn't fandom.

*

Obviously, I'm back from the office ( ... )

*

In more positive news, after coming home from the Sunday half of the weekend's all-day classes, I watched yesterday's Tatort. The Münster duo is my favourite, and this episode was especially delicious -- a crossover with the Cologne Tatort ( ... )

*

A propos of a friend's recent post, I've been thinking about ( the language of the social sciences )

the_royal_anna, thank you! (She sent me this and a lovely card with handwriting that's still the prettiest. & :-)


If you're at all interested in characterisation as it pertains to reading and writing, run, don't walk over to rahirah's latest meta post, who, as so often, speaks my mind.

"Most of us have an image of the characters in our heads, based upon both the bare facts of canon ("Buffy wears what appear to be designer clothes") the inferences, logical or otherwise, we draw from those facts ("Buffy must spend a fortune on those/Buffy must be buying knockoffs on deep discount") and the interpretation we impose upon both facts and inferences ("Buffy is a canny shopper/Buffy is a spendthrift.")"

'you come in here with your guns and your brush cuts....' (some personal thoughts on FanLib) by telesilla

"I still believe that what we do in fan fic fandom is merely a modern version of what people have done since there was language. We tell stories, we use words to entertain. We tell the myths of the Greek gods in our own words as Homer did, we rewrite the Matter of Britain and put in that French OMC**, we piece together things from dozens of different sources and make something new out of it the way Chaucer and Shakespeare did. We are the latest in a long line of this kind of storytellers and when we're good, goddamn do we hit it out of the park."

If you haven't seen -- or want to see -- Joss's post to whedonesque regarding a crowd of young men murdering a woman by stoning her to death, here's the direct link to Equality Now. I cherish the fact they recommend different actions for different crimes against women; I feel concrete options for direct intervention are a wonderful thing (as I am both naturally lazy and unnaturally time-constrained).


::goes back to her books, sigh::

Yeah, many of us just want to get away from this topic. But some of us can't. Which is pretty much my point.

Livia Penn's original post I considered thought-provoking and well-argued, but the entries that most adequately and comprehensively reflect my opinion are these:

• but you're better than normal. you're abnormal. by ciderpress

• As the bowl of petunias said, *Oh no, not again* by telesilla.

If you don't have much time or interest, read them and not my ramblings. I tried to delete all self-indulgent blather. That was right before I realised there would be nothing left. ( A few random points )

Disclaimer: I don't consider myself a confrontational or controversial person, but if any of this bothers you, please feel free to take me off your flist. No, really, it's okay -- this wank is the least of my problems. So, every day is Unfriending Day in my LJ. (Every day is also Clarification Day, but remember as of today 11pm, I'll once more have about 30 minutes per day for surfing.)

If you've always wondered what gen-fic is, and how the gen categorisation works (or doesn't, really) -- my two cents.

wesleysgirl, wickedwords akukorax, whichwitch666, alizarin_nyc, geeklite, lizamanynames, shehasathree -- this is for you: ( 2006 Fanfic in Review )

( Turns out I was a gen writer by a wide margin. )

Already had PT and went the store; now I'm sipping tea and mentally going through a list of bookstores -- I need new learning material, and I need it now. After that, a trip to the hairdresser's: so very necessary.

In fannish news, icarusancalion has created The SGA Project, a.k.a., "Flavor Of The Year." She has created *what*? you ask. She says her goal is to "provide a rec-list with context, a description of intertexts, and explanation" because "[f]anfiction is interdependent, relying what happens in canon, in mainstream media, and in between other stories in fandom."

So, rez_lo, superplin, cathexys, this might be interesting to you not (only) because of content but structure and system. Mmh, intertextuality.

Since all the cool kids seem to be doing their 2006 Fanfic in Review posts:

Poll #900275 2006 Fic in Review
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Interested in me listing all my fanfic written in 2006?

ETA: The Bad Hemingway Story Generator. *ggg*

Went to the store, bought a box of apples, and baked a cake. Mmh.

( Apple cake. PICTURES. )

As for SGA, remember ( that particular line of Rodney's in 3x10? )

In other news, I was thinking about ( Fanfic & Characterisation, and Why We Love It Anyway. )

I think that's pretty clear, but just to clarify: By kink, I don't mean sexual kinks as such, just elements that push our buttons (hard). I often wish I could write more lyrically, more compellingly, or in a more original style, but what adore more than anything in others' writing is a tight – or perhaps loose and easy? – grip on the funny elements. Sure, humour is subjective, and one man's joke is another man's emetic, but authors who make me laugh will always be the ones who have a very, very special place in my heart (and my rec sets). In Alias fandom and some corners of BtVS especially, I often got a whiff of Angsty Drama Is Where It's At, with the corresponding sneer of disdain for lighter-hearted pieces. Why, I shall never know – I believe it can be easier to make readers choke up than to make them grin with delight because certain emotional triggers are easy to pinpoint even in the more cynical among us, while humour triggers are harder to predict as they vary from person to person and depend on various factors.

( Whom I love-love-love in SGA fandom for that reason, and bringing it all back )

Okay, now that I've spent considerable time on this debate that I clearly should have spent alphabetising my files or watering my plants, I mercilessly shove at you a few of my thoughts and reasonings on the recent SGA debate, and yet a few more, OMG!1!.

If that -- or, heck, my really-very-spiffy haircut -- annoys anyone on a fundamental level: Everyday is Unfriending Mona Amnesty Day. harriet_spy's response (quoted below) to CC's follow-up post showed that the side that wishes to be asked for permission before one fan's story is used in another fan's work isn't the only one that claims basic human decency as the underlying idea, and also that judging other fans' basic personalities quite, shall we say, harshly isn't out of fashion:

"We're still left with the problem that Suzy, at least as presented here, ought to be ashamed to be publicly yelling "Mine!" over a toy that she just herself stole from another toddler, and I have to wonder why she's lacking that emotion. Suzy's failure of empathy with the very people who have made her precious creation possible in the first place (and whose paycheck is irrelevant to whether they themselves "put a piece of themselves into their work"; Suzy is grabbing a figleaf here, not making a meaningful distinction) is pretty disturbing. People who don't feel the emotional pull of the Golden Rule, at least as well as whatever else they may be feeling, have skipped an important step in their development as community members. We all have powerful selfish emotions, but shouldn't we also feel a passion for fair play?"

***

Off to exercise and shower and go out for cocktails in new bars with new friends. Go on and club me over the head with your very personal clue-by four; I'll respond, eventually, because I hate not having the last word I'm courteous that way.

The other day, I read a post -- yet another rebuttal of fans complaining about the dearth of the pairing(s) dearest to them as opposed to an over-abundance of the pairing du jour using the analogy of a cake buffet, the basic argument being, IIRC, that those who complain about too much cheesecake and not enough strawberry cake should simply put more strawberry cake on the table -- if there was indeed so much cheesecake one couldn't spot the strawberry cake behind all of it, it'd be even easier and just require a bit of re-organisation.

As much as I liked the very image -- cake! Cheesecake! -- it still struck me as incomplete. Sure, it fits as long as we're talking about a writer's lament, but what about the majority of fans, the readers and lurkers and occasional commenters?

The cake buffet analogy is limited insofar as the cake is not, of course, but it still works: Picture yourself approaching the buffet, hoping for a new variation of strawberry cake...only to find nothing but ten new sorts of cheesecake. Now, you're not a baker, and there's only a limited number of those who bake strawberry cake out there -- some exclusively, but many of them will make strawberry and cheesecake, with perhaps one or the other apple cake thrown in. That their taste runs toward cheesecake at the moment isn't a problem in theory, but it's one in practice: They only have one oven, a limited amount of flour/sugar/butter, and their day, like yours, has only twenty-four hours.

So, while they are busy with their cheesecake, they effectively can't bake you a strawberry cake. And that's what makes you pout.*



* Before anyone cries out -- advocatus diaboli here; I'm the last person to bitch about others not writing my OTP and the first person to write it myself and/or enthusiastically support others doing so.

Actually, if fandom newbies who wish for more of X/Y came to me? I'd tell them: Accept that Grr!Argh sensation mentioned above, and then set out to further your pairing of choice in any way you can -- fiction's best if well-written, but essays, fanart, and the organisation of ficathons help greatly, too. Approach one of the more well-known fans when bursting with ideas or questions but don't have the forum (yet); you'll be surprised. In conclusion? Love X/Y, Don't Hate A/B.

But no fandom newbie ever comes to ask for my sage advice. Woe.

This started out as a gratuitous icon post of sorts, the caption reflecting Mona's Icon Meta, namely that I have this John Sheppard icon called "pretty." (I'm bad at judging objective male attractiveness, because my own pull toward a guy, real or fictional, relies so strongly certain on who he is, or appears to be, anyway, plus certain visual cues, but all my girl friends who came here agreed he was fine, fine, fine.)

( But I want to talk about Rodney McKay )

The oft-maligned High School Alternate Universes are comparable to the deepest and darkest hurt/comfort fiction in the sense that they serve to strip away all the defences an adult character has built up through her or his life, only that they don't go forth but back in time. Arguably, a lot of what shapes -- or will shape -- the personality of a character is lost in transition, but the potential, the raw emotion, and, probably most importantly, the ability to connect on the very level that thrills us? Yeah.

(See Giles just smile indulgently at meta that's roughly the equivalent of 6 Chicken McNuggets.)

It fascinates me, fandom's not-so-secret love for broken characters.

( Jossverse, Alias, and a glimpse at VM )

In any case, the main characters of these shows already have in-built fracture lines, from hairline fissures to visible cracks, and it's easy and logical to elaborate on them in both their non-fiction musings and their fiction: Faith and Angel and River and Sark and Jack and Irina? Pre-broken for our convenience, ours to shatter or mend or both -- or none, of course, if we chose to ignore or interpret what's already there a little differently.

( SGA )

So, in conclusion: Rock on. And tell me what you think.

Best wishes to everybody in the path of Rita. Here's hoping it won't be another disaster.

Now, for something fannish I've been mulling over in my head... ( Completion and conundrums, POVs and loves )