hypothetically speaking

I accidentally said the word "scatplay" in conversation with one of my committee members today. Whoops. I also said "lesbian D/s power dynamics," just like that, dee-ess, which I'm not sure if that even makes sense to people who don't talk like that all the time. To be fair, I was talking about Gertrude Stein! And the scatplay and D/s were ttly topics of discussion in the book I was telling him about. But, um. Most people don't just blurt out the word scatplay suddenly without provocation in academic meetings. Note to self: don't do kink_bingo prep before going into a meeting.

Another item in my defense is that he brought up the idea that Holmes and Watson are gay for each other early in the conversation, and from then on I was off my guard. I had to do that "EMERGENCY SEPARATION SEQUENCE!" thing you do when you try to filter information in your brain so that what comes out of your mouth is academic and not fannish (and the two are kind of the same for me, so that's hard!). It's sort of like I was the Starship Enterprise in "Encounter at Farpoint," and I'd split myself in two, and I had to make sure that my answers came only from the saucer section and not the stardrive section. My success at doing so was moderate.

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Other news: today is my vid-iversary! Two years ago today, I put up on the internet my very first vid, which was that one about how we like to look at John Sheppard on his knees. Since then, I have learned some things about vidding! I hope. For contrast, here's my most recent vid. Man, I wish I could make a billion vids all the time. Vidding is so great. I should really just get a job as a nightshift mechanic at a milk-bottling factory so that I can devote all my time to vidding. And fic.

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Other other news: I'm probably going to be a bit in and out over the next month or two, as I have Big Scary School Stuff coming up. I'm super stressed about it and basically it's eating up my LIFE. I feel bad that I still haven't finished any of the stories I promised for help_haiti, but I can't see myself finding the time and stress-free mental space to do so in the next little while. So, I'm sorry! Also I'm sorry if I'm boring for a bit. I have to devote my energies to thinking about Gertrude Stein. And scatplay.

ONE! Oh god LJ, seriously? It kind of amazes me how poorly they're handling their business. Like, they have this fanbase of clientele who are relatively settled in and don't want to move and have to be actively pissed off on a constant basis before they will move, and what do they do? Provide fodder for the pissing-off on a constant basis. Jeez louise. All they have to do is not suck, and they can't manage that! Well folks, Dreamwidth just gave me ten more invite codes (smart timing on their part) and I'll give them to anyone who asks. Sigh, also I have to seriously think about getting rid of my LJ altogether. Like, maybe keep the posts that had fic, but delete the fic content and link back to the DW posts (so that links don't get broken)? And delete everything else. And stop cross-posting.

I am considering stopping the crossposting. What do you guys think? Would it cramp anyone's life to have to follow me on DW? Speak now if it would. I . . . might do it anyway, but. There are like five LJ people who I love so much and don't want to lose touch with, but. But.

TWO! My computer was broken for a WHOLE DAY. Turns out it was the power cord, which is *whew* - I was worried it might be the port the power cord goes in, which would've been a lot harder to fix. But then I got a new power cord at the Apple Store (though I had to drive to Syracuse today to get it, since I wanted it NOW NOW NOW) and now all is well again. But, what I mean is, it stopped charging completely two days ago, and my battery is old and has no powers, and so I had to like read a book all night instead of being on the internet, or watching tv on my laptop, or doing kink bingo prep on my laptop, or writing fic on my laptop . . . I would be useless in the apocalypse. I can't function without this machine. *cuddles machine*

THREE! eruthros and I went to the very-far-away Win Li Oriental Market yesterday while we had our rental car (for the aforementioned driving to Syracuse) and it was GREAT! We bought many things (omg Maesri brand curry paste! We fouuuuund you!), but most importantly, guys, I found a package of pineapple cookies that look exactly like the pineapple-almond cookies from Twitch City that always looked so delicious and that I wanted to try. They are indeed delicious. Case closed. I may go get more.

FOUR! - I - okay, I have FOUR THINGS to say! The fourth thing is, today and tomorrow are the last days to leave prompts over at tentacle_fest! It's a fest of tentacles, folks, how can you resist? And it's freeee to leave prompts, so you can leave some even if you don't think you'll be able to write stories. I personally rather adore tentacle stories, so I do hope this catches on!

(can I say, too, how glad I am to see that no one so far is leaving anonymous prompts? I mean, I get why anonymity can be a powerful/useful thing in kink memes, but it also always makes me feel a little sad. So this is nice!)

siiiigh, I am so not on schedule with my help_haiti fics, which are supposed to be done by the 14th, I think. But! I did write 2000 words today, which is more words than 0 words (the wordcount for the last several days). So perhaps I am getting over this round of writer's blaaaah. I'm writing three fics for my three bidders, in three different fandoms (well, one's a crossover, but three fandoms altogether) and for some reason decided to write the SGA one first - I guess because I thought it'd be harder? I don't know. Anyway, so, I've now got about 4000 words of this SGA story, and it's just getting wackier by the second, and also longer, in that kind of out of control way that fic (and especially SGA fic) sometimes does. Ah well. I don't know what my point is, except, I guess I wrote something today? And maybe: I hope I'm able to finish these stories soon! I don't want to leave my generous buyers hanging.

Another thing of note for me today is that I am REALLY REALLY EXCITED about VividCon all of a sudden, probably because I am now planning this Epic Fannish Roadtrip to get there. It's at the point now where I'm like, okay, I think I need a bigger car! It's gonna be me and eruthros and livrelibre, I think, plus possibly isagel and toft, and then I thought, hmmm, if driving from here to Chicago, ought we not to stop and pick up chagrined on our way? (not that I've actually asked chagrined about this, but it does make sense). Which makes six people, which is too many for my usual type of car rental (pretty little Priuses) unless we put toft in the hatchspace or something.

Hatchspace is also the title of my most recent screenplay, coming to you soon as a SyFy Original Feature Film. Starring David Hewlett.

ANYWAY, very excited about VVC, and hoping to gosh that I can get some actual vids made for it! I have a lot of great vids that I want to make right now, but I think I've figured out which two I'm going to actually do for VVC. Weirdly, the other night I was listening to my "Vid Songs" playlist that I keep in itunes - you know the one, the place you keep all those songs where you're like "this is the Scully vid I am going to make someday," and "this song is so obviously about Gus and Shawn but it's not really very viddable!" and anyway, I was listening to that playlist and I was near-overcome with the urge to make these two related Doctor Who vids that I have had in my brain for ages now. They would be such great vids. You would probably cry. But I do not have the wherewithal right now to go through all of Old Who to make these vids, so your tear ducts are for the moment spared.

ANOTHER THING I AM POSTING ABOUT SINCE I'M HERE: Farscape. Oh man. eruthros and I are doing a huge Farscape rewatch, since I bought the dvds when they were on sale in December. I haven't seen it in aaaaages! I forgot how much I love this show.

I actually am beginning to really believe that Farscape is the best scifi series ever produced, y/n? It's just so . . . there's so much putting of things into John's body, seriously every episode for the first seven episodes there is something significant and alien being put in John's body in order to make him less human in some way, and lo it is awesome. Also there's lots of sweating and vomiting and crying and just . . . bodies! Farscape is a scifi show that has bodies in it, and even cooler, that has different kinds of bodies in it, and explores the ways in which alien bodies might be, like, alien. That is my favourite thing about it. Plus the writing is so good that I become deeply emotionally involved with muppet characters. And the ladies kick ass in a variety of ways. And Ben Browder is superhot in Peacekeeper drag. Also when he cries. And Claudia Black manages to be absolutely SMOKING hot when she's, like, sweaty and ponytailed and wearing full shapeless body-armour. It's funny, isn't it, how she's hotter on Farscape than on SG-1, even though on SG-1 she was constantly wearing a leather bustier. Oh my god AERYN. I would marry her if she didn't scare me a little too much.

END OF RAMBLE.

1) *bangs face against festivids vid* why aren't you done yet! Argh! Look at all the people on the flist and rlist, all those people are done theirs! Be done already!

2) I will have my festivid done in time for the deadline on the tenth, I'm not worried about that, but right now it's being TRUCULENT and I want to stab it a little bit.

3) Apropos of nothing, I feel the need to inform the internet that, the other night, I had a dream in which I was watching Fred Penner (on tv) with Allison Janney. Like, Allison Janney was sitting next to me on the couch, and we were enjoying some Canadian children's tv reruns. Not bad, subconscious!

4) I should probably stop rewatching The West Wing. I do it like once a year, I don't even know why, and every time I'm like, "yay that was so good *cries*" and then immediately I'm like "oh my god that was so incredibly sexist I hate you Aaron Sorkin you lump of smirky misogynist buffalo dung your show makes my gorge rise in disgust." I go back and forth. Anyway, I'm in the fifth season now, which is where a lot of people stop liking the show, but actually I'm finding season five not too bad. And, hey bonus, season five is like 340% less sexist than the first four seasons! That's pretty cool. I hadn't noticed that before.

5) Mostly I have nothing to post. I'm just sitting here, being angry at my vid. Hoping that if I don't look at it for a while, that little instrumental transition section will fix itself. *whistles innocently*

It makes me really, really happy to know that, twice in very recent memory, someone has created a new fannish comm, been made aware that the comm name they've selected is offensive or exclusionary or in some way problematic, and in both cases they've said, "oh, good point! I'm sorry, I should've thought of that. Let's change it." And then a name-change process has begun without the need for fuss or kerfuffle. aw, fandom! we really can be decent human beings when we try.

. . .

In other news, I AM ALL A FLUTTER WAITING FOR MY YULETIDE ASSIGNMENT. I don't even know why, it's not like I've ever started working on them as soon as I got them. But I just want it, now now now. I have heard that the thing most likely to stall the matching process is if the mods have to email someone for more info (someone whose offers and/or requests are unmatchable), and wait for them to email back. So mostly in my twiddly anxious mood I am sitting here just IMAGINING my nemesis, someone who offered to write only three things, three things that no one asked for, who then walked away from their computer and went to Mars or something. I will get you, entirely imaginary nemesis! Stop stalling Yuletide!

. . .

Sigh, I'm just twitchy. And I've tried all the things that you try to get something on the internet to happen: I've tried going to the store, I've tried showering, I've tried playing video games (MarioKart Wii fears me now), I've tried not-looking at the internet for whole HOURS even, I've tried reading really long really mediocre Harry/Draco fic from ten years ago, I've tried sleeping, I've tried baking. And, can you credit it, NONE of these strategies has succeeded in making my yuletide assignment show up in my inbox! I mean, what is the world coming to? Next thing will be, lighting a cigarette won't make the bus come, or going to the bathroom in a restaurant won't make the food arrive. Seriously!

I tried to record some podfic, but then the THUNDER and the POURING RAIN got too loud to allow me to continue. It was like,

Me: "Spock arched an eyebrow as -- "
Thunderstorm: *KABOOM, whoooosh*
Me: "Spock arched an eyebrow as --"
Thunderstorm: *KABOOM, whoooosh*
Me: "Spock arched an eyebrow as --"
Thunderstorm: *KABOOM, whoooosh*
Me: "That's it."

so, podfic called on account of rain. Will try again later. :)

I just wanted to say here in my personal journal that I am absolutely loving reading all the wonderful stories/art/vids that have been created for KB, and I am loving the joy and fun and seriousness with which everyone has approached it; it's been wonderful. I HAVE SO MUCH READING TO DO OMG, I can't even deal with how much reading I have to do. Hurrah!

. . . but I do have one word of caution.

As you browse the master tag list for kink bingo and read through the offerings there (indexed by fandom, kink, and author for your convenience), you may want to leave a comment expressing your appreciation. This is encouraged! But take a moment to think about the kind of comment you want to leave. Here is an example of a comment, a type FREQUENTLY used to reply to kink stories, that drives me a bit up the wall:

"I normally hate enemas/watersports/bondage/tickling/uniform fetish stories, because they're disgusting, but this story was SO GREAT that I loved it and thought it was ttly hot even though normally I'd be throwing up!"

I exaggerate for effect, but like, NOT BY MUCH GUYS. Here's an analogy, credit to chagrined:

"I really hate homosexuality, but this slash story was SUPER GREAT! Your writing was so good that it made me forget that queers make me want to vomit."

Like, seriously, it sounds so ridiculous when people feel the need to preface the comment with "HEY GUYS I DON'T LIKE WATERSPORTS, PLEASE DON'T THINK I DO" as if to preemptively defend themselves against all passersby, and PS it sort of shames the author and anyone passing by who genuinely likes that kink even as it pretends to be praise. I dig that maybe you're surprised that you liked something when you didn't think you'd like it, and want to express appreciation for that process, but, like . . . don't. Do me a favour, save my nerves, and don't do it. Here is an example of a comment you could leave instead:

"I loved this Martha/Teyla story! The characterization was great, and I thought the bondage was really hot the way you wrote it."

See how that goes? Just cut the first part off, the "I DON'T LIKE THIS THING THAT MAY FOR ALL I KNOW BE INTEGRAL TO YOUR SELF-IDENTITY, BUT" part. KTHNX.

ETA: for a completely middle-of-the-road example of what I'm talking about, go read all the comments on bitter_crimson's Merlin/Arthur enemas story (which is a great story, actually, so read the story too!). This is nowhere near the worst example I've ever seen (nobody uses the word 'gag'), but it's one that I had close to hand. Just read every single comment on that story and imagine being the author who gets all those comments, and how you might feel after even if you don't feel strongly or personally about enemas yourself. Or hey, while I'm at it, check out a comment or two or three on frostfire's similarly awesome Jack Harkness/Chewbacca story, and imagine being a passing furry who thought, oh hey, finally a story for me! and then read the comments.

1) dvd_commentary is open for another round! It's not too surprising that I love dvd commentaries on fic, since I love literary criticism and all. I've thrown my author-hat into the ring, and anyone is welcome to do a commentary on anything I've written. I would love it if you did!

2) Related to (1), this seems like a good time to say that I'm ttly cool with transformative work or criticism being done on my stuff - commentaries, podfics, parodies, concrit/negcrit, vids (though I don't know what of my stuff you'd vid), art, sequels to stories, what have you. My only thing is that I'd like to be told about it when you're done, so that I can see it! But permission in advance isn't required. Words want to be freeeeeee!

3) I am, on toft's enthusiastic recommendation, reading all of katieforsythe's fabulous Sherlock Holmes fic. It is, to repeat, fabulous.

4) I've just changed the access list settings here on my DW acct, making it so that pretty much everyone who's even vaguely interested in me (and some people who aren't) have access. This is for media sharing purposes, so that everyone who reads this journal has access to the stuff I upload, but so that I can still lock those posts.

5) Item five is media sharing; I'll make another post right now with the thing I wanted to share.

1) I just put eruthros in a cab to fly far far away, and shan't see her again till september. With whom will I watch Prison Break now? Sadness.

2) Prison Break: continues to be written by martians whose entire understanding of Earth comes from watching Shawshank Redemption, Deep Throat (the one about Watergate, not the porn), and possibly that Most Xtreme Challenge Japanese game show with the funny helmets. I love it with big love. Another good Prison Break game that we have invented is called Name That Lincoln Burrows Facial Expression, and it goes like this: Lincoln Burrows has two facial expressions. ONE: Did I leave the gas on? and TWO: No, I'm a fucking squirrel! Occasionally he longs for a grapefruit.

3) Before she left, eruthros and I were talking about how we spent our youths in fandom. Not everyone finds fandom young, but even if you don't find fandom-proper, it seems like most people make their own little communities, even communities of two (that guy in high school you watched Star Trek with, the girl next door who'd come over for Doctor Who sleepovers).

( reminicing about my youthful fannish self )

But I am just a fandom baby! Message boards? ICQ? VHS? These are newfangled luxuries! Or perhaps to you they are strange relics from the ancient past? Either way, feel free to tell me your fandom youth stories: didja grow up fannish? What was fandom like where you were living, when you were a teenager or a little kid or young adult? Zines? IRC? Your sister driving you an hour to the only theatre that was showing TXF: Fight the Future, so you could see it for the third time? Oh wait, that last one was me again.

Anyway, tell me your stories!

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! I woke up at six thirty. Now I have to do something with the day. If I sleep in, it's like a justification for not working out in the morning, not doing housework, etc. Waking up early means you have to admit to additional consciousness and therefore additional volition. DAMMIT!

I had some weirdass dreams, though. And they were all really close to reality, like, when I woke up I had to think hard about them to figure out what was real and what was false - some about my family, some about RL work, that kind of thing. Including the one where I was invited to David Hewlett's wedding (IDEK) and I was sad about it because I wanted to hang out with eruthros instead, but felt obligated to go. This is close to real life not because I am BFFs with B-list scifi celebrities, but rather because I do often want to hang out with eruthros rather than fulfilling other obligations. Anyway, I'm glad I don't have to call David Hewlett and break his heart.

Another dream I had (are you FASCINATED YET?) was really devastating actually, because in it I got into some magical mental state and wrote 10 000 words on my giant AU story, all in one day, and I was like, yay! It is much closer to being done! Then when I woke up I had to recalcitrantly resign myself to the fact that I still have only 12 000 words of it, not 22 000, and to the fact that it will probably continue to fitandstart forward in 1500 word increments once every two weeks. That was mean, dream!