I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince over the weekend. I can totally believe it made the most money ever. There were lines snaking down the sidewalk just to collect pre-ordered tickets! (I mean, okay, we saw it in Leicester Square, about as central as you can get in London, but it was Sunday afternoon and the movie had been out for days already.)

( cut for spoilers )

Tags: harry potter, movies

( Having to wait until Sunday night to see it when it seemed like the entire Internet was squeeing over their second viewings by mid-day Saturday...it SUCKED, y'all. My life is so hard. )

Tags: movies, star trek

I just posted a comment to a locked post on my flist which has made me do some thinking. I want to clarify some of where I was coming from in my recent reaction post to RaceFail09, as I'm out of practice blogging publicly, and sometimes I get a bit grumpy and terse when blogging about race.

I didn't mean to imply in my post that white people should sit down and shut up while POC do all the talking about racism. What I was trying to say, perhaps rather clumsily, is that the topic of racism tends to result in, and often requires, very different conversations depending on who is doing the talking and who is doing the listening. I don't think this is itself a bad thing (although sometimes it means we make mistakes and get bad results despite our good intentions). In my personal dealings with racism, it means that I have learned to revise my expectations, and to budget my time and energy accordingly. I said I don't want to be an educator for people who should educate themselves. This does not mean I look down on people who are having trouble with that self-education.

I think a lot of the problem with this recent discussion is that things which should be said in "safe spaces" are taking place out in the open, where anyone can read them. I have no problem with white people talking about how painful and difficult they find the work of anti-racism to be, or even questioning some of the assumptions of anti-racism, and in fact I think it's a very good and necessary way for white people to do this work at all; on the other hand, I can see why POCs think it "derails" the conversation, because it adds that many more words and thoughts into an already crowded field, so that they feel like their own perspectives are being pushed aside. I can see how people of color who are frustrated with certain aspects of the discussion need to vent; on the other hand, I do believe the mocking and the superiority are counterproductive and harmful to the end goal of making more people be anti-racist.

Ideally, all of these things would be said in private, to filters of trusted friends who understand where you're coming from or what you're trying to achieve with such expression, but LJ and blogdom being what they are, these things are said out in the open and become part of, or are assumed to be part of, a conversation-at-large. And the whole thing becomes this massive, frustrating town hall full of people talking over each other, and subtleties and distinctions and individual perspectives get lost. Sometimes the town hall format works well and to good results -- information spreads fast, people get mobilized, things get accomplished. Sometimes it doesn't work as well and people call it a fail.

So what's the answer? I don't know. I'm actually not saying that RaceFail09 is a fail -- I think great things have come out of this discussion, and I've added some useful people and communities to my online reading list. I'm certainly not telling anyone that they can't or shouldn't post whatever they want, unlocked or not, in their own spaces. I'm not trying to dictate or recommend content.

I guess I'm just hopeful that people who would otherwise consider stepping up their efforts to be anti-racist, particularly in "real life," haven't been frustrated out of that by how this discussion has unfolded online. And I hope I haven't contributed to any such frustration myself.

Tags: race/ethnicity

Some of my best friends are people of color.

We talk about lots of things. Maybe forty to fifty percent of what we talk about has some explicit racial/ethnic element. Growing up [ethnicity] in [predominantly white country]. Being the only [ethnicity] in the office or a class. Guys with Asian fetish. Guys with black fetish. White people who get uncomfortable when race enters the conversation. The racially offensive shit some TV show just pulled. The racially offensive shit some person we know and like (or love) just pulled.

When we talk about race, we don't generally use terms like "privilege" or "intersectionality" or "cultural appropriation" or "othering." We actually rarely use the term "people of color." I'm not even sure all of them have that vocabulary or would know how to use it, even though a lot of them have higher degrees. (I know for sure that most of my immediate family would find these concepts incomprehensible.)

Some of them certainly do have the vocabulary and know how to use it, but the truth is, it isn't necessary when we talk to each other. We have our own way of talking about race, our own shorthand. We know what we're saying to each other without the academics. We know because if you meet another brown person living in a majority white land, some things just don't have to be explained.

*

Some of my best friends are white people.

We talk about lots of things, too. But I'm a lot more careful when I talk to them about race. And I am very careful when I talk to white people in general about race.

I've made mistakes. White people don't have a monopoly on that. I once told someone "white boys like you" couldn't attend minority student meetings on campus because they would make everyone feel unsafe. I wrote him a long email to apologize after. I once had a long conversation with an Asian woman and a white man about racism; at the end of the conversation the white man concluded, "It really just comes down to class." Neither of us corrected him. I once said to a black woman, in front of a white man, "...because white people go batshit crazy when they think they're being accused of racism." I watched the white man suddenly assume he'd been excluded from the conversation -- not five minutes later he politely excused himself and left. I didn't apologize to him after.

I once reacted to racism with violence.

Too many times, I didn't react to racism at all.

Those are just a few of the things I've done wrong. I've done some things right, I think. But you might have to talk to the white people in question to get their view.

But what I mean when I say I'm careful talking to white people about race is that these days, I generally don't bother talking with white people about race at all. I will be honest: at this point in my life, most of my conversations with white people about race are one-way conversations, with the words flowing from me to them. And I am okay with that.

Case in point: yesterday during lunch I gave a mini-rant about the frankly racist portrayal of Thai/Asian culture in a certain episode of Lost. My audience: a black woman and two white women. I work with and see these women nearly everyday. I have known them for almost two years now. But it might have been the first time I'd ever said, in the presence of the two white women, anything like, "As an Asian person, I found that offensive." On the other hand, I'd certainly had plenty of conversations like that with my co-worker who is black. (Based on those, if it had just been the two of us at lunch I would likely have said something like, "Hey, did you see that Lost episode with Bai Ling and the mystical Thai tattoos? That shit was fucking ridiculous!" And she would likely have said, "Uh, why were you expecting anything else?")

My lunch audience did not use my mini-rant as a jumping off point to talk about portrayals of Asian cultures in media, or the exoticization of Asian women, or anything else having to do with race or ethnicity. (And, by the way, we were eating at a dim sum restaurant I'd recommended.) Instead, we all laughed, perhaps a bit nervously on the white women's part, and then the conversation moved on to, I don't know, some party the weekend before.

But the fact that I dropped my mini-rant and nothing came of it was perfectly fine with me. I said my piece, I put it on their radar, I alerted them to the fact that I do not ignore this stuff and, in fact, it is important to me. That was all I needed or cared to accomplish. I didn't owe them any explanations. After all of the right and wrong things I have done in my life with respect to dealing with racism, all I care about now is that the people I interact with understand they need to be careful with me. What they do with that awareness is then their own burden.

Because the thing is...I have become a lot less interested in having dialogues with white people, whether clueless or well-meaning, in being the go-to person for frequently asked questions about how not to be a racist, in being an educator for white people who could and should educate themselves.

Dialogues with white people about race, when done well, generally require hitting a number of bases: first, define the vocabulary; second, make sure everyone's using the vocabulary in the same way; third, be polite and non-confrontational; fourth, be forgiving of mistakes; fifth, give positive feedback so they keep on keeping on. And all of this, of course, means I assume a mantle of brown person representin' with authoritah (even though, NB: not all brown people are capable of hitting these bases). I have my red pen, my gold stars to hand out, and surely I must speak for all other brown people too. The credits are transferrable -- all you, young white grasshopper, have to do is tell the current brown person you're talking to, "Well, my Asian friend said..."

NOT.

I applaud, kow-tow to, want to give the whole world on a platter to, those people who have the time and the patience and the hope and the courage and the fierceness to hold Racism 101 (and 201, and 301, etc.) seminars for strangers on the Internet. I only just have enough in me for my white S/O who deserves something deeper from me, my white friends who can dip into a certain amount of pre-established friendship capital, and assorted people whose good regard I'd like to have who happen to also be white.

I wish I could be different. I think white people who want to be anti-racist, and who actively take steps to do so, are awesome. I want them to keep on keeping on. I think white people who want to be anti-racist but don't actively take steps to do so, or who take steps in bad faith, are less awesome, but at least it's something to work with. I want them to start doing it right. But I am frankly not interested in being their accidental punching bag, or their test subject, or their grader, or their beta reader. And I am definitely not interested in engaging with people who so clearly don't get it and who don't want to get it. I get enough of these in my day-to-day to keep me busy; I don't want to seek them out.

Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of people who have tread these paths before, those who did make the time, had the patience, etc. -- many of whom are themselves white -- I now have the luxury to say to white people who want to be anti-racist, "There are plenty of ways to educate yourself. Go do it." If there's any "privilege" to being a PoC these days, in the year two thousand and fucking nine, it's that we should no longer have to shoulder the burden of teaching white people how to treat us like equals and acknowledge the truths of our experiences. White people can assume that burden themselves.

So go do it.

*

Defining Racism
The Global Hierarchy of Race
Other educational links
RaceFail09 links
IBARW links
ibarw
verb_noire
fight_derailing
50books_poc
debunkingwhite
deadbrowalking
The Remyth Project

Tags: bad fandom no biscuit, race/ethnicity, rants

In 2004 Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention woke me up and moved me to tears. I thought it would be great to see him as president in 2012 (i.e. after two terms of Kerry and some seasoning time in the Senate). The last four years did not go the way many of us hoped. During that time, and especially over the last two years, I wasn't always on Obama's side and while I thought America was long past ready for a history-making president, I had serious doubts about whether he was ready to be president. I still tend to think he's more of a promise than an answer; there are many more tests still to come for him to prove he's up to the job (although luckily he's going in with loaded ammo). But today I am glad for his precocity, for lack of a better word. What moves me most is not only what he has achieved, but what America has achieved through him. We have a democratic system on which we have long prided ourselves. Finally, we have used that democratic system to choose the better promise.

*

It's been quite an experience observing the campaigns from overseas. I was abroad in 2000 as well, but I was young and stupid and honestly did not get the big deal until some cab driver in Malaysia asked me who I thought was going to win. I remember being surprised it still hadn't been decided yet -- I was that checked out of the process. This time around, I've taken full advantage of every communication channel possible to stay checked in: the websites, the news, the blogs, Livejournal, Facebook, Youtube, emails from Democrats Abroad, you name it. I voted in the overseas Democratic primary amongst a thousand other Americans who had crossed borders like me, and I have never felt more American than when I looked around that hall decorated with signs and banners and committee tables, and saw the little pocket of citizenship and patriotism they had created thousands of miles from home. People ask me if I feel like I've missed out on being in America during all of this. Not really, I say. I actually feel like not being in America has finally focused me on what being American means.

Sometimes it's just...weird to be a citizen of a country with such a dominant effect on the global community's minds and lives. Even if you weren't already aware of the shadow we cast, you could see it literally with the troops from various countries committed to the war on terrorism, the spread of the credit crisis and the domino effect of the recessions. But it's more than that -- people took the day off work from London to Seoul to wait for the election results. Over the past year I've found myself talking about Hillary Clinton's tears and the electoral college and swing states and Tina Fey and Barack Obama's grandmother, with people at work, at business events, at dinners, at parties, at first meetings. I voted in the election by absentee mail-in ballot, and had three Brits competing over who got to put their witness signatures in the two spaces on the envelope. Everyone's been so curious and invested and informed -- almost as checked in as me, even if they weren't American.

I read a quote today from a Brit in the NYTimes: Mr. Obama "brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen." This was part of the NYTimes' survey of reactions around the globe. Like it isn't just Americans who are monitoring -- or who have invested something in -- our image as the land where the tired, the poor, the huddled masses can eventually prosper.

Or where a skinny kid with a funny name can eventually be president.

May he do America -- and all of us outside of America -- proud.

Tags: politics

( FNL - latest ep and a little on previous eps )

Ugh, I don't even want to think about how many episodes we have left. Hopefully it's plural?

And here's the song I referenced: Ryan Adams - The Shadowlands

Tags: friday night lights, music

Oh, lordy, y'all. Had a recurrence of SAD or whatever the hell I have been feeling lately on the way home tonight. Am now home and reading this thread on vaginapagina in which the [predominantly if not all female] commenters describe their first totally nude experience with another person, in response to the OP's query, "How in the world will my boyfriend react when he sees me naked for the first time and I'm far from..well... toned and proportional?"

The sheer amount of support and love and vulnerability and pride and amazingness in this post and its comments is just -- I'm crying now. But in a completely good and awesome way.

Tags: gender/sex

Woot! I finally have high-speed Internet set up at home, so I have caught up on FNL and SPN. Don't have much to say about SPN that hasn't already been said, I suspect. But FNL?

HOTTEST SEXIEST HOTTEST SHOW EVER. (Also, still makes me cry every. damn. episode.) But for real -- they must be putting something in the catering because I have never seen these people look so beautiful. And I swear I have always only had a distant appreciation of how pretty Tim Riggins/Taylor Kitsch is, but this season and especially the last two episodes OOOOOMMMMMGGGGG. I want to, uh, wow. I mean, WOW, that boy had a good summer. I mean, GAH. He makes me make, like, really, really inarticulate noises whenever he's on screen. Hoo boy.

Less shallow commentary under the cut, although I have to get this out of the way first: ( cut for spoilers for the whole season so far )

Tags: friday night lights

In case comments over there remain screened, here is my response to stellamira's latest response to a lot of people's responses:

Well.

I appreciated your apology and your explanation. I apologize for not being able to reply to you before you screened comments -- we all have offline lives, as you say, and it was probably better anyway that I took some time to calm down.

I knew this would blow up as soon as I posted publicly about it in my own LJ. I actually slept on it for a night before I posted publicly, because I wanted to make sure it was worth it. I was still angry and offended the next morning, so to me, it was worth any resulting trouble. But I understand that for you the trouble was different, and I understand that from your perspective, you feel very hard-done-by. I'm sorry for that.

I'm not sure what accord we can come to, if any. I still feel that you made thoughtless choices about the story, and I still find the original version hurtful. I'm also not sure even now that you really understand why I and other people found it so offensive. (It probably doesn't help that there are plenty of people who don't seem to understand it either and will likely tell you there was nothing wrong with your story. I guess beyond a certain point, there's really no way to make people "get it.")

But I do appreciate that you edited the offending paragraphs out, although it was never my intention to force you to change your writing. I just wanted you to think about it from another perspective.

Anyway. I suppose all we can really do is acknowledge that there's hurt on both sides, and move on. I am going to continue supporting and responding to the discussion in my LJ and in others, because I think it can only be a good thing for fandom to talk about these issues. So that means of course that people will continue to take sides, have opinions, express themselves, rake you over the coals, rake me over the coals, etc. Then it'll probably fade out until the next big thing happens.

So maybe I'll see you during the next round, eh?

*

In the meantime, I would like to do a roundup of links on all the various commentary and reactions and meta, because as I said in the other post, there are all kinds of threads and topics and arguments to be made here, on all sides, and many people are making them. Maybe tomorrow morning if I wake up early enough. I am still planning on responding to everyone's comments in my LJ -- for which, seriously, THANK YOU -- but pretty much everything in RL is in a crazy transitional stressful state for me right now. So please bear with me for another day or two.

Tags: bad fandom no biscuit, fandom, race/ethnicity

Well, it's been a while since I posted publicly on something fan-related, and it figures it would be something shit-stirring to draw me out.

First of all, I fully expect that someone smarter than me (and less hyped up on anger) will be able to pull together all the various topics and issues and threads into a coherent essay, but this post is not that essay.

I left this comment on a story last night:

I find this story quite offensive.

You have used a paragraph about the Killing Fields to lead into a paragraph of Jared and Jensen having sex.

You admit in an earlier post that you just want to put Jared and Jensen "somewhere hot and humid where people don't usually speak English. It rains a lot. Cambodia, maybe? Not that I actually know anything about Cambodia"

So let me get this straight. You don't know anything about Cambodia. You've never been to Cambodia. You maybe don't even know any Cambodian people. (In which case, hi, now you know at least one person.) And you want to use Cambodia as a setting for your Jared/Jensen porn?

No. Highly fucking offensive. And I can't believe this is even something I have to explain.

The story in question.

People keep leaving her feedback to reassure her that she struck an appropriately respectful and somber tone. I couldn't disagree more. And I am not even getting into all the exoticization of the setting in the rest of the story.

I don't know if I have the energy for a retread of the cultural appropriation/cultural sensitivity/aesthetics vs. morals/fanfiction vs. published fiction/RPS is wrong debates. But here's what I do know:

To me this is not theory. This is my family, my family's history, our living history, something they and I have had to deal with in one way or another every single day of our lives. I find it disgusting that I even have to bring them into this by reference, but apparently people are just not getting it.

So I will spell it out: When you appropriate someone's personal tragedies to elevate your porn into something more emo/atmospheric/whatever, you are being offensive and hurtful and disrespectful. When you tell an author she has treated such a subject respectfully or realistically because she made her porn more emo/atmospheric/whatever, you are being ignorant and offensive and hurtful and disrespectful.

What this author wrote is not okay with me and there is no world in which it would ever be okay. And if you are someone who thinks it is, perhaps you should tell me that right now so I can start actively not knowing you.



[ETA: Oh my god, fandom. You seriously amaze me. I went out and spent the day with friends, and that calmed me down some, but it meant that I missed out on a lot of these comments as they piled up. I will try to respond as I can. But please know that I really appreciate the response, and I am glad to feel like I'm not alone even on such a very personal issue.]

[ETA2: I am slowly but surely making my way through the comments. I do want to respond to everyone, even if I can't actually answer everything people want answered. However, I should note that as of the evening of 10/22/07, the current version of the story is edited from the original. The author is still leaving comments screened on the story post and on her two follow-up commentary/apology posts, but hopefully that will change soon.]

Tags: bad fandom no biscuit, fandom, genetically hardwired, race/ethnicity

Hello LJ! I am in Prague! And for the first time in EVER I have free Internet, albeit on a Ford Pinto of a computer that I think is being held together with duct tape and a prayer, and I need a magnifying glass to read the text in this POST ENTRY box, plus the keyboard is a little funky to my typing fingers what with being Czech and non Merkin and all, so please excuse any typos.

But anyway, I see from a brief skim of my flist that I have missed OMGWTF levels of big events all over LJ land, for which I am a little regretful for being so out of touch. I guess I am staying here for the near future because while traveling I currently do not have the wherewithal to effectuate a move to greener, pornier pastures. Hopefully I will not come back and find myself alone and echoing myself. {Mostly what I miss about the Internet is the ability to dose myself with Sam Winchester whenever I want him. Pics, fic, episodes, you know. I keep thinking about him backpacking through Europe and feeding his spongy brain with old issues of The Economist and stuff. Okay, I am a little obsessed.}

I had a whole big thing I wanted to post about racism before I left, specifically because how I was taught to define it and think about it at my crunchy granola liberal arts college might need explaining. But I am sure others from equally crunchy schools and ways of life have covered the basics of that perspective. But something I was thinking about adding was that in Berlin the other day we were just walking around and we stumbled across the Holocast Memorial, and I immediately said, Dude, this has got to be the Holocaust Memorial. Because clearly it was, and here is why I thought so"

It looked like a field of tombstones, first of all. It was all uniformly gray rectangular slabs, maybe hundreds of them, set close together, on some innocuous corner where Hannah Arendt Street met another street, a field of tombstones reaching inward from the corner toward some more innocuous city buildings in long orderly rows. But then when we looked closer, we saw that there were people moving between the gray slabs, and sometimes they would just...disappear. Like, you would see them enter from one side, and then they would keep walking further into the field of gray and suddenly wouldnt be there anymore.

So of course we went in ourselves. ( text )

Tags: race/ethnicity, travel, travel: europe07

I had jury duty at my county's superior court today. ( Read more... )

Tags: law

Cat Deeley, I want to be you when I grow up. Me as a seven-foot tall blonde glamazon -- can't you picture it?

( sytycd, top 7 )

The NYTimes had a really snooty article about SYTYCD and Danny, and how the show is this amateurfest but Danny, the professional ballet dancer and a "prince among paupers" as the title of the article goes, has talent and quality way beyond what America can appreciate.

To which I just have to say, as vulgarly as possible, what the fuck ever. Hasn't the high culture vs. pop culture duel been done and done? I think it's high time the A.S. Byatts and ballet snobs of the world realized there is a place in art and creativity for popularity and for the masses. I may not like how things turn out every week with the voting results, but what I love is the feeling of being hooked into a nation, an audience of millions who are all marveling at and being moved by the same feats of acrobatics and heart and performance week after week.

And I think anyone who has seen a movie in a crowded theater or on opening night, or hell, just looked at the squee on their flist on a night a new ep airs, can understand this. My enjoyment of a performance is always enhanced by a crowd: what I find more moving than row after row of people politely clapping their programs is an audience that will gasp and cheer and laugh out loud, or maybe even shout at the stage or the screen and make everyone else laugh, where I can hear people in the other seats sniffling into their shirts or snarking to each other (or at the tops of their voices) when something sucks. It's not just the individual and far-removed prima donnas dancing distantly above the earth that get me, but rather the sharing of the experience with others, the amplifying effect of being surrounded by strangers who nevertheless are connecting with me because we are all participating in the performance together. That is what pushes me over the edge and makes me think, about a show or a play or a movie, or any kind of performance art: Oh, that was awesome. What a lovely experience that was.

*

And yet.

Every other person on LJ has gone to see HP or is planning to see HP, and I am stuck at home on my couch with my bar review books. Strangely and perhaps fortunately, though, I do not feel any real yearning to see it and not even Daniel Radcliffe being interviewed by Larry King with all of these clips from the movie is making me want to go. Heck, I haven't even ordered book 7 yet. And that's kind of sad in its own way because it makes me feel disconnected from the pulse of fandom at large. Owell. I suppose there is life to be lived, after all.

(Although, to cope with life, I do seem to be consuming a lot of SPN and J2 at a rather ridiculous rate....)

Tags: pop culture, so you think you can dance

A month ago I did a statistical rundown of how my fanfiction stories have presented race, ethnicity, and gender, inspired by panisdead's. To summarize that analysis (although it's very short), I based my statistics on characters whose POV the stories were from and the romantic/sexual pairings featured in the stories. I looked at race/ethnicity and gender only.

I had been planning to do substantive commentary on selected individual stories of mine in addition to the statistics, and also to do possibly more statistics in line with the better ones people worked out when they appropriated the analysis for their own writing (see below), but I got distracted by Strikethrough and the responsible writing/objectionable content debate. Then today quasiradiant brought it up in her LJ here and I realized I'd never really explained my reasons for the analysis to begin with.

When other people did their breakdowns and discussions, they rather awesomely looked at more categories and were much more inclusive of what counts as "diversity" in their fanfic (religion, age, sexuality, etc.). But the simple fact is, those were not categories I was interested in at the time I did my analysis. I think it's great that people did, and I completely agree that the word "diversity" encompasses a hell of a lot more than race/ethnicity and gender.

But ( keeping myself honest, part II )

For those curious, here are the other people I could find who did their own versions of the statistical breakdown:

( list of links )

Tags: fandom, race/ethnicity, writing meta

So you know how you can set security levels on your LJ Scrapbook, such that a gallery will be filtered only to a certain group of people? I just discovered that while the gallery will be filtered, the individual pictures inside the gallery remain defaulted to public. This means that anyone who happens to have the individual URL for the picture (which involves a random assignment of numbers and letters but still has your username in it) can see the picture just fine, whether they're on your filter or not. They don't even have to be logged into LJ.

Sure, what are the chances that some stranger (or, worse, someone from your RL) would get hold of that individual randomized URL? (Well, aside from mean people passing around the URL on purpose.) But still. The fact that there have been pictures of me and others left public for almost a year now, when I thought they were safely locked down, is not cool. Now I understand why so many people's userinfos claim they have "over 100 public" pictures or whatever, even when you can't actually see them.

I sort of stumbled on this way, completely not looking for it, to make the Scrapbook re-filter all of the individual pictures in a gallery with the click of one button, instead of going through and changing each one manually. So I got one gallery fixed easily. But now I can't figure out how to do it again! I checked the LJ FAQ and everything, and while it blithely confirms the whole filtered gallery vs. public individual pictures distinction, I can't find any info there about a one-button re-filtering solution. Which is really annoying, because hi! that might be a tool people consider kind of essential. It would thus be a great idea to make it user-friendly.

So I ended up deleting a 400-picture gallery from last year's trip to Italy because there was no way I'd be going through all of those individually by hand. Bleah.

Am I the only one who didn't realize the implications of all of this?

( cut for spoilers up to and including 3.13 )

Tags: doctor who

( SYTYCD )

Tags: so you think you can dance

Being a relative latecomer to Supernatural, I never saw the UK Promo from last year, which is so hot my laptop screen is smoking. Sam and Dean being sexy with ghosts! Here's the song used in the promo (genius): Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon

There is also the new CW Summer Promo, which is set to a creepy poem and shows many of the various victims and villains women the boys have dealt with over the course of the series.

(On that note, gotta plug spn_xx, which is a prompt-based challenge devoted to women in the SPN-verse. I don't think I'll have time to participate, because I barely have time to finish the one story I'm working on before SPN fandom-at-large Kripke's it to death. But even just reading the prompts is a cool experience.)

In other music developments, I am suddenly obsessed with Led Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks. I don't know where the new attachment came from, but I think I've played it like 15 times in the past two days. When Plant starts wailing after "Chi-cago" I basically die.

I put Metallica's Enter Sandman on my exercise playlist because Jared Padalecki is brilliant, because YES, duh, I need angry songs to exercise to, not happy poppy peppy songs. Tool's Schism also fits the bill.

Then again, forty Beatles songs in one demented mash-up also works.

More selections from my exercise playlist: ( singin' and dancin' and rappin' and boppin' )

Want, take, have, share!

*

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are going to be in a movie together. Like, actually sharing more than two scenes! About damn time, too -- the guys are getting a little old for cop dramas. Also, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep are going to be in a movie together. He's playing First Husband to her Female President (in the election year, natch). Both of these movies have the potential to explode my head. *happy*

Tags: movies, music

Oh, wow. So You Think You Can Dance. I've been catching up on Youtube here and here. BEST REALITY SHOW EVER. Okay, fine, so I don't watch anything but ANTM (and CNTM) -- but still. The awesomeness cannot be denied.

I mean, first of all, the open auditions? God, I love America. Where do these people COME from? So much craziness and awesomeness and I fucking CRIED at the guy whose sister gave him a skin graft, I mean, jesus, he was just so happy to be walking, y'all. And the dude with scoliosis who did the robot and the little handwave when he bowed. And Janet with the prosthetic arm that everybody kept forgetting she had. <3! But also, I mean, the other stuff that was so awesome was that there was a guy in a gold mask that he refused to take off and he had the "self-proclaimed" title in some weird dance from Belgium! And a clogger! And cowboys! And the football player turned ballet dancer! And the guy in the striped shirt who popped and looked like he had no bones in his entire effing body. And the woman who paid $1400 to learn how to skreet dance (god I love the South). Oh, man. So many wild characters. I love love LOVE America.

Oh, and Nigel rocks. Eat it, Simon Cowell! Oh, and Benji from last year. I didn't watch the show then but I was looking for videos of him on Youtube as well, and here he is doing hip hop (!!) [eta: better link] and here he is doing the mambo and here he is doing jazz and here he is doing Broadway and here he is charming the pants off Kelly Ripa. And the whole time he's just the cutest little virginal Mormon boy ever!

I have several favorites right now, but it's a mix of their dancing ability and their personalities: Hok, Jesus, Sara, Pasha, Jessi, Danny. Mostly I'm just floored at how these people are so awesome at their own particular styles, and then they have to dance something totally new and they can just pick it right up in a matter of days. Some of these contestants are so totally in control of their bodies that I really believe they could do anything. Humans are such amazing and wonderful creatures.

Tags: pop culture, so you think you can dance

Okay, y'all. I need to bring some positivity back to this LJ, but I am too tired and RL-distracted for real meta, so instead I am going to talk rather shallowly about Sam Winchester.

I've been a reluctant fan of SPN from the start, I'm not gonna lie. I dislike a lot of the storytelling choices and the problematic dealing (or lack of dealing) with diversity, and while I found the characters interesting enough to write fanfic for, I didn't really get emotionally attached until I started reading more of other people's fanfic. Which is how I always get into my various fandoms -- by, well, getting into the fandom, and then the crazy love for the show and/or characters usually builds from there. (Cf. FNL, where I fell in love with the show right off the bat -- I don't feel fannish for it in the way I do for SPN.)

So, anyway. There are a ton of really, really well-written stories in SPN, but the ones that kicked me over the edge into full-on love for the characters were peripheralsight's In Jerusalem Next Year (pre-series, Sam POV, Wincest) and its sequel St. Peter's Bones (mid-series, Dean POV, Wincest), and onelittlesleep's But I Never Could Sharpen No Blade, Quite the Way He Say (pre-series, Dean POV, gen). If you've read these stories you probably understand why they kicked me over the edge. If you haven't read them, oh, wow. You are in for a treat. *shoos*

Gotta preface by saying I like Dean a lot. Dean is hot <-- okay, UNDERSTATEMENT, funny, dorky, loves his little brother and would do anything to protect him (and pretty much has), shares my taste in music, drives the Best Car Ever, always wants to be brave because he thinks his dead mother would want that. And, as musesfool pointed out, he loves women!

But Sam. ( God, I always get so soppy with this crap... )
*

Oh, sidenote: I don't understand why people say Jo "didn't work" or that she was unsuccessful as a character. I really don't! I liked her a lot, thought she was interesting and I liked her naivety and her backbone and her spunk. I never knew she was meant to be a love interest for Dean -- when I first saw her she immediately pinged little sister to me and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Plus she had shiny hair. You can disagree with me if you want, but you would be wrong.

Disagree with me about Sam, though, and I may have to cut you. >:(

Tags: supernatural

What the hell? If you have a post of yours linked on metafandom, don't be screening comments. Either tell metafandom to un-link you or put comments on to enable discussion. Shit or get off the pot, get it? Jesus Christ.

Here's what I would like to be saying to stewardess's recent post. I'm not going to link it, because it's fucking inflammatory and damaging and you can go find it on metafandom, which I thought was meant to be for linking to posts relevant to fannish discussion but apparently not, since you probably won't be able to get your two cents in on this one. ETA: Just so it's clear, I am not blaming metafandom for linking as they were unaware of the screening. And it's gone now, so excellent on them. ETA2: And she's unscreening comments finally. But still. See below.


I think an unspoken threat lies behind why I and others are grilling umbo, heatherly, and others. What does Umbo mean when she tells me my incest-themed fanfiction harms my readers? What, if anything, will she do about it? Heatherly said, "As a licensed...social worker...I do work to protect children—in real life, and on the internet." Will she ever feel turning me in is the right thing to do?

This is absolutely ridiculous. It seems to me that umbo bent over backwards to have a reasonable, open and calm dialogue with you in the comments to her post, in which she tried to clarify that she only thinks this kind of fiction MAY harm readers, and that she in fact recognizes there are instances where it could actually HELP people. I think you're just stoking the flames of paranoia with this post, when umbo was trying to do anything but with hers. Speculating whether she's going to report you to the authorities, and twisting her words in the process, discredits her quite sincere attempt at mutual understanding and communication. Not only that, it does a huge disservice to anyone trying to make people, for once, TALK to each other about these issues instead of just pointing fingers and assuming.

*

Posted publicly because WHAT THE FUCK.

Tags: bad fandom no biscuit

Almost 400 comments before we ever left page 1. I am impressed like whoa that for the most part, the discussion has for over three days now remained so reasoned and reasonable, especially considering the level of vitriol and the lack of reading comprehension skills I observed during my occasional ventures into other parts of LJ-land. Because, um, it may not have been obvious from the original post, but I wasn't really in the mood at the time to be reasoned and reasonable. Thank you, wise women of fandom, for -- as you often do -- teaching me better.

*

Happy thing 1: I signed up to watch j2_daily, for daily pic spams of Jensen and Jared. I feel this will greatly improve my LJ experience.

Sad thing 1: My ISP told me to stop being such a freeloading copyright infringer, so I dare not seek out eps of Doctor Who which have been making tons of people squee and flail. Boo.

Happy thing 2: Nevertheless, I realized that a while back I meant to share some MP3s for International Women's Week (yeah, I said a while back). I've now updated the folder at box.net, so please feel free to take what you want. Other MP3s I've shared in the past are under my music tag.

( Track listing )

Sad thing 2: I have several meta posts I would like to write, but it is time for RL to shut the cage doors on me again. If I ever get around to it, though, here are some posts you might someday see on a friends-list near you:

- Feedback and recs and etiquette of same, round fifty billion
- Substantive comments on the census I and others did of race/ethnicity and gender/sex in our fanfic
- Critical read/review of various Wincest stories and how realism or lack of realism affected my reactions to same, with side trips into authorial intent and reader interpretation
- My relationship with and reactions to criticism of Friday Night Lights this past season, aka how I finally came to understand, viscerally, why people are so protective of their BSOs

Happy/sad thing 3: Boomshine, aka most addicting game ever. I originally saw it described as a visual representation of the spread of meme. Having your sound turned on is essential. Having a ton of time to waste is an absolute prerequisite.

Tags: music

Sometimes when a story of mine gets praise, I just want to snatch the story back and write a better one, one that's actually worthy.

*

ellen_fremedon has a thinky response to heatherly's post about writing objectionable content responsibly. Ellen basically takes issue with people who privilege or fetishize realistic portrayals over the other possible goals of fiction (e.g., entertainment, commentary, therapy, etc.). However, I'm not sure it's an argument which will find much purchase with people who see reality and realistic consequences as the perpetual backdrop against which fiction is created and presented, no matter what its goals. Because it's just unwinnable, you know?

A: Think about what you're doing!
B: But I just wrote my story to explore a sexual kink -- that's all.
A: But think about how such a light treatment of [X] could be perceived!
B: Okay, I thought about it. I know that people could assume from this that I think [X], which "mainstream" society frowns upon, is actually okay. But it's still the story I wanted to write.
A: But did you really think about the impact of your story? Because maybe if you had, you'd have written something different.
B: *wishes for telepathy because yes, dammit, I really freaking thought about it, and this is still the story I wanted to write*

In other words, speaking as a Person B, writing and posting the story does not mean I didn't think about it, and I wish Persons A would quit with the assumption that I didn't, because it is condescending. The non-condescending assumption would be that I thought about it and I weighed the consequences, and then I wrote and posted the story because I deemed my other fiction-oriented goals more important.

Because you see, I am a functioning, mentally competent, rational member of a society with certain widely-enforced normative values, of which I am well-aware. So no, I don't think that underage sex, incest, rape, bestiality, what-have-you are okay activities, and no, I wouldn't post stories about such activities lightly or thoughtlessly. How can you presume to think that I would? Would you?

Now, if my privileging of fictional goals over potential realistic consequences leads you to the conclusion that I don't think about those consequences seriously enough, then it seems to me that we have a fundamental difference of worldview. And you can implore me to write responsibly until the universe implodes, but the thing is, I already think that I am.

I'd been planning on writing a somewhat less, um, polarized exploration of how I feel about this debate and the personal morality spectra involved, but being condescended to sort of took the good intentions out of my sails.

*

Non-segue. I was thinking about crossovers, and ways to get Dean out of his dilemma post-AHBL, and you know, I'm sure he and Sam could find smart lawyers at Wolfram & Hart. Or they could make buttsex friends with John Constantine -- I'm sure he'd know his way around a demonic loophole. Someone, at some point this summer, will write these stories, right?

Okay, brain, time to apply yourself to dinner and studying.

Tags: fandom, gender/sex, rants, supernatural, writing meta

Dude. Did Mitt Romney really just say "I love immigrants!" O rly, bb? Tell us how much!

STFU, Tancredo. Immigrants should "cut ties with the past"??? FUCK YOU. Jesus. I have a feeling this guy regularly masturbates to the idea of an all-white America.

Ron Paul is adorable. Not to mention the only non-asshole on that stage. I do not share his devotion to tiny government, but the man is principled like an oak tree and he loves the Constitution. ETA: But wait! See comments for why he IS an asshole!

Okay, Huckabee did all right, too. I was actually moved by the way he talked about his faith in God.

As for the Democratic debate Sunday and the mini-discussion with Soledad O'Brien about faith, Obama continues to disappoint me with his all-style-no-substance approach to politics, Edwards continues to charm me even though I know better, and goddammit, Clinton, why can't you make people like you??

The other day in class I got to talking about the Democratic debate with somebody and he asked me, "Are you a Democrat?" And I said yes, sort of right away, even though these days I'm not even sure about that outside of the social issues. But he nodded in mutual recognition, and in the ensuing conversation about how Obama's not been coming off well in these debates against people with more experience and deeper thoughts, he said something like, "Obama feels like he's ours. Our generation." Which I get, you know, he's the new hope, got a new vision, new chapter, etc. I feel the same. But while he may be more elect-able and more media-genic than the other Democrats, he's still not reassuring me that he could do better at this job than anyone else, even some of the assholes on the stage right now.

I am pissed that my hometown is holding a Democratic debate the day before the bar exam. (Yes, even more pissed than I was about Harry Potter being released then.) Because otherwise I would so be there, and I'd make CNN let me ask a hardass question if I had to grab the mike from Wolf Blitzer myself.

Tags: politics

Another long one and it's about Sam and Dean and I still don't understand how this show hijacked my brain. They're sending subliminal messages through the episodes, aren't they? Just like what happened to Scully!


Breach

Sam, Dean.
Totally 97% gen. (I'm slipping!)
Rated PG-13.
11,150 words.
Post-S2. Sam sees dead people in New Orleans and tries to break Dean's contract.

Comments and criticism welcome.

( Breach )

Man, I slept a bit late and suddenly a mountain got moved. The sheer number of people commenting before and after just makes it all the more apparent the stupidest thing Berkowitz said in his statement to CNET: "what community we want to build." Because as several of those commenters pointed out, You're not building a community. You BOUGHT a community.

And I'm not just talking about fandom there, either. Although 25,000 and climbing at fandom_counts is still awesomesauce.

As is this:

Tags: strikethrough2007

We just hit the news. And there are statements from Six Apart.

Mass deletion sparks LiveJournal revolt

Users rebel after Six Apart deletes 500 groups, including ones devoted to literature, abuse recovery and Harry Potter fan fiction.

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: May 30, 2007, 3:47 PM PDT

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."
--Barak Berkowitz, chairman and CEO, Six Apart

So what do y'all think? Stupid statement, or stupidest statement?

And have you seen the sheer number of comments at news? Almost Over 60 70 pages as of now!

And fandom_counts has over 8000 9000 10,000 members! And look at all the languages in its userinfo. God, I love you all. I really hope we don't break up. *smooch*

Tags: strikethrough2007

I know there are probably people out there who, in their heart of hearts, think that the suspended comms got what they deserved despite the fictional/fantasy/no real people aspect. On that we're going to have to agree to disagree, but I've gotta say: just take a look at LJ right now. These days I'm pretty cynical about any notion of fandom unity, but this is affecting all of us in one way or another, whether you hate that kind of fanfic or not. People are locking down their stories, locking down their entire journals, backing up their LJs, removing all of their interest, preparing for a mass emigration to Greatestjournal, planning to boycott purchases of more LJ time or other services. Maybe they're just being paranoid, but I think it nevertheless shows the damage this has done to the kind of free exchange and safe community feeling we've been enjoying on LJ for years.

And yes, it was less than sensible to have some of those targeted interests listed in userinfo, and it relied too much on the false assumption that LJ was a safe place, a live-and-let-live kind of place. But that doesn't change the fact that this was a ridiculous and ill-considered way for LJ to police its users' content. This comment from a user whose LJ was suspended because she had all the wrong interests listed, because she is actually a survivor of the things Warriors For Innocence were apparently trying to target -- that is just a fuckup beyond reason. Maybe WFI and its supporters meant well, maybe LJ thought it was just covering its ass legally, but in the end they have hurt and are hurting innocent people.

Some links of note (see my previous posts for more context):

- People commenting on LJ's news comm about the situation <-- seriously WOW
- belleweather an older post on fanfic, obscenity and the law, be sure to scroll down for clarifying comments
- kitsune13 many comments noting published fiction which depicts illegal activities
- fuckyeah made icons
- liz_marcs actually exchanged emails with Warriors for Innocence about their purpose and methods
- tkp Because in the end, what I'm really interested in is not censoring or silencing myself.
- FandomTossed on GreatestJournal
- alicettlg offers webspace for fanfic archives for free or reduced rates
- cordelia_v is trying to get us organized
- ancarett advocates calling rather than using electronic communication to protest
- And these are the phone numbers you can use.

Last night I'd planned to relax, work on some fanfic (my first wincest, ironically enough!) and study. But instead I stayed up way too late yammering at total strangers about what we can/should do, and trying to inform (ha!) people about the law, and I dunno, I suddenly feel way more connected to fandom than I have in a really long time. I guess if FanLib couldn't do it, this had to.

That said, though, to get back to my opening point, I am not at all suggesting that you should get on board with this if you hate that kind of fanfic. Fandom is not a monolith. (Hell, I strongly disagreed with a lot of this call to arms because uh, making sweeping statements about minorities in fandom = don't do that. /tangent) You don't even have to spend much time thinking about it: this is certainly an area where kneejerk reactions are both unavoidable and expected. But I guess what I'm saying is, please, try not to dismiss this as something unimportant, or as something that doesn't somehow affect you.

*

On a more lighthearted note: two ways in which my brother recently demonstrated he is awesome.

1. He watched all of Friday Night Lights because I happened to mention, "That's a really goddamn good show."

2. We were watching that one Supernatural ep where couples were being sacrificed or whatever, and he said, "Hmm. Sam and Dean are a couple, aren't they?"

:-D

Tags: strikethrough2007

Heads up, fandom.

Today Livejournal permanently suspended pornish_pixies, a Harry Potter adult fanfiction community, because it had "incest" listed in the community's interests. Apparently someone reported the comm -- the speculative consensus seems to be on the group at this link: hxxp://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/search/label/LiveJournal (cut and paste, replace xx with tt)

Livejournal also suspended several other adult-oriented fan communities, but I think PP was the biggest one in terms of membership. Some communities have deleted themselves as a preemptive measure.

[ETA: a couple of individual RPG journals were suspended as well; lists being compiled here and here.]

[ETA2: Lest we lose sight of the actual issues, I don't think the solution is as simple as removing morally objectionable or illegal interests from your userinfo. As the first link notes, someone reported PP to LJ Abuse. That to me implies that LJ may not be a safe space to post this kind of content (and I'm going to now private-lock and/or delete anything I think needs it). I think it is definitely worth inquiring of LJ Abuse whether FICTIONAL content, WITHOUT the objectionable interests listed in the userinfo, is still okay (since, for instance, virtual child porn is legal in the US). Hopefully these distinctions will soon be clarified.

Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.
-- From LJ's TOS letter to PP

I dunno, y'all. I think there's room for interpretation either way. It's NOT clear to me from this language that simply having disclaimers on an objectionable story or journal will actually lift it out of the TOS's reach.]

[ETA3: And, before anyone starts bleating about freedom of speech on LJ, please read cofax7 on why that DOES NOT APPLY.]

[ETA4: Okay! In correspondence with that Warriors for Innocence Group, LJ apparently did specify that they did not find fiction or fantasy actionable. So is it really just a matter of suspending LJs with objectionable interests, without even looking at the context? I mean, they suspended lolita07, which was a reading group for Lolita!]

Resulting shitstorm likely to be HUGE. *eyes SPN and other fandoms*

Tags: strikethrough2007

Let's Watch a Girl Get Beaten to Death - Joss Whedon on the gang murder of Dua Khalil and the status of women in general.

Reading this essay made me get my butt in gear and finish revising the story I posted yesterday. Not because I think it was all, go womyn, roooaaar! But because, well, at least it was about women, however fictional and unbelievable they may be.

A while back, panisdead did some commentary on her stories in order to look specifically at how she presented, consciously or unconsciously, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. I thought it was a brave thing to do and also really, really interesting. I don't generally write to make some kind of point about these issues, but certainly "attitudes and assumptions," as panisdead put it, do slip through sometimes.

Also, coffeeandink has been doing an on-going census check for episodes of Supernatural, an idea which I'm going to boldly appropriate for my own uses.

( So here's my attempt at turning the mirror back on myself. )

Tags: fandom, gender/sex, race/ethnicity, writing meta