leupagus

Maybe there is also a cape.

I was reading this nifty article, How to be a fan of Problematic Things, and it was helpful to me in terms of understanding my own love of - you guessed it! - problematic things. I enjoyed it and to a certain degree agreed with it, but I wondered if y'all had any thoughts on the subject.

So last night was the Meetup of Fannish Delight! We had nine people there, all completely awesome in their own way (bmouse is a Renaissance Man, I can safely vouch) and what's more, everyone indulged me in my drinking challenge, even though at least three of them apparently hate Guiness (I KNOW). Apparently it's not so bad when you chug it with a shot of Bailey's and Jameson's. Who knew?

One thing I want to put out there, and this is going to sound so fucking hippie and new-age-crystal, but whatever: it's so inherently valuable to me to meet fandom people in real life. The sense of community in strictly online fandom is absolutely real, and absolutely amazing, but there's so much potential that's easier to see when you meet someone face-to-face. There were people who I met yesterday who I've interacted with only in comments - in fact one fangirl doesn't even have an LJ! - and getting to meet them and laugh about old X-Files stories and how much cocaine PLenkov is snorting and how much we love this space we occupy online was incredible. There's this sense of seeing one of the most vulnerable sides of a person right off the bat - fandom is, for most of us, something that we keep private from almost everyone we know - and that gives me, personally, a huge freedom when talking to fellow fans. I downloaded an illegal copy of "Deep in the Valley" because Scotty Caan played a porn-cop; you now know pretty much the worst thing I've done. (Lately.) So that means that I have leeway to do pretty much whatever I want in front of fandom, because they might judge me, but they understand me.

Plenty of people with social anxiety or natural shyness or just an aversion to strangers have bravely joined these fandom meetups, and I hope more people, people who think that they can only be liked online, who don't want to risk being thought of as "weird" by people offline, manage to find a way to meet fellow fandom people. If for no other reason than to realize: we're all weird. And we're all awesome because of it.

But yes, we're definitely making this a regular thang - and as before, if you weren't able to get there or you didn't think you'd have a good time, I encourage you to try us out. The next meetup is still in the "hey maybe we should do this again" stages of planning, but apparently it's going to be outdoors because these people, unlike the (lovely and wonderful) fangirls of NYC, are into, like, picnics and hiking and shit. So brb, doing the Stairmaster until I puke.

mklutz and rageprufrock have been doing this podcast-y business for a few weeks, the /report! And it's hella entertaining. And because I've basically whined them to death, rageprufrock allowed me on this week's podcast. Behold!



Click on the picture for a podcast in which we discuss the praaaahcess of writing, give out super-wise-and-important advice, and bitch about how anon hate memes are the bane of all fandom. I wish I could say I was drunk for it, but pru was a mean person and so I had to make do with coffee and toast. NOT THE SAME, APPARENTLY.

(And hells yes I am Booth with the fucking awesome socks. Respect the cocky belt buckle. Although weirdly? I'm watching "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" right now and WOW is it distracting to see Cam as a junkie. And, you know, Shemar Moore with cornrows is distracting for ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reasons.)

Man, I love me some quality NC-17. This is apparently not a universal thing, even within fandom; I've had this conversation with a lot of people -- and I mean A LOT -- and most of the arguments I get are along the lines of "porn in a fic almost never serves the story, it's just tacked on with no justification." And I guess, yeah, sometimes there are these long plotty stories that would be fine if you faded to black after the heavy petting started. But for me, the porn in my stories is actually pretty necessary; I don't think "Only Good for Legends" or "This Thing of Ours" would be nearly as good if you didn't get to see the characters intimate with each other. Aside from and beyond the idea that it's hot (which, yeah it is), it gives readers whole other sides of the characters that simply aren't accessible any other way. Or at least, I can't express them any other way -- which may be my weakness as a writer.

But my real feeling is that sex doesn't need to justify itself; it's sex, one of the most basic human interactions, and certainly for many, one of the most enjoyable. To me saying that sex doesn't serve the plot is like saying having a scene where two characters eat delicious food doesn't serve the plot, or having a character laugh at a joke doesn't serve the plot. I mean, I guess sometimes that awesome food or funny jokes are extraneous, but isn't it more fun when the characters are having more fun?

So in honor of my Very Important Thoughts On Porn, have some PWP recs! And feel free to add your own recommendations, if you've read or written some superawesome porn lately that you want the world to know about. It's all H50 and mostly Steve/Danny, although there's a Steve/Danny/Catherine thrown in there for funsies.

( Yeah it's gratuitous. Gratuitously AWESOME. )

So there you have it! Porn for your Friday. Now go and write some of your own. THE WORLD MUST BE PEOPLED PORNED.

( ETA: SO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT KNOTTING IS. )

So-ho, I've been thinking about the rant I posted in re: why calling women in general and women celebrities/personalities/public figures in particular "annoying" is problematic, and guys, it felt really good! Cleansing and shit! A lot of times I avoid Social Justice wank because I don't like the particular people who participate in it, mostly because the kind of person who yells at you for calling someone ridicutarded and then talks for ten paragraphs about how he/she would never say that is not the kind of person I'd like to invite to a party.

However, the extent of my deep and meaningful soul-searching about To Anyone Annoyed By A Woman was, literally, me opening a post window and going "A;LKJFASD;LFKJASDF I AM SO ANGRYCAKES." Which was way cathartic. If I ever do this again, I'll either shake my fist at "bitch" or "slut." Or both! Fear me, fear my wrathful tippy-typing.

Also please note, for those of you who may have been confused on the issue: I directed that post at anyone who was reading it, regardless of sex or gender, because I think both men and women are susceptible to this behavior. I got into it with one person who argued that women do it more often than men, which, first, no, second, the point is for the reader to think, not for Reader to check what junk Reader has and then decide, based on junk, that it's not Reader's problem. There's a specific name for that that I can't remember; I usually just call it "bullshit."

But that's not what I wanted to talk about! What I wanted to talk about was that handsomespeck has a really super rad post (all of her posts are super rad, but this one is really super rad) about the laydeez, and their level of funny...ocity. Funnytasticity? Funyonation? Whatever. Point is, there are other people talking about funny women both on the internet and in the old-school entertainment biz, which warms the cockles (heh) of my heart. She even has a link to that vomitous article Christopher Hitchens wrote a few years ago, about how women aren't funny because we have good looks -- and tits! -- for to attract the mens.

(I'm always entertained, in a rage-y sort of way, by how people tend to forget that while beautiful young women are indeed numerous, there are plenty of old, fat, badly-dressed, or otherwise ugly women out there who cannot simply crook a finger and trust that our milkshake will indeed bring all the boys to the yard. But we're also women! Fascinating! It's almost as though society expects women to be objects to look at more than anything else, and if you're not pretty to look at, you serve no purpose! Look at me discovering things.)

( Read mooooooooooore )

Note: If there's anyone on my flist who hasn't friended handsomespeck (or you know, doesn't know who the fuck that is), you really totally should check her out right now. And then, I dunno, lobby your local congressman to get her hired as a professional funny person, because she makes me snort laughing every time she posts. So, actually, yeah! This is a Get To Know Your Awesome Lady Person segment after all! GO ME.

So I had to rewatch the first part just to make sure I heard it right, but ( I did hear it right, and here are alllll my thoughts about what I heard. )

In conclusion: I heart this show.

( The difference between a Mary Sue and an awesome character? Tits! )

So, traveller and I are doing Promptfest '11: Mary Sue Edition. Here's the rules:

1. Comment here with:
2. If you ask for a prompt, traveller or I will reply with an idea for a ficlet. You are under no obligation whatsoever to follow this prompt! It's just to help get the motor running, so to speak. If you ask for a cheer, we will reply with encouragement.

3. You will in turn reply with a fic of any length and any type - two sentences, 200K words, a screenplay, a poem, anything - where a female character, original or canon, does something awesome.

4. She cannot die at the end. (Roommate Kate has added an important exception - she can totally die as long as she resurrects, Jesus-style, and does something else awesome.)

THAT'S IT. Go crazy, go wild, go write!

Yesterday I was like, I love H50, but you know what I would also love? H50 with only the ladies! No gender-bending, just using the female characters we have. This would be a universe sadly lacking in Steve, Danny, and Chin, but I was still really intrigued by the idea; we've got at least four adult female characters (possibly five, depending on how Rachel turns out) whose personalities are really interesting to me, even though it's hard to believe anything could be as interesting to me as Steve's abs or Chin's smoulder or Danny's ass. (It's a really great ass, guys, don't lie to yourself.)

So I did what I always do when I get an idea, I wrote a story snippet about said idea. Beats metasturbation any day, I can tell you.

***

Title: Something Like This
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Author: leupagus
Summary: Four introductions, and another way this whole mess could get started.

( Mary, Mary, quite contrary )

***

That's basically what I thought would be cool. Mostly because I want a world in which Mary and Rachel compete for Angst-Muffin of the Year, but Mary deals with it by slutting around and grabbing at Kono's ass, and Rachel deals with it by yelling at Danny via Skype or whatever and being scarily good at paperwork. I don't even know, guys. This is what I do with my life.

( This got long. Longer than Steve's dick, which if you watch this episode, you'll be forgiven for thinking is, like, three feet long. )

In conclusion: I'm going to be mocked by at least four people for writing this horrifically blathery post, but I don't even care. Hawaii Five-0, you are the song of my heart firreals.

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

It's baby's first meme! This looked like a fun one, so let's see how it goes.