I misunderstood the point of this ride

you can force it but it will not come

2013-05-22T21:55:12Z

Oh, hallelujah. Tonight I am going to have an evening to myself for the first time in a (very intense) week. I'm FINALLY about to watch the Elementary finale (and Doctor Who, I guess; I have seen NO reactions to that, what is up). And work on COMICS again. I have the itch in my fingers.

Last night, though, I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, and ... well. Okay. There were some lovely character moments in there! FEELINGS included. And some pretty decent suspense, entertaining action, and some lovely set and costume design ... but I left feeling frustrated. Where the 2009 film was an exhilarating experience (with a set of problems that I was comfortable compartmentalizing away, to be analyzed and acknowledged later), this was the kind of disjointed mixed-bag experience that I'm all too used to having, especially on the big screen.

Anyway, apparently I have more thoughts and feelings than I realized, and this post got long and ranty. If you want to focus on the squee, probably just scroll on by.

( All the spoilers, naturally. )

( On the bright side! )

comments

nothing's temperamental, if we're gentle

2012-12-30T15:36:08Z

It is finally, finally properly winter out there, you guys, and so goddamn beautiful. I got back from The Hobbit with my mother last night and instantly swapped boots to shovel the driveway (in my kicky little skirt and tights, because why not, it was all just sparkly fluff). In honor of the season, I made a mix!

It's ... honestly super melancholy? Turns out that a lot of my favorite winter songs are also about heartbreak. But I think it captures a certain bittersweet calm, even peace, peppered with little touches of hope and forward momentum ... things I tend to feel about this season. It does have a little Christmas flavoring as well, though I wanted to have a light touch with that.

( mix: mind of winter )

I've been having a really nice vacation, doing the rounds visiting some of my local (and fellow visiting) friends, hanging with my family, watching Christmas specials and doodling things. chaiminda crocheted me a(n adorable) pentapus. I cannot capture Jonathon Young (Sanctuary's Tesla)'s face, much to my disgust. I have barely touched Yuletide, although I did really LOVE this Fame story: Being What We Can. Ralph, Doris and Montgomery! <333 Chosen family! The eighties (and attendant trauma)! Coming of age, self-destruction and building new paths! Eventual v-shaped poly! Seriously, it's fantastic, a story I've always wanted for that film.

Speaking of stories, have some relatively quick (and spoilery) reactions to the seasonal viewing I've done this week ...

( Doctor Who: The Snowmen )

( Downton Abbey Christmas special )

( The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey )

Say, would anyone be able to hook me up with an audio version of The Silmarillion, by any chance? It's always good to have nice, lengthy material to listen to while drawing ...

Also, speaking of audio (and recs), check out pennyplainknits's recording of "Spin the Wheel of the Year (Close Your Eyes and Point)", the most recent piece of jjtaylor's Detective Agency bandom AU-verse. The story and the reading are both wonderful.

comments

odds are, you won't like what it is

2009-06-23T20:58:10Z

I'm sincerely sorry, flist, for continuing to rant at you, but I guess I have a few more things to say about the warnings mess. I'll probably be stopping after this, though.

( I just don't understand where some people are coming from. )

Whew, okay, that was much longer than I expected. Briefly, I discussed: "your triggers are not my problem"/community sensibilities, the anger of pro-warning fans, survivors and pro-warning advocates "attacking" ficcers, censorship, and demands for consensus on a list of triggers to warn for. With lots of attempts to explain what I think the pro-warnings camp is attempting to say and to accomplish. (My understanding of the situation ultimately represents nobody's opinions but my own. Obviously.)

I think I'm done now--shit, I have so much to do that is NOT THIS--but here are a few more links. While I think that the analogies being thrown around are inherently problematic (fandom is neither a bookstore nor a supermarket), vassilissa's take on the food allergy analogy is at least better, IMO: "You'll have to find that out for yourself. You can always leave if you smell peanuts. It's your responsibility, not mine." kalpurna has a handy list of ways to make your warnings optional by hiding them. And lastly, the unfunnybusiness write-up has lots more links, including to a lot of the posts where the wank started and was primarily continued.

[ETA:] quettaser does the math. *_*

[ETA 2:] As usual, have not been able to pull myself away from haphazardly reading more posts on this subject. /o\ The more I do (and the calmer I am; I fully admit that my previous post in particular was written in a haze of rage), the more things seem to boil down to one simple issue. People don't like to be told what to do. Duh, I know. (And: a simplification, I know. But significant.) I don't have a lot of respect for that reaction (in this case), but I get it. However, this is not about people telling other people what to do: it's about people asking for help. I wish some people out there would read impertinence's post about triggers (again, if need be), and try to re-focus their perspective a little. In context, that contrary reaction is fucking selfish.

comments

the other part of it's for you

2009-06-23T00:55:38Z

I've been home and on the internet for about half an hour as of starting this post, and I already feel as though my head is going to explode from rage. The warnings wank seems to have expanded its borders to include more general areas of fandom, and the ugliness is greatly increased for me by virtue of the fact that it's now coming from people I've always had the greatest respect for.

Sadly, I am not one of the more eloquent, articulate people addressing this subject, and I'm not feeling particularly diplomatic either. I just really need to vent.

( I am honestly fucking shocked that we're not better than this. )

Above all, I'd appreciate it if people would stop acting as though survivors are attempting to oppress them into submission, here. They don't have that kind of power over you. They aren't censoring you. They are asking you to be decent to them, and it just makes you look like a shitty excuse for a human being when you get so fucking defensive about it.

I may update this post with links to people who are making what I consider to be good points on the subject. I should probably make dinner first.

[ETA:] Okay, I'm kind of failing at hunting up all the fantastic posts I've seen, but in brief: one of the first posts I saw on the subject was iamtheenemy's, here (it's excellent, if a few days out of date by now). ficbyzee says I would never want any story that I write to cause someone to relive a traumatic experience. (It's a brief post, but it's exactly the attitude I hope ficcers will have.) wistfuljane has a roundup here and a follow-up here. And most importantly (to reiterate a link from yesterday), there is impertinence's important post about triggers (what they are, how they work, why they are not like squicks): Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.

There has been so much more, and so many people are making fantastic arguments in the comments of other posts that I don't want to go back to right now. I need to start winding my emotions down for bed; ugh, I got nothing I wanted to do done this evening.

[ETA 2:] sinsense just linked to a great post by untappedbeauty that calls out the use of fallacious analogies and says something I keep forgetting to say, though I was getting more and more irritated about it earlier: I wish they could just pretend it's not about them. Because it's not. [...] It's about extending a courtesy to our fannish community, not trying to stifle authors.

comments

time was short, the story long

2009-06-22T00:52:32Z

Just got back from spending my weekend with the family. Oh hey, the first BBB I drew for--Through The Longest Hours, by thelemic--has been posted. \o/ You can find my art here. It's based on old pre-Code horror comics covers (though it's not remotely gruesome). I was reading The Ten-Cent Plague at the time. ;) Anyway, it was a super fun fic to draw for, and the piece is pretty different from my usual.

I am still really behind on BBB, and pretty much everything else. All I've managed to pay attention to online in the last day or so has been the bandom warnings wank. With regard to that: warnings are a courtesy people in fandom perform for each other, and while YMMV on the exact extent of their use, they are on the whole a positive and useful convention for our community. As far as I'm concerned, refusing to warn for potentially triggery material in fanfiction is a seriously shitty thing to do, and lecturing survivors on being 'stronger' is more or less unspeakable. Some of what I've seen this weekend has just been horrifying; my flist (which itself is not horrifying ♥) has been full of posts that have been long and eloquent on the subject. impertinence has a particularly important--and disturbing, graphic, and personal--post that deals with triggering in an in-depth way. Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.

I think a lot about artistic responsibility, though I don't have postably eloquent thoughts on it (as a general topic), right now. Fandom, however, is not a space for putting artistic integrity (such as it is) before other peoples' pain. Ugh.

Anyway . . . stuff. TOS has proved to be the best of all pick-me-ups lately, so I think I'll curl up with some more of Season 2 and my thelittlebang piece (which is going great). I should post something reaction-y at some point, though at this point it might mostly be "OMG SPOCK ♥___________♥ WTF I AM MY MOTHER." We were having a lot of fun rehashing random plots in the car today, to the amusement of my father and brother.

comments