I feel like I only make posts anymore to vent about my family drama. I resolve to throw in some fannishness every once in a while, when I'm not angry and hurt.

Last night my cousin M had his birthday party. Every year he throws a big barbeque thingy where he invites family and friends. It's usually loud, full of people and copious amounts of alcohol. His new girlfriend has been a bit of a destabilizing influence over the past year. She's my age and kind of a a crass, manipulative jerk.

When we got there, everything was fine. But at some point my cousin M told his brother sort of under his breath that something was up. I was standing there with disbelief all over my face, because seriously, my cousin M is not that much of a stupid fuck. My cousin S guessed, quite correctly as it turned out, that M had invited my dad.

My dad shows up halfway through dinner and I think my mom might have left right there if we didn't all come with the same car. As it was, there was this huge, terrible vortex of awful sucking the fun right out of the party. I got really fucking drunk and it helped, a little. If I ever develop a drinking problem, it's because of these people.

Anyway, as the evening wears on, the new girlfriend of M pretty much outs herself as the orchestrating force, saying "why are they avoiding each other? They aren't children, they can talk politely." At which point I really wanted to punch her smug face. Three weeks ago my parents insituted a four week "let's figure ourselves/our lives out alone wihtout contact to see where we stand" policy. Yes, my dad was wrong in coming at all, but there are extenuating circumstances of him basically being in a self-destructive, passive-aggressive spiral of extremely poor life choices. He's ill, I think, both physicallly and mentally, interconnected. So while I blame him for coming, I think both M and his girlfriend are to blame for a huge chunk of this mess right there. They shouldn't have invited him. They should, at least, have warned my mother that he would be there.

I am so incredibly angry with them. I love M and I want him to be happy, but dear gods, I want to kick him in the teeth. And his girlfriend may be the reason I never talk to him again.

This is such a silly, silly story, and now there is more of it! I apologize for being dreadfully slow about updating. I am never, ever going to make my self-imposed deadline with what is still to come (basically, tropes!) but I am getting there. After 20k words it would be silly not to.

The Hour of the Wolf (20040 words) by Suaine
Chapters: 2/4
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Lydia Martin, Danny (Teen Wolf), Jackson Whittemore, Allison Argent
Summary:

Stiles never wanted to be a werewolf, but the choice is taken out of his hands by a series of unfortunate events. When he wakes up his life has become infinitely more complicated.

The attentive reader may have noticed that a lot of my posts lately included references to mental health stuff and me being in a bad place. This is part of that continuing narrative.

( my week comes with mental health/depression/suicidial thoughts warnings )

I've been a little blocked on my silly Stiles!wolf fic and I wasn't exactly sure why. Now I know. I was looking for the right wolf. I needed to be able to picture Stiles properly.

Meet the maned wolf:



It's so perfect. The deer legs. The fox ears. When Derek sees him, he won't know whether to laugh or wrap him in a hug. I win.

I can't get over the fact that Derek Hale wears a badass leather jacket and ratty sneakers. That's everything he is in a nutshell - mysterious badass from afar, but when you look deeper he's just some kid worn out by life.

Everywhere I look, Avengers!

And I cannot go see it. There is no English showing in my city. I refuse to watch the dub. You have no fucking idea how miserable I am about this. I complained about it to my mother.

1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment. (That way you're not leading the questions asked to fit the characters.)

2) Ask your flist to post questions in the comments.

For example:

'One, Nine and Fifteen move in together. Is this a really bad idea?'
'Under what circumstances might Five and Seven fall in love?'
'Which character on the list would you most want on your side in a zombie invasion?'

3) After your flist has asked enough questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.

Scott finds a dragon egg in the woods and becomes an aviator. Derek has been one since birth. Stiles is along for the ride because a) dragons are cool and b) WHO TRUSTS SCOTT WITH A DRAGON?

You know what I miss as places of fannish congregation? Chat rooms. I love chat rooms. I love hanging out with people, the presence of it, how it feels connected and social more so than tumblr or facebook or LJ/DW.

Is that a thing that still happens somewhere? Can we bring it back? I miss themed chats like you wouldn't believe.

The Hour of the Wolf (8744 words) by Suaine
Chapters: 1/4
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Lydia Martin, Danny (Teen Wolf), Jackson Whittemore, Allison Argent
Summary:

Stiles never wanted to be a werewolf, but the choice is taken out of his hands by a series of unfortunate events. When he wakes up his life has become infinitely more complicated.

There should be 4 parts in all, though I may revise that later on because my pre-plotting is the worst. Mostly I just want Stiles to be a werwolf. And puppy piles.

So I've noticed I have this thing. About alternative universes.

You know the ones where one of a pairing ends up in a parallel dimension where stuff is different and they see their intended in a new light etc.? Yeah, those. I kind of love them, but I hate them, too.

I find it incredibly depressing when the two parts of the pairing from disparate universes fall in love. It's almost squicky to me. It feels like cheating, despite, you know both being ostensibly the same person. It's just not right. And I can't even explain why that is, but it makes me so super sad.

Maybe because what I love about a pairing is often their history together. Or maybe it's just me being weird. But seriously. These sort of AUs are freaking awesome, but every time AofA falls in love with BofB, all I can think about is how AofB and BofA must be feeling left out :(

Yes, hi, I'm a crazy person and I'm writing nothing even remotely like this. I'm actually turning Stiles into a werewolf, film at 11.

I've got some serious mental health stuff and family issues dragging me down right now, but nothing I can put into words without freaking out. So, if I'm being weird, that's why.

Anyway, changing the subject, I'm not generally aware of men as attractive - many of the omg hot things people post about guys kind of make me blink and go "huh" a lot. (Like, say, Loki? I mean, what? Really?) I do like certain features on men, especially when they're features that women also have in a similar configuration, like eyes and ears and shoulders and cheekbones and lips.

And then sometimes I see a picture and it doesn't matter that it's a guy or a girl, it's just gorgeous all around.



I still don't want to fuck him, but I'd give, like, my soul to be able to paint that and I want to write a thousand stories about Stiles biting his ears, running a hand through his hair, holding on to those shoulders. Yeah, so that happened.

Also, wolves.

Oh my-

So I've had an incredibly awful mental health related shit-fest of a weekend. It was bad. I don't want to talk about the details, but badness was had.

And then I figure I self-medicate, because that's what I do. I find something fannish. I read fic and watch a new show, possibly in that order. And it works, because my brain completely switches to figuring stuff out, making connections, building characters.

Which is how I came to obsess over TEEN WOLF.

Okay, so, part of it is the whole werewolf thing. I may have a thing for that thing. And then there is the oddly charming, self-conscious writing - this show is aware of the genres its straddling and it does so both with a hint of sarcasm and a lot of joy. There are the interesting characters, none of whom (none!) are what they appear to be. And even though it mostly makes me giggle, you gotta appreciate a show that reserves most of the gratuitous nudity for its male cast. Then there is Danny who's a jock, one of the most popular kids in school, and openly gay. There's Stiles, who's the best, and Derek, who's the Big Bad Wolf, and their epic totally meant to be love story.

My buttons, they have been pushed.

It's one thirty a.m. and there is a mad early bird singing outside my window. I assume it got confused by daylight saving time.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, btw. I should have commented, or posted myself, but sometimes even the little things are hard.

Things could be better, but they could always be worse. Got through physical therapy with my arm, got a flu I couldn't shake, played a game that broke my heart.

I'm itching to write again after yuletide and a few things have been shaking loose. Thinking about sci-fi!Merlin again, thinking about Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Lots of material, when I can get my brain to work enough.

Also got a meta post I want to make, mostly about the rights we have to our own bodies and our own lives and how we judge people who make use of that right in unaccepted ways.

You know, sometimes I look at political discourse in the US and I'm completely confused. The labels are brandished like weapons, but their meanings are lost.

( Read more... )

Why is every TV show I watch going for hellishly depressing?

Also, why are some gamers such unrelenting asswipes?

So on Wednesday I had my de-cyborgifying operation.

I would really like to know who let the butcher in the operating room. That dude had the grace of a water ox.

Tuesday they literally proved to me they had no earthly idea what they were doing. X-rays done, I got to see a doctor and he was like "lol no, no surgery, that thing has to stay in for another 6 weeks" and I'm like O_o

And then he's like "oh shit x-rays - yeah no, surgery tomorrow at 8, that shit has to come out wtf who did that?"

So Wednesday I come in for surgery. First dude, at the reception: "Lol wtf you're not on my list, but let me give you all these papers haha I have never done this before" (trufax) (7:30am)

Nurse in pre-op: "Lol wtf you're not on my list, but get undressed and put on this funny hat" (7:45am)

Anaesthesia specialist who randomly wandered through the booths. "Lol wtf you're not on my list, but maybe I'll poke you with needles later even though you haven't gone through the proper channels for anaesthesia also nice hat" (8:50am)

Surgeon. (10:30am) "Lol wtf you're not just on the list, we can't take it out it is tooo sooooon you will break all the things!"

Me: WTF YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE JUST LOOK AT THE FUCKING X-RAY (in my head) Surgeon wanders off with a confused look.

1:30pm Nurse "so, uh, which side are we operating on again?"

I make this face O----O

Then, surgery. The butcher appears, it is the surgeon with the confused look. Now he is all "I have learned all the things!" and I'm like "holy shit they aren't giving me any drugs, just the same local anaesthesia you get from the dentist MOMMY" and then he's like *lolcuts* and I'm like "okay not so bad" and then he's like "omg who did this where is it" *butchers wrist like a pro* and I'm like "mommy?" and then he's like "haha now we only have to pull it out"

That pain, I will never forget it.

And the surgeon? "How are you feeling?"

"LIKE SOMEONE JUST PULLED A NINE INCH NAIL OUT OF MY ARM"

So, still alive, now I have to basically not move or use my arm for the next six weeks because the break isn't actually healed fully. I still can't feel my thumb and my wrist hurts like fuck. On the plus side, uh, they gave me some hot tea afterwards?

Oh my god, someone please tell me why I keep engaging the PC gaming community.

Specifically, SWTOR doesn't have any gay in it (yet) and some people want to make sure their voices are heard re: adding it fairly by making all romance options available to all characters. This, apparently, is such a huge demand that it is either a) blatantly too much and we should be happy if we get anything at all or b) I don't want them gays on my screen so for the love of god add a toggle so I can keep on pretending gays don't exist.

People are wrong on the internet, my friends. Wrong. On the internet. My rage can only be assauged by the bubbling heart-blood of freshly slain bigots.

(I really like the game, but the missing romance options are making it an exercise in frustration a good half the time. I play a womanizing Jedi who flirts with every female in his path - how is that more acceptable than a gay Han Solo type?)

I get brain freezes every time I try to answer a comment, which is why I appear so terribly rude. I just - brain things. My mental capacity is kind of stretched and I think social niceties sort of fell off the combat table there, which is to say, I'm a rude fuck.

My arm's been giving me trouble - the elbow they fixed by pushing a nail up my bone, that's fine, but the bit where the nail sits right over my wrist bones, that hurts like fuck. But thankfully I'll be de-cyborgified in less than two weeks so I should be able to write for extended periods again, or hold things that are heavier than a sheet of paper.

Because, okay, there is fannish stuff. That Star Wars game I was talking about? It's going to break my heart. Bioware promised there would be queer content, but it's all some nebulous "some time in the future" and I've played myself into a corner in which all love is unrequited and my gay Han Solo wanna-be smuggler is pining over one of the love interests for straight girls and it's all so miserable under the snark and banter. I could fix it in fic, but who would even want to read it?

Also I wish people, me included, would stop promoting their fannish favorites by shitting on the competition. Can't I say "this is good" instead of "that other thing really sucks, here this is better"? Because, let's face it, when you're the one liking the thing that's being shit on, it fucking hurts. And yes, it still hurts if the shit piles on the popular thing. If you're going to pimp a rarepair or a new game or book, don't lead with "because WoW/Tony&Steve/Harry Potter sucks" - it's petty and pointless and doesn't actually make your audience any bigger.

(As an aside, we all look for different things in our entertainment and I'm allowed to like something that isn't perfect but has many good points. I am also allowed to dislike something for specific things it does wrong despite many good points in its favor. And it's okay if the balance shifts from like to dislike or the other way around, but that's between me and my TV/computer/book shelf.)

Which is to say, Glee had some really good bits this week. I think I may have done slightly lopsided air fists. (Other tangent: I wish Glee were better at establishing its own identity, because the earnest show choir stuff really undermines its parodic nature and then it just sort of meanders into teenage drama land without the biting social critique buried underneath.)

In conclusion, it's too damn cold outside.

If you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Repost or not is obviously up to you :)

Reading up on the epic tearjerker movie that is War Horse, I've got to ask myself one question:

When will we see the epic, high production value, star-studded, Oscar-bait movie about a *girl* and her horse?

Fuck you, Hollywood, especially because I teared up just reading the damn description on Wikipedia. And mostly unrelatedly fuck George Lucas, too, for implying that we need more movies so boys can have heroes.

Random question: can 32bit Windows systems use more than 4GB RAM? This is for reasons.

In other news, I've regained a hell of a lot of range of movement in my cyborg arm, but the pain from surgery has replaced the omgambroken pain successfully, so I'm still flailing around mostly one-armed. Thank you all, btw, the good wishes have really helped.

cyborgification complete

\o7

It's surgery after all. I spent the last 8 hours in the hospital listening to various doctors and nurses explain things, but mostly it's a little scary still.

On the other hand, tomorrow I am a cyborg!

I was all set to make this big post gushing about the process this year, moaning about my own inability to pace myself, the mad dash to the deadline ALL THREE TIMES and how much I loved writing all of these, but then I took an arrow in the knee... no wait. Arm broken, that's it.

\o7

Typing one-handed is slowing down the process enough that every word is pure frustration, so forgive me if I end up with more mad puns than usual.

Kings (10240 words) by Suaine
Fandom: Captive Prince - Freece
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Characters: Damen (Captive Prince), Laurent (Captive Prince), Jord (Captive Prince), Nicaise (Captive Prince)
Summary:

Jord and Nicaise find themselves caught up in court intrigue and conspiracy. Survival, sacrifice and revelation.

I love this story. It's solid, kind of plotty, which I don't usually do all that well, and a fantastic chance to explore a universe I really enjoy and am waiting for new stuff in with bated breath. I was really intimidated at first because, let's face it, writing for someone else's WiP original work without really being able to ask for permission and that blind fear of stepping on freece's toes was terrifying.

The POV change allowed me to do something I enjoy greatly, which is looking at my favorite characters or pairings from the outside, while also exploring the awesome secondary characters of Jord and Nicaise. It gave me the needed distance from the original, too, while giving Lorax what she was hoping for, at least in some way.

Don't ever ask yuletide IRC chat exactly *when* I wrote the last 6k words, because that was the most insanity-inducing thing I ever did. I swear next year I will not look upon the deadline as a challenge.

--

The Bough That Bends (1644 words) by Suaine
Fandom: World of Warcraft
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Thassarian/Koltira Deathweaver
Characters: Thassarian, Koltira Deathweaver
Summary:

Thassarian is missing something. He just has to figure out what he is willing to do to get it back.

This one was simple and lovely. WoW is one of those games that doesn't inspire as much fannishness in me as Bioware or Arenanet stuff, mostly because I want to go "look at your game, Blizzard, look at your choices!" a lot. But I do enjoy the potential of it and here I got the chance to use my mad MMO obsession to further the cause of making things happen.

I'm completely satisfied with this one - it is what it's supposed to be, the writing came easy and without much self-doubt or any of that rot (heh, death knights) and I think Boingboing was happy with it, which is all that really matters.

--

I See With My Eyes (1065 words) by Suaine
Fandom: The Matrix (1999 2003 2003)
Rating: Not Rated
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Original Characters
Summary:

A young woman wakes up from a dream and finds herself in a nightmare.

Oh, this story. I wish so many things, like, more time, less writing between a fully scheduled Christmas Eve (which is really the main holiday for us around here) and the last hours until planned reveal ticking down. I wanted to do so much for this prompt. It grabbed me from the moment I saw it and from the moment I posted I was terrified of not having done it justice.

I mean, "whisper-small kisses" makes a lot more sense at 3 a.m. with a little bit of eggnog, that's all I'm saying. I really let my odd-metaphor-loving brain out to play on this one, which I am about half-sure is what Culumacilinte wanted. The sparse writing is intentional, but I'm not sure the length is. If I'd had more time, I think there would have been more, more time to explore Loki's early life, more time to introduce more characters with more things to say about how things work. Maybe I would have had a chance to go into the machine mind more and what changes were coming for all of them after Revolutions.

When I was a kid I was a huge fan of these movies and yes, I am that one person who loved the sequels almost as much (Reloaded) or possibly more (Revolutions) than the original. I wanted to do ALL the things for this prompt and I wanted to explore Loki and gender and sexuality and what it means to know *exactly* how we imagine ourselves versus how others see us. I think the potential is there in this story and I'm glad other people saw what I saw in the seed of it.

(as an aside, I've been acquainted with the trickster gods for much longer than I've been a friend of the super husbands and their merry band, so if you find yourself wondering if Loki is a reference to recent big movie fandoms, she's not intended as such, though you may of course read my stories any way you like)

We waited for three long and tedious and quite painful hours today to see a surgeon about an elbow. They showed me the x-rays again and apparently I broke off the broccoli head thing of my radius bone that fits into the joint. It just sort of split off and went a-wandering. Except, it did not actually wander far or I would definitely have surgery next week. As it stands, I'll get an x-ray checkup on Tuesday and if things are still in the right place I can get away with a cast for about six weeks.

My family still thinks this whole thing is kind of funny. I think it would be funnier if I could get dressed without help. Most things I can do, except for buttons, shoe laces and bras. Bras are *the worst*.

The pain is annoying but with ibuprofen and sleep I can handle it. I can't really play games or write though - there is a particular flow to my words that's always difficult to catch and more so with just one hand. And the pain and discomfort is making even reading kind of hard. I am so bored I even watched TV with my parents, badly dubbed movies and reality TV.

If you want to know what happened, it was really dumb. I got out of the sauna in a towel, slipped on wet tiles, tried to catch myself and heard this crunchy noise. On the other hand, it was probably the most hilarious first aid scene ever (I also passed out and hit the back of my head, but that only added insult to injury) as we were all naked. There is nothing like a bit of skin to make you laugh through the pain.

I vote for all first responders to be naked from now on, because that shit was funny.

Here's hoping everyone is doing alright. I know some of you are dealing with bad stuff and it's particularly hard this time of year. ALL the good wishes, friends!

Anyway, I've been feeling better due to judicious use of SWTOR and yuletide fic, which yay!

And today I went to the sauna and broke my elbow. It's actually pretty funny, except for the bit where I can't use my left arm. Also the pain is surprisingly sharp. I have a cast up to my shoulder! (Also this entry took really long to write one-handed -_-)

Also, if you can quess any of the three stories I wrote I will...

Er...

Give you many internet cookies and possibly a story of your very own if you want it. I write just about anything if it's not against my OTP in any given fandom because I am slightly wild about spreading my wings and all. You know. It is nearing 3 a.m. and I am dealing with pain and nausea but my emotional instability has turned into slightly misplaced euphoria, so.

Play?

Funny how things work out. I was so dead on my feet I fell asleep in front of my yule-fics, but when I woke up nauseous and feeling emotionally drained, yet suddenly awake, my gifts were there and they made all things better. Seriously, I have never felt quite so pathetically grateful for fun, fluffy, happy fic.

Humping Like Tigers and Bunnies (1376 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barnaby Brooks Jr./Kaburagi T. Kotetsu | Bunny/Wild Tiger
Characters: Barnaby Brooks Jr. | Bunny, Kaburagi T. Kotetsu | Wild Tiger, Nathan Seymour | Fire Emblem, Pao-Lin Huang | Dragon Kid, Ivan Karelin | Origami Cyclone, Antonio Lopez | Rock Bison, Karina Lyle | Blue Rose, Keith Goodman | Sky High
Summary:

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, an enterprising young porn director would decide to shoot a porno off Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks, Jr.’s epic bromance. And just as inevitable was the fact that whichever of the other heroes found out about it first would bring it in to Hero TV the next day.

This is so funny and I just flailed all over it. Seriously, after the day I've had, this was the pick-me up I desperately needed. A++ mystery author.

Counting the Steps Back to Safe (1154 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Once Upon a Time (2011)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Prince Charming/Snow White
Characters: Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard, Prince "Charming" James | David Nolan
Summary:

“Have I charmed you yet?” he asked, eyes still too bright.

I have not said anything about this lately, but Charming/Snow is actually the pairing of my heart. Their banter and the obvious love for each other and the obstacles they face like actual adults, all of it is just so very much like catnip to me, and this is a perfect slice of their uneasy first steps toward love. I just want to smush them all the time. And Snow is fucking aces.

footsteps (and how not to follow them) (1659 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kaburagi Kaede, Kaburagi T. Kotetsu | Wild Tiger, Barnaby Brooks Jr. | Bunny
Summary:

Kaede’s first night on the job, she got tossed into a building.

Kaede just wants to be a Hero of her own, but Tiger and Barnaby keep getting in the way. Futurefic.

This is totally what happens, don't tell me otherwise. It's just so. I can feel Kaede's struggle in this, but she has this awesome patchwork family and I may have teared up in a good way around the middle and basically nodded along to it until the end. Very sweet, without being sugary.

I haven't read much else yet but I think I'll do a rec post sometime this week. There is a lot of amazing long fic that I want to dig into, fandom somewhat notwithstanding XD

I haven't even had a chance to look at yuletide stories yet, that's how much family stuff we had today. It all was a little bittersweet for those that were missing, a little painful under the smiles. Good, but not easy. We lingered longer than any year before, holding harder, I think. It's been difficult.

I'm... okay? Worn to the bone in some ways, but okay.

Be well during these long nights, celebrations or not.

Ugh, the xenophobia in the comments to LJ news etc. makes me want to hit someone.

Newsflash assholes - Igrick is *a* Russian, SUP is *a* Russian company. *The* Russians are not responsible, even if a large number of Russian users may have a different way of using LJ than you or I would. *The* Russians are no more or less a unified mass of humanity than *the* Americans. Stop being dickheads or stop being on my side, thanks.

So. The changes in LJ comment pages are shit, because they take away functionality that I know fandom uses extensively. Be it the subject lines (why, Lj why??) or the user icons or the goddamn comment preview, I have personally used all three in a way I can no longer use them unless I switch everyone to my personal journal style. And that is fucking disorienting for me, okay?

But here's the problem. I do not like Dreamwidth. I have a pile of resentment built up for it that makes me want to scream. Sure, LJ makes me want to scream, too, but LJ has a lot of good memories it has to chip away at before I'll hate it as much as Dreamwidth. I do have an account there and I generally kept it updated with LJ content, but I don't read there (for several reasons not limited to the fact that I hate my layout and can't find a better one).

The thing is, if LJ loses all fannish content, I'm terrified I'll just drift away. The idea that I have to try and rebuild my flist in a different place, try to make it fit for me as my flist fits here? That is giving me anxiety attacks. The amount of work involved in just making things like they were is crippling. And frankly, I'm not sure I have the energy.

Okay, so, it's the same trailer, only it's not. There are scenes we have not seen before! OMG excitement!


( one the fly translation because there is stuff! )

\o/

Also, the dub is kind of flat and I hate Tony's voice and if they don't have at least one English showing in a city the size of Seattle, I will become a super villain. I will go on a destructive rampage and destroy every last sound stage in the country.

Okay, no, this post is actually about Guild Wars. Why is it about Guild Wars, you ask, when everyone, me included, is all "yay omg SWTOR!"?

Well, as one does, I read the SWTOR End User Access and License Agreement. Yeah, no, I really am that person. I read these things.

And it's your standard MMO industry EULA, lots of restrictions on your rights and stuff. And I was a little disappointed because, well. Because I have seen people do better. And I know EA is the legal force behind Bioware and EA kind of suck at customer relation. But I checked anyway.

In contrast, Guild Wars.

This paragraph, right here, is why I will never be satisfied with industry standard:

NC Interactive and its related Game Content Providers grant to Members the right to use the Game Content for noncommercial, personal purposes, including in connection with creating noncommercial fan fiction or fan web sites regarding the same. However, you acknowledge and agree that you shall not reproduce, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, publicly perform, or transmit any Game Content for commercial uses without first obtaining the express written consent of NC Interactive.

I want to draw hearts around this paragraph *forever*.

I had a eureka moment today. For ages I've found the new English gender-neutral pronouns I've come across to be jarring and not very appropriate but I couldn't really explain why. Except now I've seen the One.

Xie.

And finally I understand why my brain is baulking at these so much. It's not just that I come from a language where most nouns are somewhat randomly gendered (girl is a neutral noun, axe is female, contract is male) and thus a gendered pronoun for people is less meaningful and that we have a fairly functional netural pronoun (even though it does carry some male connotation by virtue of the way it's pronounced), but it is that same language that brings me up short on these neutral pronouns. When I see "xie" my first instinct is to pronounce it "ksee" and that's sort of a stumbling block, so I adjust to English and then it's "see" but... "zhee" is rather close to the German "sie", which is the female pronoun that occupies the exact same spot as "xie" and I end up thinking automatically that "xie" = female. Similar adjustments happen when I see any of the "z~" pronouns, only that those always come off as a bad German accent.

This is normal for me - when I come across an unfamiliar German word I will always try to figure out its appropriate gender by sounding it out/ammending articles. In the case of the new kind of gender neutral English pronouns, my brain just sort of rolls over and plays dead.

Which is to say, I use the singular "they" and I am not ashamed.

♥

Okay, so. The genesis of my love for this game is a long and complicated story. The truth is that I could not have hated this game if I had tried.

I saw Star Wars at an impressionable age. There was something in that world that spoke to me. Forget Lucas for a second and concentrate on the underneath bits, the nuts and bolts of it. There was potential there. The light and dark, passion versus serenity. I was star-struck with the magic of the universe.

And then Bioware made Revan. You guys, I am about to spoil the hell out of you, so if you intend to play Knights of the Old Republic, the 2003 PC RPG, and you don't already know the salient points of the main story line, avert your eyes now.

( seriously, if you ever ever intend to play KOTOR, do not spoil yourself )

In any case, a game that followed in the footsteps of KOTOR, in the Star Wars universe, made by the people who brought you Dragon Age and Mass Effect, how could I not love it?

I'm not sure I can recommend SWTOR to people who come into it with no connection. The average WoW player may get bored during the in-depth story line progression. And yet. I kind of want everyone to play it with me. It feels like KOTOR. It plays a lot like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, with the added multiplayer aspect. There is a depth to the questing experience that I have never seen in MMOs before. It seems like it may be the missing link between your regular MMO and what comes next (aka Guild Wars 2 or The Secret World).

If you're into Star Wars, Bioware games and the RPG part of MMOs, holy shit buy this game.

- between writing, yuletide canon-reviewing and playing the SWTOR beta, I kind of forgot to sleep.

- homg. SWTOR. If you know what it is, yes, yes, it is that good and a bag of chips. I want to hug it and squish it and never let go.

- there's a few posts on my flist about fannish behavior (specifically linking your fic on a public archive to actors) and, *sigh*. On the one hand, yes, our porn exposed for all to see without the framework of fannish convention, that's scary and having the choice of publicity taken away is kind of, well, like being photographed by paparazzi. On the other hand, it isn't (shouldn't be?) that big a deal. Actors either know about these things and find them creepy yet amusing, so they may even follow that link further into the rabbit hole. Or they see, recoil in horror, and never touch the internet again. In any case, what do people really expect could happen? Do we really think so badly of our work, our creative expression that we keep living in our bubble of denial? And meanwhile people outside our community write twit-fic of Rahm Emmanuel and get on TV.

I am sad that fannish identity is still such a matter of shame to us, even more to us than it is to the rest of the internet. Is it because it's slash? I don't remember that same level of self-recrimination from my old het fandoms. I don't think the bronies are ashamed of their pony love. You guys, what's with that?

to sum up: handing porn to people who didn't ask for it = bad, no doubt about that. But the rest of it. maybe we can relax a little. Besides, unless they're really seriously new to the internet, like Steve Rogers just thawed yesterday kind of new, they probably already know.

- my dog has been sick all weekend because some moron gave her bones or loads of dry pallets without enough water. She has this really pathetic, mournful look right now because FOOD HAS BETRAYED HER. Again. My dog is not very bright, you see.

- I am vaguely aware that I should not be posting anything at 3:30am, but on the other hand I like to live on the edge. I am about to crash really hard.

I love you like Tony Stark loves robots.

I've been watching a very interesting webcast about video game design and the gaming industry, and if you're at all into how entertainment works it's definitely worth checking out. Extra Credits

This episode in particular is interesting from a fannish perspective because it talks about gaming as interactive entertainment and how that sets it apart from traditional works of art - except, you'll notice that the gaming experiences matches incredibly well with the fannish experience.

The Role of the Player

My dearest writer,

this year has been about recovery for me, about finding myself again and about the life after everything blows up. This year also marks a change in my attitude toward certain fandoms. I feel mellower, and less inclined to turn into a green rage monster at every turn of perceived failure. I've learned to accept that sometimes I can like things that are complicated and problematic without losing sight of my principles.

( There are many, many things I like in fiction. )

Dear spam emails I am getting,

stop. No, really. Just stop. Referring to women as "holes" is not going to make me visit your site. Not even after the eighth such letter in two days.

Ugh.

Right now, I am selfish. I hate that word, but it's hard to describe the kind of mindset I'm in another way without going on at length and it's kind of boring anyway. I am selfish - I am taking care of myself any way I can ahead of other considerations, including but not limited to being a good friend, being an activist in the big and small political and social realms, and keeping myelf informed. Or engaging where I am.

And, you know, that's okay. There are times when we're all tired and taking a step back is allowed. I'm indluging in the easy things and allowing myself to let go of the anger, for now. I am not putting my head in the sand or trying my hand at denial, but I am actively choosing to sit out a few games, just until I can sleep at night without a panic attack.

Posting about fannish stuff, posting meta and stories about other people's lives does not mean I'm not paying attention. It helps, actually, to build some distance.

Thank you, though, for all of you who can sustain a level of caring and involvement that would bring me to my knees right now. You are all beautiful and amazing and I would be lesser without you.

Okay, so, here's a thing I got from yuletide chat over in IRC and oh my god it gives me feelings, feelings about Tony Stark. (Yeah, no, I know I'm in full on fannish obsession mode, but oh god Tony :(((

( youtube vid + oh my god Tony )

Okay, so, there are, like, people posting fic on tumblr and pics and stuff and that's great. It is. It's just. Having a conversation on tumblr is SO HARD. Like. Reblogging and then re-reblogging and adding little bits and then it's like "what the hell?!" Or asking asks and then blogging answers and it's so... broadcast-y.

To me it feels like LJ/DW are this large living room, where everyone sits on the chouces and easy chairs and the floor around the coffee table and have a ridiculous meandering conversation. There's booze, too, maybe. And then tumblr is like... a seminar, where one dude stands at the front and gives their report and everyone else is nodding along and going "yeah okay" or "so about that booze?" and then the next gal gets up and is all "have you heard the one with the bunny?!"

I feel old. Tumblr makes my brain feel old and weird.

IS THIS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE IN A WORLD OF NEW TECHNOLOGY, STEVE?

Also, am I the only one who types all caps by holding down the regular shift key?

Do you sometimes have the urge to answer certain fic search requests with Let Me Google That For You?

Also, googling let me google that for you makes my brain break \o/

Vintage Robot Toys

You're welcome!

Today I listened to my first podfic EVER.

It was AWESOME.

\o/

I realize that posting high on cold meds while angry = probably not a good idea, and yet I did, and even though I fucked up last night and I'm sure being an ass online makes me shed readers faster than months of writing nothing but whining about how my life sucks, I can't really take it back. Won't, because the core of what I meant is still true and if you want to talk about it, I'd love to hear it.

And then I'm like, still high on cold meds, and not angry exactly, but sort of thinking out loud about that other thing, the thing about language, and okay, you know, this post? It's been in my head for ages but it won't come out because of stuff. My head is not in the place I want it to be, generally speaking. Writing feels like I'm afraid to write the wrong thing all the time and then I don't and I want to cry because it hurts not to write and the voices are really fucking loud.

So I want to have this conversation. Mostly I want to have this conversation with the gaming community, because omg boys, your dicks are hanging out and I'm sure they must be shriveled and frozen by now, because you keep clubbing people into submission with them. But not in a gay way, never that. Because gay means bad, and gay means "I'm unsure of myself and hating you is easier than looking into the mirror".

Okay, hands up if you've heard this one: "It's not hate speech, the word doesn't mean the same thing anymore and we always use it to mean [X]. It has nothing to do with gay people."

And, like, you know that's bullshit, we all know that's bullshit, but do you know why? Language doesn't accomodate your whims, except for if you're some kind of genius literary writer in which case it probably makes you breakfast in bed or something.

So here's the thing. There is not exactly a single ultimate meaning of a word. We explain words with other words or just vaguely wave at a nebulous, abstract concept and go "that, that's the thing the word is for". But the meanings words gain while they are in constant use can vary from region to region, person to person, community to community. And over all, we can't actually force our own understanding and definition on other people.

Example time: back when we first started talking about privilege on LJ I could not stop being rubbed wrong by the choice of word. I use it now as shorthand for all the conversations we've had about it, but to me privilege will always be connected to the German "Privileg" and it will never have quite the same meaning as it does to other people in the conversation. I can understand what they mean, how privilege is about the unconscious and the systemic and how it's a near natural phenomenon and how you don't notice the ones you have, only the ones you don't. It's a good shorthand and it's useful, but given the choice, I'd rather use a different word that doesn't actually exist but would fit so much better.

But this is about the gay thing.

Gay.

Gay.

Gay.

Stop. What were you thinking about just now?

Gay.

Odds are it's, like, two guys kissing or a half-naked dude on a pride float. You may also be thinking about some fifties musical about guys dancing gaily in the rain. Because gay = happy, sort of bubbly, floaty, HAPPY, never really went away as a meaning for the word. It's archaic now and some loltrolls started using it as a slur, thanks a lot you guys. So now it also means "stupid, annoying, unfortunate, boring, dumb, UNMANLY, idiotic, pointless, generic insult". Yes, generic insult. Like it has no meaning beyond "ugh do not want".

But using it as an insult only works because there is a deeper meaning behind it. Don't tell me it has nothing to do with gay people. It has everything to do with gay people. Hell, gay people being called gay has everything to do with the kind of stereotype that goes with homosexuality - that gay guys are somehow softer, maybe a little less gruff than their straight counterparts, they appear so happy and fluffy and like they could be in musical theater all the fucking time. Don't tell me there isn't a connection between happy!gay and homo!gay and bad!gay. They're all evolutions of each other, build on each other, and you can't have one without the baggage that comes with the rest.

People use gay as a generic derorgatory adjective because of gay people, not in spite of them. Language doesn't just shift without reason and without a clear path from one to the other. Insults and slurs have everything to do with the thing they're based on, they depend on the underlying ~ism that goes with them.

And this is about to get really ugly.

"Damn, that cashier jipped/gypped me for five cents, what a bitch." Tell me this has nothing to do with racism or misogyny, I fucking dare you. Explain to me how that has any meaning at all unless we understand literally without thinking much about it that gypsies steal thinks and women are dogs.

And the thing is, I get it. What are we going to call something that's really very bad or boring or disappointing or not to our taste if we can't call it lame, retarded, gay, girly? What can we call someone bad if not a cunt, a bitch, an asshole, a cocksucker, motherfucker, retard, assmuncher? How can we denigrate them if not by impying that they are somehow less human than we are, less worthy, by bringing up all those people who are, you know, less worthy, less manly, less human.

Like, we can't just call them lizards because we wish their tails would fall off and they'd die in the cold, can we? We need a shorthand that's better than saying "you suck" because frankly that's not an insult in half the circles I run in here, you know.

What we need is to stop using words that identify other people, that other people may even use to identify themselves as insults. For one thing, it gets a little confusing when a word is still used across several communities to mean one thing when you mean another. Look, you know that moment when you realize your six-foot, muscle-bound gay friend is kind of disappointed in you because you promised him "that movie is so gay" except it turned out you meant too long and awfully paced and he thought "hey gay comedy with guns hell yes"? Disappointed with his fist? Yeah, not your best moment.

And look, words can and do lose their meaning at some point. Mostly when no one uses the original meaning at all anymore and all the people who could be described like that are dead and buried and there is no one to care about the bigotry of it anymore. Mostly this happens to words for activities we no longer indulge in or adjectives that describe obsolete technology or professions. It very rarely happens to words that relate to what kind of person a person is. Because those things rarely go away.

So, what this post comes down to is, I guess, language shift MY ASS. Dear fellow gamers, stop justifying your toxic bigotry by pretending that language exists in a vacuum while giving your characters names based on bad puns. You lizards on an ice floe.

I wish people would stop using "first world problem" as a catch-all phrase to depreciate their problems. Not that I don't think some of the issues we post about here are silly compared to others, but when someone says "lol first world problem, I know" it makes me want to break something.

There's no such thing as a first world problem. There's only barely a justification to even have the distinction of first, second and third world anymore (not that second world makes much of an appearance these days). On the one hand, it's a really convenient way to other entire continents and much like "The Western World" it has little actual meaning. In fact, as a Cold War artifact, it meant different things depending on where you lived and changed after the Cold War was over. Western theorists went about it by making the US and western allies first, communists second and non-aligned countries third. Meanwhile, the communists considered all the superpowers to be first, the allies second, and the non-aligned third.

The Three Worlds concept I came in contact with in school, of course, was the post-Cold-War "developed nations" versions. The US still got to claim first world status, naturally. Mostly it's a distinction drawn along economic lines - the percentage of industrialized production, high quality manufacturing, service sector jobs; the other line of distinction is usually the human development index, which includes such fun stuff as literacy rates and the gross national product.

In actuality, it's a load of bullshit. It's convenient and US/Europe-centric, but it's largely meaningless now. Are India and China highly developed and industrialized countries? I would not know what else to call them. Does the US have incredible human rights and social issues? Yes, and I'll argue this until my face turns blue. If you're poor in the US you worry about where your next meal comes from and living in the wrong places, being the wrong kind of person or doing the wrong job can get you shot in the head or beaten to death.

I'm not saying that some places, some countries, don't have it decidedly worse than the US or Germany as a whole - generally because those with economic and political power, often those in the "west", make sure that the status stays quo - rather I am saying that it's a gross over-generalization that has lost most of its meaning twenty years ago. The structure of the world has changed.

Which brings me to our so-called first world problems. If you disclaim your emotional distress over somethig that upsets you, even when it is a small, silly thing, with "first world problem", it doesn't just tell people what I assume you intended: that you're a total hipster about your pain and really, it's okay, we all know you're being silly but OMG how about some internet cookies? It also tells people that a) "there are no real problems in the first world, lol, everything is so awesome here, don't you wish you lived here too" and that b) it must really suck to live in a third world country (and obviously no one over there gets to have silly first world problems, because all their lives are miserable drudgery). And conveniently, third world countries are numerous because everyone who isn't part of the club gets to be the other.

Now, granted, when we post on Livejournal about how our latest technological toy has broken and we'll have to inconvenience ourselves to get a new one, that doesn't measure up to rape squads, AIDS epidemics, not having electricity or clean water. But just as our privileged problem isn't systemic, the things we like to look at with such comfortable pity aren't representative of the lives of the majority of the world. While at peace and not in a global economic crisis or affected by natural disasters, most people in most countries live fairly ordinary, even comfortable lives. Maybe they don't all have the same level of luxury, but that's hardly the point. The systemic issues that do arise on a country or regional basis are often enough facilitated by us that any "third world" problem may as well be ours. We all stand and fall together.

So next time the words "lol first world problem" flow from your fingers, maybe you could spare a moment to think about what you're trying to say. Are you ready to dismiss the very real issues that people in your own country face every day? Are you willing to say "lol we are better than you" while seeking comfort for yourself?