It's not about what you wrote...

And so it ends.

2013-06-28T17:04:40Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Which is a horrible cliche you should never use.

I realized yesterday that the J2 SPN BigBang was well in progress.

I found the comm, backed up to the start of posting and read through the summaries. I found three things I thought I might want to give a go. Not oddly, the one with Gordon the rapist or Jared the deaf guy who can't get a date, because Jared in Deaf culture would be a total outcast folks amirite?

I tried my three.

First one used adolescent sexual vulgarity to show how cool the straight guy was for bein' a bro' with the gay guy. Exit.

Second one had a dull opening with Aldis Hodge in a servant sort of role that was gross. Exit.

Third one, ah fuckit, I said.

So that's it for me, fandom. I've lost the ability to enjoy even the parts of fandom that aren't horribly racist and sexist and soaked in gender essentialism. I can't handle the posts glorifying shit shows like Lost Girl with it's sexism and male gaze lesbians and it's hatred of butch women. I can't handle the vapid culture of N. American young white middle class men being rolled around in like it's catnip.

I can't find the gems in the dross any more.

It's a shame, and maybe I'll be back someday when the current styles wane and more adult writing waxes.

Ah well, at least I'll never have to read In a world where... or This is a story that... ever again.

This journal will remain up at pixel_bound as long a Dreamwidth remains going. My fic at the AO3 will remain up until they implode.

Here's my prediction:

The legal committee and PR department of the OTW will spin off into a new org that Francesca Copa can put on her CV.

Fanlore will wither away under an avalanche of spam and lack of technical support, since setting up account validation is unlikely to happen.

That Fanhackers thing will get spun off with TWC into some other org, possibly with legal.

The AO3 will be the only remaining real project of the OTW, with the fantasy of art and vidding hosting still in the talk talk talk stage. They might just make it on their own.

The OTW will struggle to have a board member last longer than 6 months for a good long time.

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2012 Part IV

2012-08-16T19:02:56Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

I stopped posting reviews there didn't I? Well, I hit the doldrums of the SPN J2 Big Bang, where most of what was posted was either not for me, or not of a readable standard. I'm not sure if the overall quality standard is lower this year, or if I'm just changing my tastes and less interest in ships equals less willingness to read unedited first drafts.

This is the rest of everything I finished out of this year's Big Bang, including some gen RPD, Dean/Victor and Dean/Sam. ( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2012 Part III

2012-06-30T14:28:55Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Two Gen stories today with a similar theme--Dean arrested by the FBI. One is set during the missing year where Sam was in hell, and the other is set after Jus in Bello and Sam is right there, but no one knows it but Dean.( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2012 Part II

2012-06-22T14:27:17Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Three stories, one Gen, one F/F, one JDM/Jared!

( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2012 Part I

2012-06-17T15:55:16Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

It's that time again. This year should prove very interesting. We have an old fandom that's not really gaining new fans, but is certainly losing fans to the latest thing.

We also have a fandom that I find myself increasingly at odds with. I actually liked season 7 of SPN a lot, and I like the current Sam and Dean dynamic. I like that they are finally more adults than dudebros. I seem to be in a very small minority.

This year I'm doing my reviews a bit the same and a bit different. Here's the highlights:( Read more... )

On with the show: ( Three stories from the first two weeks. All RPF. )

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The Eagle

2011-09-20T12:52:28Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

So, I got over my frothing indignation at the politics of The Eagle and got to the point where I could look at it mostly as a pretty love story. I went looking for fic. The fic largely ignores anything outside the central relationship and does not care one whit for the glory of Rome or its conquests. But, many authors are falling into a trope where the slavery depicted is much more like the later versions of American slavery and are also taking great pains to show that anyone who owns a slave is a bad, bad, evil person, and Marcus is pure as the driven snow.

Put these two together and you've got a reinforcement of the popular cultural apologia for American slavery as a thing evil individuals did rather than a system that affected every person on the continent and was one of the founding processes of creating the USA and its neighbours as nations. This is troubling, yet not unexpected. A lot of the stories simply treat the power imbalance in the relationship as one that exists only in public, which I can treat as a fantasy element as a reader and go along with. I didn't encounter any stories where Marcus actually acts like a bog standard Roman with a body slave--I expect they're on the kink meme, which I'll boggle over quietly, that more historically accurate depictions or ones that recognize the consent issues are considered kink fic.

My surprise comes at the variety of sexual and relationship dynamics to be found. This is a slash fandom where the bigger guy OWNS the smaller guy, who is blond, even, and it's less boringly predictable on the position/dynamics/roles front than J2 fic.

Most of the fic are romances, and a lot of it can be read as original fiction set in Roman Britain. I've made a note on the reviews if a story requires much canon knowledge or if it can be read as ofic. I've stuck to the longer stories, as that's what I'm into these days.

( Read more... )

Check out nintheagle on delicious (the bookamrks have been migrated, so they'll be there after Friday) for more fic from the LJ comm. The delicious list is nicely tagged with several categories.

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part IX

2011-08-15T18:59:30Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

And so, the Big Bang comes to a close for another year. ( my overall impressions )

To end this year's reviews, I have two really good stories, one J2 that's all about UST in several ways, and one Dean/Sam. It's fitting to end with the pairing that got me into the fandom in the first place, and a story that came the closest to giving me the post season six Sam and Dean I've been wanting to read.

( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part VIII

2011-08-08T16:12:51Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Warning: this first story reviewed depicts and examines issues of abuse, sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This review discusses that theme in depth.

Flying Weight by fleshflutter

Flying Weight (48747 words) by flesh

( Read more... )

( Three other stories, Gen and J2 )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part VII

2011-08-07T16:47:21Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Now that I can access LJ to get the links, here's the last four stories I read before taking a well timed week off from reading.

Please note, one of these stories depicts non-consensual acts of various kinds and I discuss that and the author's portrayal of this.

( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part VI

2011-07-18T20:27:06Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Er, this edition of the Big Bang reviews is not a very happy one. I really enjoyed the first one on the list, despite a few issues with the story, and I found one other worth my time. Other than that...

( not a lot of happy here )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part V

2011-07-07T14:19:56Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Tagging Your SPN J2 Big Bang Fic On A03 & Artwork News

Check it out if you're a Big Bang author, artist or reader. If you know any Big Bang authors, point this out. Many folks who've always only used LJ for posting fic might not realize how simple it is to post a work from LJ to the AO3.

Two methods that work well: the importer, which usually formats well, but will need some editing. It will not join up multiple parts for you any way but as chapters. My preferred method is cut and paste from the HTML edit box of LJ into the HTML edit window on the AO3. I like this for fitting together multipart entries into one story on AO3. You do have to do a little editing to take out cut tags or links to other parts, but it's not too onerous.

-------------------

I've got heaps of open tabs for stories, a couple of which I've read a bit of and might finish. I make no effort to read in order, and I'm already burnt out on some aspects of canon-focused FPF fic, so I'm likely going to be reviewing mostly RPF after this until I get fed up with it and want to switch back. I'm posting early this week since I likely won't be around much on the weekend.

( J2 and more Gen FPF along with Sam/Dean )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part IV

2011-07-02T01:59:28Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

It's a long weekend and Civ V now has hotseat--apropos for the weather too--so I think this is all I'll finish up this week. I would love to see non AU J2 or season 6 Sam and Dean, but so far, not so much.

( my cranky is definitely waxing, but I'm still finding some I like )

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Mixed Bag.

2011-06-28T14:19:48Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

There's everything under the sun here—all the fic, and one meta link, I forgot to post before I got into the SPN Big Bang, and some other things I've read in the last few days when the Big Bang fizzled out for a bit.

( SGA Genficathon, knotting, canon gay characters, a trip to the past, F&F, DS9 and SGA Reverse Bang )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part III

2011-06-27T00:04:13Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

( Read more... )

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part II

2011-06-20T00:25:10Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

I'm going to aim for posting once a week for as long as that lasts.

Only one story did it for me this week, and I can definitely say that I'm finding it harder than usual to stick to things that I might once have persevered through, and one of those things is definitely fic about teenagers. I think I've burnt out on all the high school and college and pre series stories in these fandoms.

Like Luggage of Some Departed Traveller by britomart_is

Dean/Sam/Jess and all pairings included in that - NC-17 - 54,000 words

In multiple parts at LJ, in site scheme with inexplicable use of blockquote tag, no other reading options available. Scene breaks are done with extra blank lines which disappear when Readability is used. It made reading an interesting and disjointed experience. I had to work at it to get this in readable form, and only the pairing made me persevere. The most unintentionally inaccessible fic so far, but if you're good with site scheme, you likely won't notice.

Author's Summary:

AU from Season One.

Rogue wildlife attacks? Check. Virulent, incurable pandemic? Double check. Relentless string of natural disasters? Check, check, check. Dean's got it hard enough dealing with the collapse of modern society, so imagine his dismay when he goes to Stanford Law to fetch the brother he's been painfully in love with for most of his life and finds that brother happily married. When Sam, Dean, and Jess set off across the country to find their dad, it's all they can do just to stay alive, much less stay true to each other.

I enjoyed this story a great deal. It was interesting as an AU, had an enjoyable Jess character and played out the long time frame of about 8 months in a way that didn't feel incomplete. I liked the Dean and Jess POV sections the best, but the Sam one was good too. He was just hard to relate to since by the time we're in his head, he's busy living in denial and lying and coming to terms with Dean and Jess in a new way and only slowly grasping that he doesn't really have grounds to be jealous.

I liked the way the relationships evolve as well with realistic time scales. I've read a couple of fics with this threesome before, but I found this one to be the most compelling.

The plot has some holes, but the plot is just the backdrop to these three figuring out where they're at.

The het sex is seriously scorching hot. The Dean/Jess scenes were my favourites, and big kudos to the author for writing such good stuff. The threesome scenes, not so much. They read like an author struggling to account for all the limbs--which is something everyone seems to have an issue with. Why is it that there is the expectation that adding a body means the sex scene has to be described like a game of twister? It makes the POV character seem very detached from what they would be paying attention to and allows them to know where everyone's hands are, when they likely really wouldn't.

Small caveats aside, it was a very enjoyable read with some really moving scenes--the Ikea one made me tear up--genuine horror, but not too much gore and some very interesting characterizations.

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SPN J2 Big Bang 2011 Part I

2011-06-12T22:26:12Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Slow start for me this year. I'm finding my bored now reaction on a bit of a hair-trigger. Under the cut are four reviews: one Dean/Sam, and three Jared/Jensen. ( Read more... )

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Arcane Asylum by new_kate

2011-04-29T18:33:55Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

(The story discussed here contains depictions of sexual assault, torture, violence, murder and psychological abuse. Characters in the story routinely conflate mental illness with violence. The story is focused on the oppression of a minority. This review discusses these themes.)

I do this thing where I go to the AO3, click on works, select m/m as a category and filter to that, then sort by word count highest to low.

The point is to find long stories in any fandom I might possibly read and I usually find a few likely suspects. What I'm usually after is some kind of romance or something I can immerse myself in as a reader.

In this way I found Arcane Asylum by new_kate .

I'm almost certainly more than a day late and a dollar short in finding this one, everyone who would have read it, likely has, but you never know.

( Read more... )

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Mixed Bag.

2011-04-22T16:58:37Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

And now for everything else. A couple of vids and some fic of various flavours. I recced some of this on my journal, so you might have seen it already.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

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Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga

2011-04-22T16:14:53Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

This is everything I've got tagged Vorkosigan. I included a couple that have been posted here before.

( Read more... )

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Not a cornucopia of fic, but a mixed bag.

2011-03-17T19:06:29Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

This post is sort of like what you'll find in the Farmer's Market this time of year--In the Northern Hemisphere, that is. Sorry if my Southern readers thought they were getting a bountiful harvest. A couple of these were recced at my journal, so appologies for the duplication, and for the very rare flame that's in this batch.

I'm not putting my sherlock_flashfic recs here, you'll find them at my journal too.

( Read more... )

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The J2 Over 400 Club

2011-02-27T17:48:50Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

I thought I'd try something different, so I picked out the J2 stories that have over 400 bookmarks on delicious to review them. I knew I'd read them all, and I wanted to see if they had anything in common, and how my reading stacks up against their popularity.

Disclaimer: This is a totally unfair method of finding "the most popular" fics. Stories that are posted in multiple places, or where the author may have changed their journal name or posting location will have the bookmarks split up into multiple piles and won't make my arbitrary cut. Stores posted in several parts over time, like the Quarterback verse won't be he here either, even though they might be more popular. This method is going to automatically skew to older stories as well. What it does do is stop me from playing favourites in picking the stories.

Before even reviewing, I can see that one thing the six stories have in common is their length, all at least big bang length by the more modern definitions of the term, but the length varies greatly from 16,000 words to almost 200,000. They are all at lest two years old and every single one is an AU. Two were not written as part of a challenge or fest, the rest were. Five are rated adult or NC-17 and one is not rated.

My track record of liking the really, really popular stories is not great, but I enjoyed most of these, even if I wouldn't call any of them my favourites.

( Read more... )

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Meta - White Women's Tears Edition

2011-02-15T15:07:06Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

The White Women's Tears and/or White Women's Syndrome collection of meta links.

If you Google the term, White Women's Tears, the first hit is the Feminist SF Wiki where you get a very short definition that emphasizes the term as joking or sarcastic and doesn't dig into the complex intersection or race, gender and power (in a primarily US context) that the phenomenon referred to is formed by.

I feel that, much like a lot of other "bingo card" terms, this one is often being parsed by people intuitively and they're missing the underlying issues the words are meant to refer to. With that in mind, and in light of a recent fannish incident of the term being used and the numerous conversations that resulted, I decided to gather some examples of some more complicated thinking about the words themselves and the realities they arise out of.

( links under the cut )

ETA March 29:

Three links on the same topic, all of which contain some insights into the idea of defining Female White Privilege.

Go After the Privilege, Not the Tits: Afterthoughts on Alexandra Wallace and White Female Privilege by Andrea Plaid--there are a lot of deniers in comments but the rebuttals are brilliant.

The Feministe Reblog of Same Included for the denial fest and near total lack of rebuttal in the comments as an object lesson.

Womanist Musing follow up

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Misc. fic from the last month or so

2011-02-08T15:54:01Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Miscellaneous fic from the last month.

I've expanded my review for that Merlin meta fic and for Restraint. One because I didn't like it, and one because I really, really did.

( Read more... )

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Festivids

2011-01-24T15:25:14Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

festivids is the theme of this post. This is all the vids I've watched through so far. One exception to that is a few vids, including both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vids, which were so dark in the streaming version offered that I just couldn't get my equipment to display them well enough to watch in a meaningful way. I'm hoping these will be offered in a downloadable version of a higher quality at some point. I know some vidders don't have access to hosting space, and/or just don't like having the vid be downloadable, but I'd like the chance to really see these vids.

As a vid watcher, I'm really influenced by the music, and there's a lot of popular current music that I really don't care for at all. Some vids I didn't watch through might be really good, but I can't get past the song.

I have a very poor visual memory for most canons. I will not get the significance of a clip choice because it came from that episode where that thing happened and now it's being used to say this. Goes right over my head. I find I like vids that use the clips in a context within the vid--I often really like constructed reality vids, for example--or that are readable more on stylistic or thematic grounds rather than as meta commentary on the source.

I have no frickin' clue about colour theory or film criticism or visual symbolism. Vids that are all about that will also just go over my head. On to my list:

( Read more... )

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3 Ships stories and a couple of others.

2011-01-14T15:26:42Z

Posted by: facetofcathy

Mostly 3 Ships stories this time, with a couple of SPN fics at the end. I have not read any of the White Collar fics at 3 Ships. I seem to like very uncommon dynamics in my El/Neal/Peter, so I might have a look at them some other time. I also haven't had time to dip into the Merlin fics yet either. Still, there's lots of good stories from this year and past years at 3 Ships, check it out and see if your favourite fandoms are there.

( Read more... )

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