Lotripper

Richard Taylor! Viggo! Bob Anderson! Swords! I so wanted to like this.

Shame that Reclaiming the Blade does the ponderous narration thing. It's mostly the script, which keeps making portentous statements and generalizations about how The Blade was So Amazing before those Awful Guns. They kept reaching for dramatic tension, instead of just relaxing and letting their passion show. The Netflix version didn't have any special features, but I doubt they'd be worth actually paying much for.

Also, the term "European Martial Arts" does not need to be used every five minutes: we get it, OK?

(Yes, I'm in a rotten mood today, but the documentary really was disappointing.)

slashababy is still open for signups! It's the Lotrips holiday fic exchange, so the more, the merrier. Anyone who doesn't want to sign up on LiveJournal, please send email to secret slasha @ gmail.com -- we can do it that way, no problem.

It's rec the reccers month at lotr_fic_recs.

If you're thinking of writing adoptive kid fic, you must read viggorlijah's post, Fandom Primer on International Adoption as a story trope: read it and weep. But the stories based on RL issues could be really good.

RPS Kink meme - just getting started. Some of the other kink memes have been amazing and very inspiring...

And because I've been told I don't plug myself enough: links to all the LOTR RPS fic I could find through September are at lotrips (October to come soon), and I'm still posting my fic recs on delicious.

Geocities is closing down on the 26 October 2009, and they're going to just delete everything on it. So if anyone has a site there, be sure to save a copy on your local hard drive.

I think these parts of fandom history are worth saving! There are several ways to keep the content on the web:

• Get an account on An Archive of our Own (where fandom owns the servers). It's the Geocities Rescue Project


• Move to Yahoo Web Hosting ($5 per month for the first year). This at least gives some time.


• Move to another free site


• See if it's in the wayback machine in Internet Archive (they have lots of geocities saved)


• Check with Archiveteam.org (a group of volunteers) which is saving all they can

( cut for Torchwood season 3 spoilers )

It's the very end of sign-ups, so if you've been wavering, go quick and join in, please! lotrips_remix

I'm seeing those anon feedback memes, but probably won't participate. I try hard to leave fb on specific stories, and rec them (unless I've lost their url, which does happen). Anyone who might want writing feedback, I'm up for it. I personally like it best at beta stage, so there's scope for making changes. <3 you all!

I've been quiet about Mammothgate (Racefail 09 part deux), partly because it's so easy for me to understand the blindness going on there. I doubt I would have even noticed the assumptions, much less thought of speaking out against them. I just didn't see it either, completely missed the wrongness of handwavingly undoing the existence of all Native Americans for the sake of an interesting story.

Though I have learned that listening is a whole lot better than trying to justify oneself about things that matter like this. The author and defenders didn't think: would they have argued so much if it was a huge anachronism they missed, or a quote from someone 100 years later? Why not shut up and learn, and maybe say Oh shit, I screwed up.

Following a bunch of links I found a fabulous essay by a woman of color writing Science Fiction/Fantasy, Nalo Hopkinson: Looking for clues It's all good, articulate, emotional and inspiring. My favorite bit is this:




I hope, very much, we can go on from there.

New icon, gorgeous Viggo, from this year, I think, made by the lovely and talented stormatdusk

From Empire (UK magazine), scans of the Viggo & Sean Bean article from those Empire awards, with silly snarky interview answers. Just look at them! (Viggo-Works is fabulous!) I might have to own this on paper, it's so good.

Also, if anyone wants to make me an icon of the two of them from this event, not necessarily this picture, I would be thrilled and grateful.

There's also a wonderful new Dom site, The Dominic Monaghan Resource, which has a fantastic collection of articles and interviews, from the 1990s on. Interviews are such character gold.

qthelights is working on her thesis on fandom, and needs some help. She's studying ...why some online communities last and why some don't. I plan to look at the fandom community in order to examine the ways in which it has lasted. Within this, I will be looking at: the strengths of ties between people... and has a short poll about which fandoms you're in, how long, what you do in those fandoms, etc. It took me about 10 minutes to fill out, and really interesting questions and answers: Fandom Poll. (btw, the usernames will not be in the final thesis, but they are "visible to all").

dashery rocks! I so needed something cheerful this week :-)

"Boom De Ya Da (I Love the Whole World) - LOTR": ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POsx_bCxo48 )

"Dom & Billy - I Got U" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTE-CnLKuvc )

PS - Viggo was much more coherent on the BBC on Monday morning, and that night cinema panel on Good than he was at the Sunday night awards show. Which is a good thing, cos wow.

Walrus Magazine article: The Other Porn Addiction: Why are ordinary women exposing themselves online? and The Porn Identity: Stacey May Fowles in conversation with Hal Niedzviecki on privacy and internet pornography. (Link via Andrew Sullivan)

The "Porn Addiction" they're talking about is, "adult women of all ages, shapes, and sizes, from across the world, to post erotic images of themselves for viewing by thousands, if not millions, of people online."

It's the opposite of the fandom. We fans focus on characters or actors and tend to objectify them, rather than becoming the objects of attention. This is especially true for fanfiction of the porny variety, where we denigrate authorial self-inserts as Mary Sues. And once you get to m/m slash fic... Maybe slashers are on the extreme side of a backlash, as far from the female body-revealing kind of porn as possible, focusing away from ourselves and onto men. Hot sexy men.

I'm not sure what it all means, these wild extremes, and I wonder what's going on. Do straight men do anything in these extremes? Where does the lesbian porn come in? What about gay men, they seem more straightforward but what am I missing? Thoughts?

Sometimes what people do just boggles me.

There are, two loud and obnoxious people who post endlessly that the discussion of cultural appropriation and skeevy racial issues is really All About Them. They claim it must have been just a few sockpuppets who were upset, because if real people of color were upset, they'd use their real names. Reasons not to use one's real name in fandom are legion, the first ones that come to mind for me are: fear and/or experience of stalking; child custody issues; employer disapproval; family disapproval; religious disapproval; separation of fan fiction/fandom from professional publishing... it goes on and on. I personally would prefer to keep my professional and personal user names separate from my fandom name, would rather not expose potential clients to my fangirl squee and smutty fics.

So these people decided to expose the real name of a fan who had disagreed with them. OMGWTFBBQ??? The discussion of racism and cultural appropriation was actually kinda getting somewhere, but now it's all about the pseudonym wank. Epic Fail

spiralsheep suggests communal shunning as a response, which makes sense to me. More good posts: coffeeandink is the victim: her post about it, darkrosetiger explains some of the issues, ciderpress has written a helpful post. Even the non-fandom wank community is boggled

The kicker is that one of the pseudonym wankers, who has actually exposed a fan's name, has re-directed some of the links to her exposure post to sites with viruses and malware. That's right. She has so little respect for disagreement that she wants to infect your computer. BOGGLING.

But, there are good things too! coffeeandink has asked for suggestions of books written by POCs and is getting great responses. She is supporting the people of color-owned and -focused press verb_noire, which should soon be starting up and taking submissions.

Viggo-Works has interviewed Viggo and got answers about his plans for this year, Perceval Press, books he's reading, and more :-)

The community bestorlando has a ton of great pictures of Orlando playing a rock star in a new movie.

dom_media and domweek have lots of Dom at Sundance and on the TV show "Chuck", including his interview with Craig Ferguson.

elijah_finds has photos of Elijah at Sundance, in LA and with Dom during the super bowl.

I'm sure there's more, though pretty low on Billy and Sean Bean news... anyone?

And I've been updating lotrips with all the fic I can find just about every week, so there's something for everyone! (If I'm missing anything, please let me know).</a>

There's a hellova wank about racism in science fiction, with people I previously admired making utter fools of themselves. rydra_wong has a whole pile of links and good discussion in her journal starting on January 14.

This is very helpful: How Not To Be Insane When Accused of Racism (A Guide For White People). Because it's not all about us.

via ithiliana, Sir Terry was on the Queen’s New Year Honours List for services to literature. and he (of course) is gracious and charming about it.

May the rest of the New Year be as good to all of us!

PS Lotrips slashababy fics are up, and I even wrote one, solo, wheee.

OK, watched the first ep of Merlin with the kidlet. She runs out of the room when there's any dramatic tension, I close my eyes when there's embarrassment humor, ( we kinda liked it. Except the costumes, which, NOT SO MUCH )

tagged by lionessfreedom, some happy things:

1. My contract check came! I was pretty stressed because I'd done a lot of work with no pay, but they combined the first and second invoices and sent me a nice big check. WHEW.


2. kaydeefalls has made a fantastic Captain Jack vid. Watch it, for the montage of kisses if nothing else!


3. A librarian of my acquaintance and probably yours is doing research on the use of Delicious in fandom, so you should all go fill out her interesting survey. I got to explain all about my tag bundles .

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We're going to see a youth production of Fiddler on the Roof today, and found some clips online, film and stage. But the one that make me laugh helplesssly are yu-gi-oh girls sing the Matchmaker song. It'll never quite be the same to me again.

BBCA is showing Top Gear, and I wasn't in the mood for anything complicated, so I put on the Best of 06 - 07, and my husband and teenboy wandered over, as they do. We bonded over the amphi-car project. So I do understand the fic a bit more, but I just can't slash the guys myself...

slashababy (the LotR RPS holiday story exchange) is up and running for 2008. feelforfaith's done all the work, so I might even sign up this year ;-) We pushed the dates back last year, and it worked really well. It's more a New Year's thing now: more secular, and also a later deadline date :-)

• Sign-ups end on October 30
  
• Assignments will be sent out by November 6
  
• The deadline for submissions is December 23
  
• Stories will be posted on December 31
  
• Authors will be revealed on January 7

We've had some great stories over the years, and I'm greedy for more! So, if you are feeling the least bit Lotrippy, please sign up!

Who left a pair of salt and pepper grinders at the last moot? They look rather Alice-in-Wonderland-ish, nifty!

The mystery writer with the Italian policeman who loves his food is Donna Leon. Her Guido Brunetti is middle-aged and a bit conflicted, but his world is not completely corrupt, unlike Michael Dibdon's Aurelio Zen series.

Via hanarobi: video of dolphins blowing bubble rings and playing with them. JUST what I needed to see, cheered me right up.

And I just discovered a fabulous Doctor Who video, Handlebars, by flummery, to the song by Flobots. I don't know about their other songs, but that one really works for me. They're apparently "alternative hip-hop", so some rap with all kinds of music threaded through (they have a violinist!) and great lyrics. (I can't get their Flash-heavy site to load, and the guy on the front page looks like Elijah: I keep doing double-takes). They're also social activists and really quite darling. Many thanks to LofA for the link!

Must go work on Arwen costume now: kidlet is persistent.

My Remix is woooonderful, thoughtful and sexy and gives me shivers in a very good way. There's a little bit of bondage and stuff, but it's not hard-core at all, really more about character than kinky sex. From What You Do, Because of You, Dom/Orlando, amazing!

I sympathize with all my SGA-loving friends: they shouldn't oughta cancel your show! telesilla is having The Second International Blanket Fort Day for group hugs and commiseration.


We watched Ocean's Eleven the other night. Didn't do much for me, but Andy Garcia was gorgeous.

There's an interesting fanfic and children's literature survey.

We now have corn-based cat litter and an amazing cat brush, The Furminator! (Wot, you think "cats" is not a fandom? I beg to differ.)