a conspiracy of cartographers

Because I like to (preemptively?) announce the ridiculous things I am into: I seem to be getting genuinely, properly fannish about Narnia. This is as weird and surreal to me as it would be if I suddenly became properly fannish about Lord of the Rings, because ... IDK, these are the fandoms of my heart, and they give me FEELINGS, and it seems weird to mess about with them.

But I do know why this is happening! I adopt active fandoms for one of two reasons: [a] they are lovely and delightful, and the things that I don't like aren't worth bothering about too much, and the things that I love are worth elaborating on, so I just want to keep playing in the world; or [b] the things I love are worth elaborating on, but the things I don't like are worth FIXING, and I am damn well going to do something about it. (So due South is in the former category, and Doctor Who is often in the latter -- but not this last season, hence me not really generating fic.) The things that I love but am not actively fannish about, meanwhile, are either [c] delightful and complete enough in themselves that I will enjoy them and leave them be, or [d] a bit like the category b material, only the things that need fixing are too damn big. And Narnia has always sort of been in this last category for me.

The thing that is skewing it dangerously from [d] to [b] is the Voyage of the Dawn Treader film, because it flipped the FIX FIX FIX switch in my brain. Now I am unfortunately applying it to everything, from theology/philosophy to timelines to worldbuilding. HELP.

Brb, off to keep reading Carpetbaggers and stare at Edmund watch Prince Caspian. /o\

While I was in airplanes, everyone started talking about this Female Character Flowchart. I think whenever I want to feel ragey, the quickest way to do it would be to whip out this flowchart and follow my favorite characters to some boxed-in conclusion. (The best one was Delenn. She ended up on the 'biological timebomb' square. I shrieked and threw metaphorical popcorn at the screen.) And wow I am time-lagged because I don't have the mental wherewithal to talk about why the flowchart is stupid and absurd, so instead, some linking and memetic reactions:

The Female Character Yenta Meme: Comment with a description of your favorite character and/or pairing kinks. If you only want certain media (television, books, movies, RPF, comics...) feel free to specify. Sit back and wait for lovin'! AND/OR comment on other people's descriptions with female characters or at-least-one-woman-including-ships who fulfill their character and/or pairing kinks. This is basically the BEST IDEA EVER and I have been staring starry-eyed at the comment threads. Go forth! I will go forth too when I am less dazed.

And, truncated text of a lovely meme: This post is a chance for me to go through my DW/LJ icons and post the ones that I have that feature female characters, whether by themselves, with other women, with men, or simply as part of a group (which wouldn't be whole without them). Why? Because the thing is, these women are all awesome, in their own unique ways.

( Icons of ladies! Alas I don't have nearly as many as I like. But that is my perpetual icon lament. )

i. Something I love about the slush pile is the names. Oh man, the names! They are fannish with weird regularity. Last week, I rejected queries by a Harris and a Rosenberg in succession. Today, I got to write a polite note to Mr. Scotty! I don't remember what his query was about, but I hope it was something like A Guide to Practical Engineering in the Twenty-Third Century.

ii. For some absurd reason, I am trying to work out Highlander and Buffy timelines. Because, y'know, the First Evil and the Bringers blew up all these Watcher headquarters, and Adam Pierson has this nice place in the English countryside where all the new Slayers can train! House rules: no practicing decapitation indoors, or, in fact, anywhere near Mr. Pierson. (What is wrong with me.)

iii. There is a pairing meme going around! I like memes. ( Under the cut. Comes with spoilers for s5 Doctor Who, the end of Babylon 5, minor ones for White Collar, and intentionally vague ones for BSG. )

I'm not quite sure how this came about -- probably it came into my head from the combination of a discussion on rereading Harry Potter and something I saw in the Thirty Days of Fanfic meme that's going around -- but I have been thinking about Fandom Firsts. Okay, you've got a new fandom: what was the first fic you remember reading? Did it make any lasting impact on your experience with said fandom? &c.

Here are some of mine!

( Harry Potter, Good Omens, SGA, Doctor Who, due South, and Highlander. Most of these are RIDICULOUS. But I happily own my fannish absurdity! )

And what about you guys? If you do absurd things like imprint on old fic enough to remember it, I'd be fascinated to hear what it is. And seriously, don't be embarrassed. My stuff is all old school slash or Eliza Snape, okay, I will really not judge you.

What everyone has been linking to (and what doesn't necessarily deserve a signal-boost, but I am nevertheless enjoying the discussion it's generating): Diana Gabaldon's anti-fanfic blogpost.

I'm pretty sure that ye olde fandom circles have already covered all the ways that she is Wrong On The Internet -- everything from the flawed analogy of the creepy neighbor to her misinformed understanding of copyright law to the heinous tone of having the moral high ground for being Published For Reals and not writing any filthy, aesthetically displeasing fanwork -- but the point that made me tremble with rage was the assumption that fanfic is practice, that being Published For Monies is the only way to be a Legit Writer, and that if we're writing other people's characters we're just too lazy/uncreative/what-have-you to make up our own.

So let's break this down for a moment. In part this particular point got to me because, growing up, my parents were always supportive of my writing but also always at me to stop fucking around with fic and get some Legitimate Writing done. Eventually my rote defense became "It's practice! I'm getting feedback so that when I write my own stuff I'll already have the craft down." And for a while I even bought into this response myself, but ... One is not better than the other, and putting fanfic down on questions of morality or legitimacy or aesthetics is spectacularly missing every point. I only speak for myself here, obviously, but I write fanfic because I love interacting and having dialogue with the creative works that are close to my heart, and because being in a community of people who want to do the same thing is awesome beyond words.

Not entirely separately, I do want to be Published For Monies. Not all the stories in my head are dialogues with already-existing work, and while the fic-writing and the original-writing compulsion are related, I derive slightly different joys from each. I figure, if someone will pay me to do something that I love, that's excellent. (I also figure, if the universe turns out to be made of puppies and rainbows, I might end up having a tiny Yuletide fandom for my books or something. And that would be amazing.) But being Published For Monies doesn't make me a more Legit Writer, it just means I get money instead of comment threads. And even if I do manage to get published, I'm absolutely going to do what a handful of awesome fannish people do already, and keep writing fanfic.

So, with all due respect, fuck your legitimacy and moral policing, Ms. Gabaldon.

...And if that was too srs biznes, a couple of links!

1. A list of derivative works, like, y'know, Shakespeare and a bunch of musicals. Obviously new copyright law shifts the paradigm a bit, so I don't know how well it technically stands as a defense of transformative works, but it does get the damn point across.
2. Anti-fanfic bingo card. There's a bingo card for EVERYTHING, isn't there? It's sort of amazing how many of these Diana Gabaldon managed to go through.

The latest in SurveyFail: Ogi Ogas' journal is either flocked or baleeted. I'm now kind of sad I didn't stay up all night reading frantically through all the threads, because they were for the most part extremely intelligent and articulate and a lot of the things that make me really love fandom. Despite the threads' vanishment, though, I am in an extremely good mood, both because of fandom at large's awesome right now and because, how surprising, writing sex apparently puts me in a good mood. (And does not make me feel crushingly guilty! Yes, under the happiness for fandom I may still be seething a little about some of those survey questions.) Which brings me to my second point!

I have, as feverbeats coined it, a Your Kink Is Okay Meme, with commentporn requests. I haven't done all of them; still to be filled out are the requests Nacio/Oliver Wolf, keys, belonging or, alternately, Thom/Roger; Fraser/Kowalski, handcuffs; Albus/Gellert, crossdressing; Fraser/Kowalski, climbing equipment; sexswapped Blackcest, presumably with whichever Black family members you'd like; Theta/Simm!Master; and Sirius/dom!Remus, collar, orgasm denial, and if everyone does not head over and do that one I will be, um, a sad puppy, because I have heretofore undiscovered depths of glee for that prompt. I list these both as an IOU note to self and also because, if anyone else fancies any of these, this does not have to just be a See Aria Write Porny Things party. Feel free to write some yourself! Also feel free to go back and add more, although I can't promise to fill any out promptly; I'm coming down the summer vacation home stretch and am beginning to have some real-life social engagements (and packing!) to attend to.

This said, since it is also a See Aria Write Porny Things party, here are the prompts I actually filled:

Fraser/Rodney, handcuffs & Sheppard/Kowalski, puddlejumper sex -- these of course take place in the same universe, which is a universe that just yesterday I had decided I should not touch with a ten-foot pole, because now I have an awkward crossover OT4 on my hands and I am absolutely going to have to write more of this universe at some later point.

Remus/Sirius, crossdressing -- because obviously the world needs more Sirius Black in a skirt and eyeliner! Or, as kinglets rather more articulately put it: busting gender paradigms is hot important hot AND important. \o/

Martha/Rose, bondage, a bomb -- which is also almost certainly part of a larger story, that fic I mentioned ages ago name of The Care and Feeding of Your Atomic Bomb, which is Martha/Rose in Pete's World with bonus human!Ten, and I am kind of motivated to write it again. Although at some later point.

And finally, because it is neither silly comment-ficcy nor Part Of Something Larger, something I like well enough on its own to have actually posted it at the fic journal: high on a stage be placed to the view -- Geoffrey/Darren and a line-through of R&G Are Dead whilst they're at university, because I suspect at this point that the Slings & Arrows fandom has only one singular bit of fanon, and that fanon is "Geoffrey and Darren, R&G Are Dead, university" and who am I to argue with that? My god, I want to write Darren ALL THE TIME.

Instead, because I am on a roll, I'm going to run off and write some more of the monster F/K/V which does, in fact, have a looming deadline.

Some fairly random miscellany to dump. In no particular order:

i. In the spirit of procrastination, I'm rewatching a Best Of Flashpoint. To my vague surprise I actively ship Ed/Greg this time, and my crush on Jules may be bigger than my crush on Ed. Possibly this calls for one of those "fictional women I have crushes on" posts; I am not doing one right this second only because I don't have crushes on any of the women in due South exceptmaybevictoria and Fraser in a dress does not actually fix this terrible problem.

ii. A fic rec: Three of Cups, which is a Harry/Dumbledore fic but please, please don't let that stop you. I went in to beta it expecting to put on crackfic goggles to spare myself the pain, and instead between beta corrections found myself typing things to the tune of, "Why didn't JKR follow through on these themes?? My god this is AMAZING," so yes. It comes really, really recommended.

iii. I didn't hear about it until today, but it's sure as hell worth mentioning: there's this neuroscience survey about fandom going around. It wants to examine the innate biological differences between male and female brains; it's condescendingly fascinated by fandom phenomenons like Kink Bingo; it's written by people who are outside the fandom and obviously don't know how to even begin dealing with fandom discourse. DON'T TAKE IT. Here is an in-depth explanation; here are some helpful links to discussion. I wanted to see what the actual survey questions are (at the moment; they keep changing, which should let the methodology speak for itself) and it's possible to go through the survey without answering any of the questions, but I did this in the knowledge that they do have my IP address logged now.

I think there were actual Emma-Watson-circa-GoF eyebrow gymnastics going on while I was reading through the survey. There were the out of left field questions; there were your usual "We assume you must read slash for a particular set of reasons, listed below, and we want you to chose from them without additional input space" questions; there were the "obviously all slash has a dom and a sub character; it's time for a heterosexual assumptions party!" questions; there was fabulous question 5, What is your relationship status? for which the only responses were married, single, in a committed long-term relationship, and other, which kind of boggles me because even Cosmo and, um, possibly Facebook, know better than that.

I am really particularly fond of question 20, though. It wants to know if you can remember a number of seemingly arbitrary things, the last of which is the first time you felt guilty about a sexual feeling, and this kind of sums up the whole problem for me, that assumption. Most, if not all, of the other things listed there are apparently normal things that one might have memories of, although I can't say what my favourite TV show in sixth grade was because we didn't have TV, and it's entirely possible that someone taking the survey won't yet have a first kiss to remember, and &c. Am I supposed to have felt guilty about a sexual feeling? I'm sure it's all tied up (argh unintentional pun forgive me) with Kink Bingo and with enjoying slash and all those other funny fandom practices! There must be some guilt in there somewhere. And you know what? No. Fuck that noise.

In the main when people outside of fandom try to talk about fandom -- the perennial and recurring "wow, slash! what a strange little subculture! how those heterosexual white women in their thirties like to spend their free time, golly!" article blurbs, the recent School Library Journal article that appears to believe that fanfic is the province of Harry Potter and Twilight, and that if you tell your middle schooler to simply google 'fan fiction' you might have even the slimmest chance of not turning up some porn on the first page -- I find it ... I don't know what word I'm looking for. I hear the tone of condescension and rather than getting my hackles raised I mostly just feel condescension in return. In this particular case, though, I want to firmly escort the survey-makers the hell off my lawn, or whatever the appropriate metaphor is; I think I'm finally tired of being qualified and explained away by people who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

Because of the Five Things meme that is going around, I've seen lots of people post answers to "five favourite canon ships" and I had a sudden brainwave: miraculously, I have a new system that helps me separate my OTPs with those other things I like to ship. That system is: I assume my OTPs are actually canon. I'm not sure this is a hard-and-fast rule, and it might also make me slightly nuts, because most of my OTPs are not actually canon, but I think it's a cool shorthand.

And because I am a little compulsive and like mapping out my fannish whatevers, here is my ship list, with OTPs and those other things I ship. Please adjust your tinhats before takeoff.

( I have more OTPs than I thought, actually: fifteen under the cut, plus a couple of extra ships. )

So does this identifying-your-OTPs method also work for you? Are any of my 'canon' ships so astonishingly laughably not-canon that you don't know quite what to do with them? What are your OTPs? These questions intrigue me!