Once a Stranger

1. Failed to go to epitanime this week end after all. Woke up too late I guess. x_x Only now am I suddenly regretting it a little bit. Oh well, not like I had any money to spend.

2. Watched Thor on friday (finally was showing on 2D at my nearby theater). Liked it overall. You know, there's still no Thor-related recs on my list of comics to be read. Just saying :3

3. Posted the ficlets in answer to everyone who prompted:

Title: Taunting
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / X
Characters/Pairings: Seishirou/Subaru, Fuuma
Length: 328 words

Title: Rebel girl
Fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Characters/Pairings: Juri
Length: 370 words

Title: Learn from the feet of the master
Fandom: Black Lagoon
Characters/Pairings: Balalaika/Revy
Length: 496 words

They're not great, but they're wri~ting, first since 2008, yay! Wouldn't mind getting more prompts, really :3

4. comicstore_news is missing an editor in case you have too much free time and feels like doing something selfless for fandom (it's good for finding good fanart on tumblr, if i say so).

Oh for fuck's sake, how the do you find a fucking icon with some fucking text on it nowadays? Has that gone entirely out of style? I'm just trying to hunt some icons for Darker than Black and Pandora Hearts, perhaps Durarara, and I'm getting sick of all the fucking faces with cute fucking expressions. I want some conceptual icons.

It was pretty cool : saw a friends I don't see often, and saw friends I see often, listened to a few panels, got some books signed, met some writers, watched a couple of movies, played pool, caught a cold, and bought too many books.

Of the panels my favourite one to listen to was one about Fantasy and Folklore with Ellen Kushner, Pierre Dubois, Robin Hobb and Karen Miller, because they were a lot of spontaneous urban legens telling, even if there were relatively few relevent discussions. There was also a Roleplaying Game and Literary influences panel which was pretty fun to listen to, although few of the RPG exeriences of the people speaking wen't farther than Door-Monster-Treasure D&D playing. Hal Duncan's interview was fun despite the horrible translation going on (I know translating someone as they speak has to be the most difficult kind of translator job, but that had to be most horrible job even by the Utopiales' standard which is never great); but he's even more fun when discussing while drunk. I couldn't listen to Robin Hobb's interview because the interviewer was too crappy, and missed Richard Morgan's interview, althought when I caught bits of panels where he was at, he sounded very smart and interesting - I couldn't find my copy of Black Man before leaving , and none of his books were available in English at the local store so I couldn't so I couldn't get anything signed by him and didn't dare broach the subject of our previous discussion at Ran's board without that, though.

Of the movies I watched :
Nirvana, an early 90's cyberpunk movie with Christophe Lambert (where he's actually good, no, really), which was pretty fun, well told and not even much aged. Definetely interesting to watch to compare to the other movies made about virtuality and games as metaphores for level of reality eXistenZ, Matrix, Avalon.

Sleep Dealers a Mexican Science Fiction movie that's going to be released soon. It's actually very good and... credible, with the acting especially very fresh and realistic. The movie has a pseudo-documentary feel to it which works extremely well for it, reminded me a bit of BSG. In themes it tackles the idea of a wall between the US and Mexico, and Mexican workers working in the US via remote control of drones, as well as American soldiers fighting "aqua terrorists" with remote control drones... and it's very well done. It's interesting to see a move done with that kind of cyberpunk themes without having the noir & Blade Runner like aesthetics.

The Evangelion movie You are (not) alone which is pretty cool. Extremely close to the anime series if I can trust my memory (it's been, what, 10 years since I watched the series?), but awesome all the same visually and psychologically. I'm pretty happy of having watched it on a big screen. It's going to be hard waiting for the rest of the movies.

In terms of books I was wiser from previous years, I only bought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon which I've been wanting to get for a while now since it's been recced to me repeatedly; Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed in the French translation which is probably unfindable in English and which I've already read but it was a long time ago and it was a bargain sale; one volume of Pierre Dubois's Grande Encyclopédie des Elfes et autres petites creatures which I've only been drooling on with envy for years and with a very pretty signatur and drawing ^_^; a couple of pulp fanzines and one short stories book by Sylvie Lainée which I read in the train back to Paris and which was ok but not great.

There was a cosplay contest which was also pretty fun to watch, and which my friend Isabelle won for the indiviual with a very impressive Mazinger. There also were a lot of various CLAMP characters, and I think one of them, the Chobits won for the group (it's true they had gorgeous dresses). I was pretty fond of those who did the XXXholic cosplay, too!

And that's about it.

I think having missed the start of nanowrimo, and having felt too sick since I got back, I'm dropping it without even starting, sorry!

I've been thinking about intent and interpretation, in communication and art especially, seeing a lot of things popping on my friendlist and journal related to the same thing.

Writer's intent is why people like thecorbie think there might be a case against fanfics.

Intent is something that might be or might not be gotten, with a responsability that may or may not be rested on the writer, as per mithrigil's question here.

Intent is what shippers who ship a non canonical pairing are entirely disregarding when they ship still, as per a_white_rain criticizes here. (NB: spoilers for Avatar the last airbender's final at this link)

Intent of deconstructing the "Nice Guy" was probably part of what Dr Horrible was about, as curtana points out here, but which I've seen a lot of people misinterpret as a genuine nice guy whose manpain is oh-so-tragic. (NB: spoilers for Dr Horriblle at this link)

Intent is what doesn't really matter when people say they hadn't mean to be racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, ableist, elitist... if this is what is read by the people who have the best reason to complain of it. Intent, there, is only a way to claim their own priviledge, very often.

In terms of information, when we communicate, there is
1/ what we mean to say, what we intent
2/ what is actually said, in words, in text, in ink on the page, lines on the paper
3/ what is heard and understood by other people, how they interprete it, text and subtext - which is of course as multiple as there is different people.

2/ the text does not have intrasec meaning. There is a platonician ideas tied to it, of pure meaning, of true message. Information is only information because it's interpretated by someone with a brain and there is always always variations, minsinterpretation of intent within it. Because context is something that always infer on the interpretation, and nobody's got exactly the same context at the same time.

1/ intent I think doesn't matter all that much. In our culture, perhaps because of its moral value under Christianism, intent tends to be extremely valued in terms of responsability. However intent is something way to fickle to judge by : first because we don't know other people's intent, we just have to trust their word for it (in which there is yet another pitfall of misinterpretation), second because people may not know their own intent entirely, third because regardless of intent harms can be done as a result in any case. Also, for all of that, it is rude and disrespectful to presume of someone else's intent. It also shifts any discussion of blame from discussion of action/text to discussing a person themselves, which is offensive and often results in wank much more quickly as a result.

So we're left with interpretation.

Are all interpretation equal? Are some more legitimate than others? What makes one interpretation more legitimate than any other? And who's to blame for possible unfortunate (racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist, elititist, etc.) interpretations?

For all that all interpretations are in parts subjective, I don't think they are all equal. If you've spent any time in fandom, you'll have noticed that some extremely extravagant interpretations are sometimes brandied (with or without seriousness). For all its subjectivity, any interpretation is still based on the text, so there are criteria to judged how acurate to the text it is. (No, I'm not going to go at length about the tools to judge that accuracy.)

However the nature of an interpretation also matters. Not all kinds of interpretation pretend to accuracy. Some are merely humouristic (crackful parodies and the like) for example.

Narrative interpretations as in fanfics are also something very different. They don't usually pretend to accuracy (since they're obviously not the original author). Narrative interpretation's legitimacy is based on its own artistic worth. Is it a compelling interpretation. Does it lend itself to a complex, rich, aesthetically-worthy story? This is what gives a fanfic, as interpretation, its legitimacy - the sheer richness of a culture of narrative dialogue and artistic creation.

Likewise with shipping. Historically the biggest backlash against specific non canonical ships (Harmony in Harry Potter and Zutara in Avatar the last airbender) have been because some of their shippers were pretending to some kind of accuracy. I don't think there's anything wrong in itself to make the pro Zuko/Katara interpretation a_white_rain mentions in the link above, however if such an interpretation is done while saying it is more accurate than any other interpretation there is a problem.

Of course some fanfics do work as criticical interpretations - only done in narrative form. They function as a meta commentary pointing out gaps in the text, or exploiting specific themes. (Some works as a commentary of other fanfics too! Ongoing dialogue that it is). When that is done, accuracy becomes again a criteria.

So what about the moral responsability? Who's to blame for dodgy interpretations? Well if an interpretation pretends to accuracy, and can judged as mostly accurate in consideration of the text, then the responsability sides more on the author's side. If an intepretation pretends to accuracy, but is mostly not accurate with the text, then the responsability is more on the side of the reader. If the interpretation doesn't pretend to accuracy, the author's responsability wasn't ever called in question in the first place.

This is not taking context in consideration, and context matters, does it ever.

First, I've been talking about what an interpretation pretends or does not pretend, but that pretension isn't always made explicit. That is to say, for example, most fanfic writers know they are not pretending to accuracy and know that most of their readers used to fanfics know this as well so they don't usually bother spelling it out. Which, I think, is in parts why outsiders seem to be much more worried about misinterpretation due to fanfics and mistaking the writer's intent for the fanfic. However a lot of fanfics do have a tradition of disclaimer, usually done in terms of "therse characters and settings are not mine". Close enough for me but I haven't been an outsider for a long time.

Second, of course, there's how context infers any unfortunate interpretation. Having a story where a lesbian dies and her girlfriend goes crazy isn't in itself homophobic. It is because there's a history of the very same trope being used overwhelmingly any time lesbian characters are featured, and because of the history of institutionalized homophobia that has been going for a long time in Western culture. So in terms of responsability the quest is, is the context from which the text originated is similar enough to the one from which this interpretation is done? At least it seems to me that this way that can work.

Done now. I hope that wasn't too anvilicious.

1. A quizz

Who is your inner CLAMP character? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Seishirou You are like Seishirou Sakurazuka from Tokyo Babylon and X. Um... that's scary. People who do not know you very well may very well think that you are a kind and gentle soul - someone who loves animals and cares about the environment. But really, you probably couldn't care less. Your true nature is that you are a bit obsessive and antisocial. And maybe a bit of a stalker. And all of this would be a bad thing... if you weren't so damn cool. Seishirou 92% Fai 79% Chii 71% Kurogane 67% Miyuki-chan 58% Kamui 58% Yuuko 58% Kero-chan 54% Hokuto 54% Watanuki 38% Sakura 25%

*dies laughing* I didn't do it on purpose, I swear!!

I've been in a bit more of a CLAMP-reading mood lately. Partially thanks to a_white_rain ♥ and now to mithrigil whom I've just discovered is a terifyingly good writer. Kinda make me want to see what else I've missed. Also, while reading Hikago (went on an archive binge there... ^^;; it's a lovely fandom to do that with because there's a lot of reclists everywhere, something I'd really missed when I was just getting into Avatar.), I saw that ontogenesis also wrote a lot of Kurogane/Fai fics and I'm wondering if it's worth catching up with scanlations in order to read them (pro:I hate being spoiled and I like the pairing, con:I don't enjoy reading manga on a computer screen much)
It also makes me want to start writing again and maybe finish all those WIPs *sighs*


2. I have not being good about reading Avatar fics, however :( and now I'm scared of spoilers and annoyed at the number of people who aren't careful about them. Hopely the rewatch is going to be fun; well I know it will be, it's Avatar ♥, but discussing it will be. Although it's already so much riddled with shipping wars I kinda want to scream and run away.


3. I've been thinking about femslash pairing since bitterfig asked me for my top five f/f couples; and you know, I had some, but I kinda feel like I don't have any big femslash OTP like I do with maleslash and het (and genderfucked); and I'd like to! I'd love for a femslash pairing to be my main interest in at least one fandom. The closest thing I have is Blackcest which is a whole category of its own being 'cestuous. Utena would be the closest other opportunity, but I don't really like Utena/Anthy, and I like Juri/Shiori more as part of a triangle. Then there's Kushiel's trilogy which has a lot of potential, but I just don't feel like looking up fics for that fandom.

So, I'm asking for recs from my flist :) Can you think of a fandom with a big f/f ship which I may love?

I'm pretty open about media, although I tend to prefer stuff that are read (books and graphic novels) slightly better than stuff that are watched (TV series, movies and anime) - err, no video game though; and my kinks go to antagonistic pairings, mindfuck, eros/thanatos, etc. I think I tend to prefer canon or heavily subtextual pairings to fanon ones, but I certainly have nothing against crackpairings and there's always exceptions! Otherwise, you know, SFF, symbolism and mythology rock my world :)

Howdy. My first official day of unemployment started with realising the internet wasn't working at home x_x happily, the thing got rectified this evening.

In case anybody wonders, I am not currently reading any HP fanfics. I'm not sure when I'll get the taste back (if ever?) feel free to defriend me if that fandom was all that interested you in me >_>;;

On the other hand, I'm finding more and more joy in the small and quiet but lovely asoiaf fandom. Yeah, I do mean fanfics. Lots of them are surprisingly good and well characterized, for those of you who love the books, would be curious and didn't know :p Theon's my new favourite character to slash srsly.

In a fit of madness, I apparently volunteered to write a ship_manifesto for Gerald/Damien. ^_^ That's going to be fun to do, even if there's an excellent essay on the ship out there which I can't surpass.

What chopchica said here : one big word to it. (also some very brillant things in the comment).

Christmas isn't universal. Making it into X-mas or whatever kind of pseudo-OEcumenist version doesn't make it universal.

It just makes it more oppressive.

At least when it's Christmas the very Christian religion I don't feel excluded as a human being for not practicing it. It's just the different traditions that different religions have.

Secret Santa are a great idea. I had a lot of fun participating in the Snupin Santa last year, and it brightened my month of December considerably. But fandom is always thriving to be all inclusive and pretty tolerant. So don't people be surprised if sometimes people feel grouchy about that.

While browsing, today, I happened onto a link to this essay on Why do fanboys hate fanfics, especially slash and This is Our Garden. We Like It.. The article fits in a context of several commentaries a few weeks ago about the exclusion of the female experience of fandom by the majorly male fandom - some of which I saw at the time, some of which I missed.

cupidsbow's essay How Fanfictions makes us Poor which I already linked to was part of it too, I think.

Anyway, there's a lot of stuff on these discussions that made me angry as a woman against the systemicized sexism in fandom... but there's also something about the issue of gendered fandoms that really upsets me.

I've spent a majority of my "fandom life" within male dominated fandoms - first generalist Science Fiction newsgroup then Roleplaying Games clubs and forums. The kind of places where women make about 10 to 20% at most of the overall population. I've had to suffer to a lot of sexism, outright misogyny and sexual teasing. I went along with it because I wanted into the fandom and I didn't know anywhere else to get it and also because I'd been ostracized and bullied enough previously that the attention as the token girl and object of sexist and sexual jokes seemed actually an improvement.

Later on, I found some previously more mixed fandoms. ASOIAF has got, I think, about 40% of women at Ran's board. The part of Buffy's fandom I frequented, Masq's awesome ATPoBtVS had, I believe, a majority of women with a very significant male presence as well.

But it's only when I joined the Clamp's Tokyo Babylon/X's fandom in 2004 on Livejournal that I really found myself within female dominated fandoms. Fanfics as a fandom is extremely majorly made of women, I don't think men make more than 5% of it. In many ways the resulting dynamic rather surprised me. There's a lot I enjoyed from it. The welcome of feminist and queer-friendly values for one, and the warmth of people. No more dissing the female SF writers, or fantasy as a whole, or other ridiculous stuff.

There's also some things I disliked, such as the frowning upon any kind of disagreement/non positive comments, and all the things people sometime characterize as the "Cult of Nice". I'm not sure I'm so much more a fan of the Cult of Mean either, which is often horribly self-entitled, but I love debate, and I love getting helpful constructive criticism, and sometimes I'm being an ass in a discussion and I need someone to point it out to me politely (after which I can cool off then appologize). I also miss a bit of the obsessive mapping out details and powers and worldbuiling elements and stuff. Actually screw this, because people do it just as compulsively in female fandom, what I do miss is obsessive symbolical and thematic analysis which seems to catter to specific fandoms regardless of the gender makeover. What I do occasionnaly miss in female fandom is the way people don't seem to get the inherent kicking-ass awesomeness of ninja and pirates (unless talking of Jack Sparrow I s'pose) and Kung-Fu Jesus and heroin-pissing dinosaurs*

So when I get annoyed with that side of fanfic fandom and want a little bit of the other side I miss, I get back to lurking at, say, the RPG.net board, where I can see someone explaining his dilemna about one of his player telling him "No bitches at the table"

Insert visual of me face palming.

Lately it feels like I've seen more and more people talking in terms of fangirls and fanboys. The categories were new to me, but apparently they come with specific, different stereotypes where the fanboy is your everyday Dork and the fangirl squeals a lot about characters/actors being hotties. I've seen at least one person say she wouldn't like to identify as a fangirl but that it was okay for the fanboy because the stereotype had somewhat mellowed and become more hype and cool since big geeks like Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith and Tarantino started taking over Hollywood or something whereas the fangirl stereotype was still depraciated as hell which rather rejoined the whole point of the essay I mentionned at the start of this post.

But behind this I also get the impression that it's true to people. That women and men are whole different brands of fen, that they want something radically different from the text, that they play differently with the toys. That they don't fit in the same sandbox.

I'm not a fangirl. I'm certainly not a fanboy either. I'm a fan. Period.

I'm a fan who likes fanfics and roleplaying games, obsessive symbolical analysis, sociological meta, compulsive reviews of details and powers and worldbuilding stuff, and occasionnaly even fanart and fanvids and of course, the books/shows/texts too. It's all one for me.

It's not that I disaprove of what the essay talks about, about the whole fact that women said 'it's a big internet', took their stuff and the toys given by the text, and used them to play with it in their very own female space. I think that's really cool and proactive and awesome.

It's the fact that what I'd like to call my garden would be a place with equal parts of male and female point of views and welcome them all - just for the sake of diversity. (And gays, and non Americans, and gender queers, and Blacks, and people who don't have always a very correct syntax, and, and, and, too)

There's the question of whether it'd be even possible. If being just an even fraction of "regular" fandom would mean that the female part be co-opted and the female experience of fandom end up marginalized as it's once more 'All about the boy'.

I'd like to believe that it is. I've known places on the internet that were at least a little bit like this. That doesn't mean that they should not be female spaces as well...

But I'd really love to belong, myself, to a non-gendered fandom. I think that's the place where I'd be the more at ease.

Is that a bad thing to want?



* this is an obscure reference to the Role Playing Game Exalted which has canonically dinosaurs who eat Opium and pisses Heroin. It's a lucrative business. Exalted isalso an awesome game where homsexuality, gender queerness, bestiality, incest, and reincarnated magical bonds are all canon. It's a bit like the Harry Potter fandom of roleplaying games that way.

ETA: -- Spoilers for A Song of Ice and Fire - A Storm of Swords in the comments --

I have succumbed to the lure of the Crush Meme


Crush this person!
Get your own ThisCrush.com CrushTag!


I've been thinking for a while now about creating a Percy exhaustive newsletter, because, well, there needs to be one! (if there is one already and I didn't know about it, please point it up to me)... but I'm afraid I wouldn't have the time and fortitude to manage that *sighs* If I did, on a purely hypothetical basis, would anyone be interested into co-managing it?

One of the funny thing with HP7 release date's annuncement is how everyone is making angsty posts at their journal telling about their fear about the death of a favourite character (Snape, Remus, Lucius, Draco, Harry, what have you...)

( musings cut for teh spoilerz )

So what do I fear for Book7? Mostly I fear silly characterization about my favourite characters that won't be easily fixed. Specific canon facts that will contradict future fics I won't have time to finish before June. And Severus/Lily *shudders*

Then again, last time the only thing I was fearing was JKR messing up with my idea of Regulus and then she did, but I loved it XD

I just hope I won't be disapointed.

But she can kill anyone she wants as far as I'm concerned.

Especially if the death is cool

*waves Bring on the Angst flag*

So I was reading today a great many posts and essays about writing sex and the nature of slash, and that was reminding me of something I wanted to say about what I liked in fanfics (slashy or not, though always of the transgressive kind) which was non-romantic sex, or sex as metaphor, and which is, in great part, why I love the kind of fanfics and pairings that I love.

By sex without romance, I mean a great deal of stories that explore situations that are sexualized,without there being a couple in the most classic sense of the word,where there may be 'love' by the wide definition of the term but not something that is necessarily romantic love with all the tropes, roles and assumptions that go with it, or when, if there is indeed romantic love, it is associated with feelings supposedly contrary to it - such as hatred.

Antagonistic pairings are popular. In a way, it is a popular trope in and of itself. However, the majority of Antagonistic stories are more likely to be focussed on the star crossed lovers theme, on transforming such a relationship into romance, than into exploring the relationship as hatred, as rivalry, as a power struggle through sexual means - which is more accurately what I mean though borders may be blurry.

Beyond hatesex and hate/love pairings, there are other ships that meet for me that button. Just today bramblyhedge was talking about her love for boss/employee relationship, a relationship where it is also usually considered improper to sexualize. Another obvious case is incestuous pairings - of which I don't have many but I do have some. In some cases (though less often) cross gen may apply, and even friendship sex (though because it's such an obvious fodder for romance in slash fanfics it must be written with the specific purpose of not crossing that boundary at least for one of the two character - and that's how I love me James/Sirius).

My point is that sex is a rather wide spectrum of interacting with people. In a way, we are consciously or unconsciously sexually aware of everyone we meet. It's got little relevance to how many people we actually want to fuck, but it is nonetheless there. Because sex is, as this, an almost universal subtext of all relationship it can be used as the form through which to explore any relationship whatsoever. Which is where I reach the idea of sex as metaphor for the action of being in an intense relationship, even if the relationship isn't by nature romantic.

Sex is handy as such because it's performative. If you click to a non romantic relationship, familial, friendship, enmity etc. and want to explore it, you can build scenarii to make it into a story where it reaches a climax, where the relationship is consumed, yes. However such scenarii can feel incomplete, or too little intense, or overly cumbersome. Fact is we have very few rituals that express the intensity of relationships as strongly as sex does. Nobody doubts that sex expresses something strongly (no matter how casual it may be!) because it takes you, body and mind, to a different place of interacting ... while declaration of eternal friendship lack a certain something.

There are other solutions, still. And actually a lot of these solutions are used by fandom while still through the shippers goggles : such as the saving each others' life trope, hurt/comfort, sacrifice, self sacrifice and killing.

But even with these alternatives, sex is still a favourite of lots of people. It may accompany a story in a wonderful way.

And, this is something I was realizing as I was reading the first links about the writing sex... these are the kind of sex scenes that I like. Not necessarily the non romantic ones (though I do love them in general); but the sex scenes that tell a story, that are an intraseque part of the narrative and where something happens through them. I don't care for PWP - gratuitous sex - but I don't mind a story which is only comprised of sex as long as the sex actually is a story, where something happens through it which leads to a little more than an orgasm. This, I find mightily hot.