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Hey ho, virtual companions
3 September 2014 07:16 pmWell hello there, LJ, long time no see!
I have been AWOL for quite some time lately. Partly this is because Fearless Leader of my deptis leaving has left and we are all busy sorting out who does what until we get a new Fearless Leader, partly it's because the semester has started up again so I suddenly now have lots of editing clients beating a path to my door, partly it's because the deadlines for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
minerva_fest and luciusbigbang are LOOMING HUGE on the horizon, and partly it's because I got my grubby little hands on the third in Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy (squeee!) and I decided that I wanted to re-read the first two before getting into the third one so I wouldn't miss anything. So I've been submerged in The Magicians and The Magician King for the last four days (and WOW I'd forgotten how good they are!) and as of yesterday am deep into The Magician's Land. Yay!
While my dad was here a couple of weeks ago, we saw Lucy, with Scarlett Johansson and a VERY sexy French guy. Has anyone else seen it? All three of us thought it was just tremendous (probably because it's not a Hollywood movie, therefore has some originality to it). I only wish that it had been based on a book so that I could have had a deeper/longer version of it. An intriguing exploration of what a superintelligent being might be like and what they might choose to do. It has some similarities with Ted Chiang's novella Understand but the main character makes a very different set of choices.
On the fandom side of things, I've signed up for the always-fun low-stressmini_fest (yay!), but does anyone know what's happened to hp_holidaygen? It appears that reveals were never posted last year, and the comm has basically been silent since last December. I hope it has not been abandoned.
Finally, I am VERY happy to say that we have 46 participants for the inauguralsshg_giftfest!! We have not only attracted some experienced "old salts" to the ship but some new sailors as well, and I look forward to the wonderful stories, arts and crafts that will result :)
I have been AWOL for quite some time lately. Partly this is because Fearless Leader of my dept
minerva_fest and luciusbigbang are LOOMING HUGE on the horizon, and partly it's because I got my grubby little hands on the third in Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy (squeee!) and I decided that I wanted to re-read the first two before getting into the third one so I wouldn't miss anything. So I've been submerged in The Magicians and The Magician King for the last four days (and WOW I'd forgotten how good they are!) and as of yesterday am deep into The Magician's Land. Yay!While my dad was here a couple of weeks ago, we saw Lucy, with Scarlett Johansson and a VERY sexy French guy. Has anyone else seen it? All three of us thought it was just tremendous (probably because it's not a Hollywood movie, therefore has some originality to it). I only wish that it had been based on a book so that I could have had a deeper/longer version of it. An intriguing exploration of what a superintelligent being might be like and what they might choose to do. It has some similarities with Ted Chiang's novella Understand but the main character makes a very different set of choices.
On the fandom side of things, I've signed up for the always-fun low-stress
mini_fest (yay!), but does anyone know what's happened to hp_holidaygen? It appears that reveals were never posted last year, and the comm has basically been silent since last December. I hope it has not been abandoned.Finally, I am VERY happy to say that we have 46 participants for the inaugural
sshg_giftfest!! We have not only attracted some experienced "old salts" to the ship but some new sailors as well, and I look forward to the wonderful stories, arts and crafts that will result :)
I am beyond thrilled to say that I will be co-modding the sshg_giftfest!!! Signups will begin August 13th -- I hope to see lots of familiar names participating and please spread the word.
sshg_giftfest!!! Signups will begin August 13th -- I hope to see lots of familiar names participating and please spread the word.You may have seen the amazing fan-made Harry Potter movie, "For the Greater Good," which brings to life the break between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and the death of Ariana. (If you haven't seen it, go watch, it's amazing!)
The same folks now want to do a full-length fan film that explores the relationship between Snape and the Marauders, and they've kicked off an Indiegogo campaign to fund it. (Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laralee88 for her post that let me know about it!) I REALLY hope this gets fully funded -- it looks really impressive, from the casting to the planned budget to the special effects. So spread the word :)
The same folks now want to do a full-length fan film that explores the relationship between Snape and the Marauders, and they've kicked off an Indiegogo campaign to fund it. (Thanks to
laralee88 for her post that let me know about it!) I REALLY hope this gets fully funded -- it looks really impressive, from the casting to the planned budget to the special effects. So spread the word :)It's time :D
18 June 2014 09:52 pmEighty-one -- yes that's right, EIGHTY ONE -- luscious, inspiring, wonderful, original, stimulating, thought-provoking, fascinating, sexy, dramatic, exciting, angsty, funny, prompts. Go ye and claim!
(banner by featherxquill; art by Kit466 [used with permission])
Minerva_Fest! Prompt Claiming Through 30 June
featherxquill; art by Kit466 [used with permission])Hush, hush, sweet fandom
5 June 2014 12:19 pmThere are some excellent prompts over at the prompting post for hp_silencio. Some would be quite challenging to do without dialog. I shall have to go through some of my Anita Brookner books for tips; she's so good at that.
Also this!!
(banner by featherxquill; art by Makani)
hp_silencio. Some would be quite challenging to do without dialog. I shall have to go through some of my Anita Brookner books for tips; she's so good at that.Also this!!
Minerva_Fest! Prompt Posting Here Through 13 June
featherxquill; art by Makani)
My meta HP paper
22 May 2014 12:26 pmEver wonder why the Ministry of Magic chose a train as the method of travel for getting to Hogwarts, or why even students from Scotland have to go all the way to London to board? Wonder no more! My paper for the hp_canon_love Meta Fest has posted :)
hp_canon_love Meta Fest has posted :)Normally when I go to a conference there are at least one or two sessions where I skive off to do something else -- take a walking tour of whatever city we're in, have a nice long lunch and sit in the sun, whatever. Not this one. For every slot there were multiple sessions I wanted to go to; if only I could have cloned myself! This is super long, so I've put the session summaries behind cuts.
So, 8am Thursday I jumped right into "Gender and Sexuality Politics in U.S. Television Culture" with three excellent papers. The first one, "Queered Telefeminism and Female Friendships," among other things showed clips from a very funny episode of Designing Women in which Suzanne encounters an old beauty pageant colleague/competitor who announces she's "come out." At first Suzanne doesn't get it ("Well ah do think forty is a little old to be a debutante, but ever'one deserves a pahty" lol!) but then she assumes the friend must be in love with her. Later she and the friend are in a sauna and Suzanne says, "Ah'm sorry, we just cain't be anythin' more than friends" at which point an older woman who has been listening to their conversation leaves in a huff, and Suzanne leans out the door to shout, "Y'all have a lot more problems then lesbians in your sauna!!" *snerk* The second paper looked at masculinity in Buffy, and raised the interesting point that traditional "macho" masculinity is more often than not portrayed negatively in the series. Examples given include Adam is hyper-strong but constructed, unnatural; Riley's excessive strength and macho abilities come from a drug; Warren is a brilliant engineer but also a misogynistic murderer; Caleb represents classic evangelical viewpoint, women are meant to be dominated. Buffy and Willow, on the other hand, have natural in-born power. The third paper, "The Cinderella Scientist: A critical reading of The Big Bang Theory and Women in Science," really made me think: the presenter reviewed the episode where Leonard is tasked with speaking to a class of high school girls about women in science and pointed out that although the alleged mission is encouraging women in science, the actual women in science are off at Disneyland getting dressed up/made up as princesses, the men ultimately fail at their task and yet they are rewarded (Howard gets to role play as Prince Charming, Leonard gets all hot over Penny in her princess dress, and Amy is lying on the sofa being Snow White and waiting -- in vain, of course -- for Sheldon to kiss her awake. This didn't make me like the show any less, but it did make me think about the degree to which it truly shows women as equals in STEM fields.
Next, a Stephen King session with three papers drawing on his latest novel, Doctor Sleep. Since I'd recently finished reading it, this one caught my interest. The first argued that Dr. Sleep and Joyland, which were written basically during the same time period, could be read as companion texts -- that is, having read one gives you a richer reading experience of the other. King of course is notorious for interlocking people, phrases, ideas, etc. across his entire body of work. The second paper, "Filing/Defiling in Stephen King," explored the extended metaphor of files/memory, and was the most interesting for me as an archivist. At the start of The Shining, the man who's interviewing Jack Torrance for the caretaker position has all these files on him; the Overlook sucks Jack in by pushing its files at him -- the scrapbooks, the boxes of clippings in the basement (like a virus?); in Dreamcatcher Jonesy hides information from the alien possessing him by visualizing his mind as a room of file cabinets and hiding information by misfiling things or putting them behind the cabinets; in Dr. Sleep Abra and Dan share "files" mentally (including the "meme" of a cartoon pedophile that they modify and send back and forth) and Abra visualizes her mind as a room of file cabinets in order to entrap Rose the Hat. It was quite interesting, made me think of Caryn Radick's excellent paper on an archival reading of Dracula. The third paper was about teacher/student relationships in King, specifically Danny/Halloran in The Shining (though of course there's also his father's relationship with his students), and then Danny/Abra and to a certain extent Rose/the girl she turns in Dr. Sleep.
Next session: "Fans Crossing: Cross-Textual, Cross-Media, Cross-Fandom." The first paper was my favorite, about how frustrated viewers of Angel were that Fred and Wesley never had a chance to get together, and then Joss cast them as Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. The larger point was about creators whose body of work functions as a unified whole that's greater than the sum of its parts, something called (if I wrote it down correctly) "hyper-diegesis." Hyper-diegetic casting, then, is where one character gets to do something as another character, through the medium of the actor playing them both. Like Fred and Wesley, who (sort of) ended up together as Beatrice and Benedick, because Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof played both parts. Then there was one about Walking Dead and how it keeps the fans going through "transmedia storytelling" -- that is, through tv, video games, comic books, etc., so there really is no "off season." The last session was particularly interesting to me as a writer of fanfic: it explored what makes a crossover fic work. Essentially the presenter's argument was that crossovers work when they are able to inhabit a larger universe in which the "strange" elements of both worlds can coexist and neither breaks or conflicts with the other. So for example, a Harry Potter/Twilight crossover in which Lupin grows up in the werewolf community in Forks is perfectly reasonable. She referred to these as "second degree imaginary worlds" which I thought was kind of cool. This is why I love Discworld/Harry Potter crossovers -- all those witches and wizards seem perfectly compatible :)
I was really tempted by the Gothic Classic film session (Dracula, The Haunting, I Walked with a Zombie, Jane Eyre) but instead fell prey to my love of Star Trek and Star Wars. Among other things, I learned that every single one of the Star Wars movies follows the 17 stages of the classic monomyth, that Kirk=Dionysos and Spock=Apollo, and that the Enterprise may be a representation of the Divine Feminine. Yes, really. One interesting snippet of argument is that in Jungian terms one could view Kirk and Spock as each other's "shadow self" which may explain why they're the original and most enduring slash couple: because we perceive them as two halves of a whole.
The last session of the day was maybe my favorite (though it's hard to pick): The Borders of Fandom, Female Desire in Fandom. The first paper was about fan edits like The Phantom Edit which re-cut Episode II to remove all trace of Jar-Jar Binks :D He drew a parallel between this and Hollywood's now-familiar habit of releasing alternate cuts, extended cuts, director's cuts, etc. suggesting that the latter was an outgrowth of the former, and listing some of the informal rules that the fan-edit community has evolved in an attempt to respect copyright. The second paper, "Fake Geek Girls": Who Called the Fandom Police?" was brilliant; it started with Tony Harris' rant against cosplay chicks, then talked about how badly Twilight fans were treated at the 2009 Comic-Con, and questioned the definition of a "real" fan. Does it depend on real-life participation, knowledge of the source material, breadth or depth of engagement? Ultimately (she argued), questioning the authenticity of female fans arises from an assumption of male heterosexuality: "Women do this to get attention from men because." Very interesting and provocative. The last paper was on Johnlock erotica so it was just plain fun :D However, she also made the salient point that good erotica relies on satisfaction for the characters, not just for the reader.
Along the way I also learned an excellent quote from Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
Whew, OK, that was fun! If anybody wants to know more about any of the sessions, let me know. For now, I'm off to bed so I can get up at 6am to catch a 7am train ::cries::
Along the way I also learned an excellent quote from Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
Whew, OK, that was fun! If anybody wants to know more about any of the sessions, let me know. For now, I'm off to bed so I can get up at 6am to catch a 7am train ::cries::
So yay, I finally have time to write about the Pop Culture Association conference, which as I said the other day was brilliant. I think I'll break it up and do one post for each day, since there's so much to say about it.
So first, the background: I've wanted to go to this conference for ages, ever since my brother told me about it when he first presented there six years ago (his field is horror movies) and I looked at the program. This year not only was my brother presenting again, my boss at work was also presenting, plus it was in Chicago (easily accessible via Amtrak, plus I could do a side trip to see my mom, stepdad and grandmother). So this seemed the ideal time. I was not disappointed!
On the spectrum that runs from rabid fans on the one end to Spock-like academics on the other, this conference is tilted about 15 degrees toward the rabid fan side. This is both good and bad: on the one hand it makes for a different tenor than other professional conferences I've been too, very lively and kaleidoscopic; on the other hand the number of presenter no-shows and "lightweight" presentations was higher. It's also by far the biggest conference I've ever been to in terms of number of presenters -- the full program is over four hundred pages! -- and every session involved two or three people. This also was both good and bad: the sheer number of interesting topics was fantastic, but I was left wanting more in-depth information on just about everything, since regardless of how scholarly the paper, there was only time for a very surface overview.
Wednesday we arrived around 3pm so I only was able to hit one session. I chose one on Monsters and the Supernatural, which had three papers: "Which 'Witch' Is A Witch?: Negative and Inaccurate Portrayals of So-Called 'Witches' In Horror" (Charmed, Buffy, etc.), "Rooting for the Monster: 21st Century Creature Features and the Devaluation of the Human" (about how we now cheer for the monster in the movies instead of the humans, e.g. King Kong, Godzilla), and "Monsters and Men: Guillermo Del Toro and the Subaltern" (Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, etc.). I was tempted by another session, "Star Trek as a Mirror of American Culture," but that one seemed relatively obvious so I opted for the other one. "Rooting for the Monster" was particularly interesting, proposing that increased awareness of environmental issues may be part of why we now root for the "monster" -- that is, we don't automatically see man as the hero because we acknowledge the damage that homo sapiens has done to the planet. Instead of seeing Godzilla's or King Kong's death as this great victory, we recognize the tragedy inherent in the death of a unique creature.
Wednesday night we had an awesome time at the "Welcome to Our Nightmare" movie sponsored by all the different horror focus areas: Trilogy of Terror (eeeeeeeek!!!) They had a trivia contest before the show and gave away all kinds of cool stuff: movies, books, t-shirts, etc. The questions were ridiculously detailed (Q: Who played Jonathan Harker in the 1931 version of Dracula? A: No one, the Harker character wasn't in that version!) and of course sooo many people knew the answers, because FANS. (I got a Lon Chaney question almost right but not quite, drat the luck.) The movie itself was hugely entertaining, three tales based on stories by Richard Matheson. The first one was seriously unnerving, though perhaps not for quite the reasons the filmmakers intended (sexual predators being so much more in the news these days). The second was predictable, and the last was just utterly silly: a creepy little African statue comes to life and hunts a woman through her apartment, gnashing its tiny little teeth and waving its tiny little spear, like some kind of humanoid gremlin. It survives stabbing, drowning and being stuffed into the oven. I won't spoil it by telling you the closing scene, you really need to see it for yourself XD All in all it was a prime example of cheesy 1970s horror and the audience shouted things at the screen and laughed and so on, but it was all done with great affection (because, again, FANS!).
OK, enough for today. Tomorrow: Stephen King, "You've got more problems than lesbians in your sauna!", crossover fics, Star Wars and the monomyth, and who called the fandom police??
So first, the background: I've wanted to go to this conference for ages, ever since my brother told me about it when he first presented there six years ago (his field is horror movies) and I looked at the program. This year not only was my brother presenting again, my boss at work was also presenting, plus it was in Chicago (easily accessible via Amtrak, plus I could do a side trip to see my mom, stepdad and grandmother). So this seemed the ideal time. I was not disappointed!
On the spectrum that runs from rabid fans on the one end to Spock-like academics on the other, this conference is tilted about 15 degrees toward the rabid fan side. This is both good and bad: on the one hand it makes for a different tenor than other professional conferences I've been too, very lively and kaleidoscopic; on the other hand the number of presenter no-shows and "lightweight" presentations was higher. It's also by far the biggest conference I've ever been to in terms of number of presenters -- the full program is over four hundred pages! -- and every session involved two or three people. This also was both good and bad: the sheer number of interesting topics was fantastic, but I was left wanting more in-depth information on just about everything, since regardless of how scholarly the paper, there was only time for a very surface overview.
Wednesday we arrived around 3pm so I only was able to hit one session. I chose one on Monsters and the Supernatural, which had three papers: "Which 'Witch' Is A Witch?: Negative and Inaccurate Portrayals of So-Called 'Witches' In Horror" (Charmed, Buffy, etc.), "Rooting for the Monster: 21st Century Creature Features and the Devaluation of the Human" (about how we now cheer for the monster in the movies instead of the humans, e.g. King Kong, Godzilla), and "Monsters and Men: Guillermo Del Toro and the Subaltern" (Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, etc.). I was tempted by another session, "Star Trek as a Mirror of American Culture," but that one seemed relatively obvious so I opted for the other one. "Rooting for the Monster" was particularly interesting, proposing that increased awareness of environmental issues may be part of why we now root for the "monster" -- that is, we don't automatically see man as the hero because we acknowledge the damage that homo sapiens has done to the planet. Instead of seeing Godzilla's or King Kong's death as this great victory, we recognize the tragedy inherent in the death of a unique creature.
Wednesday night we had an awesome time at the "Welcome to Our Nightmare" movie sponsored by all the different horror focus areas: Trilogy of Terror (eeeeeeeek!!!) They had a trivia contest before the show and gave away all kinds of cool stuff: movies, books, t-shirts, etc. The questions were ridiculously detailed (Q: Who played Jonathan Harker in the 1931 version of Dracula? A: No one, the Harker character wasn't in that version!) and of course sooo many people knew the answers, because FANS. (I got a Lon Chaney question almost right but not quite, drat the luck.) The movie itself was hugely entertaining, three tales based on stories by Richard Matheson. The first one was seriously unnerving, though perhaps not for quite the reasons the filmmakers intended (sexual predators being so much more in the news these days). The second was predictable, and the last was just utterly silly: a creepy little African statue comes to life and hunts a woman through her apartment, gnashing its tiny little teeth and waving its tiny little spear, like some kind of humanoid gremlin. It survives stabbing, drowning and being stuffed into the oven. I won't spoil it by telling you the closing scene, you really need to see it for yourself XD All in all it was a prime example of cheesy 1970s horror and the audience shouted things at the screen and laughed and so on, but it was all done with great affection (because, again, FANS!).
OK, enough for today. Tomorrow: Stephen King, "You've got more problems than lesbians in your sauna!", crossover fics, Star Wars and the monomyth, and who called the fandom police??
So I went to the Pop Culture Association conference in Chicago last week and WOW because IDEAS!!! I came home with pages and pages and pages of notes from every panel I went to, and lists upon lists of topics I now want to research and write about. I will share all the things here, but I don't have time to do it justice until this weekend (and I may have to spread it out over several days so as not to bore y'all).
Suffice to say:
♥ ♥ ♥ IT WAS AWESOME ♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥ IT WAS AWESOME ♥ ♥ ♥
Prompty goodness
30 March 2014 02:24 amOne of my prompts has been claimed for sshg_promptfest -- squee!
Yes, I know that ALL the contributions will be brilliant (because hello, sshg), but I'm tickled pink that one of my prompts sparked an idea for someone :)
And there are still lots more, especially for artists -- Go ye and claim!
sshg_promptfest -- squee!Yes, I know that ALL the contributions will be brilliant (because hello, sshg), but I'm tickled pink that one of my prompts sparked an idea for someone :)
And there are still lots more, especially for artists -- Go ye and claim!
First time for everything
27 March 2014 08:09 pmNever in any HP quiz anywhere have I EVER come up Hufflepuff. I'm generally Ravenclaw, with a smattering of Slytherin. Every so often there's a tiny percentage of Gryffindor.
I am not sure what to make of this...
I am not sure what to make of this...
Go ye and browse!
17 March 2014 09:08 pmPrompt review post is up for SSHG -- and there are two hundred, count 'em, TWO HUNDRED prompts! Truly an embarrassment of riches, everything from angst to humor to backstory to AU to the Krampus. Go take a look:
Bring back a snape fest
10 March 2014 07:17 pmDo you miss snapecase? (Say, "Yes, Ms Psmith, of course!") Would you like to have it back? (Say, "Yes, Ms Psmith, of course!") Well, go vote for it on iulia_linnea's poll of what winter fest to revive!!
snapecase? (Say, "Yes, Ms Psmith, of course!") Would you like to have it back? (Say, "Yes, Ms Psmith, of course!") Well, go vote for it on iulia_linnea's poll of what winter fest to revive!!
