melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2006-02-15 11:42 pm

brain salad

This entry is pure brain dump*; hopefully, this will take care of such things for awhile and I can go back to talking about things like how John Sheppard is totally Sir John of the Round Table (seriously, who else would marry an Ancient chick and then get distracted by Sir McKay and *forget* he'd married her?) and the squirrel with three eyes that lives behind the Geography building.

*With gratuitous footnotes.



When you find out that all the girls you had crushes on in high school1 are married, engaged, and/or parents, it can make you start to think that maybe it's time to lift the relationship embargo you've had going on since you were thirteen.2

1I feel the need to mention my whatever-I-am-it's-not-Kinsey-0 tendencies tonight because Mom and I went to my uncle's birthday dinner, and it can really screw up my head to go from spending half the afternoon reading kink fic to talking with people who are mortally offended that Willie Nelson sang a song about homoeroticism in the Wild West.3 Especially because they're people I love and respect, smart people with graduate degrees who think and read, and as long as we stay away from the topics they're irrationally stupid about (these being primarily gayness and intelligent design) I really like spending time with them. I'm pretty sure that if I were to feel the need to come out to them (about the not-kinsey-0 part, not the reading kinky porn part) they'd be not unsupportive (what with me never having had or wanted a boyfriend ever, sometimes I suspect they're more convinced than I am anyway), but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be truly okay with it, either. It really messes with my head, because I spent 70% of my time with people who accept the liberalmoderate positions as a starting point, whether they personally agree with them or not, and when I'm hit with a reminder that there are a lot of people- good people- who just don't even live on the same *planet* as me4, it screws me up for awhile.

That's why I read so much kink fic today, actually, because I ran into a story that totally fscked with my head5. I run into that every so often when I'm reading, and not just in fic. Somebody comes along who presents a vision of how the world works that is simply entirely incompatible with the model in my head, but they do it so articulately and compellingly that I can't dismiss it, and I can't concentrate on anything else until I've managed to work it out to my satisfaction. The most spectacular examples of this I can think of are when I read Tangents6, which wouldn't let me think straight for a solid *week*, and the 2004 presidential election, of course. But there are less dramatic examples, particularly the ones like I read today where I'm not even really sure *why* it bothers me so much. The best way I know to get back to status quo after that is to stew in similar stuff until I have an idea that will let me work it out to my own satisfaction (idea generally coming in the form of a plot bunny, of course), hence all the themed fic reading today.

2Where 'think about' translates to 'write that one smut fic in an attempt to work out your *massive* issues, you shining little ball of repression'.7 Actually, I've put up more fanfic in the past week than I have for ages. There's the Boston Legal/Twilight Zone fic I wrote over New Years and finally revised, there's the silly HL Valentine's ficlet I put up yesterday, there's the severely weird HP drabble for [livejournal.com profile] mctabby's challenge that I stuck up on [livejournal.com profile] pornish_pixies, and of course there's the SGA/Prairie Home Companion bit I wrote for [livejournal.com profile] siegeofangels. (ETA: Oh yeah, and Postsecret cards for the [livejournal.com profile] sga_flashfic challenge.)

3Seriously, there are honestly people out there who are shocked at the idea that cowboys are homoerotic? I mean, forget about Doc Holliday and Butch and Sundance and Rock Hudson and the Village People and 'Spectre of the Gun', Garrison Keillor's been making gay cowboy jokes for twenty years. Not that I actually slash Dusty and Lefty - that would just be *wrong* - but they themselves are fully aware of how homoerotic their cowboy lifestyle is. Interestingly, (and touching on some of the BBM meta I've seen lately) Dusty and Lefty don't really do the hypermasculine mystique thing. And they're never less macho than when they're into females. But they're still *my* archetype for the lives of the cowboys. Man, I could probably devote an entire academic career to talking about what PHC says about America.

4While doing research for PHC fic I keep running into references to Keillor as a liberal comedian. Which seems odd to me, because while PHC is definitely a blue-state show, I've never seen it as really pushing one viewpoint over the other, and plenty of conservatives I know love the show as much as I do without any sort of political objections. Plus, when's the last time you heard someone described as a conservative comedian? ... I'm waiting. On the other hand, I watched BL and House last night, and oh my god, as much as I love Denny and Alan, Boston Legal has more liberal propaganda in it than the Daily Show! Could it be more blatant? They really need to introduce a good guy conservative who *isn't* suffering from the later stages of Mad Cow disease. ... And House MD bothered me for other reasons. I'm thinking I may end up just being a fan of S1 House because, frankly, the farther they go into this season, the less I can sit still for House continuing to practice. Last night's episode was more like "Fear and Loathing in New Jersey" than a medical drama. Or possibly "Transmetropolitan General." Gonzo medicine is just *wrong* on many levels. (Oh god, now I desperately want fanfic that refers to the ducklings as his 'filthy assistants'. That would be the awesomest thing. And House really needs to get his hands on a bowel disruptor.)

5The WIP by [livejournal.com profile] xanthelj which I am privately calling "William Moulton Marsden meets SGA slash" in an attempt to wrap my brain around it. And which I finally got out of my head by way of explicit daydreams about Golden Age Etta Candy finding her inner dominatrix. No, really.

6Tangents being Dave Sim's famous misogynist manifesto. Important warning: if you are a feminist and you read this, it will lead to you becoming enraged, possibly beyond all reason. And by feminist I mean 'somebody who believes women are human beings'. Take this warning seriously: I didn't even look at it when I found the link, because I didn't feel like being extremely angry for the next twenty-four hours.

7Yes, there are a lot of ways I find my current default icon, used with this post, to be astonishingly relevant when I talk about slash. Three cheers for Freud and Dali!

[identity profile] zodiaccat.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
Wow. There's, like, footnotes to footnotes going on here. I was trying to see if there was a third-tier one in there, but it looks like "no." XD
ext_1512: (SW - never grow up)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
HEY. I thought his birthday dinner was next Sunday, and I was going! *pouts*
ext_193: (the Melancholy Malfoy)

[identity profile] melannen.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 05:15 am (UTC)(link)
Well, there's this thing where the little cousins may or may not have been exposed to a virus, and if they were, then they might give it to their grandparents, who are going to visit the *other* little cousins next week, and might give it to them! So the little ones are apparently under quarantine due to having completely insanely overprotective relatives, and will not be visiting, so there's no party. We'll probably go visit anyway if you want, though.
ext_1512: (poot!)

[identity profile] stellar-dust.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
POOOOOOOOOOOOOO(t).

Oh well. If we don't go over there I can come back here earlier than I was figuring and finish my leftover spaghetti sauce read fic to my kitty work on a vid sleeeeeeep.

[identity profile] frey-at-last.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
Plus, when's the last time you heard someone described as a conservative comedian? ... I'm waiting.

*Actually*, I've gotcha on this one. "Conservative comedians" are like "Christian comedians": it means their jokes are clean, red-state, and all about one subject - namely, liberals or Christians. (That's the nice thing about "Christian comedians," like Mark Lowry. They make Christian-themed jokes, where "conservative comedians" and their crowds make happy grunting noises about "conservative livin'" and only heap satire on the other guys.) Also, "conservative comedians" suck; they're around because they're conservative, not comedians.

Wow, Tangents really is that awful. The preening bastard needs a lesson in sound logic, no matter how "rational" he finds himself.