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 | February 20th, 2017 09:33 am - FMK#1: Arthuriana
OK! I should have all the fiction sorted and reshelved by tonight, so WE'RE DOING THIS. If I manage to do this weekly we should be done in only a year! Here's how it will go: I will post a list of 10-20 unread books that I own. Sometimes it will be themed, sometimes it will just be random. It will be a poll, and you folks will get to vote F, M, or K for each book. F means "melannen should have a single night of ill-considered passion with it and then decide whether to turn that into a long-term thing or dump it with prejudice." M means "melannen should commit long-term and continue to keep the book in her bedroom indefinitely." K means "melannen should dispose of it posthaste." This may remind people of a certain familiar game. Unfortunately I don't think DW polls have any way to force a three-way choice like in the game, so it's a free vote for each title. (Also I don't think I could agree to give up 1/3 of my books anyway.) I will read the book with the most F votes, hopefully within the next week, and then post about it here. I will dispose of the book with the most K votes, *if* there are enough total K votes on all titles to make a quorum (i.e., if only one person votes K in the whole poll, I don't consider myself bound to their vote.) All other titles, I will think about very hard and take your votes into consideration! Feel free to vote even if you only have a vague idea about the book or author. Or even if you've never heard of it but think the title is cool. That's why I bought most of these, after all. Feel free to vote F on terrible books just because you want to make me read them. Please leave comments with more information on the book or justifying your votes if you do have things to say! Anon/no account votes and comments are on. Some background on me and my library if you wander here from far away: I am an SF fan and aspiring SF writer (emphasis on "aspiring" rather than "writing" rn). I would like to keep books that are a) good and/or b) important or foundational texts in the genre and/or c) help balance the proportion of books not by/about white dudes in my library. Got that? ( Time to vote! )(Books on the topic I have read and am definitely keeping: the Mike Ashley anthologies, Parke Godwin's Firelord, a mysterly Goldsmith "King Arthur" that is hilariously bowdlerized, Sutcliff's Arthur books, Twain's Connecticut Yankee, White's the Once and Future King, lots of pre-1860 retellings and sources, lots of "nonfiction".)
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| December 1st, 2015 01:22 pm - :(
So I did not make 20,000 words in November: I got to 17,333 words and then went to Chessiecon and wrote nothing for three days, and I had hopes of finishing it yesterday (I've written 3000 words in a day before, easy) but work was frazzling and after work on Mondays I have a total of one hour of free time, so, yeah, that didn't happen. I got up to 18000 and then fell over. But, you know, could be worse, and I did keep going up to the very last day instead of giving up, which is new for me. Now I need to decide if I want to keep the 666-words-a-day thing going, or give myself a break. I would at least like to push through and get to an ending for the other original story that's almost done. And then Yuletide. Anyway! I had a ton of fun with the December meme last year - or at least my variation of it- but on the other hand it was a ton of writing that didn't involve finishing things already on my lists. So let's try a different variation of it this year: I have made a list of DW posts that I have been wanting to do/have had half-finished, and you all are going to vote on which ones you would most like to see me post, and then I will see how far down the ranked list I get in December. Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 66 What should I post in December?
View AnswersChessiecon and CapClave reports
12 (18.2%) It Came From The Wips File, revisited
13 (19.7%) Thoughts on Hamilton the Musical
30 (45.5%) How To Design Selfpub Book Covers that look like pro book covers
26 (39.4%) How To Get Comments on Your Posts
24 (36.4%) How To Save Money By Not Buying Stuff, the Melannen way
25 (37.9%) I attempt to make a post entirely in Icelandic, fail miserably
12 (18.2%) Jello Mold Updates!
13 (19.7%) Melannen's Favorite Drunk, Cynical and/or Depressing Christmas Music Mix
18 (27.3%) Thoughts on The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
27 (40.9%) Notes on birth control, for fantasy writers
38 (57.6%) On relearning piano, two years in
10 (15.2%) Some Things I Have Been Reading Lately
19 (28.8%) So What's Up With The OTW Anyway
35 (53.0%) Over The Garden Wall postwatching reaction
4 (6.1%) How To Describe Clothing In Fiction
34 (51.5%) Thoughts on my first time traveling outside the US
20 (30.3%) Post your scans and squee about Kingyo Used Books and Raven the Pirate Princess
6 (9.1%) shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings; why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.
15 (22.7%) some links to interesting scientific papers. And stuff.
22 (33.3%) Stuff from old notebooks
5 (7.6%) Things that are currently annoying me about aro/ace protrayals in fanfic
36 (54.5%) My first year with a smartphone, or: sufficiently advanced technology
25 (37.9%) Mayor Madeleine's 'Country' skills, this time with actual resarch
6 (9.1%) Why I Don't Read Many Novels No More
35 (53.0%) Questions for my Readership
21 (31.8%) Some random meme that looked interesting
11 (16.7%) free space
5 (7.6%) that thing you remembered five minutes after posting this
13 (19.7%) that other post you promised but have clearly forgotten about so I will remind you in a comment
0 (0.0%)
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| January 22nd, 2015 10:16 am - Wolves!
So it's almost February! How time flies when you haven't done any fiction writing since Yuletide. Also I think my first-half-of-February book display at work is going to be wolves and werewolves. I was going to do books about how it's okay to be single and you shouldn't feel pressure to find The One, but - and I don't know why I was surprised by this - we don't have enough books in the library system to do a display on that. So wolves it is. I even put A Companion to Wolves on hold to use in the display. Maybe I'll actually read it first, even. So hey, if I were to write something about wolves this February, completely for no reason at all except to jumpstart my writing again, OR even for this year's Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia fest, what should I write? Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36 Wolves?
View AnswersThe sequel to the Les Mis one I did last year which is basically just Eponine domming the hell out of Montparnasse
10 (27.8%) The Reichenbach part of the ACD Holmes one
6 (16.7%) Finish the one you started two years ago that's based on the Men Who Stare At Goats, only with wolves instead of goats
5 (13.9%) Finish the Hogan's Heroes one you started three years ago
6 (16.7%) Write a ficlet that is just Chewie the cat and Carol Danvers's wolfsibling Really Really Really Not Getting Along, w/ guest appearance by Rocket
14 (38.9%) Read the copy of Frontier Wolf you got for Christmas and do something with that
11 (30.6%) Write more of the Community werewolf AU even if werewolves don't quite count
6 (16.7%) Something else about which I will be telling you IN DETAIL
0 (0.0%)
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| October 28th, 2013 04:54 pm
The Les Mis fanwork exchange I signed up for is going live in about an hour and a half. I wrote 7000 words in forty-eight hours for it. I may or may not link it here depending on if I decide it's terrible. :P any, relevant to that, have poll: Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 58 which is harder?
View Answersmaking good fanwork
13 (22.4%) leaving good feedback for good fanwork
10 (17.2%) trick question both are impossible
35 (60.3%)
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| July 25th, 2012 04:42 pm - oldest fandom, newest fandom
While my sister was here, we went through and cleaned out a lot more of the Star Wars junk, so all that's left now fits on and around one bookshelf. (The junk we cleaned out is now sitting on the back porch, while we figure out what to do with it. I was in favor of just emailing the Star Toys museum about another mass donation, but sister wanted to see if anything was worth trying to sell, and meanwhile I'm trying to decide if I can bear to open all the mint-in-box action figures so I can play with them (and store them better), or just donate/sell them as mint in box, and also trying to convince our cousins to take it all. ...so uh anybody want any Star Wars junk?) My sister gave me a list of the books we have that I haven't read that I should, starting with Jedi Apprentice, so I started with those. You guys. Jedi Apprentice. I know that I've previously been told, when asked why Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan blew up into a giant fandom, that the reason was Jedi Apprentice, but somehow I was still assuming that most of it came from the fandom. NOT SO MUCH. ( Destiny! Soulbound! )What I am saying is that these books are very silly, and I can't find any Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan on the AO3 that is quite as gay as them. *** I also had some crochet I needed to get done, so I decided to start watching Community. It is you guys's fault. Yes, you. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, Community people. I am watching in silly mixed-up order, starting with the five legal free online streaming episodes (all from later in S3) and then at the beginning of S2. (since I have already read ALL THE FIC - and wow, Community people, that didn't take long, get on the ball there - and been to the con-txt panels, and been subjected to many people discussing it - I had already been spoiled, so that seemed like a good order to go in.) I'm about a third of the way through S2 now. Here are my comments: 1. JSYK, if somebody had told me that John Oliver had a brilliant recurring guest role on this show, I probably would have started watching two years ago. :P ( some more things that surprised me )(There is nothing in the above about Troy and Abed and the general geek-friendliness and Annie and Britta and Pierce and Shirley and the Dean and postomdern magical realism and the episodes themselves and etc. because the fandom did prepare me adequately for how awesome all of that is. Yay!) *** Oh, so the last part of the Avengers-are-geeks fic went up on AO3 a few days ago, and so did that not!fic I posted on here a few months back, The One Where Tony Stark And Princess Leia Hook Up, since I was writing about Avengers and Star Wars anyway. My writing has been going interesting places this year! I signed up for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) inkingitout with a wordcount total for the year, and it's the last half of July and I'm actually ahead by a comfortable margin! The main thing I am learning about my writing is that writing hard things is hard, and writing silly crossovers is easy. So while I have a bunch of Hard Things that I am still pounding away at (including the Avengers fics I was talking about at con-txt, and some Homestuck things, and the next bit of the October megacrossover, and a couple of DF WIPs, yes, before you ask), it makes it easier if I am working on something silly at the same time, to turn to when all writing seems a pit of despair and failure. Unfortunately once I let myself decide that I immediately got overrun with silly crossovers, so I need you guys to help me out. Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 29 Which crossover that I have started in the last couple weeks should I focus on finishing next?
View AnswersThe sequel to the Tony/Leia one, in which Jedi Knight Steve Rogers served with Tony's father in the Clone Wars
14 (48.3%) The one that follows the careers of the first twelve Alternian initiates to the Jedi Temple
2 (6.9%) The one where John, Jade, Rose and Dave move in next door to Abed, Troy, Annie and Britta, and discover that Abed and Troy broke the new universe by somehow reaching God Tier without playing sburb
3 (10.3%) The Vorkosiverse/Study In Emerald one that's Lannamichaels' fault where all Barrayaran Vor are hybrids of humans and Lovecraftian tentacle gods
10 (34.5%) ...okay, I'll be honest, regardless of the poll, it's probably going to be the Avengers/Star Wars one, if only because it only needs about five hundred more words of snappy dialogue for a complete first draft. Unfortunately, despite being a silly crossover, I am filled with angst about what to do with it then. ( Completion and pairings )(While I was working on this ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) lettered wrote a much more coherent post on the topic of pairing tags, which covers the same ground, you should go read that instead.)
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| January 16th, 2011 02:56 pm - Top Gear Big Bang Poll
So, the old truism about how if you look for answers, you'll find them - just possibly to a different question - is proven once again. I went and finally read The Big Meow in order to "research" hardboiled fiction, and instead, I realized who I needed for my next ace manifesto: Rhiow, the ffeih manager of all the New York City worldgates. The Big Meow, by the way, is not nearly as noir as that title implies, at least not so far, although their are hints it may move in that direction. The Big Meow is the third book in the Cat Wizards series, themed around '40s Hollywood and experimentally being written as a professional online serial, and it got as far as Chapter Eight before life happened to the author and it hasn't been updated in several years now, which leaves YW fandom in the interesting place of having an abandoned online WIP in their canon. And I know I have no right to talk about people leaving WIPs hanging, but I really really want it to be finished. Especially if she's going where it seems like she's going with ace Rhiow/Hwaith, within a noir context (Although more than I want it finished I just want some sign that dduane still knows where the internets is. :/ I never thought I'd see the day where Le Guin had a bigger online fandom presence than Duane.) Speaking of leaving WIPS hanging! There's that Top Gear Big Bang I unwisely signed up for that I really do need to get moving on at this point. I'm only signed up for 10,000 words, and I've done 10,000 words before - in fact I have 10,000 of Top Gear WIP sitting on my hard drive right now - and yet I still am not holding my breath, because I have not *finished* anything over 10,000 words. But I'm going to try anyway! I have started a thing of putting on Write or Die for 1,000 words every night before bed, and even if so far all I've written is Dresden Files idfic, who knows, I may actually manage some longer finished fiction this year. I need to pick an idea to write for the Big Bang, though. So I'm putting it up for a vote. Feel free to vote for whichever one, even if a) I don't know you; b) you don't know me; c) you don't know Top Gear, or d) you have no intention of reading it regardless. I do not promise to abide by the poll numbers anyway ^_^ Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16 Which one?
View AnswersContinue "A Very Nice Shade of Blue," the Doctor Who crossover of doom.
8 (50.0%) Finish the crossover prequel to VNSoB, "The Special Edition ATMOS Compilation DVD".
3 (18.8%) Write the sequel to the James/Oz vampire AU crackfic.
2 (12.5%) "The Secret Garage", the Secret Garden/Top Gear remix/fusion/AU/crossover thingy.
10 (62.5%) Write the crack slavefic OT3 AU.
4 (25.0%) Write the sequel to the d/S fic with Richard's collar from the anon meme.
1 (6.2%) Finish the OT3 sexswap story from the other anon meme.
3 (18.8%) Here are some more details about each story to help you make up your mind (and to help me get my thoughts straight.) ( Story details & summaries )
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| December 1st, 2010 09:20 pm - On categories of things.
I've been messing around on LT a bit - I did some things I'd been putting off, and rewarded myself with some book cataloging (is a book on saints' cults in medieval Christendom religion, mythology, folklore, history, or magic? And how does that have to affect where I put similar books that aren't Christian-flavored? Arggh.) And alongside the usual grey areas of cataloging, I ended up wading into an argument on how we should list gender in the drop-down on the crowdsourced author pages for trans authors. (I don't have all the answers, but at this point I'm at least confident to know when I can say: No, sir, you are wrong.) Anyway. Right now I'm sick of all this categorizing of things that cannot be categorized. You know what is much nicer? Numbers! And espreite just posted a v. v. serious entry about privilege and oppression among numbers. So I have made a poll! ( Which numbers describe your identities most accurately? )
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| November 2nd, 2010 10:33 pm
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36 Pick one option:
View AnswersIf I am already on your (never-used) origfic filter, and you start posting nano stuff to it, I want off.
1 (2.8%) If I am not already on your (never-used) origfic filter, and you start posting nano stuff to it, I want on.
19 (52.8%) Ahaha, who are you kidding, you're never gonig to actually use that filter, or win nano either
0 (0.0%) Actually that's right, this whole poll is really just a bugfix test for DW developers, so I'm going to choose an option anyway
2 (5.6%) This optoin is not a radio button.
3 (8.3%) Blorg! I Am A Pickle! (The Blorg-Pickle Master's guide to transformative enlightenment.)
11 (30.6%)
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| September 9th, 2010 09:17 pm
Hi all! I am working on a Fanlore entry (I figured it was past time), and am running into the fact that terms that I thought were established don't seem to give Google results for anyone but, um, me. Pretty much. So, I thought I'd try a poll. :D Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 74 When I am talking about the novels, animated series, comics, web extras, role-playing games, audio dramas, and so on that are authorized by a particular fandom's owners but are not part of main canon, I call them:
View Answersextracanonical
11 (14.9%) paracanon/paracanonical
11 (14.9%) secondary canon
25 (33.8%) "tie-ins", duh
51 (68.9%) semi-canon
11 (14.9%) S-canon
0 (0.0%) just plain non-canonical
9 (12.2%) Better than canon, usually
5 (6.8%) Expanded Universe/Extended Universe/EU
37 (50.0%) gray canon
4 (5.4%) authorized fanfic, or something else involving the word 'fan'
14 (18.9%) Different terms in different fandoms, and I'll go into detail below
12 (16.2%) I don't.
6 (8.1%) Other
7 (9.5%) I am going to talk about this in a comment.
6 (8.1%) This concept needs a fanlore entry of its own. If there's a fannish term I use a lot, and a few of my friends do, and I really find it useful, but hardly anybody else uses it, I should:
View AnswersTry to avoid using it on Fanlore and similar places
4 (7.5%) Use it on fanlore, and hope somebody else decides to make an entry for it eventually
9 (17.0%) Make an entry for it (or add it to the relevant entry) in hopes that it will become more widespread
40 (75.5%) ETA: I am also interested in whether people include things like interview canon and behind-the-scenes extras, drafts and outlines and subtitles, things someone involved with the production once said informally, prop canon, and merchandise packaging under the same umbrella as authorized media tie-ins, or consider them a different level of canon, and whether different terms include different things to them. But I couldn't figure out how to phrase it as a poll question in a way that wasn't overcomplicated. People are invited to add comments expanding on this!
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| May 8th, 2010 10:31 am - Not Exactly Follow Friday (Again)
It says ... something ... about just what kind of a dork I am that I went to see Iron Man II, and while there were many things about the movie that I liked and would enjoy discussing, the actual squee!OMG! moments? TESSERACTS! DOUBLE PENDULUM!!! ...I guess I am still a math geek at heart. Also, a double pendulum (aka "Chaos Machine") is the best symbol for movie!Tony ever. I could go on and on about the scene with Tony and the double pendulum. If I was the sort of person who could make things like that, I would figure out how to make a wind-up clock with a double-pendulum tick. I have wanted to for years. Since I can't, I am so tempted to go down to the cave tonight and build me just the pendulum, counterweighted to swing a long time like the one in the movie. With a box of scraps. (Note: this is not cut because neither the pendulum nor the tesseracts have any actual spoilery significance whatsoever; they were set dressing. Thus my enormous levels of geekery.) *** Click on this cut if you would like to see ( some racy vintage postcards of silent-movie era Hollywood Bathing Beauties. )If you are not interested in racy vintage postcards of women wearing bathing costumes I would dearly like to own, then we clearly have very different tastes in postcards. But perhaps you would be more interested in one of these posts I have recently made on dreamwidth communities: At sca_attire, photographs of me wearing nothing but a period linen shirt! I understand some of you are interested in that sort of thing. Also featuring: discussion of crossdressing while re-enacting, and me whining about how sewing is hard. At topgearslash ( locked) and crossovers ( unlocked), Part One of the Top Gear/Dr. Who(/Torchwood/Sarah Jane/Big Finish) crossover of doomy doom! (Featuring: men who love their cars and/or spaceships too much, and also bonus multimedia enrichment downloads.) At poetry, this week I am posting an elaborate four-part stealth argument-by-example for poetry as fanwork: NASA RPS from 1970, three variations on Dover Beach, and about a Flemish tapestry. And also some very silly things. And at common_nature, an account of a trip to the beach, in which there are kites, hidden treasures and fossil-hunting. **** Also, overcome by election coverage (OMG, I have discovered that it is possible to be fannish over election results for countries that *are not mine*! So exciting: all the fun, 75% less stress. Hooray!) I have started writing up a post - probably to be posted to punditfic - entitled "A Guide To British Fake News for Americans". Are there any British persons reading this who would like to look it over before I post it, for blatant errors? I also now really, really want the alternate future where David Mitchell started the revolution, Charlie Brooker led it, Andy Zaltzman ended up Home Secretary, and mtf!Patchula J. Oliver spent years in prison after Bristol Palin was elected President of the USA. (They write these things *for* us, guys.) And finally, if you would like to be on my "obsessing over diversity, privilege and appropriation re: my original characters as an excuse to not actually write anything in their universes" filter, first post to go up soon entitled "wow I have a lot of trans* characters", please click here: Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 38 I would like to be on the original fiction filter:
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| April 28th, 2010 11:18 pm - 3w4dw and con.txt, also baby daleks
So, 3w4dw is happening, yeah? I'm not changing my crossposting because I already don't post anywhere except DW and sometimes JF, and I seriously doubt anybody is staying away from DW because JF is too active. :P (well, and a certain anon kink meme I can't stop refreshing, but I can't give that up. This is how much I can't give that anon meme up: as you may know, I have had javascript turned off on LJ for quite some time now, because the crufty javascript they've been pushing in made the site stop working with my browser. With javascript off, I can read my flist and post signed comments, which is usually all I do. Until I got tempted by this anon meme.) ( This is what you have to do to leave an anon comment in LJ if you don't let the site use javascript: )...yes, I have fallen for current tiny RPS fandom hard enough that I go through that voluntarily anyway. And no, it is not the least bit exaggerated. (and yes, it's almost as annoying to do with js off in DW - but oh, look, I don't have to turn js off in order for DW to function! Amazing.) So anyway, right now the thing I love most about DW is I can post anon comments on it without wanting to commit murder. There are a lot of awesome DW anon memes going on for 3w4dw right now, incidentally. Far too many to keep track of, in fact - just reload the 3w4dw tag on latest - when I am still reloading the lj ones for tiny-fandom-of-doom and also ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) forsciencememe, the anon meme for rock-star scientists, literal or otherwise, which I would be *all over* if it didn't take me about ten minutes every time I try to post a comment on it. Especially I would be all over it requesting epic Othniel Charles Marsh/Edward Drinker Cope hatesex, about which more anon (in the other sense of anon), possibly. ANYWAY ANYWAY. My actual point, when I started all this, is that there's so much going on for 3w4dw that I have decided, with the exception of a few community events and some anoning, to save most of my effort for after the event is over, where things will probably be quieting down and everyhing won't be getting lost in the rush. (That, or I am bone-idle and/or exhausted). So it will be business as usual here - i.e., long rambling posts every ten days or so. My contribution to cross-site-ness for the time being is probably going to be going through the flists of the small-fandom lj communities I'm busily stalking and dw-watch everyone who crossposts. :D --- And now for con_txt! If you have been following this saga, you will know that I submitted an utterly ridiculous number of panels (in the non-david-mitchell sense of panels, though do you know how tempted I am to suggest a fannish panel game for Saturday evening entertainment? So tempted) to the concomm, and I have just gotten the first voting-results email. ...ten of my panels are either in, or possibly/probably in, and by con-txt tradition, they are now asking *me* to volunteer for or find mods for them all. I know some of you are going to con-txt, or know people who are: anybody interested in modding or co-modding any of these if they get in? ( Panel Fun )( And now for a cute and cuddly baby Dalek! )If I made a small flock of these daleklings - say, 4-6, in a rainbow of bright cheerful nursery colors - would it be worth submitting to the con-txt art auction? Would anybody bid? I have been messing with the pattern for so long that I've lost all perspective on it, I have no idea if it even looks like a Dalek anymore, because I've forgotten what Daleks look like when they aren't pink crochet. Oh, I know! Poll! ( Because this entry wasn't long and scattered enough already! )
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| April 15th, 2010 04:08 pm - Original & Fandom Fic poll follow-up
Wow, that entry is almost tied for "most comments I have ever gotten." Clearly people care about this issue! Now, if only I could write some fic that got that much response! ...if only I could write some fic, period. :P There is a lot of good discussion going on in the comments, too, some of them along tangents I really want to follow up on (I didn't reply to all of them that I meant to, either - somewhere around the point where comments on an entry collapse I completely lose track of what's going on and am mostly lost except for reading the email notifications.) There's good stuff in OTW's follow-up post, too. Some people asked me to post the specific examples I was thinking of for each poll question, so here they are under the cut, at leas the ones I can link to, along with a teeny-tiny bit of analysis. ( Poll examples )% of examples currently published as fic that y'all declared original: 3/9, 33% % of pro-published (non-tie-in) examples y'all declared fanfic: 1/5 as of now, but both "High Wizardry" and the Lovecraft example have been fluctuating right around the 50% mark. % of examples that are within 20% of a tie: 11/32, 33% Also, the con-txt panel survey is live!No prizes for people who manage to guess one of the panels I submitted, because, umm, your odds just for picking one at complete random would actually be pretty good, plus a couple of them are re-posts from previous years. But feel free to guess anyway, and I will confirm yes or no :D
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| April 10th, 2010 02:49 pm - On original fic and fanfic
There are currently a couple of debates going around - about the problem of Sue-shaming and about mixing original fic and fanfic in communities and archives - that have combined with other stuff to make me want to write about original writing. So, re: the debate going around about whether AO3 should allow original stuff in with the fanworks: There are some people who want to keep a wall between original and fan fiction, and want to keep AO3 limited to fan writers. And I can see their point - I, too, am far less likely to read something if it's original: it's harder work to read, less likely to be id-tastic, when I'm in the mood for fanwork I don't want original, and either the average quality of original fic is less, or I simply don't have good enough filters for finding the good stuff with original as compared to fan work. Plus, many original writing communities are not only very different in culture to fanwriting communities, some of them are openly hostile to fanwriting, or to some of the values that my particular fanwriting community espouses. The problem I have with that viewpoint is that the separation between original and fan work *isn't* a wall. It is, at best, a long sloping gradient with something on it that might be an attempt at a wall that has fallen over in places and wasn't very straight to begin with (and has only been there for a paltry few decades anyway.) The boundary between original and fan work is not a hard boundary. People have brought up historical RPF several times already, but as far as I'm concerned, it's only the tip of the iceberg. I write stuff that is definitely fanfiction. I write stuff that is definitely original fiction. And I write stuff that, um, I have no bloody idea if it's one or the other. And the thing that attracted me, as an author, to AO3, is that it's one archive where I don't have to worry if my fanwork is "enough" for it. Is it slashy enough, or too slashy? Shippy enough, or too shippy? Too porny or not porny enough? Too long or too short, not canonical enough, not finished enough, too crossovery, too script-y or meta-y or poem-y to be a proper story, not angsty enough, too much or not enough... on AO3 I can just put everything up, as a proper archive, without having to stress over categories. I would love if "not fan-fic-y enough" was one of those categories I didn't have to worry about on AO3. And since - *for me* - the most important role of AO3 is to be an archive for fanwriters to universally preserve and organize their work, I want all the edge cases to be allowed; if that means blanket allowing original fiction (and I suspect it does), then so be it. I would, however, support a restriction that every author account must have at least one definite fanwork uploaded, to preserve the archive as primarily fannish and to filter out people who are hostile to fanfic culture. And a rule that any original work hosted on AO3 must allow derivative work. And, sheerly out of curiosity (and not intended to be anyone's opinion on what should or shouldn't get posted at AO3): Here is a poll about some of those "edge" cases. What do you think, fandom-at-large? Original or fanwork? (And no, you don't get tickyboxes or third options. You must make a judgement! Like archives always make me do!) ( V. important poll under cut )(I will stop there before poll gets even longer, but for the record, none of these are hypothetical cases - they are all either things I personally have written, or things other people who identify as fanwriters have done that I could point you to.)
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| March 11th, 2010 10:26 pm - Some scraps of things.
Here are some posts I have made to DW communities in the past week: asexuality: Queering the Census: We ALL Count, in which I gripe about the Queer the Census campaign, which is about greater visibility for LGBT people but erases everyone who isn't heterosexual but doesn't fit it one of the L-G-B-T boxes. common_nature: Welcome!, In which elke_tanzer and I have started a community that is all about nature, and you all should join it! And post stuff there! And leave comments! create_my_comm: Little Details, in which we are all agreed that DW needs a community that is like l_d only awesomer, and none of us want to be the one to start it! (So you should!) starry_sea: Anybody still here?, in which I apologize abjectly for abandoning my own community, and talk about how to get it active again. tarot: An Amazing Tarot Blog, in which I rave at length about Pre-Gebelin Tarot History, which discusses tarot from a strictly historical and rational perspective, a perspective which is deeply awesome and far, far too hard to find. treknovelfest: Illustration for "Three T'kay Stories", in which I have done a lot of research in the Starfleet Archives and found photographs & descriptions of the original ancient Vulcan artifacts that were used to illustrate ljc's treknovelfest entry based on my prompt, From The Terran Coyote to The Klingon K'Ortar: Tricksters of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. ...there, that can be my followfriday. :D (What posts have you made to DW communities in the past week?) Most of those were posts I have been procrastinating on making for months! Having them done is like breathing clear air again. (Also, omg, I might actually have to change my to-do list now - I'm afraid the dry-erase marker might have set in on some of them.) There's several more I've had on hold, though - maybe now that I'm on a roll I can scratch even more of them off. In the spirit of getting things done, how about that WIPs meme that was going around awhile ago? One paragraph from everything in my "In progress" folder, was it? ( This includes fics, meta posts, vids, fanmixes, and various stranger things, in all states of completion, fyi. )...it says something about me that my reaction to all of that laid out is "That's less than thirty things! Not at bad as I thought!" If you ask for more information about any of them in comments, I will probably give it to you. (At length! ^_^ ) Also while I am doing random meme-y things, poall: Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22 If I were to lose all perspective and sign up for scifibigbang, I should write:
View AnswersThe one with the zero-gravity Olympics.
7 (31.8%) The one where the prince gets talked into being figurehead for the princesses' girl-power revolution, and there are scimitar cats, magic swords, and a lot of plot-relevant discussion of fashion.
7 (31.8%) Fanfic. Duh.
4 (18.2%) You know better than to sign up for a big bang.
4 (18.2%)
Current Mood:: ![[mood icon]](https://melannen.dreamwidth.org/file/131608.png) bouncy
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| May 11th, 2009 12:29 am - Mother's Day!
Hello to new subscribers! And everybody else! I will getting to all the online stuff I need to be doing soon, I swear. I've been offline all weekend, more than I was planning to be, and I am *so* behind. By which I mean, stellar_dust and I went to see the new Star Trek movie with Mom yesterday! From here on in, there may be spoilers in cuts and comments on this entry. !! I haven't been reading anyone elses' reaction posts, but if you posted it in the last two days, chances are I have it open it a tab to read as soon as this goes up. To start with, I liked the movie. It was a good movie! It was fun! It was laugh-out-loud funny in many places! The characters were great, the characterization was great, the actors all did either a great job mimicking the originals or a better job than the originals. It was deeply geeky and full of glee and was clearly made by somebody who loved Star Trek and thinks Kirk and Spock are doing it.And now I am going to be one of the people in that Onion video and list ( all the things that were wrong with it. )Also, Spock is still totally a mind-slut. ANYWAY. It was a fun movie. If you have any interest in Star Trek, or SF action flicks, or both, it's probably worth seeing. It has a lot more Leonard Nimoy in it than I was expecting, and plenty of old!Trek outtakes, and a lot of fun non-ST-specific sci-fi summer movie stuff. They considerately made it officially AU, so I don't have to be angry about the way it ruined canon. And it has rekindled my love of the real Star Trek. ... by which I mean the fanfic and the early Bantam and Pocket Books novels. If you know them at all, you may have noticed up in the cut there that I kind of live in the world of the books (and the animated series). C'thia! Rihannsu! Klingon Chess! Captain April's cardigans! The clone of Captain Kirk who the female Romulan Commander won in a duel and dragged off to dress up as her frilly delicate boytoy! That one where they all turn into mermaids! That one where they all get genderswapped and girl!Kirk is totally about two seconds from sleeping with Captain Kang before Spock interrupts! The fact that T'hy'la totally means 'soulbond', no, Jim, I don't care how many footnotes you write denying it. You know what I'm talkin' about. Anyway, now I'm working on putting together a packet of e-books that people who like the new movie should read. You know, 'Star Trek the Gay High School AU: the Original Version'. ( Here's my preliminary list, any suggestions to add? )Am tempted to make a Dreamwidth community starry_sea, specifically for the sort of Star Trek fans who know what "Starry Sea" is a quotation from. To which I could upload e-books and host discussions about things like the Ruling Queen and T'hy'la and Spockanalia and David Gerrold and stuff. Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13 Should I do it?
View AnswersYes!
7 (53.8%) no.
0 (0.0%) I have no idea what you're talking about. But it sounds fascinating.
4 (30.8%) Spockanalia had ticky boxes.
2 (15.4%) (Wow, there's like twelve new DW communites with "Star Trek" in their interests since Thursday.)
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| May 2nd, 2009 12:47 am - Actual poll.
Sorry about that. And I bet if I point out the remaining friends terminology they'll just feed the RTE to #hEll again. :P Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31 Will I miss anything if I stop reading your LJ?
View AnswersNope, feel free to stop.
11 (36.7%) Yes, there will be stuff there that's not on DW
7 (23.3%) You don't subscribe to my LJ *now*.
11 (36.7%) You don't read my LJ *now*, and you should, 'cause you're missing out.
1 (3.3%) I don't have an LJ.
0 (0.0%) Will I miss anything if I stop reading your JF?
View AnswersNope, feel free to stop.
8 (25.8%) Yes, there will be stuff there that's not on DW
4 (12.9%) You don't subscribe to my JF *now*.
7 (22.6%) You don't read my JF *now*, and you should, 'cause you're missing out.
0 (0.0%) I don't have a JF.
12 (38.7%)
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 | May 1st, 2009 10:54 pm
I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done on DW today - finish and post porn for open beta, write that post about accessible HTML (since it is blogging against disablism day), work through the support instructions, get a couple recs posts together, ladedadeda. But it has become apparent that I will not be accomplishing any of these things. However! stellar_dust bought me paid account! So I can abuse paid account now! I have made iconses! A new version of my old Mathnet one, and, since I *can*, a Mathnet dreamsheep! (Feel free to take & use these. Because Mathnet.) Also, of course, a Commander Valentine dreamsheep, just for me.    Also, I can abuse polls! The proportion of people on my flists who are crossposting has gotten big enough that it's starting to involve a lot of scrolling. I'm not going to defriend anybody, but I would like to set up a default reading filter on LJ. So, please fill out my poll? ETA: No wonder nobody was voting in my poll! The poll creator still has the option "lock to friendslist" and I didn't stop to think that probably meant "access" rather than "subscribe". Since I haven't been accessing people, ya'll couldn't vote. New poll up shortly! Also, will be pointing out poll generator fail.
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| April 19th, 2009 01:38 pm - more on styles!
I had forgotten how I react to coding. This is how I react to coding: I went from knowing nothing about anything but basic html to dreaming about Core2 last night. In about six hours. (Of course, for some reason I also dreamed that treewishes was secretly Terry Brooks, so that may not be diagnostic.) I am not *good* at coding, because what I enjoy is crashing through reinventing the wheel and doing things the wrong way by trial-and-error and example without actually reading the directions or re-using old solutions; but I do find it hard to *stop*. Anyway, after hours of pounding away, I now have a DW style that is a vague approximation of the ugly, crufty, half-broken S1 style I use in various hacked-together forms on LJ and JF. Only on LJ and JF it is high-contrast black, and my DW version is very, very pink, mostly to thumb my nose all all the anti-Tropo Red people. :P (The One Pig With Horns is just a placeholder image, though, promise, stellar_dust.) The important thing, though, is that it has custom friendlist colors!!! I am just synesthetic enough that seeing my flist people without their proper color screws with my head. So, style with custom colors! (If anyone wants to use this style, which is a variant on LJ's Punquin Elegant, or the Generator port I made, I can give you the core2-compileable source, and if you'd like me to port another basic LJ style over instead, let me know and I'll try it; the code is really, really ugly though (I mean, even in the original S2 version before I mucked with them it was ugly, and I could tell this without even previously knowing anything about S2. Here's how ugly: I had to look at the Core2 test style in order to figure out how to add comments.) ( Herein I talk about styles coding such that anybody who actually knows about it will laugh at the stupid, because I have forgotten how to talk about programming, and anybody who doesn't will be bored to death. ) Anyway, more important question (And test of polls!) Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13 Is it cheating to validate all the OpenID accounts I've got (which is probably around ten) just to get invite codes?
View AnswersYes. It is cheating. Don't.
1 (7.7%) Of course not! Do it!
1 (7.7%) Only if you're going to use the accounts for something else later (like flists or claiming imported comments)
4 (30.8%) Ooh, why didn't I think of that?
3 (23.1%) Radio button!
4 (30.8%)
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| October 15th, 2007 07:49 pm - Okay, traditional NaNo poll:
[ Poll #292](Quick NaNo summary, if you care: Sword&Sorcery set in vaguely Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Plot is currently nebulous; will be doing a lot of playing with worldbuilding, especially gender, and a lot of wibbling about worldbuilding. What plot there is, is kind of the traditional Chosen-One-Kills-Evil-Wizard storyline, but backwards and upside-down: Evil Wizard already killed, Chosen One has to live down the weird instead of living up to it. ...Will probably give up within about a week, but all bets are off. Also there is an ancient Sumerian glam rocker.)
Current Mood:: determined
Current Music:: colbert
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| October 11th, 2007 09:09 pm
So I was going to remember to actually watch SPN tonight, but considering we're like ten minutes in and I've already hit embarrassment-squick-mute three times, I think I'll just wait 'till Sam shows up again. Maybe. Or just read fic instead. Meanwhile, Halloween plans have officially fallen apart. Must find a plan B. [ Poll #291]
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