sundries

[rm]

Looks like 4,800 people have entered America's Next Great Pundit. To me, the number sounds low. But then I'm also skeptical about how impressed the Washington Post is with the entries so far (oh, wait, I just reread that, they're impressed with the diversity of the entries. Okay then! Doesn't mean they are good). My gut says it has to be like the slush pile at literary agencies, just with less dragons. Maybe there are dragons too, I don't know.

Speaking of dragons, last night Patty and I watched S2.3 of Merlin. What is with this show? On one hand, actual drama for the first time, so that's something. And the Slash Dragon is always funny (for those of you not watching this AWFUL show, there's a dragon that lives under Camelot that keeps explaining to Merlin how Arthur is his destiny; fandom refers to this creature as the Slash Dragon, because it is!)

On the other hand, is the show's worldview amoral, immoral or just totally absent and the product of incoherent writing. It's like, with Torchwood one can usually tell what went wrong wit the script or the direction or the acting or whatever and what's supposed to be dark and horrible. With Merlin Patty and I just keep shouting at the TV, "what the hell was that?"

I also stumbled upon a Torchwood fic last night that was "Ianto rapes Jack because he's jealous of Gwen, then Jack and Ianto fall in love and have babies." DEPARTMENT OF NO. Not even because that's offensive (although it is), but because it's narratively ANNOYING. Thank you, this has been a public service announcement.

Last night we ate at the Tibetan restaurant we like. We noticed, for the first time (maybe they are new?) stuffed animal yaks along the staircase. Everyone loves a yak.

I also went down to Babycakes for gluten-free goodies before meeting up with Patty.

This morning as we left our apartment a tiny kitten appeared on the stairs. It came down to us, circled around us making tiny kitten noises and then went back upstairs. We are not sure if it belongs to someone, if it snuck in through the backdoor to the alley/garden, if it needs our help or what. We're going to keep an eye out. We didn't want to bring it inside our place because of FIV and other risks to our cats, but if we needed to we could keep them all separated while we got it to a vet and a no-kill shelter. Tiny kitten!

I have to write an article about gay bars for men in Baltimore tomorrow.

We are not Valentine's Day people. Not because we aren't schmoopy, but because it's one of those societally enforced things that makes us feel weird and awkward. But, I've been having this urge to visit Cold Spring which is the cutest little Hudson Valley town EVER and accessible by Metro North and I found us an awesome B&B that involves a wood-burning stove in the room and breakfast in bed, so we're booking it for a romantic weekend in February. Yeah, one month after the cruise and two weeks before Gallifrey and some random about of time before the unknown DC trip and Lunacon in March and two months before England, part 1. Wacky, huh?

Despite always feeling weird about these things, I did mail my publisher re: having a meeting about deadline things and also the royalty check he said he needed to mail. So er, yeah, we'll see.

I need to get on a bunch of other things, but the snow is lifting! With any luck I'll be able to announce some contracts or releases or appearances or something soon.

Spring season at BAM looks pretty good. If we can work it into our schedules, there's a couple of baroque opera things I want to go to and some dance worth checking out, as well as a play Alan Rickman is directing (and he's doing a Q&A one day, which on one hand, I'd love to go to, because I love listening to directors be thinky about directing. On the other hand, i still remember the stage door after Private Lives and it makes me want to never leave my house again.

I have found a photo reference for Vitya (and Evan, you know, except Evan's a slob and these are not slobby pics) and for my new haircut all at once. Now I just need time.

The Limelight to become a small-business marketplace thingy. As the article says, "I went to The Limelight, who didn't?"

Meanwhile, a very brief thing on Reszo Kasztner that's not particularly informative but intriguing nonetheless. The figure of the collaborator is one that interests me in narratives a lot.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

in a not good way
Ummm, yeah. Understatement, I believe.

Adam establishes a few things, #1 That Ianto has a really dark side, #2 That Ianto does not like this side of his and does his best to repress it and #3 That Jack manages to alleviate some of the stress of Ianto's repression - that may be extrapolation and fanfiction thinking, but I think the text supports it, in the way that Jack handles Ianto's faux confessions - #4 is of course that Ianto is ashamed of these feeling and needs to confess them, duh.

I'm trying to wrap my mind regarding what you mean by taboo, because ostensibly non-consent is taboo in our rape-filled culture. How would it be different?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Jack, arguably, comes from a really sex-positive culture. We don't. Our rape "taboo" (which is pretty bullshit) comes from ideas of morality and kindness. It's not really about the sexual component, it's just, you know, not good to hurt people (except, of course, I think our rape taboo is bullshit, since so often our culture is all "boys will be boys" and "she deserved it" and "it wasn't rape rape").

While the Whoniverse is rather intentionally a-religious (all that wacky content with demons and Satan and stuff that's big fun if you're info gnosticism that keeps coming up aside), there are to my mind three arguments to make about Jack's cultural background:

1. Actually, it's just Jack and his attitudes about sex has nothing to do with his cultural background.
2. In the future, people are just way more chill about sex and it's just not a big deal, thus reducing shame about sex and one just wouldn't rape because "but why would you do that?"
3. Sex is, despite the above mentioned a-relgiousness of the Whoniverse, something akin to a holy (if casual) thing, making the violation of personal consent a crime against both individual and culture and something that doesn't have the bullshit grey area discussion attached to it that our culture has.

Because rape is abhorent to you, me and the people we hang out with, doesn't mean it has a cultural perception of the most shockingly sick thing imaginable that erodes the humanity of all us.

I really suspect it might be that sort of thing in Jack's culture, which is what I also use as my argument for Jack's willingness to be all chivalrous and old-fashioned on earth -- even if it is sexist, it's how to be a good guy in a culture where that's not a default state. It's also what I use as my argument for Jack's self-hatred, because Jack was a torturer and I don't imagine he was able to draw the line at the inevitably sexual component of that every time. Jack's done shit not just that other people would hate him for, but stuff he can't forgive himself for.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Because rape is abhorent to you, me and the people we hang out with, doesn't mean it has a cultural perception of the most shockingly sick thing imaginable that erodes the humanity of all us.

I keep forgetting this.

[nods] I can see how those three arguments come about, I like the thought of it being his cultural default, making it something to look forward to. Looking at the history of torture, the humiliation and pain put upon the victim seems to have been more often than not sexual because, well, the sensitive bits are there and, as you say, the violation is that much more acute. Jack's self-hatred is very well explained through that prism. When I talk to other fans about the potential lack of taboos in Jack's past/our future it inevitably also comes to incest - also given Jack's immortality, it would kind of be inevitable, PLUS the whole dynamic in the hub (pre COE) was pretty incestuous.

And hell yeah the gnostic side of things is fun!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole "incest in inevitable thing" makes me a little aggravated, because at a given point of generations and generations, it's so not mattering! Of course, I say this as someone who has grandparents on one side who were first cousins, which completely flips out Americans in the year 2009. The modern western perception of many incest taboos as a universal timeless constant completely wigs me out, because if you read any history at all, that becomes obviously very not true very quickly.

My two big fandom interests have been Jack and Snape, and they were both arguably torturers at some point in canon described but not seen. The contortions people go through to argue that sexual assault was not a component of this torture strikes me as really dishonest. If we can't confront this shit in our fictions, we're never going to manage to confront it anywhere else either.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Coming from an incest laden history (Jews, we're not a mixing sort) as well I can only agree. Of course it's not mattering, but recall a discussion I had with a friend, in which I explained how Alice suddenly changed my perception of Gwen - Jack views her as a surrogate daughter theory - which didn't negate the sexual tension that existed throughout the show, which led to the question of Alice and Jack's sexual attraction to each other, if it exists, how they'd negotiate it, etc.

I hate JKR for emasculating Snape the way she did. You can argue that through Harry's perspective, Snape's memories came off as XYZ, because Snape himself came off as, well we all know what... but honestly! She just made his this pathetic, obsessive (which he is, no doubt) and took away any shred of dignity and nobility he clung to over the years in order to survive!
Arrrgh.
Also, that epilogue is an insult to readers' intelligence at the very least and just plain bad writing.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the fic on touchyerwood that's Jack walking in on Ianto and Alice fucking? Because it manages to address lots of the wackiness of what you bring up while, you know, being porn.

As to JKR and Snape.... oh yeah. I really wish we could ever know what the hell JKR was thinking at various stages of her writing process with Snape. Because viscous fluid of memory? When we finally learn that Snape had a thing for a real actual woman? Making him finally a man instead of the subject of female adjectives used to belittle? Really? Really really really? I'm still floored by it.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I haven't been following touchyerwood, I should huh? Is it recent?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Anonymous kinkmeme made of awesome.

Infludes FPF and RPF (really, read the two RPF's on the first page, they are fantastically smart). Some people have later claimed their stuff and psoted it in their journals, but there's great shit in there you might never see otherwise (including the Ianto/Alice, the enema fic I rec'ed the other day (which the author later claimed) and a really subby!Jack/Ianto prostate milking fic).

Also, don't just rely on the index the mod puts up, as it tends to be behind. Digging through the actual request/response post is worth it.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I've got it tracked, so every time anything gets posted or commented there I get an email. So much pr0n on there that one rarely ever sees! Wonderful!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow! There's some really good stories there, conceptually and narratively! Hawt stuff to boot.

The Ianto/Alice story was brill, thank you! I've been needing a story like that... or something.

Those RPF/FPF stories were so sad and clever. Thanks for getting me onto the meme. I was aware of it, but not really there.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I LOVED the RPF/FPF because it was so what RPF is for beyond the hot.

[axeslade.livejournal.com]

I cannot say yes to all of this enough.