you kinky dino, you sundries

[rm]

Long post on Quartett later, which will include references to Hypnotoad.

Cats with diplomas. via jackolatern.

starstealingirl alerted me to the existence of kinkfreezone. Now, I think it's perfectly reasonable for there to be fanfic communities that focus on whatever people are into or not into, and a comm devoted to vanilla fanfic makes perfect sense to me. Assuming you can figure out how to define that. Well kinkfreezone provides its users with a list of kinks that aren't welcome on the community, which, again, you know, FINE, except, you know, maybe kink isn't the best thing to use for some of these things.

Specifically, the community says "Gender themes (gender confusion; sex changes; genderfucks; hermaphrodites; cross-dressing or other forms of genderbending; drag queens and transvestites; androgyny; forced feminization; butch/femme; tomboys)."

Department of newsflash:

1. I am not a kink;
2. I am not a "genderfuck," but thank you for playing, and, by the way...
3. What about characters who canonically are or do any of those things (i.e., Desire from Sandman, Pie'oh'Pah from Imajica, etc.) Also the enforcement of gender norms can very much be a kink too.

Anyway, while I totally get the point of the community, they really may want to take a look at the degree to which their verbiage is a pretty vicious, heteronormative fuck you. Also, there's a ton of other really problematic shit lurking on there as well (all virgins are kinks; apparently so is all rape recovery).

One of the front page stories on About.com today? Everything you ever wanted to know about dino sex .
(Image created by About.com is of two cartoon dino silhouettes kissing; it makes me happy.)

Giant bird snags car. Actually not really, but you have to look at this image chickenfried_jo posted.

Best headline you're going to see on the Berlin Wall over the next week? The Berlin Wall: A Division Through Time. This article is pretty great, too. I know I will be reading too much nostalgia news next week.

Dog run portraits.

NaNo is officially getting hard. I remain under quota, but I have been writing every day. I'm currently in the middle of a huge scene that I think actually needs to get even huger and be broken down into a couple of chapters. I realize first drafts are always terrible, and I am trying to convince myself just not to worry, that structure, more richness in B-plot and flow will come in the second draft. I just have to get this done. But it's antithetical to how I work, and I'm hitting the "actually, I think this kinda blows" point, although I think it will be great When and If I Ever Finish It.

(I had an excerpt up a moment ago but then took it away, because I'm feeling vulnerable and weird about the whole thing).

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Beyond their verbiage being heteronormative (and possibly heterosexist)... it's just feels downright exclusionary.
I mean, just e.g.,nipple play? What includes "play" and what doesn't? How the hell do you police that sort of writing?
How do you decide why a character does anything without destroying the entire narrative?
Maybe I'm being picky and diverting my potential simmering rage at the way this community presents kink and I'm just trying to think how vanilla can be written down, when vanilla, like kink, is a whole slew of behaviours.

*Cheers* Go NaNo Go */Cheers*
In case that wasn't clear, that was me being all cheerleader-y. I'm not very good at that sort of thing, alas.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah is vanilla sex really PiV (despite the community allowing slash) with no foreplay whatsoever? oral sex allowed as long as it's not with enthusiasm?

ETA: also just posted another little excerpt.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I was going to edit my comment when I saw you added the category that made me go: DUDEWTF!GRAARGHNTBLAHHHHH!!!!

ETA: Yes, what you quoted! That's fucked up!

If vanilla sex is PiV my sex life with my Ex was one whole big kink because neither one of us had a P!
But seriously, leaving a hicky?! Are they nuts!
Okay, I'm now feeling the rage from the whole identities =/= kink thing!

ARRGH, once again.

Re:Nano Excerpt - Ha! Merlin! Not my fandom at all (I've seen nary an ep - though when I read "cheekbones" I flashed to James Marsters... how is that for association!).

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Good lord!
Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear)
Some of these are not voluntary responses IRL! What. The. Hell!?! I have never seen such a sex-negative fic comm in my more than a decade of on-line life!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I had no idea anyone could consider half these things kinks. Like, during sex, I should make sure to stand a foot away from my partner and speak to them at a normal discussion volume and tone lest I do something kinky! OMGWTF?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I can't not blog about this.
Stay tuned.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

There (http://eumelia.livejournal.com/448109.html).
I blogged about it.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

And whatever you do, don't even dream of speaking with your accent.

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

This is one instance where a fic comm actually needs that stick up its ass. Hard, sideways and repeatedly.

I think no one comments on the fics there because none of them have a pulse. It must be, because I saw they didn't forbid zombie sex, necrophilia, or the word "dead". Heheheh. That's it. It's a community of zombie undead getting off on reading soporific vanilla sex! Muuuuuuuh....

[rm.livejournal.com]

I like the person who noted on a post about this elsewhere that the comm doesn't explicitly prohibit "vore" and maybe if we wanted to fuck with them....

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

vore...

Snort! Dare ya! XD

You know, on further reading of this comm it doesn't seem very heternorm or cis to me, either. Where are the Mary Sues in danger? I've read a lot of cis-conforming pulp romance novels (oh Gran, you should have hidden that trunk better...) and the obsessive emphasis in those books on breasts, villainous rapists, semi-con with the curt "hero", and kidnapping, domination, and hurt/comfort sex is legendary.

I always snicker and point first and then my brain (trained by MOM!) starts going "Now now, let's be fair here..." so my thinker is thinking and what I'm seeing is a group of people deeply phobic of sex and most expressions of physical intimacy. I don't want to say asexual, because asexuals aren't necessarily averse to reading or writing about sex (at least the ones I know), but there's some definite phobia here. Puzzling.

[rednwhiterose.livejournal.com]

Snort! Dare ya! XD

I DOUBLE DARE YA!!! :O)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Some of these are not voluntary responses IRL!

No joke. I lost it at "silence; too aroused to speak." Hello, welcome to my life. Apparently I'm kinkier than I thought I was.

rm, I'm going to thank you for the link if only because reading the reactions is entertaining as all get-out. (And I love art for the dino link!)

[rm.livejournal.com]

That is from the About.com home page, but it was so cute I had to grab it.