What is up?

[lettered]

Hello everyone. I haven't been on my journal in a while. I really miss you guys.

Lately I have: started yet another job, felt unwilling or unable to clean my room and keep up with laundry, failed at grazieprego, celebrated the release of Sarah Rees Brennen's book, The Demon's Lexicon here with sarahtales, orexisbella and all the cool marmalade fish (go read it; it's really good!). I have gained a new niece, not visited my cousin as much as I would like, angsted about Dreamwidth and how I'd like to move there but it seems like too much work. I have conceived a brilliant Buffyverse story, which awesomeness overwhelmed me for precisely 1.7 days, at which point I realized lynnenne had already written it and called it Vicarious. I have interviewed for new jobs and started learning about the stars, and become so addicted to caffeine that when I didn't have it this morning I pretty much felt the worst I've ever felt. I have failed to research making a website or ask about making one for marmalade_fish, failed to email seraphcelene whom I really miss, failed to stay in contact with lots of people who are important to me, but happily reconnected with some other people (like my best friends in Houston and my old room mate), started playing D&D, and discovered that even in the company of geeks I'm still geekier, because getting drunk off my ass and clubbing just never sounds that fun to me.

But mostly, it's been Star Trek. I have mainlined the Original Series, I have spent most evenings perusing the kink meme (st_xi_kink), I have posted over 7 prompts and filled 3, started filling approximately 5 more, have started at least 7 other fics besides those, and have written 25,000 words in the fandom without finishing any of it. I have read Nimoy's biography I Am Spock, listened to Shatner's albun Has Been at least three dozen times, obsessed for hours and hours with my_daroga, fallen in love with Bill Shatner, fallen in love with Shatner/Nimoy, but not quite as much as Kirk/Spock. I've posted anonymously for the first time in my life because my fanfiction confused me and my requests sort of overwhelmed me, and I've been so grateful that my_daroga feels similar to me because it has made me feel less weird, and because she's so clever and talented and insightful, and because I love her.

I have been waiting without much patience for the next chapter of this story, I have roleplayed ST characters in three different venues, I have read published and unpublished 70s K/S fanfiction, I've written and not posted probably about 5K worth of meta about Shatner, Kirk/Spock, and the role of women in ST and media. I've talked more about sex and probably more openly than I ever have in my life, I've fallen in love with space and sci fi, I appear to have lost all shame, and I signed up for a big bang. I've fallen in love with genderbending and tentacle sex, and last Saturday my_daroga, Mr. Daroga, and I drove all the way down to Portland to see the episode "Amok Time" performed live in a park by some dudes with bad costumes. I have actually not read that much ST fanfiction, because I've been too consumed by the kink meme, and how much there is, and confused about what is going on in ST fandom and where it is going on, and how to find any of it. I do not think I've figured in the fandom at all, I have met very few people in it, I've felt unable to post any of my fic or meta, and feel like I'm dancing the periphery of something I'd really like to be a part of, but feel too overwhelmed or self-conscious to really join.

I've felt overwhelming confusion about how to express all this on my livejournal, because despite the fact that long ago I stopped living and breathing Buffyverse, I still feel that's where I made most my friends, and I feel like talking about ST the way I did about BtVS would bore most people here, but going and meeting new people and trying to get them interested in me and being interested in them feels really intimidating because I'm shy in some ways, and anyway I still want to have things to say to the awesome people I already know here. But my flist is really overwhelming, and I don't know what's going on with anyone, and I really miss you all!

So, that's me. What's up with you? *puts chin in hands, ready to listen*

Comments

[stultiloquentia.livejournal.com]

I feel like I just don't have
time to do that so I just throw a lot at my_daroga and keep even more to
myself and then go read kink meme to make myself feel better. This has
been going on over two months.

Ahaha. For two years (!) I've been rooming with my best friend from college -- this following four years of living on my own. We have wonderful dinner table conversations, because we frequently have wildly different opinions, but know each other well enough that we just go ahead and say things like, "Well, your first point is stupid, because blah blah blah," without worrying about each other's egos. The other day, following a particularly crunchy redux of "The author's dead!"/"Isn't!" I remarked, "Have you noticed I blog a lot less since we moved in together?" and she laughed. I can't bottle myself up, but apparently a medeajane is as good as a blog.

Apparently when Spock is a girl, in my head it's
suddenly alright to have him like, really really be a slut for it and be
all pliant and 'give it to me' and stuff, which is not right, because
that's ooc for Spock, and furthermore I don't want to write anything
where if someone is a girl suddenly they can't be on top or a dominant
partner in bed. But the thing is Spock tends to be very confident because
he knows exactly what he's doing, Vulcans know their minds and bodies
very well, they can regulate them and shit. But suddenly he has this body
he doesn't know at all and he's all wet and soft and has a g-spot
and can orgasm over and over and over again and Jim knows it,
knows it really really well, like a whole lot better than Spock, and
Spock's all confused and "wha . . ..? I told you I cannot produce a
single orgasm more, captain--wait here I go". Anyway it's
very confusing to me.

Well, I'm useless to comment on either the Vulcan physiology/psychology or even Spock's characterization. But you're right: I want to read it anyway. Not just because it's you, either; I really want to read that story. I feel you should post it and then DVD commentary it right after: put all your confusion and ambivalence and meta right out there. That's the thing about fanfic I'm perennially obsessed with: it's always already metafiction, and stories like this in particular are about unpacking (and airing on the laundry line) our needs and observations as much as they're about mimesis. We must write not only stories that mimic Spock, but stories that comment on Spock and our relationship with Spock. Go read Francesca Coppa's TWC paper, Women, Star Trek, and the early development of fannish vidding, on the missing Number One and Spock as stand-in for female science professionals and fans.

I'm sitting here hypertexting madly, in my head, among that, and your description of your story, and my favourite quote from Marna and Lea's Richard II/Bolingbroke slash commentary: "And really, if slash has a claim on some feminist ground it's women taking on that whole obsession: ok, so WHAT IF HE DOES TAKE IT? [...] You know, this piece on one level is all about ok, Richard II? Takes it on his fucking knees and likes it and what about it?" Because I think there's something crucial here about slash, yes -- what does a man have to be to be "manly"? -- but also WOMEN! Sometimes a certain kind of feminism tries to trick us into thinking that the only correct feminist model is aggressively take-charge and on-top, but that's as dumb as saying real men mustn't bottom. The fantasy of yielding is seriously powerful. Maybe Spock needs to chew on that for a bit.

Oh! I want to read your stargate fic. I don't know anything about stargate, but I want to read it. I'd love to read your multi-chaptered one!!! So exciting. Good luck.

Thank you. :) I want to read your Batman. What's your favourite? (By which I mean what's your favourite, not necessarily what's your most srs bzns.)

[tkp.livejournal.com]

K and I never call each other stupid. This is mostly because both of us are geniuses. ;o) But yeah, once I get to say things to K I feel less of a need to say it on my journal; a big reason is she understands what I'm saying.

Well, I agree with you, about metafiction, and our own needs, and slash, and the place of women in it. But agreeing with all that is what makes it difficult. Uh, I'm self confident enough, or arrogant enough, if you want, to think I can write that story that is about all those things, and provokes thoughts like that, without a dvd commentary.

I think I could write something that is in character for Spock, and says something about women, and slash, and says something about a woman falling apart, on the bottom, completely submissive, liking being called really demeaning names, without losing strength or identity, if you know what I mean.

It's obviously very complicated, but I'd much rather do that than cop out with some nice porn and then do a dvd commentary. Because I want to be the kind of writer that can really make people think without telling people later that I wanted them to think. I think it's fine when other people do that; nice porn that gets you off is very nice indeed. I know I'm allowed to write just porn and don't have to justify it with thinky. But I don't want to; I'd rather flex my writerly muscle.

Of course, I say that, get too intimidated by all of it, so don't even post the nice porn.

I want to read your Batman. What's your favourite?

?... I only wrote one Batman fic. It's here if you want it, but don't feel obliged. *THAT* is porn I managed to do without my brain getting too much in the way. Don't get me wrong; quite a bit of thinky crept in, I think, but it didn't incapacitate me to the extent that I could no longer even write it for the need to SAY SOMETHING.

Thanks for your thoughts, and the link. I'll be watching your journal for the Stargate fic.

[tkp.livejournal.com]

Great article. I'm . . . sort of working on a project about women, slash, porn, sex, power dynamics etc in sci fi, ST, ST fandom and fandom. I mean, besides the girl!Spock fic. And besides the girl!Kirk Reboot rewrite I'm doing for the big bang. So, any articles like that are more than welcome!

About slash, and guys taking it on their knees and fucking liking it. Maybe this is what you're already saying, but I have trouble with women I respect being on their knees and fucking liking it. I know it's alright for her to do that. It's alright to write her that way too--I have written her that way, but I always want to take the effort to show that she is choosing this, she's turned on by this. She's not on her knees because she's a woman. She's a woman, which means she gets just as much say in the matter as the man, and she chooses to be on her knees and likes to get called a cunt and wants to be degraded, if she wants it, not because she's a girl but because that's what turns her on.

But if I'm writing a woman that way I always want to show that it's her choice, that she's equal, blah blah. And I want to read it that way, too. If it's a man being that way--then I care way less. I think other people--but also, to some shameful extent, myself--already see two men as an equal relationship, or if it's a man on his knees to a woman, we know that he has chosen that without having to see it.

One thing slash does for me is give me a way to have someone be submissive in sex scenes without feeling like I have to prove that it's alright to be submissive. Now, there's something sadly sexist in that, on my own part--I mean, girls shouldn't have to prove it; we should be able to do whatever we like. If we lived in an ideal world, that'd be the case.