forget your Unified Theory of Everything

C. Happy birthday to stultiloquentia! She's an excellent writer and thinker and wit, and she makes me incredibly happy when ever I see her soup can. That was not a dirty innuendo.
I. The IWRY Marathon kicked off today! The story is Letters, by Jo (librarian2003). I haven't read it yet, but I'm really excited because Jo's a fabulous writer. She's one of the first Jossverse fic authors I've ever read! So hop to it, kids!
N. Tomorrow lostakasha posts. She wrote B/A, y'all. I'm aquiver with excitement.
D. Does anybody know what happened to Spy!Daddy? I mean, that show, Justice, that used to come on after Bones?
E. Speaking of Bones, this ep was a little hard to watch for me because sometimes every woman I know seems so intent on changing themselves, especially getting thinner. It makes me sad. Also, I'm doing this writing thing where I have to do body modification research, and it's really icky. Like, some of the photos I looked at, with men and 19" waists. I think that's why I'm nauseous.
R. On the other hand, DB. Fuck, that man's arms. No, seriously. I'd do 'em.
E. S4 of AtS OWNS me. It owns me like an owning thing. And long, woe-is-me, what-am-I-now, on-and-on, in-the-church monologues, which JM and that whole scene just, I'm sorry, utterly lamed up for me, VK and that whole other scene made shiny and new for me.
L. Did you guys know T.J. Thyne (Hodgins from Bones) was on AtS?
L. I hate Angel's hair at the beginning of S5. And his clothes.
A. On Oprah, Denzel Washington talked about the art of a single perfect tear.
! Do you guys think Baltar, Joaquin Phoenix, and VK have an uncanny ability to cry?

Reason number eighty-seven-hundred-bajillionty-twelve, and thirteen:

Heroes and sages.

A grain of rice can tip the scale; the truth will set you free.

(and fourteen:

Spoons with big shiny handles. I just like 'em.)

( Doctor My Eyes! Watch out dail-up etc, lots of pics. )

OK, so, discuss. VK and/or Connor vs. young Jackson Browne.

Vs. Angel and Warren Zevon as accompaniments. Gogogogogo!

I have wanted this ever since I got an lj. *points to mood theme*

Thanks to imnotacommittee for directing me to it. It's here if anyone else is interested . . . but somehow I don't see crazydiamondsue giving up her "full" Xander-in-a-speedo mood, and she's the only one I can think of besides INAC who cares.

BUT IT'S THE SOUND OF MUSIC YOU GUYS AND MARIA AND CAPTAIN VON TRAPP AND OMG I'M JUST SO UNBELIEVABLY HAPPY THAT YES, I DO HAVE TO USE THIS MUCH CAPSLOCK. /the hills are bloody the frak alive.

Here's how I feel about slash: all good literature and stories are really just romances. Some just have porn, and others don't.

When I get fannish about something, it's always for a romance between two characters. Two characters will be set up in a story with these elements: their love for each other, their problems with each other, the UST. Then there's my engagement with these two characters: my desires that they come through for each other, that they end up happily ever after, that they have lots and lots of sex. A good story will give the set up all kinds of conflict, all kinds of tension, so that my engagement, my response is to desire that all that conflict and tension be resolved. I express those desires through fandom: my daydreams, fic, and fannish discussions revolve around either replicating that conflict and tension, or resolving it. (A good description of the kind of "desires" I'm talking about, is when you're shouting at the screen: "Kiss already!" Now, after that, you may go write a fic in which they do kiss, and it's such a relief. Or you may go write a fic in which everything thing gets so fucked up beyond belief that they never kiss at all, but both are an expression of the "Kiss already!" desire.)

In a good story, platonic relationships will have the exact same elements, except for the sex element. A truly compelling literary friendship will have two characters set up to love each other, to have problems with each other, to have conflict and tension, except without the UST. And a viewer/reader/experiencers engagement with a good set up like that will be the same: (s)he will desire that the friends come through for each other, that they resolve their issues. And let's take it one step farther, and mention the fanfic interest in incest. In a good story, relationships between members of a family will have the exact same elements, except for the sex elements.

This is where slash comes from, imo. It's about a reader/viewer engaging the set up by desiring that sexual element, because the set up for a platonic relationship are so similar to the set up for a sexual relationship, and produce many of the same forms of engagement, same desires. Does this similarity hold for relationships irl? I don't know, but for me, it doesn't bear comparison, because our rl relationships are not specific set ups meant to engage readers/viewers. But in a good story, the set up and engagement is the same between a well developed platonic relationship and a well developed sexual relationship, the only exception being the sexual element, from what I can tell.

It's not that slashers don't believe in platonic relationships, can't respect them, or think they're lesser, weaker, or unimportant as compared to sexual relationships. No matter how the slasher really feels, slash itself is not about sexualizing everything, or asserting that the only true expression of a relationship can be sex. It's about how a reader/viewer engages a particular set up; in fic, adding the sexual element is adding another dimension to the conflict that has been set up, and another dimension to the reader/viewers engagement. It might not engage you. It engages me, 'cause I like to read about sex.

And what have I learned, from all this?--Write my gen like smut, and write my smut like gen. Smut that is only interested in the sexual element, without the rest of the set up of conflict that deals with love and issues etc, might get you off, but it does not a good story make. Likewise, gen that approaches the relationship between characters as if they were all romances, is what really sets up a good relationship in your story: after all, that's how we get the slash we do: Angel and Spike's story in AtS; Harry and Ron, Harry and Snape, Sirius and Lupin; Sam and Frodo. It's what Kirk and Spock is all about. /meta for the day.

I wanna talk about process, but I don't know how.

( Writing processes, rambling, betaing brainstorming backboarding idea-sharing, an idea for a comm and who's interested? and those dvd commentary things. It's all inside! Like JC Penny. )