Arduinna

I am so jazzed about this, I can't even say. cesperanza gives the full background here, but basically, once upon a time, she came up with this idea for writing tiny stories about characters in a Canadian shack, and shortly thereafter there were 101 little ~500-word stories in something like 60 fandoms written by about 30 people.

And somehow it has been ten years now since then, wow. So in celebration, she's created a new collection on AO3, for anyone who wants to contribute.

I've got two stories in there already, one Leverage and one Burn Notice, and a few more ideas kicking around in my head, too. (This is what happens with me and Shacks: I wind up writing in fandoms I've never written in before.)

Come play! These are a lot of fun, and very low-pressure. Just aim for roughly 500 words, stick your characters in a Canadian shack (no matter how unlikely that may be), and post to the Canadian Shack 2011 collection on AO3.

Help us get to 101!

♥

I was poking around some old stuff and found this post from last October that I'd written up but then never posted, for some reason, and figured what the hell. May as well put it up now!

( Assisted Suicide - spoilers )

Thank you so much! The thought of a story in any of these fandoms is already making me happy.

Usually this is where I say "whatever you want to do with them is great", and then put my specifics likes and dislikes under a cut for easy ignoring. I'm still doing that, with one caveat:

This past year has been pretty rough on me in terms of personal losses, and I'd really like something that falls on the warm / happy / fluffy / vanilla end of the spectrum, if possible. If that isn't something you can do, I understand; just please no deathfic or loss of a loved one, including pets; and no terminal illnesses of any kind as an h/c trope. Thank you. <3

I love all four of these fandoms unreservedly, so if you have a yen to explore the universe, or bring in additional characters I didn't list, it's all good.

If you want more information about my requests, read on - but please don't worry if your ideas go in a different direction. Optional details are optional! As long as it's for one of these fandoms, and uses the characters, you totally win at Yuletide. \o/


( my fic tastes )

Why I love these fandoms

(Alphabetical, not ranked by preference! I love them all. :)

( Burn Notice )

( Invisible Man )

( Night Court )

( Peacemakers )

Truly, I adore all these fandoms, and will be happy with absolutely anything you write, as long as you enjoy writing it.

And thank you, again!!

I'm trying to get my head back to a fannish space after a rough month, and between Yuletide, Pinboard, and the OTW elections, there's a lot going on. I may have things to say about some or all of that if I can start wrapping my brain around things, but meanwhile I've been trying to sort out where to find info about Pinboard stuff and OTW elections stuff. So elections first:

The OTW Elections site has a lot of useful info, but unfortunately it's not easy to find; I don't think they were expecting quite this much activity, and the News posts that serve as links to the information are starting to scroll off the front page. So I dropped the Elections folks a note about it, but given that it's in the middle of what's turned into a very busy elections season, I have no idea if they'll be able to address it this year or not.

So meanwhile, some direct, sorted links to help find information better on the site:

Who are the candidates:

List of candidates, complete with official candidate statements and including links to transcripts of the first two chats

Links to the candidates' journals, where you can see how they interact day-to-day with people, ask them questions directly (by comment or PM), etc.

Chat transcripts

Transcript of the first candidate chat

Transcript of the second candidate chat

Further chat responses from the second candidate chat


Followup questions from the chats

First set of followup questions, after the initial chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • What concrete things will you do as a Board member?
    
  • What do you see as Fanlore's role?
    
  • What do you tell people when asked "What does the OTW do?"
    

First set of followup questions after the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • Three questions, combined into one set relating to plans for outreach
    
    • to fans outside Western media journaling fandom
      
    • to fans outside of Western media fandom, especially anime/manga fans
      
    • to underrepresented sections of fandom.
      

Second set of followup questions after the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • How would you balance increased internal communications (i.e., more meetings) against already overburdened committees?
    
  • What was your role in the server-naming issue, and if you had none, what would you have done had you been involved?
    
  • How can the OTW further support and encourage fair use projects, what do you value about those projects, and what will you bring to them personally?
    

Third set of followup questions after the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • In the face of volunteer burnout, what would you do in your current committee to help bring in more volunteers and increase long-term retention, and what would you do as Board member to do so org-wide?
    
  • How do you intend to balance the goal of increased transparency, which brings with it a heavier workload for everyone concerned, with the goal of reducing staff and volunteer burnout inside the org?
    
  • How will you balance your role as Board member with your other roles inside the org (in terms of time commitment)?
    

Fourth set of followup questions after the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • Request for Naomi and Betsy to expand more on their concrete plans, also open to other candidates to answer.
    
  • What have the candidates done specifically to promote organizational sustainability, and "build the builders" (help turn fans into the builders of their own tools/places), for both technical and non-technical roles.
    

Fifth set of followup questions following the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • What do you see as the Board's role in soliciting all kinds of feedback, and how will you prioritize this as a Board member?
    
  • What do you see as the biggest challenge to sustainability in the org, and how will you work to ensure a sustainable future for the org?
    
  • What do you mean when you use buzzwords like "transparency", and how does it affect a casual user of the AO3?
    

Sixth and final set of followup questions following the second chat

• Questions (simplified):
  
  • What do you think of barriers to easy participation in the org right now? If you think they need to be lowered, what specific, concrete things will you as Board member do to do that? How will you reward casual participation without devaluing more committed volunteer work? How will you balance the needs of casual contributors, volunteers, and staff?
    
  • Direct to Betsy and Naomi (others answered as well): Why do you think your committees are so special that they require representation on the Board?
    

I am so far behind on posting about so much tv, and generally have this linear thing in my head where if I haven't posted about something I meant to, I can't post about anything else, because it has to wait in line.

( But I'm cutting that line to say two things about last night's Rizzoli & Isles. )

( Okay, also a third thing, significantly (hugely) more plot spoilery )

I really like this show, even though there are parts I could do without (like Jane's blood family - I'd rather they were occasional mentions than regular recurring characters; they make her world feel so tiny, and the show is Rizzoli & Isles, not "Detective Jane Rizzoli"). But the partnerships, and friendships, and teamwork, that I like. Also the fact that in most eps, something gets quietly called out and looked at without things turning into a Very Special Moment, whether it's Jane's disbelief at being called hysterical, or her matter-of-factly pointing out to Korsak that "Gypsy" is a racial slur, then adding that "fortune-teller" is, too (and Korsak looking baffled, but shutting up). And the fact that Maura is a cheerfully sexual person and no one thinks she's a slut for it.

I'm less thrilled with the way the show dances around how close Jane and Maura are and coyly pulls back again -- either go there or don't. But otoh, two women! Who are actual friends! Even though they're different! And it's clear that while Jane is strongly attached to both Frost and Korsak, Maura is who she loves best, and wow, man. Of her three partners, the one she's seriously most likely to wind up in bed with is the other woman? Awesome.

This is not a post about Sandy, even though right now she's touching almost everything I'm doing and thinking. I'm still trying to find a way to say something about her, and how hugely important she was and is to me, and how much I miss her already, and the big huge sinkhole that opened up in fandom when she died.

So last night, to distract myself a bit from everything, I watched an old Mythbusters ep I'd never seen that my tivo brought me, where they debunk the idea that the NASA moon landing was a hoax. And it was good, watching them bust conspiracy theory "proof" after "proof", in concrete, provable ways that are just nifty.

(Like, Earth sand/dirt/grit particles are all rounded and worn down from being weathered for eons, while Moon dust particles are sharp-edged on accounta there's no weather there to weather them, so where dry Earth sand won't hold a footprint because there's nothing holding the rounded particles together, dry Moon dust totally will. Hence debunking the theory that Neil Armstrong's footprint in the moondust was faked, because dry dust won't hold a footprint like that. Hah.)

And then in the last few minutes of the ep, they go to an observatory (the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico), and meet an astronomer there. She's a woman, which made me happy. And then the voiceover introduced her, as "one of the observatory's top docs -- Russet McMillan." And I hit pause on my tivo and just gaped.

I used to read a Russ(et) McMillan's stories, in a bunch of different fandoms, years back. This does not seem like a common name, to me. And this woman is fan-shaped, and fan-styled (long, loose hair, very casually styled, and wearing jeans and a comfortable jacket), and just generally has a vibe where if I saw her when I was at a con, I'd assume she was at the same con. But still -- what are the odds, right?

Pretty damn good, as it turns out.

There's a lot of ways to look at that, and most of them went through my head -- holy shit, a fan I used to interact with, at least a little bit, is a successful astronomer, zomg that is fantastic! And is on Mythbusters, how awesome is that! And she's just generally totally cool and competent and collected through the entire segment, which, go her. <3

But mostly what I was thinking, in the midst of feeling the loss of Sandy so much, was, wow, fandom and fans really are everywhere. We really do endure, and we pop up in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times.

I have no idea if Russet's still fannish; her stories are still up, but it doesn't look like she's written in years. (ETA: I'm told she's not only still fannish, but still attending Escapade, which makes me really happy to hear.) But she's still a part of my fannish history; she wrote in more than half a dozen fandoms that I was in at the same time as her, so I saw her name all over the place back then.

It was weird and wonderful to stumble over her again, no matter how distantly, and strangely comforting.

( clip from the show beneath the cut )

Fans, man. Fans are awesome. ♥

Sandy Herrold -- sherrold, Media Cannibal, Clucking Belle, vidder, writer, reccer, and all-around amazing person -- has been battling cancer for some time, and it's not looking good at this point.

Even if you don't know Sandy personally, odds are that she's touched your life in fandom somehow. She's been a bright light at the center of my fannish experience almost since the day I arrived, open-hearted and generous, down to flying thousands of miles for a weekend to help teach someone to vid. Even when she's snarky or cranky or flat-out pissed off, Sandy always seems to be full of joy, deep and strong, and she lights up any room (and any fandom) she walks into as a result.

If you've ever wanted to tell her that you love her, or she made you laugh or think or cry, or she taught you about vids, or writing, or fandom, now would be a really good time.

movies_michelle has a bit more detail on what's going on and how to send cards or flowers, and where to send donations if you want to do that.

If you want to contribute to a bouquet or get a note to Sandy, talking_sock is going to be printing out notes from people before she flies out on Saturday; if Sandy isn't up for visitors, she'll leave the notes and flowers.

Please consider leaving a note even if you don't know her personally/directly. She should know how treasured she really is.

I have got to learn to finish posts when I start them, so they're actually vaguely timely. Instead, here I am trying to get this post up before this week's ep airs in a few hours. *shakes head*

So season three premiered this past week, and I watched, and ( spoilers! )

(The hc_bingo amnesty period, which I wrote this for, runs out in ten minutes. zomg. That is cutting it tight even for me.)

Author: Arduinna
Title: Cabin Pressure
Fandom: The Persuaders, Brett/Danny
Rating: G
Below, or here on AO3


( Cabin Pressure )

I was poking around Fanlore the other day, and hit the entry for Gentle on My Mind, a very long* Professionals h/c slash story about a brain-damaged Ray Doyle and his journey to recovery, by Kathy Keegan (aka Jane of Australia). (There's also a sequel by Joana Dey, but I'm not talking about that here, having never read it.)

It's a relatively long entry, but one-sided: skimming through it, it turns out it consists almost entirely of flyer blurbs for the various chapters, with a link offsite to one review, which happens to be glowingly positive, written by someone who loves the zines. Which is fair enough; lots of people absolutely adore these stories, and rec them whole-heartedly.

But. Many other people do not adore them, and it's just weird to me to see the only writeup being Jane saying that some fans are interrogating this awesome text from the wrong perspective, and a single positive review. In my experience of the fandom, pretty much everyone had an opinion about it (whether they'd read the stories or not, just based on the fairly detailed discussions), and the conversations about roamed all over the place, in all directions.

This is how history vanishes, without anyone even realizing it; have newer fans even heard of the zines, or about the controversy surrounding them? (You can still find some of the later convos on Pros-Lit, fwiw.)

To try to stave off that vanishing a bit, I figured I'd try to dig up some of my reactions from years ago and whap them into some sort of publicly postable form that could be linked to, to add another point of view to the Fanlore entry.

So here's my cobbled-together review, pulled from a few different private and list emails back in 1998 and again in 2003 and rewritten a bit to smooth things out.

In sum: I didn't like this story.

( Gentle on My Mind summary )

The author wanted to tell a story about how brain damage may change people, but it doesn't make them useless, or turn off their emotional or physical needs. They're still capable of being vital members of society and of having relationships. And that is the story she tells -- it's very clear that she wants that message to get across, and it's one that resonates for a lot of people.

The story she shows underlying that is very different, focusing heavily on Ray's new "youth" and adult Bodie's strong attraction to it, to a degree that many people find very uncomfortable. /putting it mildly.

( Gentle on My Mind review )

So in the end, while I appreciate the story she was trying to tell, about brain damage not meaning dead or nonfunctional, I was far too squicked by the underlying attitude to enjoy the story at all.

* "Very long" here means three novel-length zines and two novellas, each considered to be one chapter of the overall story. back to top

I'm working from home today, which I love doing - I get to wear comfy clothes, and scritch my cat, and save on gas.

Usually, this is a scheduled thing. Today was a surprise, as my landlord called me last night to say he was bringing in a photographer (from the insurance company) to take pictures of my living room and bathroom, to see what sort of damage got done in this winter's storms. We had ice dams, see.

If you're not from snowy climes, ice dams are what happens when too much snow and ice builds up on your roof, and your gutters are completely clogged. The warmth of your house starts to melt the ice from underneath, but there's no place for the runoff to go -- so it goes into your walls.

We've had them before; the worst was the winter of 1995/96, when I left pots out in my living room for about two weeks as my ceiling dripped and dripped and dripped, and I kept a wary eye on my damp bedroom wall. I try not to think about the water damage to the walls; it's not my house, and my landlord didn't think it was a problem.

This time, I had water dripping in my living room again. But for the first time ever, I also had water dripping in my bathroom. The only saving grace was it ran down the walls into the tub, so at least I had a built-in pot sitting there to collect it all.

This is why it dripped:

( pictures from Snowpocalypse 2011 )

Yes, if you're wondering, you are actually seeing ice stuck to the walls all the way down the sides of the house, and those windows are coated in ice half an inch or more thick. So we didn't just have water coming in from where the eaves meet, we had it coming in everywhere.

Thank god, not long after I took these we had some warm days that melted it all off. (Well. Everything came off the walls. There was still some ice and snow on the roof and in the gutters; that took a few weeks to clear out completely. And the icicles took a couple of days to crash all the way down. That was exciting.)

It's not like snow is unusual around here in the winter. But usually it's more spread out, and things melt back in between storms - there's usually snow along the sides of the road, but the snowbanks are generally only a foot or two high, with an extra foot or so on the corners where the plows pile things up. This winter? The snow that wasn't plowed (or shoveled) up high was at a good 3-4 feet (and wasn't so much snow anymore, as compressed, icy hard-pack). Anywhere people were dumping snow from shovels or plows could be twice that or more (and also compressed and icy).

Here is a picture of a friend of mine, about 5'4", standing in front of the gates of a cemetery near my house a few years ago, on a warm summer day:

( summer, yay )

Here is a shot of that same cemetery wall, unfortunately from a different angle, in January on the same day I took the house pics.

( winter, woe )

Y'know, looking at it now, it doesn't look that bad? But ye gods, it was awful at the time. There was so much snow that even main roads barely had room for two lanes; back roads, forget it, all you could do was pray you didn't meet anyone coming the other way, because one of you was either backing up or driving into a snowbank to get out of the way. Let us not speak of the joys of having unassigned street parking, and neighbors who don't believe in shoveling.

Fun winter. *g*

So yay for spring, and being able to sit around in short sleeves with some of my windows open. And who knows, maybe my bathroom and living room will be repainted/re-papered this year, woo, which they desperately need. Maybe all that ice and snow will have been (sort of) worth it.

---

In other news, Earth is sitting in a space-time vortex, for reals. No, really for reals. NASA just proved it.

That is so damn cool.

It's been confirmed by BBC News that Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and her own spinoff show, died today.

Sarah Jane was my hands-down favorite companion for decades, until Donna came along, and then I loved them both about the same. But Sarah Jane was and is my soft spot. Watching her come back in School Days made me ridiculously happy; watching her spinoff makes me even happier. She is just so cool. She's smart, and strong, and funny, and doesn't take any guff from anyone.

Part of that is down to the writers, of course, but most of it is down to Elisabeth Sladen's performance. She was amazing, and she made you believe that Sarah Jane could do absolutely anything.



She was about 61 years old in this picture. And she could kick your ass from here to Sunday if she wanted.

♥

ETA: Well, so much for that - the youtube poster made the video private (after apparently getting over 2.5 million hits, which seems a bit late to be going for privacy, but hey.). But I swear, it was really cute. /eta

ETA2: although if you want to see it, you can always count on youtubers to repost things they like... /eta2

Spotted this on Latest Things - this is fantastic. There's a cat demanding pettins... from dolphins.

( video below the cut )