Slashpine

It's been a busy fall, so it's nice to take some time to read a holiday fic or two! There's clearly some excellent Snupin Santa fics as always. I've read a couple I enjoyed very much. Among them are some brilliant new gems, some whimsically different takes, and some that are simply satisfying little comfy fics, as every good pairing should have.

( four snupin recs )

and some Snarry Awesomeness.

There've been lots of recs as always plus the round-up listings with the "hot recs," so ... meh. Who needs any recs from dweeby old me? but this one I read tonight, and it's everything I ever loved in Snarry, and that is so, so good to find!

Remedial Potions. Summary: It turns out Harry probably shouldn't have spent his sixth year cheating, because now he needs Remedial Potions for real....

( rec and excerpt )
Yummy, yummy, yummy! In a season loaded with goodies, this is no recycled fruitcake. More like babas au rhum: pure, rich and wickedly strong.

What do you do after a flaming row? An intemperate remark (or 10)? When the bitter anger of a wank dies down, there is occasionally a fleeting wish that some of it could be unsaid, or at least that you could apologize and agree to move on. Or sometimes, there are things you didn't do - the "sins of omission" - and you wish you could say what you didn't say, and explain why, and apologize, and move on.

quinfirefrorefiddle on Dreamwidth came up with one interesting solution:

meaculpa

Because if we don't move on... we're stuck. Not changing, staying the same, is being stuck, too.

In the aftermath of every fail there are some who wonder, Is fandom getting wankier all the time? What happens when you follow the Geek Social Fallacies too assiduously (or your whole flist seems to) and can no longer be "friends" with anyone who didn't totally agree, jump in on the "right" side, join the drama, care deeply, get the point?

Eventually the only friends you dare have are those who (a) don't talk, (b) don't talk publicly, or (c) are newbies. The friends who don't talk - well, hello? They're gone. The ones who no longer talk online - why stay, then? We're gone. As for those newbies, they will soon go through the same trial-by-fail, resulting in most of *them* becoming polarized or silenced or silencing or walking away from fandom... do the math. It's a never-ending turmoil with smaller and smaller circles of trust, and larger and larger circles of former friends and lifelong enemies.

Woah. This is not my shiny fandom! This is not the online community we say we want! Instead, it's a steadily shrinking space of love and trust and diversity, of civil discourse. It's ever less of the squee, and teh shiny, not to mention my beloved meta. Yes, it's good that fandom becomes ever more aware of important issues - but not if it becomes ever less willing to just *talk*, and resolve them, and move on with an increase in both awareness *and* community. Because dude, regardless of how right the path is, if it goes into the big empty desert without that loaf of bread, jug of wine, and especially *thou* - the rest of the community - it's a lonely, empty place.

Sure, there's that whole "different drummer" shtick, taking "the less travelled path". But there's also the old "No woman is an island." It reminds us "for whom the bell tolls": it's for *us*. That death knell always, in some way, signals a loss from our community. Because hey, we are social animals, and if we can't take care of each other? We die a little inside. Sometimes social animals, cut off from healthy community, just die.

This web 2.0, this fandom, our shiny jewel in the online sea, this splintered isle - it's no good if we can't learn how to get along.

Sometimes, you want to say you're sorry for your actions or inactions, for words spoken or unspoken, information divulged or topics shied away from. This can be regardless of whether the others involved are interested in dialogue or forgiveness. Sometimes, *you* need to make an apology for your karma or serenity, your self-respect or sense of closure or whatever.

( Here's a way )

So I rimed me some Mother Goose filk on the PervySurveyFail (Ogi Pogi, puddin' and pie)

( behind the cut )

And jalendavi_lady promptly shot back a limerick form (with apologies for the dissonant last line):

There once was a man, name of Ogi,
Who along with a friend was a fogey.
Fandom thought they were pervy
Once they'd posted their survey
And told them quite loudly, "Nokey!"

(Yes, I know the last line is horrid.)

Now along comes quinfirefrorefiddle (quinfirefrorefiddle over at DW) with an awesome, full filk! YAYYY fandom, that hath such talent in it!

"Once there were two researchers..." Sung to the tune of Carole King's Tapestry

For those who are fuzzy on the music, a link to the video. Cue, roll, sing!



Sung to Carole King's "Tapestry":

There once were these two researchers who thought they had a clue
A never-changing vision of an everlasting crew
A web of all desire they wanted to weave and hold
Stereotypes to feel and see, spelled out right there in bold.

Once, amid the internet, and sites to make you sigh
With plot lines, authorship and wit, the fannish nerds did cry,
"I do not fit your labels, and you are not on my side,
Your ignorance is willful, which I will not abide."

They moved with some uncertainty, as if they didn't know,
Just what they'd gotten into, or whether they should go.
Once, they reached for kindness, hoping for sympathy
But their words came off empty.

Soon, amid the internet, the acafen arrived
Querying their methods, and how they had derived
Their predetermined hypotheses, which did not work too well
No one wept to see them suffer, they'd ignited their own hell.

As fandom watched so cynically, they quickly disappeared
Abandoning their "research" and their new-begun careers
In times of deep despair, at least, we know they won't come back
Their "survey" lost them all their cred, we won't trust them with jack.
We won't trust them with jack....

AHH Fandom! You are Made Of Win. Now, someone's got to do the Youtube version and CIRCULATE IT AROUND THE WORLD so that every search for "Ogi Ogas" comes up with this lyrical paean to SurveyFail. ::sporfle::

ETA: for more filk, fic, fan art, parody and all your meta needs: http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/tag/surveyfail

Crossposted from http://pine.dreamwidth.org/2886.html. Comment here if settings allow, or there using your DW or OpenID. Please do not FW link. Play nice in comments. Don't run w/ scissors. Hug your fandom!

So ithiliana over on LJ was asking who impudently dubbed this the PervySurveyFail. *raises hand reluctantly*

Oh, but she liked it! Well... in that case. *is inspired* Also, IZ NOT TL;DR TODAY, JUST BAD RHYME!

Remember Mother Goose and "Georgie-Porgie, pudding and pie"?

I give you:

"Pervy Ogi"

PervySurvy, Ogi and Sai,
Polled the fans but told a lie.
When they asked about the fail,
Pervy Ogi started to bail.
When the fangirls came to play
PervySurvy ran away.

LIKE? WANT MOAR? WRITE SUM PLZ!!!

Crossposted from http://pine.dreamwidth.org/2649.html. Comment here if IP/flist settings allow, or there using your DW account or OpenID. Please do not FW link. Play nice in comments. Don't run w/ scissors. Hug fandom hard!

Ogi, thanks for more evidence of your social immaturity, your sexist bias, your utterly self-absorbed scientific twerpitude:

Apology

[Sep. 3rd, 2009|06:24 am]

We wish to apologize for any offense caused by our survey, which was certainly never our intention. We can clearly understand how strong feelings were evoked by the specific nature of our interactions. We deeply regret this. We appreciate tremendously the invaluable feedback we've received, and certainly hope to improve our work and grow as people as a result of this experience.

No Ogi, how about you apologize FOR BEING WRONG? For doing BAD SCIENCE and CRAPTASTICALLY AMATEUR, INSENSITIVE pop social research? For pretending to know something about fields you never took even an undergraduate class in? FOR LYING?

How about YOU apologize for YOUR FAULTS AND FLAWS AND FAILINGS instead of blaming fandom?

*takes deep breath and turns to analysis*

Sorry for the tirade. I really, really hope someone Ogi talks to points out to him that THIS IS NOT AN APOLOGY. Rhetorically, discursively, syntactically, this is a DENIAL OF RESPONSIBILITY for a situation HE CAUSED. Ogi should be apologizing for what HE did, not essentializing fandom further by telling *us* what *our* response is.

Also, I particularly vomit at how he (& poor Sai who is either an even bigger coward or a total tool of Ogi) hope to "grow as people." It's not just that they should grow as *men* and as *scientists* since in both those areas they are clearly at a very immature stage, it's that through this and other choices of words, they RESTATE AND COMPOUND their sexism and colonialism. Throughout this pathetic and completely unprofessional excuse for an apology, they emphasize their agency over fandom. They characterize fandom as a passive mass, an object, an only vaguely seen - and not worth seeing - group who they just spent many hours with, but failed to get to know in any way.

So instead, they deliver an apology that is a nonpology (or as I've also heard, a nopology). They post a text that is all about them, to a group they can't even bother to name, using discourse that frames fandom as composed of hyperemotional women who have no qualifications, no intelligence, no humanity, no rights. Their discourse establishes this binary us-versus-them schema in a way that reaffirms Ogi on a number of levels and devalues fandom in all. It does this in a number of ways; let me show you them!

ETA: now revised, with subheds and better summary. I'm workin on it!

( turn up the tunes, pop open their nopology in a new window with the handy link below and let's do some discourse analysis. Whee! )

That Fan Fiction Survey, or "2 EMSNS (Elite male single, nerdly scientists) seek fandom women to share links, lusts, fantasies re hot m/m sex" has continued to inspire amusement and fun posts, including a very nice OMG RPF BADFIC posted to the EMSNS LJ, which the lovely and brilliant Accioslash linked me to:
(ETA: Almost forgot the excerpt! DOH!)

Neuroscience-cest be here RAR:

Waves of extasy rolled across their bodies, Sai's free hand fondling Ogi's genitals even as he cramemd his meat into Ogi's rear. They rolled around on the bed, Sai's wizard robe tangling them up, cacooning them within their hot sweaty lust as Sai increased the tempo of their passion.

Ogi and sai quivered all over, together, as they both came at the exactly the same moment (±0.5 seconds), Sai's sticky white gender essentiality coating Ogi's insides.

Warnings/Kinks: Also contains Wuthering Heights ref, small penis, bad writing.

Go, read, comment. As Accio said, Gd, I ♥ fandom. I think it's rather lovely that so many fans who avoided the survey like the sensible women we are have come over to cuddle the fic. If Ogi/Sai are paying attention, they will realize that IN FANDOM, WE SURVEY YOU. Getting yourself into RPF is just the prologue...

OTOH, our arrogant male nerdly neuroscientists (I mean, srsly, posting your exam scores WITH DECIMAL POINTS on your webpage?) don't seem to have been paying attention at any point to anyone since they began their weird self-insertion into online fanfic reading fandom. Except maybe to the call of cold cash from Dutton for their proposed pop-science book on Women Go Wild, er, I mean, Rule 34: How NetPorn Explains Why Women Won't Date Us or really, what looks like it should be called How NetPorn Women Gave Us One-Handed Reading Material And So Can You.

Elf put together a nice meta links list over on dreamwidth:
http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/5995.html

Yonmei linked me to her great blog entry today at Feminist SF - The Blog:
"Fandom to researchers: We are not your lab rats"
http://blogs.feministsf.net/?p=1259

As to how this whole thing started, here are several of the "Ground Zero" exchanges, for those of us who love the trackback/can't stop being researchy:

Dr. Science "Talking about who writes fanfic" July 27, 2009
http://mecurtin.livejournal.com/805503.html

Shaggirl "Rule 34, or: tentacle porn, what tentacle porn?" July 19, 2009
http://shaggirl.livejournal.com/185387.html
==> Special interest for the verbatim post of their letters to her and their interesting and constant revisions of the supposed research <==

Shaggirl "My response to the neuroscientists..." July 20, 2009
http://shaggirl.livejournal.com/185688.html
(in which she refers them to mecurtin, a whole bunch of informative metas *that they obviously did not read*, OTW, and several of the "canon" texts on fandom LOL, like _Textual Poachers_)

Shaggirl "A response from our friendly scientists..." July 22, 2009
http://shaggirl.livejournal.com/186106.html
(includes responses by Ogi Ogas in comments to other commenters)

Shaggirl's Response to the n/scientists has perhaps the most explicit statement from Ogas of his preconception that men and women (little 2gender problem there) are fundamentally different neurologically, that this can be studied without paying any attention to the social, cultural, or any other contexts, or even psychology... and the most loltastic reply to him, which he ignores:

From: [info]ogi_ogas
2009-07-28 09:27 am (local)

chicklet_girl:

Yes, we're interested in understanding some very ancient neural circuits that are different in men and women. We certainly don't have anything useful or interesting to contribute to cultural studies, literary studies, social sciences, or psychology, which we leave to individuals better informed than ourselves! :)

Ogi

From: (Anonymous)
2009-09-01 10:56 am (local)

Neural Circuits...

I don't see how you can really do that without actually studying a sample of individuals (both male and female) who write or read fanfic in a properly controlled setting.

Also, you will probably not be aware that there are also large numbers of asexuals who are involved in fandom.

Nate (who happens to be male)

To quote Accio: Gd, I ♥ fandom.

Here's one of the questionable questions from that so-called "Fanfiction Survey" (which seems to be much more about "women's p0rny fantasies online", and dontcha know what kind of scholarly peer review *this book* Is gonna get - NOT):

Question 37 out of 70
If you read slash, do you identify with the characters while you're reading?
[] I don't read slash.
[] I don't identify with either character.
[] I tend to identify with the dominant character.
[] I tend to identify with the submissive character.
[] I tend to identify with the character whose point-of-view the story is written in.
[] I tend to identify with both characters.
[] I don't know.
[] I tend to identify with a specific character I like, in any position.

So, how many problems do you see with Question 37? You may check your work in various hive mind comments here.

The site is currently displaying the following message:

We're revamping some of our survey questions based upon the first round of feedback we received! Please check back again soon to take our survey!

Anyone got a list of all of the questions? ETA Cool, they got the questions *with* all the answer options posted here: http://ogi-ogas.livejournal.com/3544.html

( Ready for another? Why are these men so fascinated with slash? )

So, that survey. You know the one: it's called a "Fan Fiction Survey" but it's really all about what kind of sex you like, what fandom story you'd most like to live out, which fandom character you would like to marry, and it gets even stupider from there, when it's not being purely unintelligible and being triggery liek woah NO No no.

Now, any basic book on social science research methods - heck, any webpage on surveys - will tell you how to avoid the mistakes this survey is making. And why. Evidently the two neuroscientists who threw this wankbait out there to see what would stick (a couple hundred comments so far!) didn't read even a basic handout on surveys, much less consult someone who knows.

They also failed to read up on fandom, much less *in* fandom. Liek, they didn't twig till people pointed it out that a question on "How many fanfics have you written?" might get an answer of "5000" from someone who writes drabbles and "5" from someone who writes novel-length fics, and those novels? Are a huge thing in fandom. (In some fandoms, practically the *only* thing.) O WOAH RLY? They said. NOVELS? Doh. That's not even beginning to count the epic-length 159 chapters and counting, 250K word soap operas. (Or, OMG, the RPGs. Where do they fit in? Bzuh. These guys are sweet, but so ignorant it makes my brain bleed.)

But, they want to meet and talk to and work with fans! Uh...

I don't think this is the right kind of lime jello to bring to the fannish potluck.

( Now with linkies, lolz and yes, the first macro! )

Dudes, I'm scrambling to keep up catch up with Snarry Games along with WORKWORKWORK and TRAVELTOOMUCH and OTHER STUFF OMG a;sldkfjasd;fj;a. Let alone email, in which I am drowning after being AFK so much this week. Month. Year. >.<

But I just wrote a freakin' mini-art essay / love letter to majmunka about her art work, Smorgasbord, that should be OMG a gorgeous great POSTER because then I could see it every day. And on the remote chance others haven't seen it, well. Read and go rave; but especially, go look and love.

( How many ways do I love this, now with art links )
I very, very rarely like crossdressing Snarry, but this awesome art makes me fall in love.

Of course, the entire Snarry Games is one big "Smorgasbord." I've left comments of babbling-with-delight more than once, and if I were *organized* I'd be reccing things here like other good fen. But I'm not organized, so I may simply stick to jumping up and down with Oooh in the comments at the Games, for the benefit of the authors. You? Can do that too. And probably already are!

Snupineers are THE MOST FUN!!!!! I loved meeting so *many* of y'all. Hoorah for Drusillas Rain, too, for making it SOOOOO MUCH SNUPIN LOVE.

Whoever picked up my bag of darling little lovely goodies by mistake, you can tell it's mine because Woldy wrote some info in the first page of my little spiral memo book.

I'm in Room 1205 (with DementorDelta & Leni_Jess and RubyRoseRed). Could you please get it back to me via one of them, or the concierge desk (2nd floor)?

PLEEEEEEEZE!!!! *Moony puppy eyes*

Despite not having my Snupiny swag bag art to fondle and admire, it was still THE MOST FUN WITH FANS. I loved meeting Stasia and Woldy and listening to Littleblackbow (dressed as Horace Slughorn as whom she ROCKS SO AWESOMELY) spin out plot bunnies with everyone. Snape and Lupin are getting married; Gilderoy Lockhart is the wedding planner; a;lsdkfjas;dfj ensues! Plus, Molly Weasley makes the dress!

Way more fun than the Snarry meet-up Saturday night, which was overpriced and not very much fun on any count. I have no words to express how many ways it failed! Oddly, the previous night in Djinn's suite I helped a horde of happy people stuff the 100 swag bags, and *that* was a fun evening. Too bad the meet-up was so much like a bad highschool party in a dimly lit basement.

Otherwise, the con is SUPER FUN. Panels good; both of mine went well; I've heard lots of good and excitingly diverse panels and seen much awesome art & crafts and now I have to somehow WAKE UP and go show off my INCREDIBLY POPULAR SPIDERMOTH-MADE ROBES at the Ball. Tra la!

I am sure I am missing great fics! Tell me all about them!

P.S. I have saved out several of my insanely popular Hogwarts-themed textile art bags for my fandom family "at home". Anyone want to trade me fic or art for one? I'll post pics of them soon!

I should be final-packing to leave for Azkatraz - driving, with stops at friends all along the way there and back! There are occasionally a *few* advantages to living in the northwest. :D

But I'm also trying to finish emailing things for work, and find my schedule and all...

I got distracted this last week making some Hogwarts-themed bags for gifts for my roomies and the extra speshul friends who've made my awesome robes and put me up and such. Aka, "put up with me." *g* They deserve more, but alas, I fail at drawing and can't "tell yarns" only spin and knit the regular silky-woolly ones. So little bags is what they get.



Bags in progress ... some tassels/fringe not yet finished, charms not yet all sewn on, edgings and cords added, etc.

I made some extras because I went into a manic mode and couldn't stop because I have a *very* big stash because I can't get enough of Hogwarts colors! because I love knitting, and my friends, too much to stop!

( closeups of bags, and more bags :-) )

Now, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH 10 (and counting) HOGWARTS-THEMED BAGS? Well, 5 or so go to my roommates at Azkatraz and cons past. And I guess I need one! (Although honestly? Making them is so much fun, and I love them all so much, I really can't make one my "favorite.")

Which means maybe I can contribute the others to Snapecast's swag bag/table mix? I DON'T KNOW! I NEED A POLL!

Here it is! Take the Poll!
Poll #3924 Hogwarts-themed bags: what to do with them?
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should I do with the extra Hogwarts-themed bags I knit?

( And there is more, because when you drive to a con YOU CAN BRING YARN AND KEEP KNITTING OMG FTW BBQ )

Some new folks dropped in on my journal,
So far, they all have played nice.
I'm happy to see all the comments,
But prefer them from people, not mice.

Metafandom, our friendly reporter -
Could you drop a wee hint in their ear?
Sign your comments when you're not a local,
Just as "metafandom" says how you got here.

Bad doggerel, but in service of a good point: most of us, if we wanted anonymous comments from random passing strangers in our journals, would just open blogs.

I get that someone from LJ who doesn't have an IJ isn't going to like, sign up for one just to make it clear who's commenting when they come over here. (Although one could ask, why not? If they do it more than once.)

But why no name? It's not that hard to stick your name in, if you're already saying "here from metafandom." Identifying yourself (not to mention saying where you're from) seems like, if not common courtesy - because who-knows what that is in the brave new worlds of the internet and fandom - but certainly the customary practice.

Probably it's pretty easy to forget. Like seeing that typo only as you hit "post." But maybe metafandom could mention it now and then, as one of those generally understood habits or practices that make things go more smoothly. Otherwise, it falls onto individuals to think about whether they need to flock or not, reset access defaults for each post or not, run in a note about it being FW-okay or not, etc. etc. etc.

It's going to get even more this way when people are over at Dreamwidth too.

“You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life. Ooooh, see robes swirl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen!"
Severus' eyes flashed. "Are you calling me a queen?"
Albus grinned. "Hmm, good point. Let's see..."

What could be more fun than reading Papa Mia, the Snarry-a-Thon spoof with 15 ABBA songs? Listening to the songs as you read! Behind the cut, the playlist I assembled for my extra-speshul reading/listening pleasure.

Not to be missed: The awesome anonymous author's filked lyrics to Dancing Queen! She also filked Our Last Summer as a nostalgic reminiscence by Severus and Kingsley. Oooh.

But watch this video of ABBA in 1975. They're performing in 18th-century drag period costumes to celebrate the night before the wedding of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Silvia Sommerlath. Now imagine Lucius and Albus singing this to Snape, the dancing Half-Blood Prince... Better yet, imagine a group of us singing it at Azkatraz. :D :D :D


From the story, Papa Mia, here at Snarry-a-Thon. My rec here. Filk lyrics in bold.

“You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life. Ooooh, see robes swirl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen!"

Severus' eyes flashed. "Are you calling me a queen?"

Albus grinned. "Hmm, good point. Let's see what I can do…" After a moment, Albus said, "We'll try this instead."

Albus began to croon. "See that man, watch him mince! He is the Half-Blood Prince!"

"Oh dear God," Severus groaned.

Lucius, getting into the swing, sang, "Dark Lord's back and the revel's on, night is young as the peacocks… spawn, have to do the right magic, getting in the swing, Bellatrix does her thing. Dark Mark is in the sky, night is young and the Muggles… die. With a bit of Cruciatus, everything is fine—" Albus cleared his throat and Lucius winced. "Er… you're in the mood for dance. And when you get the chance…"

Both Albus and Lucius were now pointing at Severus, whose mouth was open.

"You are the Half-Blood Prince! Tall and sleek, so hard to convince. Half-Blood Prince, spent the years in complete suspense, oh yeah! You can brew, you can spy, living in fear for your life. Oooh, see that man, watch him mince, he is the Half-Blood Prince!"

Eyes narrowed, Severus pointed his wand at them and said, "Finite Incantatem!"

Lucius rolled his eyes and kept singing. "Potions master, you turn cauldrons on, leave them burning and then you're… gone, looking out for another, anyone will do, you're in the mood to advance. And when you get the chance… "

"You are the Half-Blood Prince, spent the years in complete suspense! Half-Blood Prince, so intense, wants to teach Defence, oh yeah! You can brew, you can spy, living in fear for your life. See that man, watch him mince, he is the Half-Blood Prince!"

( video playlist of all 15 songs )

Feel free to comment! This is Part II: What & How
Part I: Who? When? Why? can be found in my previous post here


On a scale of 1 (NEVAH) to 5 (OMGY) with 3=*shrug*, I like to see recs that ....

Poll #3583 Recs! The What/How (Part II)
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

.... tell me what you liked!

.... include some rating of how much you liked it (stars, codes, whatevers)

.... quote some of the fic

.... are detailed, interesting. Amuse me!

.... are behind a cut-tag

.... avoid anything remotely like a spoiler

.... tell me about the writing style: 1P, nonlinear, chatty, dense?

.... tell me about the characters & characterization

.... tell me about the themes and Deep Meaning

.... are less about the story, more about how it made you feel

.... get me into conversation

.... do not say it’s OMG PERFECT if it isn’t

.... warn me (tactfully) if it’s rough (ex: SPaG, OOC, plot hole)

.... don't mention any flaws even if they're serious

.... share the LURVE!!!!

Thank you for playing!
[X] ticky
[X] floss
[X] WHEE!

Feel free to comment! This is Part I: Who? When? Why? Part II (next post) is the: What & How

Poll #3579 Recs! Who/When/Why? (Part I)
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

I read what I see recced:

I like recs because they:

By "rec" I really mean:

As to the “right amount” of recs...

The factor in a rec that makes me most likely to click or not click is:

"Hot recs" are:

Who needs recs the MOST?

Don't miss Part II: What should be in a good rec?

Go to Part II: What should be in a rec? Should it be posted in a particular way? Etc.

A friend was asking for recs, so here are some of mine. (Content advisory: these are completely reflective of my own idiosyncratic tastes and also my seriously untrained crit & reccing skills. YMMV. DL;DR. Etc.)

( Snarry-a-Thon R&R's here; Ware spoilers! )

( HP_Beholder recs, Springtime_gen (at LJ )

ETA: This seems to have been metafandomed, which is great. Dive in, enjoy, glare, ponder, comment. In commenting, though, please be respectful of those who bring diverse perspectives both to fandom and to commenting here. Also, please sign your post if you are not on IJ. It feels nicer to be talking to a named individual. Thanks!

This morning Judith Warner, in her NYT blog domestic disturbances, talks about boys using epithets like 'fag' to 'police' one another’s behavior.

This isn't just bad, that this "poisonous boy culture" is using this particular kind of homophobic hate language to herd themselves to the bottom, with a message that "to be something other than the narrowest, stupidest sort of guy’s guy, is to be unworthy of even being alive."

What's equally bad is that girls are paralleling this rush to get in the gutter of human achievement. While boys bully and shove each other into being thoughtless crude caricatures of masculinity, girls outcompete each other in "spending unprecedented amounts of time and money on their hair, their skin and their bodies, at earlier and earlier ages. Essentially accepting the highly sexualized identity imposed on them, long before middle school, by advertisers and pop culture."

All this so that in high school, they can fight over which girl is the most "cool" - within the narrow, powerless realm of their second-class sextoy status.

Wow. Such modern progress. Of course it's not (as many commenters point out) that girls haven't always pecked each other into line, and boys the same. But far from learning to move beyond this as a society, we seem to be getting worse.

Many good comments. (Plus the usual blame-feminism-for-everything. Doh.)

~~|O|~~

Now for the fandom connection. There's a linkage Judith Warner sees between the culture of homophobic insults among boys, and the anti-feminist over-sexualization of girls.

I found in this an answer to my thoughts as I read some new fics posted in hp_beholder. These aren't, for a change, m/m slash. One of them is f/f, and the other a gen het. I love them for several reasons, but especially for that.

Part of fandom is talking about why we write. In my slashy fandoms, I feel like we should always keep asking, why slash? Why the m/m focus; what work does this particular kind of focus do that moves in tandem with our female or feminist goals? Are women fans who are het, or gay or bi, or gay-friendly, or genderqueer, or any and all - but in general, not men - advancing, or simply dodging, "liberation" from sexist and homophobic patriarchy with this male-focused writing form?

I think the "tough-guys" atmosphere that Judith Warner discusses illustrates one reason for so much m/m slash.

Slash is the opposite of boys mocking each other as "gay". It's the opposite of men taunting each other to "man up," of having so much intolerance for anyone who doesn't fit this narrow, stereotyped male script that some boys commit suicide, while others start using guns. With slash, we rewrite that script for being male.

But why are we rewriting the *mens* script, not the womens? Sadly, I think it seems easier to get men to be nice ordinary emotionally open human beings, than to get women into the greater strength and powerful sense of self that will let them stop being defined solely as sextoys, housekeepers, or hags.

Maybe that's because raising women from the status of fluffy doormats seems to definitely require changing the entire architecture of society. But changing men into fully-rounded individuals who engage their emotions instead of sublimating them all in competition against others - that seems to be something we can do on a one-by-one basis.

In fact, the NYT was pushing that just the other day in the column by one of my favorite doctors-who-write, Peri Klass: 'Another Awkward Sex Talk: Respect and Violence'.

That column is also all about boys. In this case, about adults needing to talk to teenage boys "to emphasize manners and respect as boys maneuver into adolescence and adulthood, and to help them understand the implications and obligations of their increasing size and strength."

~~|O|~~

Okay, yeah, definitely needed. But ... Why is it always about men? o_O

Seriously. Agreed that men's violence is a problem that *men* need to solve; it's their fists. Same with rape and creepy-sleazifying pornography. And rampant irresponsible child-producing, STS-spreading sex. It's men who need to take more responsibility to stop harming others.

But, but, but ... these authors. They're women. These are two strong, smart, cool women who want parents and pediatricians and teachers to talk "implications" to boys, to try to change the current outcomes of too many men who accept homophobia, sexism and violence. Slash writers are also predominantly women, who want to show what that world could be like, for individual fictional (or RPF) men.

I have to ask: Will changing the world one *man* at a time lead to changes that will help women, too? Or is this just more empowerment of men?

~~|O|~~

So back to fanfic. Can there be more f/f slash plz, and het fics too, that let women be strong in their full range of personal talents and individual looks? As awesomefunsexy as the men we love in our slash, but not always just those men? This isn't that utterly AU. (And please don't be crack.)

Is it possible to write *slash* (transgressive, change-the-world new modes of being) without it always having to be "slash" (m/m, yummy sex/emo romance in a rich whitemaleruled world)?

Can we have more fics that show women - on their own or in company, with men or other women - being the kinds of people who could be half the world's leaders in all fields, instead of currently what, 5%? That might be pushing it. *looks at predominantly male government, CEOs, university presidents, best-seller lists, biggest-paid stars, film directors, TV heroes, fanfic heroes, etc etc.* *iz depressed*

BUT HERE'S TWO AWESOME EXAMPLES. On any day, good fic is a good start. Days like this, it's even better to find good fic that isn't all men-rules.

I give you two awesome fics that show the power and beauty of being different.

A Murmur.
Sybil/Minerva.
NC-17.
400+ words.
Warnings: Um, femslash. And some pretty good sex-ness. [I would disagree with the high rating. /Pine. As the A/N say: I tried for a smuttier draft, but they weren't having it (I hesitate to call them prudes, but they are quite private!)]
Summary: Sybil finds herself loving Minerva more than Minerva ever thought she could allow.

"Whut ummm maybe" I thought when I saw this. See, I'm not a Sybil fan; she seems like such a loser ditz. But I really like Minerva, even though *she's* too often portrayed as a stick: too old (?!) or too modest (?!?!?!) for sex. Then when Min does get in a sex fic, she can be way out of character. Ah women! Can't be sexual unless they're (a) young, (b) beautiful, (c) insane nymphomaniacs, or (d) all of the above.

This fic is SO different. I love that it shows old women who have sex - and also friendship, and lives, with quotidian concerns and the occasional rambling thought, maybe a worry over drinking or proper gardening technique, and even an argument or two. With a snappish comment to the man who doubts that two old women (yes, say it: OLD WOMEN. Like it's bad or somethin!) should get it on.

Read. Love. Laugh. And ponder the symbolism of Minerva's watering-can.

There Are Days I Wish I Lived in a Romance Novel (But This Isn't One of Them)
Neville/Millicent.
PG-13. 6,875 words. Warnings: None.
Summary: In a cluttered workshop and amid the rambunctious denizens of his greenhouse, Neville Longbottom discovers that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Now he only has to convince Millicent Bulstrode. . . .

Again, this is not "heroic", at least as JKR would write it. But OMG, the way they both come through in this fic as deeply real human beings... it's better. I love seeing these two meet in the course of their ordinary lives post-war, grappling with limitations and uncertainties, sometimes mourning and accepting what cannot be, and other times bravely taking the challenge of new ideas and new friends. There's humor. There's deep inner beauty. There is excellent, vivid, elegant writing throughout. And in the end, this author shows how extraordinary the ordinary human can be. (Yes, I | Susan Boyle. Don't you?)

A lot of the blogs have pointed out the appalling way amazon now misleads customers by jiggering their software so that the first books that come up under "homosexuality" are such tripe as the 'Parents Guide to Preventing Homosexuality'.

As a result, the newest tags for this book are pure win. (20 ways to say "poisonously untrue bigotry" LOLZ)

As are some new reviews. Oh, amazon. Your bigot-authors aren't going to thank you for this, either.

Amazonfail is ... so interesting. So annoying. So stupid on their part!

Lots of posts out there. I found this discussion particularly interesting:

http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

A few people pointed out that you can tag any amazon item either by clicking "tt" really fast, or by going down the page to "Tags People Associate with this Product" and there checking the boxes you think appropriate, or adding more tags in the space.

Doing it that second way, you can see the counts of what people have added. I find it really interesting that scholarly books on queer theory, children's books like Heather has Two Mommies are now effectively censored as "adult" while as many pointed out, straight-male-porn like Playboy is not. WTF ppl?

For instance, the tags on the randomly selected February 2007 Playboy include the following:

battlestar galactica (6) tricia helfer (6) playboy (5) cylon (3)
magazine (3) fantasy (2) bettie page (1) family guy (1) men (1)
mens interest (1) mens magazines (1) number 6 (1) seth mcfarlane (1)
simon cowell (1)

Clearly there's some major bias going on. I mean, it's tagged for Simon Cowell, but not "cheesy" or "sleaze"? *g* But seriously, I have a hard time understanding how commodifying women in a rape culture merits the privilege of amazon sales rankings, yet something like the empathetically written historical romances about mutually pleasurable gay relationships by Erastes are denied that vital sales tool.

Haha, there have been several suggestions that fans and GLBTQ Allies do our own tagging. First, to see if it's an automatic system thing, the suggestion was to go to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and tag it "adult" and see how long it takes to lose its sales ranking (currently #10,988):

If you go to amazon.com to look at this book you can't click on an 'I hate this book' button but you CAN agree on the flags they give to describe the book and one of those check boxes is "adult." So if this theory is correct and a specific number of us go to http://www.amazon.com/Nicomachean-Ethics-Aristotle/dp/0872204642/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239591514&sr=8-2 and check the flag for "adult" we should be able to figure out how many people have to click that box to get the book deranked (if it's possible).

But wait! There's no cat macros yet, but there *has* been an even more interesting tag recently added:
amazonfail

Woot! Go see. You can "vote" individually or en masse for the 787 products there tagged (such as Brokeback Mountain). Which at this moment, 334 customers already have. O HAI THERE FANZ.
The URL:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/amazonfail/ref=tag_unk_cf_itdp_l

Lengthy list of books given the AmazonFail treatment:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html

So, perverse_idyll and the_con_cept helped me find one of the tree!fics I was looking for, which I posted about here and over on LJ snarry-fic-find. The one I found was 'Stick' by TheAbstractConcept herself. Thanks so much to The Concept for writing it, as well as helping me find it again!

This leaves me still looking for at least 2 other Harry and/or Snape tree!fics I've read before, plus any others out there. Including Whomping Willow fics. *frowns* Isn't there a Whomping Willow comm or asylum? Gots to be at least 5 WWillow fics.

*issues challenge*

I needed to tag my snarryficfind search, and that underscored the unusualness of my quest. I had to use a half-dozen tags, because none them, even the ones I finally picked, hit the main points of these stories. The parts that make them memorable, different and worth thinking about, aren't captured by the "usual suspects" in even the long tag list at snarryficfind.

This made for a meta-prompting moment on the whole theme of environmental awareness in HP, HP fanfics, and HP fans. How we, our fandom -- certainly, our canon -- takes the "easy way out" and avoids this RL, global issue that is hugely linked to any happy future we hope to have, not to mention pretty much every race, class, gender and other injustice we face today. It's interesting how we jump into *massive* freaking wank and really quite-useful discussions about the importance of treating other people with empathy and fairness, but do nearly total *denial* about anything that isn't human. Anything that isn't "just like us" and can't even be pretended to be "all the same under the skin."

And isn't that really just more selfish all-about-me-ness? It almost erases, or at least calls into question, any of the good intentions or results of our canon, fanfic, and fandom moralizing and edumacating about social bigotry and intolerance. Because if we do such a good job ignoring a truly global horror in our fandom, that is, the accelerating environmental destruction - if we ignore and avoid it in virtually every fanfic and discussion, perhaps have even chosen HP as our fandom because its author has herself ignored it - what does this suggest about our willingness to deal with *any* injustice, such as racefail? Maybe we only want to make the tiniest, easiest changes. Maybe we're really not making any at all.

( more on fandom, denial, and my search for fics that don't avoid the toughest issue today )