The State of Me

Yesterday admiralandrea and krazykipper got their degree results and I couldn't be more happy for both of them!

My OU course result showed up this morning. Not as exciting as theirs, since mine is a pass/fail thing and only a level 1 course, but I passed. I got an 81% average on part 1, 74% on part 2. Which is pretty darn good considering how many issues I had with the material on part 2. Now I've got to decide whether or not I'm continuing with this next year. Part of me really, really wants to. But the bigger part of me is focussed on the cost: in money, but mostly in the things I'd have to give up to really concentrate on study. Like fandom. I reckon I could deal with the monetary cost but the rest? I doubt it.

I got a frantic call from Sis yesterday telling me Mum had texted her and she was really sick and when was I going home. I was almost at the end of my work day so I begged a lift from a colleague and headed home double-quick. I don't know what she'd told Sis but Mum seemed fine to me. She'd been unwell, and was being sulky and miserable, but Sis made it sound like I'd need to call an ambulance the instant I got in. Someone needs a stern talking to about exaggerating ailments. I just need to figure out which one. Grr.

Poppy has her next checkup at the vet tonight. She still isn't walking properly on that leg, but I don't think it's hurting her any more and she's back to being fit and active and running everywhere. She'll use all four legs when she runs - that's why I'm sure it's no longer hurting her - but if she's walking or standing still she still tries to keep it off the ground. Habit, maybe? Hopefully the vet will be pleased with her.

I made a start on a fic for hc_bingo: just outlining so far. It has an...unusual pairing, which seems to be a habit with me just lately. Then it occurred to me that I've got a WiP which fits fairly well with another of my squares. I'd just have to make the 'hurt' stuff a bit more graphic than I originally planned and it might be the push I need to finally finish this one. And then I sat down to write...and ended up with more than 5,000 words of a completely different story. And this one is no good as a bingo square!

How does this happen to me? I know how it happens. I just have this really well-populated back-burner. I get ideas, I shove 'em back there and someday they pop up as if to say "Right, my turn now!" and it just flows. It seems easy, but it's because I've been thinking about it at odd moments for years. In this case, it was an idea about Sam and his friends staying in a supposedly haunted house while he's at Stanford, and how would he deal with it while trying to keep his friends both safe and ignorant of who he really is. Then I thought about tying that idea in somehow with The Haunting of Hill House, just, you know, because. But the idea when I originally thought of it went nowhere. Now suddenly I've got the 'hook' I needed to make this work and I've got all this stuff written...and weirdly, it's all from Jessica's point of view. I think that's a big part of my 'hook': I don't need to explain who Sam is or what he knows - the reader knows all that. The interesting part of the story is Jessica's ignorance: how does she perceive the paranormal activity, how much does Sam inadvertently give away, what will she see in his actions? In a sense, she's a perfect unreliable narrator because the reader will have more information than she does. This could be really good.

Of course, no one will read it because it's icky het and from Jessica's POV :D

I really must do more than outline that hc_bingo fic. And get back to that TV meme. Soon.

A tangential observation on SPN fandom's latest fail

Racism should be challenged, wherever we find it. I'm not arguing about that.

I'm also aware that my point in this post will be considered derailing, so I repectfully request that anyone who reads this not link to it as part of the ongoing discussion of SPN fandom's latest racefail. You want to link in the context of the points I'm actually making - go ahead.

After September 11 2001, fandom mailing lists and usenet groups were chock full of fics set during and after the attacks. Stargate fen wrote Jack and Daniel discussing the ramifications and the coming war. Highlander fen wrote various immortals working in the wreckage. Sentinel fans wrote Jim and Blair's reactions to the news, and the people of Cascade PD frantically trying to contact relatives in New York. If Supernatural had been airing then, you can bet there would have been a gazillion demons-did-it fics and a gazillion more RPS AUs in which Jared and Jensen were firefighters or rescue workers and found love in the ruins of the twin towers. And some fen would have hated it, but their voices would have been drowned out by those who didn't. Nonetheless, there were undoubtedly people in fandom who were directly affected by the 9/11 attacks and must have been terribly hurt by those fictionalised accounts of the events. I'm also quite sure there were many who took issue - privately or publicly - with some of the commentary on those events being put in the mouths of their beloved fictional characters.

My point is that those stories were a response to an event, in just the same way that fanfic is a response to a televised event. It was an ongoing discussion, a way to work things out using a medium fans were accustomed to and comfortable with. Writing about a horrible event as a way of working out feelings about it has a long tradition in fandom.

Setting a romantic story against the backdrop of a disaster is a literary tradition with an even longer history. It can be done well...or not. Taking a disaster that's still going on, still affecting people's lives, and making it the backdrop for a romance is...well, the best word I can come up with is tacky. The race issues this discussion has brought up take it beyond the realm of tacky. I totally understand why people are taking issue, but much of the commentary is focussing on the wrong thing. It's not the author's use of a current disaster that's the problem. Fans have always done that. Just as fans always put their BSOs front-and-centre in stories.

The problem is the perception (I put it that way because I have not read the story in question, only the commentary) that in this case it was done in a racist manner. The problem is that there's a whole background of cultural appropriation and colonialist condescension that the author was unaware of and gave the impression she didn't care about.

The problem, as many commenters have said, is that these issues affect real people, real lives.

But here's the thing.

You have a giant segment of fandom that considers it acceptable to take real people who have real lives and real feelings, and make up pornographic and frankly libellous shit about them and the people they love and post it on public websites where anyone - including the families and friends of those real people - can stumble across it via a simple Google search for their names.

Why the fuck are you surprised that someone living in this environment didn't consider that her portrayal of the people of Haiti might be hurtful??? The whole goddamn genre is an ongoing exercise in ignoring the feelings - the humanity - of real people! Buy a goddamn clue!

There's a reason I don't touch RPF. This is it.