Fanfic Forensics

Hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays!

I'm taking a little hiatus for the next few of weeks as I work on some exciting new articles & interviews for Beyond Victoriana and catch up on some real life happenings. To tide you over a bit, check out the spiffin' new series index, featuring all of the BV posts made so far both on LJ and Dreamwidth.

Beyond Victoriana will resume fresh and dandy in the new year on January 17th, 2010.

And, as always, if you have anything to suggest, please drop me a line here or email me at attic [dot] hermit [ at] gmail [dot] com.






This entry was originally posted at http://dmp.dreamwidth.org/9033.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Empress is about Empress Wu, the 7th century woman who rose from humble backgrounds to rule China and eventually become the first female emperor. Sa’s recreation of 7th century China is very engrossing, but the book mostly reads as if Sa had originally intended to write a nonfiction book, and changed it at the last minutes to fiction. By adding a lot of sex scenes.

I’m not very familiar with Empress Wu, so I don’t know how it holds up to the publisher’s claims to this being a more sympathetic portrayal of her than most. If so, I suspect the typical portrayal to be rather nightmarish. Wu is ambitious and ruthless, as anyone would have to be to achieve what she did, but I also found her to be very hateful, and her near obsessive need to control the lives-especially the sex lives-of everyone around her made her a difficult character to read about, not to mention her physical, sexual and psychological abuse of others, which was largely centered on women

The world Sa recreates and the society she presents are very interesting and involving, but the characterizations of Empress Wu herself-along with the absence of any really likable characters- kept me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.

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• ithiliana: A Day in the Life of the Internet - Having looked at two months worth of posting on Metafandom, I can say that the number of links dropped in their comments range from 2-10 (now maybe a whole bunch get dropped in Delicious tag space--I haven't looked there YET), but still, people saying "Metafandom isn't posting the stuff I see"? -
  
  (tags: meta statistics link)


• betnoir: Dress me up and you can take me anywhere - As the person left outside the tent, it's a hollow victory at best. When I get marginalized by somebody who themselves has likely been marginaized based on their appearance, it not just makes me resentful and angry, it makes me despair for ever finding a home in fandom if I'm not dressed up all pretty so that I can fit in, even if it is only a cosmetic cover job. -
  
  (tags: fandom identity)


• rivkat: Yuletide! - Since a lot of people are doing "the decade in review" things, here's a retrospective of Yuletide challenges (pun intended) -
  
  (tags: history, yuletide)

• Actors and Movies: Video: Happy Christmas from Bonnie Wright!


• Hot Art: Let's Play! by Anonymous (Snape/Lupin; mild R)


• Hot Rec: From Where I Am by Anonymous (Snape/Harry; PG)


• News: Harry Potter Series Best of the Year List RoundUp


• Searches: daily_snitch is looking for fanworks and resources featuring Rowena Ravenclaw.

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

Title: Tussle in the Library, for kittylefish

From: Your Secret Snupin Santa

Rated: Gingerbread & Cocoa (PG)/WS

Note: Happy Christmas! I hope you find this to your liking :).

Right-click to see a larger version of the images.

Please do not take and use Snupin Santa gift art for icons, wallpaper, or any other purpose. It's intended for the recipient alone.

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1. Okay, here's the deal. I MIGHT have tried the Snuggie out and I MIGHT have fallen asleep on the sofa wearing it. BUT I DID NOT ENJOY IT. I did not immediately upon taking it off, feel a chill through out my body as if my soul had adhered to the Snuggie and been yanked out of my body in the manner of a yogi pulling silken cords from their throat. I did not think, in a moment of weakness, "It's cold, I should put the Snuggie back on."

Nope.

It did smell funny, though.

2. MY SECRET SANTA has written me a gift! The War at Home is a post S2 Torchwood fic, in which Jack and Ianto are having, through a round about narrative way (and a war of silent gifting), their age-old argument, that I shan't give away. Caught in the crossfire is Gwen, and by association, Rhys, who can't get laid while mommy and daddy are fighting at work. It's precious, and awesome, and I haven't left feedback yet because I have tonnes to say about it, but while I am composing my reply, please go over and read it!

There are also at least four other fics by our fabulous Santas, so please go over and read them all.

3. Happy Kwanzaa!

4. How do I tell my kid that Santa only comes once a year? Shitbears. It's that awkward moment like when they ask for the pet you put to sleep last week. No honey, Santa went to live in the farm, until next year.

5. When you have not had any coffee is not a good time to try to put together the vacuum siphon coffeemaker. Strange because I wanted to use it to MAKE coffee. Hrm. The cafetiere is dirty. Autodrip, here I come.

So Celsys replied to my e-mail and told me that yes, they have banned foreign access to the Illust Studio and Clip-Studio websites because they have no intention of releasing IS in other countries, bla bla bla.

...I swear that the Japanese can be either the most polite, kindest people in the world or the most absurd, closed-minded and racist people ever. I just can't imagine myself saying "hmmm... I'm going to ban this country from checking my pics, they're not as worthy as the Spanish~", it feels so wrong.

*Sigh*

Regarding Holic 195:

( Spoilers. )

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• scratchingpost1: Thoughts on writing - Now, I think my methods are changing. I really think a major reason is that at this time last year I had a great idea for a story, but I never had time to sit down and write. So I started just taking notes in my head. -
  
  (tags: writing)


• mieronna: Archive of our own - It always seemed to me that fanart was somewhat outside the mainstream of the fandom. Certainly liked and welcomed (in most cases) and it never lacked for squee - but still always an afterthought. -
  
  (tags: archiving ao3 fanart)


• ithiliana: Fandom Discoures, Cycles, Communities, and More - But no matter what context the "golden age" argument appears in (Golden Age: "It used to be so much better back when...."), I doubt it. My hackles go up. The idea that there was some golden age of fandom meta that was ruined by X (in this case, according to some, X being social justice posts) just blows. -
  
  (tags: meta fandom)


• ithiliana: By the Numbers, Part I, or, Golden Age, What Golden Age? - I'm an English prof, not a statistician (but I do know that correlation is not causation), and I thought, well, has anybody even looked at the numbers? And even if they are posting less stuff or less stuff people want to read, I noticed that it soon becomes this conspiracy theory (those evil evil mods, or those cliqueish mods, or those fossilized mods), instead of people thinking, well everybody is busy, and why don't I volunteer to help out if I like meta so much. -
  
  (tags: meta statistics)


• ithiliana: Numbers Part 2: Topics - But if white people are perceiving a flood/outpouring/drowning out of their "self reflective fandom centered whites only" meta--welllllll....it may be linked to the same sort of perception issue. -
  
  (tags: meta statistics)


• sqbr: The Oppressor as hero - The Kyriarchy says that white straight able-bodied upper/middle class men are natural leaders and better than everyone at everything. So having a story where such a character joins a group of non-white/GLBT/disabled/lower class etc characters and immediately proves himself better than them all at everything and their natural leader, not to mention having their POV the only one worth seeing the story through..is not so anti-oppressive a message in my book. -
  
  (tags: race)

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it!

• Archive: hp_toujours has posted an anonymous fic and art masterlist.
  
  
• Challenges: Prompt claiming has begun at bell_flint.
  
  
• Communities: harrypotterbang has a mod post.
  
  mini_fest has posted a trivia challenge prize roundup.
  
  charlieficathon has changed its policy on extensions.
  
  femmefest has posted a reminder on its upcoming Round II sign-ups.
  
  
• Fandom: norisis is gauging interest in a gen-focused Harry Potter fanzine.
  
  
• Searches: daily_snitch is looking for fanworks and resources featuring Rowena Ravenclaw.

Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch!

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I hope that everyone is having a good holiday season. I actually don't know how many of you celebrate Crimmas, the day we commemorate that story about St Nicholas and the eating the bacon children, but I do. So this morning I had me some sausage and oh yeah, Herself had a lie-in.

Me: Get up, babe.
Herself: Mmmprrrghhg.
Me: Santa was here! (This is a lie. Santa was at Joan and Pop-pop's house)
Herself: Mmmprrrghhg.
Me: Let's get dressed so we can go to Joan-ma and Pop-pop's house and open presents.
Herself: (Shoots up like a jack in the box. Covers fly everywhere.) OKAY SURE!

( So we did that thing. )

Tonight, I'm writing. As soon as I'm done with these two things, I'm getting drunk, and I'm calling it Crimmas drunk. It might be next week. It might be tomorrow. Who knows? It will be awesome.