many faded things

Exciting times: my bb_shousetsu story is live!

In case you're unfamiliar with Shousetsu Bang*Bang, a short introduction from the comm's user info:

Shousetsu Bang*Bang is a webzine for original gay fiction/boy's love oneshot stories, intended as an online, English-language text equivalent of one of those All Yomikiri Bimonthly Summer Special 100 Extra Pages!! manga phonebooks where every story is about the torrid romance of an ordinary schoolboy and his soccer club captain - or a yakuza boss and his faithful lieutenant - or the prince of an exotic desert country and the emerald-eyed winged youth he rescues from the sawtoothed sand monsters of G'or, self-contained in 30 pages and heartwarmingly predictable. Our policy is to welcome all comers, from the most flippant bit of cliché to the greatest of literary works... as long as they have fellas in love in them.

So here's my first contribution to this fine literary institution:

Title: Beyond My Imagination
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: original m/m
Word Count: ~20,000
Disclaimer: None!
Summary: Set in the late 1840s, nineteen-year-old Ben Hadley moves to St. Louis to work as an attorney, where he meets and becomes roommates with a young medical assistant named Charlie Atwood.

Illustrated by quaedam, who is all kinds of talented, and excellently betaed by walkawayslowly.

Read the story here.

Hi! It's been a while. I'm reading much more than I'm posting, which I guess doesn't say a whole lot since this is the first time I've posted in over four months. Oops. I'll try to write an actual post soon(ish), but tonight is not that time -- I still haven't quite escaped from a work-ate-me phase. In the meantime, let me just say that I may be a summer kid all the way, but my jaw dropped on the way to work this morning when I saw the snow on these trees against a bit of blue sky.

tripoli8 's post was the first I saw about the massive, massive fail that is gatorgrrrl's J2 Big Bang, Caught Between the Earth and Sky. walkawayslowly emailed me about it shortly thereafter, and since I got home tonight my entire flist has been packed with posts about it, so you've probably already got some idea of what's going on here. If not, amazonziti has a great write-up and collection of links here, and though gatorgrrrl has locked the story down (and therefore the comments on it are missing as well, which is a shame, as I understand that there was some very excellent discussion on that post), you can see excerpts of the original story compiled by bossymarmalade here.

There are a lot of really horrifying things going on in those compiled excerpts, and I'm willing to assume that they are representative of the rest of the fic: portraying a black man (possibly the only black person with a central role?) as big and dumb and ultimately comparing him to an overly large cat (aka a big dumb animal); representing black women as voiceless and helpless and savage; presenting post-earthquake Haiti as a backdrop for Jensen Ackles, The Great White Hope, to save the ever-grateful poor black populace . . . And then, of course, there is the entire fact that post-earthquake Haiti is serving as the setting for a story about two white men falling in love and getting it on.

I'm saddened by the fact that while gatorgrrrl understands that she's done something terribly offensive and wrong, she still does not really understand what she's apologizing for. (See here and here.) She's trying, but she's not getting it; that much is clear from that second link in particular.

A lot of people are talking about this quite eloquently, and hackthis wrote a post reminding us of all the stuff we should already know, but keep (as a fandom, or a world for that matter) collectively forgetting. The heart of the matter, IMO, is something nyoka wrote about: the issue of appropriating tragedy and other people's experiences for yourself.

I think it's perfectly fine to write about something that you did not personally experience, or about a person who is completely different than you are -- with the caveat that you do it respectfully. I think, too, that it's valid to use fiction (fanfiction included, though admittedly I've never seen it done well in fanfiction) to write about tragedy, even one that does not affect you personally, as long as you do it respectfully -- i.e., as long as you do not do it in an exploitative or otherwise offensive way. The issue of whether or not it's a good idea to write about a tragedy that is ongoing set aside, I truly do not believe there can be any debate about the fact that it was a deeply horrible idea to set a love story between two white men in post-earthquake Haiti, using that tragedy and those who experienced it personally as a backdrop. Haitians are not a backdrop, and neither is any other group of people. This is something that we need to get right.

A huge point that I think needs to be made repeatedly: getting this stuff right is NOT AT ALL just about not offending people. Sure, you don't want to offend people. The thing is, not doing something just because you do not want to offend people has a distinct tinge of, "Well, I think what I'm doing is fine, but I will keep it to myself because it might offend some easily offended other person," and that does not work at all. It's about RESPECTING other people's experiences. Of course white people can write people who are not Just Like Them; white people can and SHOULD, for that matter, because who wants to read stories that are about nothing but white people? But for the love of God, do your research. Learn about the history and the cultural context of your characters, more than you think you need to know; make their existence central to your story and not just there for some kind of "flavor"; and, most importantly, make them people. A great big black man with hands the size of frying pans who follows Jensen Ackles around Haiti is a cookie-cutter stereotype, not a flesh-and-blood person.

I don't think white people must stick to writing what we know, but I do think it's imperative that we do our absolute best to get it right when we are writing something we do not know, and that we be open and ready to learn when other people take time out of their lives to tell us that we've gotten something wrong. It's perfectly human to want to be defensive when being told we're wrong, but we cannot give in it to. If we do something wrong, we MUST apologize for it, and we must ALSO take the time and put in the effort to understand what it is that we have done wrong, if we do not understand it from the start.

A last link that I thought was really interesting, from a few years back (during a previous round of J2 RaceFail): Some thoughts on writing outside my experience by brown_betty

I'm hanging out with one of my roommates and her tiny adorable gay friend, watching flashes of lightning through her floor-to-ceiling windows (it may not have a closet but her room sure does have some perks), reading Star Trek meta and awesome Kirk/girl!McCoy genderswap (I thought I was all done with genderswap a couple years ago when I wrote this but apparently I am not), drinking wine and typing up a truly craptastic scene from merrin's and my Big Bang that I am going to rewrite probably before I even show it to Merrin, and wanting something, I'm not sure what. Something.

The summer before I started college, I was jittery all the time, a little nervous -- not about the idea of entering into college exactly, but at the idea of all the possibilities that were in front of me: that I was going somewhere completely different, that I could turn into a whole different person, that I might fall in love at any moment.

I feel that way a little now, too -- not jittery or nervous, really, but on the verge of something. It's a warm and humid night, after a day that felt like full-on summer, and humid summer nights make me think of kissing on porch swings or in hammocks, of the possibility of falling in love (though I never have), and summers have always been that in-between time for me (and everyone, I guess) -- the time before I left for college, for Germany, for New York; the time before I had to figure out my life. I'm taking the LSAT this fall, though I'm not sure that law school is what I want to do; I have no idea what it is that I want to do. I'm not sure that I'll ever be sure. I think a lot of life is about just picking something that seems like it could be what you want and going for it, seeing if it fits. In the summer it just feels like the possibilities are spread wide open for me, like I could fit into all these different versions of my life, in endless ways.

*

My roommate just held up a stuffed animal and twisted it around and said, "Flipping llama!", apropos of nothing. You know what, I think this is a sign -- the universe is telling me that the best choice for this evening is Get Drunker.

I spent far too much of my day reading old xkcd comics and spamming my friends at work and with my favorite ones. This is all my friend S.'s fault, for linking me to this one yesterday: The Race, Part 1 (Make sure to read its sequels, too!)

That one is directly related to my extreme delight over Firefly, which I still have one episode left of (plus Serenity). Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd, is kind of my hero. Tragically a lot of the math jokes go right over my head, but that does not stop me from loving the stuffing out of it. He has awesome things to say about everything!

Driving is fun: Google Maps

The truth about Han Solo: Improvised

The Klingon language is everywhere: Imposter

(Speaking of the Klingon language, I did not mean to end up on a forum discussing the likelihood of Klingon getting you laid, but um. Apparently that happened. MOVING RIGHT ALONG.)

"Now you just put on that shark suit, Jimbo, and you see if it hurts when they bite you": Outreach

And finally, things we have all experienced: Bored with the Internet

And how very sad and true that is.

I also recommend just hitting the Random button and reading everything ever, because they are pretty much all hilarious.

I spent last week in Freiburg, Germany; Bad Ischl, Austria; and Salzburg, Austria. It was pretty darned awesome. I wandered around Freiburg being all nostalgic and hung out with a lot of people I hadn't seen in a year and a half or more, and just generally had an excellent time.



( +5 behind the cut )

Some things that happened:

+ S. and I got growled at by a swan. It swam all the way across an Alpine lake. We thought it was pretty cool until it started making monster noises, and then it was not cool at all. I had not realized that swans were capable of this!

+ S. and I hiked in the Alps by a lake along the side of a highway. "There's supposed to be a nice path around here somewhere!" S. said. "We just can't find it!" We did eventually, after a very necessary roadside ice cream stop.

+ I hung out with a friend's sister's 12-day-old baby. You know how tiny babies are usually kinda weird and wrinkly? Not this one! This one was super cute.

+ I learned that while my German is quite good when it comes to Hochdeutsch and a little bit of Badisch, it totally sucks when it comes to random Salzburg-environs Dialekt. Yikes! Too bad, too, because of the group of guys who approached me and my friends at Augustiner Bräu in Salzburg, the cutest by far was the one sitting next to me. Who spoke exactly no Hochdeutsch.

+ I watched most (but still not yet all) of Firefly. HOLY CRAP, Y'ALL. Both S. and walkawayslowly have been trying to get me to watch it for years. I've had it on my external hard drive since early senior year of college, i.e. the better part of two years, and I really did intend to watch it before; I just never quite got around to it. Oh my God, Mal Reynolds. I did not know what my life was missing without you in it. Also, now I can go back and reread sevenfists' Dean/Mal 'verse and actually know the characters. Sweet.

Also currently happening in my life? STAR TREK. Saw it last night with the roomies, loved it, and going to see it again on IMAX this Friday with roomies and some friends from work. One of my roommates was trying to describe why it's appealing to the lone roommate who has not seen it yet: "Well, it's nerdy, but it's not THAT nerdy, and also it helps that they are really hot." And it's FUNNY. I figure you have all seen it already, which is excellent, because that means you are all writing fic. Right??

Oh! Haha! I could have posted about this last one a week or so ago, but I was kind of distracted by being in Europe, damn me! BIG BANG REVEAL. Merrin beat me to the punch by about a year, but hey:

RPS97.
Authors: causeways and walkawayslowly
Artist: sillyshy
Title: Mildred: A College AU
Rating/Pairing: NC-17/J2
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jared in possession of his heterosexuality will immediately switch teams upon enrollment in college and first contact with Jensen Ackles.

Personally, I think Mildred: A College AU is the best title ever, because seriously, what else do you need to know? It is a J2 college AU. Its name is Mildred, which came from this conversation with Merrin. We are hilarious people. Now we just need to edit. Haha good times! Especially since the ending currently reads like something Stephenie Meyer vomited. Whatever, we will prevail.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I am very sorry to say that I was just walking out of work as it turned to March 17th, after having been at work since 9:30 in the morning! This is the resurgence of the project from November which caused me to not post for a month straight. Not that not posting for a month straight would be that unremarkable at this point, as infrequently as I'm around these days, but anyway, if I seem to be around even less than usual, it's because I'm at work until the end of time, or April 3rd. Whichever comes first!

(Also, 7+ months into this job I continue to not check LJ at work, because I am just that paranoid.)

Anyway, I missed rawkin_ur_sox's birthday a few days ago, which is just pitiful, since there was that one time not too long ago when I called her from Brooklyn and talked her ear off about Harrison Ford and she very kindly put up with my rambling. It occurs to me, as I type this, that that was Valentine's Day, and that was more than a month ago. Haha, I'm good with time. Obviously. ANYWAY, happy belated birthday; hope it was lovely!

My roommate texted me a couple of hours ago to say that she had a surprise for me when I got home -- turns out she'd gone out to dinner in the West Village with one of her friends from high school, and had brought all of us back cupcakes from Magnolia. So now my bed is littered with chocolate cupcake crumbs. DELICIOUS.

I've been telling myself that I wasn't going to post again until I had fic, but HAHA I thought I was going to have this Merlin fic done two weeks ago and it is still not done (in spite of being approximately eight words long), so never mind. Fic coming soon! Just hopefully not in the way that, like, the MTA says "Second Avenue subway, coming soon!!!" and then immediately afterwards it says, "In 2015!!!" and has, apparently, been saying it's coming soon since the '70s. My new goal: being speedier than the MTA. I set my standards REAL HIGH.

I spent a long time reading RaceFail '09 entries last night. This is a good place to get a very short overview, along with this.

For more, look at rydra_wong's post here. There are a lot of links; it can seem overwhelming. sheafrotherdon has good stuff to say about that here: One white person to another.

Pick one of the links, and open it. Start somewhere. deepad's I Didn't Dream of Dragons is another good place.

I'm reading, and I'm thinking. It's a start.

First, and most importantly, today is notthequiettype's birthday! I think we all know I love Ash, but in case that was not clear: I LOVE ASH. Hope Disneyland was fabulous. <333

Inexcusably, I forgot to mention ignited's birthday a few days ago, what the hell was that about. I love Stef toooooo!

I finally finished the Gossip Girl RPF! Jagged and Endlessly New (JC/Chace, Chace/Ed), which is the sequel to Some Surreal Country (JC/Chace). About damned time, too! It's really disconcerting to have your brain eaten for a couple of weeks by a fandom you are in no way in and that does not, in fact, really exist.

Now I can actually write Merlin fic instead of just scribbling notes down about it at work while watching the series from the start . . . again. It's Colin Morgan's ears, okay. They make me do crazy things.

Today I also, ahaha, started watching the Christian/Olli clips from Verbotene Liebe, aka That German Soap Opera With the Gay Boys. I told myself I was doing this because I can feel my German getting worse every day that I am not actively using it, and because last night, while well into the third pitcher of beer at a dive bar with my roommates and their tiny gay friend from college, I spoke very earnestly about wanting to move back to Germany (and also about wanting to marry a lawyer and/or Irishman, whatever, I blame the drink!). So clearly my German needed work. Also there are like 29837473 years of gay angst. I kind of wanted to stab myself in the eye about half of the time I was watching parts . . . 1-35 of 130-some, omg, but the other half of the time there were boys being really in love and freaking out about it, and who doesn't love a good gay freakout?

I was looking through my works-in-progress folder the other day, as one does, and discovered an Entourage recs list I put together back in, like, JULY, and never posted. What the hell! Let's fix that.

( seven Entourage stories I put on this list back when, and one crossover I'm adding to the list right now )

A number of random things!

1) If you are ever on the Lower East Side and looking for French brunch: ( Cafe Charbon, 170 Orchard Street at Stanton )

Prix fixe was $14.95 with a mimosa or a Bloody Mary, $11.95 with coffee, and every single thing my friends and I ate was 100% delicious. Also, the maitre d' was French and cute and saucy. I am not a fan of the tiny mustache, and yet it WORKED for him. Especially when he smiled and flirted.

2) Possibly I might have mentioned that Merlin ate me. I blame this guy:



HI COLIN MORGAN. Can we talk about how very much facial hair is REALLY, REALLY WORKING FOR YOU? (From here, and you should totally click that link because there are two other pictures there that are really vital to your existence.)

Also there is a big fat Colin Morgan picspam/lovefest going on at franticsga's journal, here, which contains even more things that are necessary like BREATHING.

3) I have recced this before; I will rec this again.

Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock
Arthur/Merlin | NC-17 | lots of awesome words | modern day AU

If you are in Merlin fandom at all, eight pages of comments say you have probably read this already, but let me just mention that I convinced my roommate to read this story, and my roommate has not been in fandom of any description for YEARS. You know why she is reading it?

Because it is just like The Prince & Me if it were better, hotter, and gay. Also this story has GOSSIP BLOGS. You do not need to be in Merlin fandom to read this story. You just need to be ALIVE.

I should say, because this is a fairly frustrating point for people who get really into stories and want them to be perfect, that the pacing gets a little wonky at the end. Regardless, I have a whole lot of trouble caring, because it is quite possibly the best universe ever. Have I mentioned the part where Arthur is the GAY PRINCE OF WALES yet? Because oh yeah. He is.

4) This is a placeholder for the massive Merlin recs post that I obviously need to make, because Merlin fic is pretty much how I spend all of my time. Yikes.

5) walkawayslowly is out of town and mostly internetless for approximately 982734 years, and it is driving me a little crazy. We were talking about how we missed each other, were getting very sappy, etc. and I said she'd better freaking call me soon.

causeways: Otherwise you'll come back and find me gnawing on my own leg and writing 24 gen fic out of desperation. If only Merrin had been there to stop her, they'll say!
walkawayslowly: Haha!! My aunt just asked me if I like 24. :) There is no reason to turn to 24 gen! Or I'll start adding some h/c into our Big Bang. That'll be the whole plot.
causeways: HORRIFYING.
walkawayslowly: Haha!! Don't threaten me with 24, missy.
causeways: JACK BAUER DOES WHAT JACK BAUER WANTS.
walkawayslowly: THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR THE HURT/COMFORT.
causeways: JACK BAUER CAN BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HURT/COMFORT.
walkawayslowly: AND THEN IT WILL COMFORT ITSELF.

So if you open our college AU in June/July/whenever and it is nothing but 40K of Jared being hurt and Jensen comforting him or whatever, you will KNOW that I am bound and gagged somewhere while Merrin gleefully took the fuck over. SEND HELP.

6) If I post again before finishing the fucking Gossip Girl RPF, slap me around a little, 'kay? AND NOT IN A HURT/COMFORT WAY.