Organization for Transformative Works News

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 385.

♣ I was barely around today because after getting into the inner city to sign some contracts, and then therapy, I felt utterly exhausted. I don't feel that well either and more or less went straight to bed. (It's a mix of having the sniffles, mental/emotional issues, and RL stuff that causes stress ... I'm tired a lot.)

But on the good side, the contracts ARE signed and my work starts on December 1st. It's now official! And although I'm nervous (duh), I'm also looking forward to it a lot. The temp agency is a really good one that cares more about its employers than others I've worked with, and of course I'm excited to meet my ex-colleagues again! They asked for me specifically, which does good things to my self-esteem. And from January onwards, I'm gonna have more money to plan with, which is desperately needed because I can tell there are going to be some extra costs in the future. (Wardrobe, fixing the toilet, cooking and baking utensils, a better binder... that sort of thing.)

♣ Do you remember when people started migrating to IJ and created community asylum duplicates, triplicates, et cetera? And how that annoyed me so much that I even included a sentence in my IJ Beginner's Guide about it? - Looks like it's starting on Dreamwidth, too. "I know there already exist communities for [topic], but they're all dead, so I created a new one!" Which... might end up dead? Great.

Seriously, I DO think that DW has the potential to eventually have a level of activity which is not rivaling LJ but close enough. And currently there's definitely enough activity on my Subscription List when it comes to personal journals (quite similar to IJ, actually; on both sides, I don't feel "starved" in that regard). But community-wise? We're so not there yet. Much less for community duplicates.

♣ Thinking about participating in Wishlist communities. I'm also secretly hoping that people on my friendslist/reading list will, in case they have wishes I can grant. But funny enough, when faced with the task, suddenly I have difficulties thinking of wishes. Currently my list has one (1) item and then I got stuck. (For the curious, it's a Spongebob mousepad. I like Spongebob, although strictly speaking Squidward is my favourite.)

Wrangler RPF avec moi!

Check out the rest of the Wrangulatorverse, starting with "forma." Perhaps I shall write one myself, after I open the can of worms that is significance of name order in pairing listings in certain fandoms (and certain segments of certain other fandoms, which is gonna be the fun part) and if it's possible to do synonyms with a disambiguation option.

ETA: Pray for me. I just claimed seaQuest.

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Here's hoping it's squeeful, skiffyful, and generally awesome!

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Take a bagel, slice it, toast it and put a generous amount of cream cheese on both slices. Then take a couple artichoke hearts and chop them up fine* and use them as sammich filling. Serve with Kalamata olives on the side.

Speaking of food, we got our box yesterday; I was just too wiped to report it.

Persimmons, tangerines, apples, kale, chard, lettuce, some other green and sweet potatoes.

( rambly stuff about greens and T-Day dinner )

Hmm. I'm not finding a couple of the blog posts I'd spotted yesterday, that aren't related to the adult privs checklist but were about child agency and the concept that kids, acting like kids, in public, is something the public should just deal with--kids are people, and age-appropriate behavior isn't something that should be kept out of sight of nonparents.

Some of these have fascinating comment threads. And by "fascinating," I mean "soaked in privilege and offensive as hell."

Related but not necessarily connected posts:
Nov 3, Noble Savage: On Child Hate and Feminism "Participating in child-bashing is participating in the oppression of a vulnerable group. … admitting that motherhood went from overrated to undervalued in 40 years flat isn’t something many of us want to acknowledge."

Oct 23, Look Left of the Pleiades: People who dance between tables "Having a need for age-specific support should not make anyone any less human."

Apr 23, Have A Lovely Time: I'm sorry, does my children's presence offend you? "HOW do you cope when your arrival leads to an immediate and sharp intake of breath from the other customers?"

Aug 8, Syracuse.com opinion blog: Discrimination against special needs is unacceptable "They had just as much a right to patronize that restaurant as anyone else. They deserved to be welcomed with respect and kindness. This was not the case." (Does not mention whether younger children without disabilities would be equally accepted.)

Adult Privilege Sound-off:
Nov 24, Dr. Helen: Your right to bring your screaming child on a plane ends where the rest of our ears begin. "If a kid does not understand how to act in certain settings, teach him or her or don't put them in that setting until they are older. The world will be a better (and quieter) place."

Nov 24, Tim Cavanaugh at Reason: No Child's Left Behind "here is (very unscientific) evidence that spanking is poised for a comeback" (With special bonus racism in the comments!)

April 8, Guardian: There comes a time when you want to live without children "To buy a property in the village, you have to be 45-plus with no dependent family in tow, and you must sign a contract agreeing not to sell property on to those with children."

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I may or may not find time to make a coherent post about this anytime soon. This one's important to me; the way we treat children in this country ranges from atrocity to tragedy. But it's late; I have to be up in five and a half hours (because, heh, one of my kids does not mesh well with public school). As a placeholder, have some linkspam:

Nov 16 @ Shut Up, Sit Down: Adult Privilege Checklist

Reading a post by Elena Perez at California NOW made me think about privilege checklists (like the Male Privilege Checklist and the White Privilege Checklist, for example) and I came to the realisation that, as yet, nobody had written an adult privilege checklist. So with some help from my good friend Jenny, using some of Elena Perez’s ideas from the aforementioned post, I set about writing the Adult Privilege Checklist.

Background; older posts:
April 13, Mothers For Women's Lib: You’ll never truly be “child free”

Oct 22, Raising My Boychick: Dancing between the tables: on the personhood of children

Nov 11, California NOW: Feminist Parenting: The Larger Picture

Nov 4, Left of the Pleiades: Dear Kate Harding

Reactions:
naraht: Adult privilege

hl: The Opression of Chilhood. In which I try for emotionless and hard analysis (and fail)

sqbr: Intersections of youth and other aspects of the kyriarchy

Saraspeaking: Mind. Blown.

flourish: Adult Privilege

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Due to a bit of stupidity on my part, I spent the day without internets. And you know...I missed people, but not the internets themselves. Lemme know if anything interesting happened.

Actually, you all should be glad I spent the day offline; I'm grumpy and crampy and apparently someone, probably Og, slept in just the wrong spot on the bed, forcing me to sleep in a certain position, so my knees and back hurt. It's not that I wouldn't happily kick him off the bed, it's that he does it in the middle of the night and I automatically adjust without waking up.

For those not on my NaNo filter, I'm declaring it a half win. I wrote 20,500 words and I'll probably manage another 5,000 before the end of the month. Or who knows, maybe I won't. Still that's 20K of fic I didn't have on October 31, so there you have it.

I have to go to our local upscale grocery store to pick up the lamb tomorrow. That's gonna be fun. I also have to go to Coco's to pick up the pie so at least I'll have French Toast for lunch or something.

Because when there's wrangling to be done and fic to be revised or drafted, that's clearly the time for a meme. Entry not yet tagged for the fic, so as not to spoil the surprise.

Lifted from longsufferingly:1. Write down the names of 10 characters.

2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1. Kurosaki Hisoka (Yami no Matsuei)
2. Jin Bora (Anyband)
3. Stephanie (CSJH)
4. Jensen Ackles (CW RPF)
5. Kim Junsu (DBSK)
6. Clayman (GetBackers)
7. Elizabeth Swann (PotC)
8. Satine (Moulin Rouge)
9. Trinity (The Matrix)
10. Ben (Dark Angel)

( Crack this way )

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xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 315.

Heartwarming youtube: The Message.

Put in CSJH and Chun Sang Ji Hee for CSJH. For Dong Bang Shin Ki:

DBSK
Dong Bang Shin Gi
DBSG
TVXQ
TVfXQ
Tong Vfang Xien Qi
Tohoshinki
THSK

Currently, there are no Banjun Theatre stories in the archive. Like Anyband FPF, my instinct is that it should be a distinct subfandom that's searchable on its own or as part of a DBSK search, but the ability to create subfandoms and metafandoms isn't yet in place, so if you've got a Banjun story, just put it in as a new fandom.

Now I get to decide if I want to wrangle more synonyms for CSJH or concentrate on one fandom at a time and wrangle all the synonyms for the DBSK pairings that are already in the system (oh, sweet mother of Mike). Also, I'm not quite sure what to do about the fact that Minho is both a DBSK pairing and a member of SHINee. I don't think I can wrangle it into one fandom when another's guaranteed to want to use it, even if they're in different Tag wuzzle fields.

Oh, yeah, and Chaotic Butterfly's now a fandom, and I moved The Good King to movies and threw the synonym "Good King Wenceslas" at it. Somebody let me know if there's fic for the carol and I need to change that.

ETA: Went ahead and synonymized TSZX, TJCK, Tenjo Chiki, Tenjochiki, and Tian Shang Zhi Xi (which I'm gonna have to mess with if they change the code to allow non-English accented characters).

ETA 2: THIS IS ANOTHER REASON TO HATE THAT STUPID "THE GRACE" BS. *snarls and synonymizes it, though she wants it on record that SHE OBJECTS*

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• Hokay, so.
  … I don’t think I will ever think of Hannah Montana the same way ever again…
  lulz
• Giant Chupacabras Snail
  Click at your own risk…
  wtf
• But what are your thoughts on homosex?
  Homosex. It’s almost kind of catchy!
  wank
• Blaster anniversary recalls network worm heyday
  Still the only virus I’ve ever caught wild. Damn you, university network!
  security:viruses
• Steampunk Madam at Ohayocon 09
  You know what’s hot? This. This is what’s hot.
  art:photos photography otaku:cosplay
• khr–abandoned storyboard
  This is so unbelievably cute.
  art
• Fluffy Art #2
  Rain + Sun = ???
  art
• Idealizing Fantasy Bodies
  You know, I have to say I completely disagree with just about everything written here. One of the things the author fails (er, I think) to mention is that the changes in female avatar body-shapes between alpha and release were actually done in response to feedback from female players. Interrogating the text from the wrong perspective, indeed.
  gaming:mmos:wow feminism health:bodyimage
• Katy Lied
  You know, honestly? If that really were the choice, I know which one I’d choose…
  health:healthcare
• Sailor Moon Transformation
  For the record, my superhero costume is my Professor Snape coat and my Lex Luthor black leather gloves. I think that says pretty much all you need to know about me, really.
  video otaku:cosplay
• Gender Identity Disorder Reform
  So apparently according to the DSM-IV I had Gender Identity Disorder. Gee, thanks for mansplainin’ that to me, DSM-IV.
  health:psychology sexuality:gender

Comment?

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I'm just not in the mood for much of anything. I'm having my period and I think I'm coming down with a cold and I'm all with the grumpy.

I might be scarce for a day or two.

xposted to IJ and LJ

Word count: 350.

A poem I found and love:
( On Etymology )

The Air Up There
by Rana Eros
(DBSK, OT5, wardrobe mishaps, 200 words)
In which Changmin is tall and their designer is never allowed to go on vacation again. Ever.
Author's Notes: I want it known that Keiko totally abuses her modly power. Which is how it should be. Written for Keiko, and for the drabble challenge topic of "boots" over at dbsk_flashfic. Eliza-tested, Eliza-approved (and you shoulda heard what she was talking about).

( The Air Up There )

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behold a most excellent Fanlore article on manpain, deriving from the conversations I linked to a few days ago.

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I went to the gym today!

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xposted to IJ and LJ

• Word count: 1,332.
  
  
• Interesting article: Clay Shirky's essay A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority. Authority thus performs a dual function; looking to authorities is a way of increasing the likelihood of being right, and of reducing the penalty for being wrong. This is, oddly, something I think about a fair bit -- probably because the university I used to work at is run by scoundrels and liars. Over and over again the president (or more often his horrible "spokeswoman") would say things that I absolutely knew weren't true. Even writing about it, years later, when I no longer work there, makes my heart race. Of course, living through the George W. Bush years was pretty much the same thing: liars, liars, liars. So what makes an authority the authority when you know that what they say isn't accurate? Looking to authorities might increase the likelihood of being right when the value of "right" has nothing to do with verifiable facts.
  
  
• Guilt still plagues me: Almost two years ago, I signed up for a story exchange and flaked out. I was having troubling writing anyway, and the prompts I received didn't spark anything. I felt horrible dropping out -- and have sworn off exchanges FOREVER as a result -- but I'm still glad I signed up because the person who got my prompts not only didn't flake out, she wrote a wonderful, wonderful story that I re-read again today: Salutation to the Dawn, a deeply romantic Ronon/Radek story with terrific world-building. Thank you, Pierson! I still love your story so much.

So last week I posted about the Archive Of Our Own, which if you missed it is being called AO3 because AOOO sounds like a basset hound. But I didn't really post as a reader. It didn't occur to me because I had just spent several days uploading all of my fanfiction there. (Well, that I still like. I actually do have two Greek mythology fics that I haven't posted there, but the second one is a sequel to the first, which was written in high school and has some gender issues I'm really not proud of.)

Anyway, after all that posting, I had kind of expected people to read my fic, but I hadn't actually gotten around to reading their fic.

And omg you guys, AO3 is great for fic-reading. At least for me.

( AO3 as a reader. )

Anyway. Having said all that, Chapter Seven of Between Here and Now and Forever is posted on:
The Archive Of Our Own
FanFiction.Net
Skyhawke
LiveJournal

In honor of this, ( more YouTube music links! )

Refreshed self on Yuletide source yesterday, and was reminded of how much I love it. Love also gives me wings. Today, fighting with the denouement of my Yuletide story. Either my recipient will like it, or ze'll learn to embrace the details field and Yule letter tradition next year.

Has anyone actually submitted the suggestion to the AO3 pantheon that the character limit on the pairings field be extended? Also, I am pondering wuzzle wrangling. I might not have the spoons, on the one hand, but on the other, I have a *koff* decent knowledge of some, ah, obscurer fandoms. Also, I just like saying it. Wuzzle wrangler. It's kinda like speaking Welsh.

No Nuna Exchange stories so far, but I suspect that'll change at the end of the month, if this year is anything like the last two. Also, I have been sounding off a bit in nuna_fans so as not to blast the dbsg comm with my special blend of "you people are stupid," "damn kids get off my lawn," "vive le revolution," and "would you like some self-absorption with that entitlement?" Tl;dr version: three members of DBSK are suing their management company for, frankly, unspeakably vile terms of contract. Cue mass freakout by kids afraid they'll break up and inclined to blame the three members for bringing it up rather than the company for, y'know, pulling shit. Cue Rana wanting to reach through the screen and beat a whole lot of people with her keyboard. Or just tell them all to grow the hell up before they interact with the rest of the human race.

Returning to writing, because it calms me, or at least allows me to channel my severe misanthropy in ways that won't get me arrested: my Broken Toys story is in fragments that nearly equal 3K words, none of them anywhere near a climax. So I guess I know what I'll be doing once the Yuletide is drafted.

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