Oddments

[raven]

This entry is going to feature everything I want to talk about at the moment, regardless of relevance to a)the rest of the entry or b)anything else at all. Just so we've got that clear before I go on.

time_and_chips is the most irritating community ever posted in. Ever. Gah. But taraljc is writing me fic, which is never a bad thing. Yay.

In other news, the exam I had yesterday morning was Talk In Life And Literature. It's module five, and I think it went fine. I was being insomniac and sleepy when I went into the hall, and I was more than a little worried I'd sit there and not write anything, but I managed. The two Othello passages were easy to put into context, and I wrote about six sides on Shakespeare's subversion of spoken convention before my hand quite dropped off. The other question was much harder - the unseen texts were a doctor/patient transcript and an extract from Middlemarch - as it always is, and I went to some effort trying to pick out conveyed attitudes and values. But I wrote something, and finished in time.

The afternoon's exam was General Studies. I didn't even know which module it was (good thing I took my calculator, in retrospect), and on the science essay question I wrote two sides before I just... stopped. Forty-five minutes of sleeping on my desk later, I handed it in. I have failed it without a shadow of a doubt. Oh, well, as they say; it's not like it's important.

The next exams I have are on Tuesday - Biology module five (Ecology and the Environment, or that stuff we did while wading through manure in Rhyd-y-creuau), and English synoptic. I have my pre-release for that. If anyone else has the same pre-release (it's A2 English Language and Literature spec B), please do comment. We can have a mini-study group before Tuesday. I'm terribly sad but I like this paper, as it's challenging without being difficult and also the only past paper I have ever got full marks for.

Let's see, what else? I've been tagged for two memes:

dynamitebebe wanted to know five songs I'm listening to at the moment, so here we go:

Coldplay - Speed of Sound (it's lovely, and has a gorgeously psychedelic video)

Indigo Girls - Language and the Kiss (I initially didn't like it, but it's really grown on me for some reason)

John Barrowman & Kevin Kline - Night And Day (because)

Counting Crows - Anna Begins (it reminds me of Hannah and it's a lovely song anyway)

Placebo - Protege-Moi (the end of it gives me chills)

And someone else wanted to know five things I do to relax, which I will write about when I'm feeling more... well, relaxed. In the meantime, daegaer is propagating a meme where you talk about what fic you like, regardless of what everyone else says you should like. Which seems to be a meme worthy of propagation.

I like fic about complex relationships. Most of the time this means I like slash, because a het pairing explored by the canon loses its complexity very quickly, or at least its unexplored complexity. I am shamelessly in love with characters with issues (witness my six-year crush on Remus Lupin), and I like relationships with issues. Which is why I insist on inflicting Remus/Hermione on the general population, and also why I'm so impatient with the shippers trivialising Doctor/Rose. A brief digression - I like Doctor/Rose. I like that our beloved, war-damaged Time Lord is joyfully showing Rose the universe for the first time, and I like the way it's played, with the hand-holding, the assumptions made by the other characters, the lovely, indefinable sweetness of it all.

But to forget the context of the (probable) longest-running sci-fi show in history, the universe, the characters, the plots, all in favour of sappy, saccharine badfic - urgh. Spare me.

And I also like that the Doctor, who lost his world, takes Rose to see the demise of her world; he nearly lost her at the end of WW3, but shamelessly manipulated her to get her to come with him; he messed with Mickey, threw out Adam and was instantly jealous of Jack. He might love Rose, but he's so emotionally fucked-up he'll probably damage her until she's as far gone as he is. Why don't we get fic that deals with that, mmm?

And after that, it's amazing that I like gen too, but I do. Actually, I only wrote gen for my first couple of years in fandom. Not very good gen, but gen all the same.

Sigh. Bedtime. A whole new day of study leave tomorrow, whoo-yay.

Comments

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

See, there I agree with you. The mods and most of the people are lovely, and of course many of them are my own friends and adopted relations.

I think that there's a lot of distance between the rabid scary Nine/Rose 'shippers with Muses (I am forever in teh fannish doghosue for my unpopular opinion of "Muses"), and the "I love the level they have at canon, and I fancy [well-written, copy-edited] fic which maybe takes it up a notch..." end of the spectrum. But there's a LOT, alas, of reading something, and wanting to crawl into a hole at the idea of the whole lot being lumped in together and hiding whil holding up the "stop being on my side. you make my side look dumb" sign.

I think you always get that, tho. Wanting to disassociate yourself from the extreme end of your fandom, and being horrified to think that their actions end up reflecting on you, being all fans of the 'ship get painted with the same brush. But at the same time, it helps to find people with whom you DO enjoy discussing those aspects of fiction, and trying to focus on the positive instead of being consistantly depressed by the negative.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I think that there's a lot of distance between the rabid scary Nine/Rose 'shippers with Muses (I am forever in teh fannish doghosue for my unpopular opinion of "Muses")

*scrambles into doghouse with you*

stop being on my side. you make my side look dumb" sign.

I think it's worse in this fandom because there's this element of it being us n00bs versus the old-school fans who've been in it for years.

I'll probably get up tomorrow and regret I posted this, but I've done it now. I don't want the entire ship painted with the same brush, but people do tend to do that. Bring on the copy-edited fic that takes it up a notch. :)

[gwynnega]

(I am forever in teh fannish doghosue for my unpopular opinion of "Muses")

Oh god, yes. The Muse becomes this catch-all to abdigate responsibility for what you write. The Muse Made Me Do It! (And then "the Muse deserted me" becomes this "dog ate my homework"-esque excuse for not finishing one's ficathon story...)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

not finishing one's ficathon story

*makes incoherent noises of RAGE*

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

*pets you*

[gwynnega]

I ran a ficathon awhile back, and I can (unfortunately) relate...

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

that's exactly why I cringe when people mention "muses." Because personifying the creative process in order to distance oneself from it--for the purpose of placing blame, no less--is high on my list of "How to be a complete wanker of the literary world." And this is not solely applied to fan fiction authors. I'll bitch-slap Laurel K Hamilton or Anne Rice just as quick, thanks.

Whether it's Lord fucking Byron doing it, or your local "I've been writing fanfic online since I was 11, when I first found out fanfic existed after being invented by X-Files authors" n00b, it will always always bother me.

I know someone people just use it as a turn of phrase. A way of romanticising the creative process. Or short-hand, even in a joking manner. And I know I actively piss people off when I make noise about how much I despise it. But I can't help it. It's insidious. Because it's a very subtle little thing no one much notices that diminishes the act of writing, and the author's responsibility for her work (or lack thereof).

And I know a lot of my friends sue it. And I know they get pissed off when I bitch and moan about it. But I can't help it. It bugs me. Always will, always has, and if and when I ever actually teach creative writing in the classroom, God help any clever child who tries to refer to a muse in my presence.

[gwynnega]

It absolutely makes me cringe. (Then again, the whole notion of "oh, I can't write unless the mood strikes" also annoys me...)

[that_mireille]

Seriously. I'm not even attempting to be a writer of original fiction, but... yes, I can write when I'm not in the mood to. It's possible that it's not as good (although that's actually debatable); it's certain that I rarely like it as well. It takes longer, and feels much more mechanical. But I can generally write when I'm not in the mood.

I've been in some moods in the past six months when I really could not write, but I was also so upset that I just was not functioning. If I can make myself do other stuff, I can make myself write.

[gwynnega]

See, I find that there are times when I am in the mood to write, and the writing is flowing, and I think I'm a genius, and then a day or two later I look at what I've written, and it's crap. And just as frequently, I can be completely recalcitrant but make myself write, and I think it's crap, and it turns out to be good...

[that_mireille]

Which is why I said it's debatable that mine's any better. Some of my stuff is good, and some of it's awful, and my mood really doesn't have anything to do with it. (I'm generally more fond of the stuff I wrote when I was in the mood to write, provided it isn't crap, but I think that's just that it's a more pleasant memory.)

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

and if you couldn't write, you would say "I couldn't write a thing today" as opposed to "My muse abandonned me..." or "I can't hear my Muse!" etc.

This is why I love you, and want to knit you scarves and bake you cookies, and such.

(note: I can neither knit, nor bake. 'ware any offers of either from me)

[that_mireille]

Oh, so what you really want is to poison me and make me dress funny. ;) *loves you madly*