The Tyranny of Socks

... and I came across this song. It is a matter of eternal regret to me that no one ever made a Duncan/Methos vid to this song. I mean, "...he's drinking all my beer, he's wearing all my clothes, and if he winks at me again I think I'll take him home" and "he says he has a question, he starts tugging at my cloths -- would I be good enough to take him to his girlfriend's home?"

I mean, there's absolutely a barbarian in the back of your car. This is my "vid I would have learned to vid to make" vid.

So apparently not only is Fanlore partying like it's 1999, by suggesting that posting images of fans on their site is totally fine, even if you don't have permission of everyone in the image, but I am partying like it's 2005 by commenting on the public post.

Probably the intensity of my reaction is brought on by the fact that I'm now living in a world in which masking is "encouraged" but not "required", and thus suspect based on some evidence that asking people to be "thoughtful" of others is nowhere near as effective as requiring them to get permission before posting images of other fans. Surely it is obvious not only to me that there is a clear difference between a photograph printed in a letterzine from 1992 and one posted on the internet in 2021.

Personally, and for the record, I would prefer not to have any images of me posted on the internet, especially not ones that link my image and this pseud, but it's a bit of a non-starter since I probably haven't been involved in any face-to-face fannish activities in 25 years or more.

I am normally a pretty laid-back viewer these days. For example, I didn't like ( this spoilery thing that happened in Endgame ) but I could see how the writers got there, and ultimately it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the rest of the movie.

I wasn't even particularly upset when my cousin spoiled me for the Big Important Deed that was done at the end of last week's episode of Game of Thrones -- he had guessed who would do it correctly and was just so proud he had to post about it in giant facebook letters.

So I was very surprised to find out that my reaction to ( another spoiler that hasn't even happened yet on Game of Thrones ) was a very visceral I-don't-want-that, and the feeling that it would actually ruin my enjoyment of the series as a whole. ( Further ranting under the cut )

So I see that rarewomen has become rarelywritten and has expanded its purview to include all characters who aren't cis males. Well, it's their exchange and they can do what they like with it, and I'm in no position to criticize considering that I've never participated. But this opening statement made me laugh and and roll my eyes, until I started to fume:

Since its inception, rarewomen has been about being a fanfiction exchange that seeks to correct the gender disparity of characters represented in fanworks. We have noticed a gap between number of stories written about cis-men and those written about other genders and sexes.

Really? Because my memory is that in origin rarewomen was about writing for women who were less frequently written within their fandoms, or from rarely-written fandoms. (It was: I went to check.) And that was because outside of one particular fandom subculture, female characters are written just as frequently as male characters. It's as if the people responsible here have never heard about Harry Potter or X-Files (let alone anime! or the Hunger Games! or whatever the current big fandoms are), but think that fandom somehow went straight from Kirk/Spock and Starsky & Hutch to Sherlock, with maybe a detour via SGA (but nothing with Teyla or Weir or Carter, please) and the Star Wars prequel trilogies. I still remember going to the dealer's room at MediaWest in 1995 or 1996 and asking about X-Files fanfic, and being told that there just wasn't any. And of course, in that particular slash fan subculture, there wasn't much to be found. But my goodness was there actually a lot of XF fanfic in the end, and unsurprisingly most of it had a female character in it. Her name was Scully; you might remember her.

Guys, there is nothing wrong with writing and reading only or predominantly m/m fanfic! Just for the love of god, stop pretending that it's the only version of fandom there is! I understand if you find that you don't go to ff.net much because there isn't much there that you like to read, but stop pretending that AO3 is the largest place -- or even the only place -- on the internet to find fic. It isn't. Your community is not more legitimate than any other fanfic subculture!

I'm pretty sure we had this conversation on Glass Onion, for god's sake, and then every year thereafter somewhere on LJ. Can't we finally stop pretending that m/m slash is the one true way?

(Another way that this is like 2005: I'm posting meta unlocked on DW/LJ)

ETA: OK, so they are keeping the requirement that the character also be infrequently written. But I still boggle at the idea that female characters are less-written as a group, at least outside the circle of people who just prefer to write about male characters.

I see the list of "ten signs I wrote this story" meme is going around again, and cannot resist navel-gazing. I did this meme back in January of 2006, which is not all that long ago except in fandom terms. Here it is, with additions in parentheses. Bold parentheses!

10 signs a story is by Vanzetti:

1. Shameless overuse of the "then + verb" construction. Must break this habit! (I think I may have moved on to out-and-out asyndeton, which at least means that I've left the "then" out)

2. There will be little description of persons, although there may be some description of the location. (True. This is something I don't really care for in other people's fanfic -- the whole point of the exercise is that we already know what these people look like! -- so I tend to leave it out of my own stuff.)

3. The plot is carried forward by conversation, rather than action. (This was already less true -- I was moving out of the stories driven by dialogue -- but it's still the case that I like to get important stuff done in conversation, rather than narration or internal monologue.)

4. No one is in love. (I don't think this was true even then, and in fact I see that I contradict it in number 6 below. It would be fairer to say that I don't write romance. Romance may occur, but it won't be the focus of the story.)

5. No one has sex. An exception might be made for femslash. (And, apparently, for John Winchester.)
5a. Fade to black!

6. If characters do have sex, it is likely to be because they have a deep and true love which can overcome a thousand betrayals. No one will admit this to themselves, let alone the other person.
6a. If not a deep and true love, than at least a deep and true understanding.
6b. I am a huge fan of homophrosune (likemindedness). Odysseus/Penelope OTP!
(This is all still so very, very true. My characters are chronically incapable of saying "I love you." They express love in all kinds of ways, sometimes involving guns and explosions, but most of them would rather gnaw off a limb than actually say it.)

7. The main characters in the story are unlikely to be the main characters in the source. (Yep. And now, they are also likely to be dead at least some of the time.)

8. The characters will travel long distances in the course of the story.
8a. Exotic locations!
8b. I hate airports!
(This is less true now than it was then, and even then it may have been due to the characters and genres -- Alias characters travel all the time, especially with their special travel powers, and both Krycek and Marita act in an international world. Winchesters drive around a lot, but they don't use airports much. These days, my characters are more likely to travel between Hell and the world than anything else. I guess that counts as an exotic location.)

9. The characters will be adults, and will act like adults. (Still true. Boys are boring. Girls moderately less so. But I teach young adults; I don't want to read about them, too.)

10. There are unexplained classical allusions and the title has something to do with graves or stones. (I've gotten better about the title thing, although I still find coming up with titles hard. But the unexplained classical allusions are still leaving their nasty pawprints all over everything.)

Is there anything I'm missing?

So tomorrow I leave for the post-holiday migration, back to Halifax and work. Alas. And earlier today there was a computer-related scare, in which I lost about ten open tabs of Yuletide stories I meant to read, but I'm sure I can find them again later.

In the meantime, that "yearly fic wrap-up" meme. This feels like the first time I've had enough stories written in a year to do something like this.


My favorite story this year: I hope that it will turn out to be Blessings Against the Thunder (FF/SPN, John/Zoe), but that's still unfinished and a lot will probably depend on how well I finish it. I will finish it. It's longer and more twisty than anything I've written in years, but it's also a great deal of fun, and I look at it with pride. Although right now it's rough going, grinding out one word after another, and I kind of resent the fact that I'm writing it rather than anything else, even though there isn't anything else that I particularly want to write.

My best story this year: May in November (SPN, S1, John). I will stand by that judgment, I think.

Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: This is hard for me, because there are a couple stories I wish has gotten more response, but I suspect didn't because they didn't work as well as they should have; they got about as much appreciation as they probably deserved, and were quickly forgotten. But I do rather like Patchwork Life (Alias, S5, Sark and Irina), and wish it had reached a wider audience.

Sexiest story: It must be Blind-sided Highway (SPN/HL, John/Amanda), which has one of the longest sex scenes I've ever written, I think. This doesn't mean much, considering my love of the kiss-and-fade-to-black ending.

Most fun story: Oh, probably that section of Blessings with Dean and Jayne and the grenades and thing with the tentacles. You know. Or the part where Mal and John beat each other up and Dean teaches River to hustle pool. I don't know.

"Holy crap, that's *wrong*, even for you" story: Oh, dear. It pretty much has to be the nameless dead (SPN/Alias), doesn't it? I am so very, very sorry about that. I will make it up to Sark someday. I could let him kill Dean, but that would probably lead to my being run out of fandom on a rail.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: All my stories do this, one way or another, because I feel them out as I write. I think probably, the series of drabbles I wrote over the summer for supernatural100 went a long way towards defining John Winchester in my head. And somehow that was the period when the character snuck up on me and took over my brain.

Hardest story to write: Totally My hands remember hers (Deadwood, Jane/Joanie), because the show is so hard to write. The voices are so distinct, and the writing is so good that I kind of felt I was setting myself up for failure, not matter what. And then, months of writing Firefly had me spelling "Jane" as "Jayne" for about half the first draft.

Biggest disappointment: Abandoning the "Five ways Dean and Krycek might have met" story idea. There's a snippet up here, with Dean and Marita, but I really regret the way it absolutely failed to come together. Part of the problem was that I'd convinced myself that at least one of the scenes had to be slash and... well, that just wasn't ever going to happen. And then, the last section was a get-them-out-of-the-car thing, and then S2 started before I could finish the other sections, but I didn't want to cut that one so... yeah.

Biggest surprise: Everything I write comes as a surprise to me. I suppose that there were two big surprises this year -- the end of The Instincts of a Good Man (Alias, Jack, post S5) came as a total shock to me (and to many readers, apparently, which is really cool). I had no idea about the twist until I wrote it. And then I suppose that The way Blessings Against Thunder grew this sprawling plot out of what was supposed to be a one-off bit of hot crossover pairing, but in retrospect, I find plot easier than smut most days, so it's not that big a surprise.

Most unintentionally *telling* story: Um, if the events of the nameless dead represent my subconscious depiction of me switching fandoms, I don't want to know about it. But most of what I write is probably more revealing than I'd like.

A story I want remembered: Blessings. I do really love it (except when I hate it, but that's the nature of any writing project for me), and I think I pull the crossover off rather well. I've seen a few other versions of this crossover, and really do like mine best, although that has a lot to do with it being the crossover I want it to be, and not someone else's idea of the crossover.

Seen everywhere! Of course, by posting this Saturday morning I can be relatively sure that no one will read this.

Ten Signs the Story You're Reading Is by Vanzetti


1. Shameless overuse of the "then + verb" construction. Must break this habit!

2. There will be little description of persons, although there may be some description of the location.

3. The plot is carried forward by conversation, rather than action. [This is slightly less true now than it was, say, a year or two ago.]

4. No one is in love.

5. No one has sex. [An exception might be made for femslash.]
5a. Fade to black!

6. If characters do have sex, it is likely to be because they have a deep and true love which can overcome a thousand betrayals. No one will admit this to themselves, let alone the other person.
6a. If not a deep and true love, than at least a deep and true understanding.
6b. I am a huge fan of homophrosune (likemindedness). Odysseus/Penelope OTP!

7. The main characters in the story are unlikely to be the main characters in the source.

8. The characters will travel long distances in the course of the story.
8a. Exotic locations!
8b. I hate airports!

9. The characters will be adults, and will act like adults.

10. There are unexplained classical allusions and the title has something to do with graves or stones.

I really like the "five crushes you had as a child/teenager" meme, if only as an excuse to dredge up some fond yet embarrassing memories.

1. Aragorn. I've had this crush since I was seven. It comes and goes, but I see no reason to give it up.


2. Dr. McCoy. Even then, I liked the secondary characters. McCoy had some interesting stuff going on.


3. Luke Skywalker. I'm still a little embarrassed about this, because even then I knew that Han was so much cooler.


4. Marc Remillard, from Julian May's Pliocene books. First of the Bad Boys who might, possibly, have meant well, but probably not.


5. Regis Hastur. Darkover. Very serious crush.

I think Francis Crawford really belongs to a slightly later period. Or anyway, he represents a major turning point, or something. Frankly, I'm a little vague about chronology.

So clearly the fascination with the ambiguously evil was not as strong in those days--I liked the traumatized yet responsible types just as well. In retrospect, this shouldn't surprise me as much as it does.

I've been re-reading some of my own fic recently, which is surely one of the most self-indulgent things ever. But in between wincing at the editing mistakes and poor phrasing, I was struck by how mean the Kryceks that I write are. Really. It's amazing that the other characters don't band together to knock him over the head and dump the body in the bottom of a lake. I know I'm no hearts-and-roses redemptionista, but I'd forgotten what a bastard I made him. And you know he's the hero in these stories, right?

I've been thinking about my pairing preferences, as well, because it's not like there's a pattern or anything: Krycek/Marita, Jack/Irina, Wesley/Lilah (because if I could write Jossverse, I'd probably write that). Add on Mulder/Krycek, Syd/Lauren and a little Wesley/Angel and you can see where this is going. But when writing I'm actually struck not by the similarities but by how different all these relationships are. Krycek/Marita really ought to be more like Jack/Irina than it is.

And finally, I was looking around some recs for Homicide fic, and thought I'd read some Munch/Kay, because I adore Kay. Adore. This was a mistake, because the thought of John Munch naked freaks me out to no end. Urk. I had to go wash my mind out with bubble bath.

Spoilers for all the shows I watch. Possibly for all the shows I've ever watched, but in practical terms I think Alias 3x02 and Angel 5x02 are the ones my readers are most likely to care about.

Last week I wrote a couple paragraphs on the question of "Sloane: Is He Evil?", a reference the the long-running "Cole: Is He Evil?" subplot on Charmed. Anyone who knows me knows that I focus on the antiheroes, or even the villains, in the shows I engage with fannishly. And in a blinding flash of light, if I don't find the villains or antiheroes interesting, I may watch the show but I'll never really engage with it creatively. This must be why I watched Buffy faithfully for all those years and had exactly one plotbunny, which was never written.

( thoughts on evil and redemption )

One could take this as my "favorite fannish things" equivalent.