yonmei

01:24 pm: Chocolate, art, cats, and warnings
Danish chocolate isn't particularly good. At least, not the box full of berry-flavoured marzipan chocolates Transamurai brought back from Oslo. I like marzipan, but these were dull.

I'm going to an art exhibition tonight in Glasgow, meeting up with solo. I think it's going to be fun, but I'm glad I'm going with solo.

Because I wasn't going to be back till late, I turned Bob back from eating grass in the garden this morning. She was not a happy kitty.

On warnings for fanfic: The distinction is not between people who have suffered a trauma and people who have not: it it is between people who like being warned of anything untoward in their reading before they take a look at it, and people who do not. The categories are not identical, and indeed I am not sure they even overlap in any significant way.




Tags: cats, chocolate, glasgow, imaginary friend meetup, meta

10:55 am: Last night the mist came down
Really, with darkness: it was like a bad fantasy novel. The sun set and the haar rose, and from a sunny shiny day it was a misty blurry night.

Things I wish writers warned for:

- "The writer intends to trash the female lead in order to justify the two male leads getting together with each other even though both had shown interest in her in canon."

- "Out-of-character misogynist or homophobic abusive comments."

- "For plot reasons, the writer intends to make both central characters refrain from talking to each other about something very important: out of writerly incapacity, no good reason will be given for why they don't just say something."

- One of the worst things I ever read was when RayK from Due South decided to "punish" his ex-wife (I think it was Stella - I read it just once, years ago) for making mildly homophobic remarks about his relationship with Fraser, by slipping very explicit and very identifiable shots of her naked into a presentation she was giving to a conference of her professional peers: the story closes on RayK and RayV in satisfied giggles at what they'd done, which (in direct discussion with the writer) I found she considered was a happy ending, because Stella had been so mean to RayK about his finding love with Fraser. Writer apparently did not follow why this was "excessive", though she said other people had said that to her as well. There were no warnings for it, but though I can't now remember the pseud she was using, I didn't read anything she'd written in DS fanfic again. There was no warning. The writer really didn't see that there was anything wrong with that.

- The writer is an idiot.

Nobody warns for Regency romances:

BABY SARAH: Whaa... oh I get it. Stockholm Syndrome! What an interesting book, examining Stockholm Syndrome and rape from the inside out. I am enthralled.
RAVEN-HAIRED MARQUIS: It is possible that, given your brave tolerance of all the rape, your virtuous defence of peasants and bunnies, and your occasional indignant foot stamps and fiery lock tossing, you may in fact not be a ho. Whoops. Sorry 'bout that. I love you. Let us be wed!
BABY SARAH: Now's your chance! This is his moment of weakness. Bop him over the head with a chamber pot and make a break for it across the tennis lawn!
FLAME-HAIRED SPIRITED INGENUE: Yay! Marriage and babies.
BABY SARAH: And then he got away with rape and she never recovered from Stockholm Syndrome the end? Oh my God, the chill unbelievable horror of it all.

Then Baby Sarah stayed up all night, stock still and terrified that a marquis would come and brainwash her. That book stayed with me a long time. I entirely refused to read romance because of it.

Tags: meta, weather

09:07 pm: Worldcon panels I for one will never propose, and not for their lack of interest, part 1
I am probably going to the Worldcon in Montreal this August. (I say "probably" because I am staring wanly at my finances, and at the state of the world, and wisting that I will miss most of 's visit to Edinburgh, but, you know. I bought a membership! I've said who I won't be on panels with! I've proposed panel topics! I've volunteered! I've emailed Shoshanna!

I haven't booked a catsitter or plane tickets. June for that.

But it occurred to me, while dipping into Fun Home, that a panel that would be fascinating (probably) but I don't think I could ever brave the personal embarrassment of proposing to either of the possible participants:

Alison Bechdel and Samuel R. Delany, discussing what it was like to be a nascent queer writer growing up in a funeral home, with fathers who died before either of them were 20.

(Admittedly, under different circumstances: Bechdel's father died in either accident/suicide, Delany's father died of cancer.)

Current Mood: amused

Tags: bechdel, books are what i read, delany, meta, worldcon

4 lolcat | Purr at me

04:00 pm: Awa an bile yer heid, ya numpty.
In a recent lengthy and beautiful rant, ginmar used the phrase "scot free".

To which one of the troublemakers* who frequent ginmar's journal responded:

Please, preclude yourself from using racist terms in the future. 'Scot free', 'scotch tape', 'thrifty scot' and other icons of supposed Scottish behaviours are abhorent to scots and those of scottish ancestry. Just because we are a minor minority does not mean that we are not hurt nor offended by such idiomatic drek.

I checked the guy's userinfo, and found that he's from Michigan in the US... ( Besides being an annoying git )

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*Update: Actually, the guy seems to have commented anonymously on his own journal justifying being a troll as a form of art. Weirdness in the world...

Tags: meta, weird stuff

08:58 am: Food moderators are whacko
Last night I was formally informed, by a moderator on oneofmyfoodcommunities (name withheld to protect the guilty) that if someone offends you by making a brusque comment, it's perfectly okay to respond by insulting them.

Possibly moderating a food community drives you mad after a while.

Tags: internet insanity, meta, sometimes i write about food