A few weeks ago I had to do a class presentation on sci-fi, media, and The Other. HOO BOY.

So, being a good little fan, I clipped a segment, less than a minute long, of the opening of the heinously racist BBC Sherlock ep 1x02, The Blind Banker, which I would strongly encourage you never to see because it is awful. It is 90 minutes of heinously offensive non-stop racism, and my feeling was, well, if I'm going to profess to be a fan of any part of this bullshit, John/Watson or Hound of the Baskervilles or whatever, the very least I can do is use this in my class discussion to talk about how mainstream media is still blatantly encouraging the othering of people via the use of awful victorian-era stereotypes.

Before I could actually present this clip for the class, however, Youtube contacted me to tell me that the video was infringing upon the BBC's copyright and they were deleting my clip. I promptly countered their takedown and explained that, no, this was a very short, out-of-context clip that was uploaded for academic purposes with a view towards commenting on the racism in the scene. You can't access the video, but the comment about racism is also included in the uploaded information for the video, so it's clear that the clip's intended purpose is to provide commentary on the scene.

Countering allowed me to reinstate the vid long enough to show it for my class presentation, where it provoked a very positive discussion. I left the clip up on Youtube in the hope that it would be useful to other people, even if they just needed to be able to point it out when saying "OH MY GOD THIS IS THE MOST RACIST PIECE OF SHIT I HAVE EVER SEEN ON TV" because i have seen a lot of tv and believe me this ep of BBC Sherlock takes the cake. And no, I'm not ever going to stop being horrified by it. I saw it just over a month ago for the first time and my jaw is still on the floor.

This morning, I had this nice email from youtube:
Dear bookshop,
BBC Worldwide has reviewed your dispute and reinstated its copyright claim on your video, "Blind Banker opening". For more information, please visit your Copyright Notice page.

Going to my copyright notice page, I am informed that "As a result, your account has been penalized and is not in good standing. Deleting the video will remove the penalty due to this claim." OH-HO, but that's not all! Because before I could actually ACCESS my account, I had to click on, watch, and take a motherfucking QUIZ on a copyright video about Fair Use.

That's right! I had to go to Copyright School.

________

All of this is to say that this is why I am a member of the Organization for Transformative Works.

I am a member of the OTW because in 2002, Warner Brothers tried to get a certain fanfic archive to remove my fic, Love Under Will, from its archives. Not all fics. Just a specific few, one of which was MINE. The archive said no; these fics are fair use. Warner Brothers backed down.

I am a member of the OTW because in 2002, Warner Brothers tried to shut down an entire archive, a different archive, that several of my fics were hosted on. The archive said no, these fics are fair use. Warner Brothers backed down.

I am a member of the OTW because repeatedly and recently, Canada and Australia have been arresting fans because they possess manga, erotic fanart, or other doujinshi or fanworks that are considered "obscene."

I am a member of the OTW because in 2007, Livejournal tried to ban numerous fanartists and fan communities because it said they were pedophiles. On May 29, 2007, in the middle of the ensuing chaos, I sent an email to a bunch of other fans that read, "I would like to form or be part of a cross-Fandom Action committee to approach Six Apart and ask them to [reinstate specific fan communities] and to protect the freedom of speech of fandom members everywhere."

I got my wish. Out of the aftermath of Strikethrough, the OTW was born, and it is so much more than the cross-fandom Action committee I was hoping for. It is a thriving, empowered body of fans who fight for DMCA exemptions for vidding, offer legal advice to fans slapped with takedowns, run an amazing little archive you might have heard of called the AO3, and offer so many ways and opportunities for fans to have a voice, represent themselves, and create awesome things, whether it be through Fanlore, Transformative Works and Cultures, the Open Doors Project, Yuletide and other collections like the SSA, and more.

I am a member of the OTW because I believe in the absolute freedom of all fans everywhere to engage in fannish practices, whether they be critical or purely for pleasure. I am a member of the OTW because it speaks for me in defending my rights when my own individual attempts to say, "my fan practice is fair use!" have failed. I am a member of the OTW because I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO WATCH CONDESCENDING VIDEOS ATTEMPTING TO EDUCATE ME ABOUT FAIR USE, wtf youtube.

I am a member of the OTW because I believe fans really, really need a mediating body of smart, educated people to serve as a buffer between us and the occasional raging stupidity of TPTB.

I am a member of the OTW for so, so many reasons.

This week the OTW is having its annual Membership Drive. If you'd like to join me in supporting this organization that is so, so wonderfully dedicated to supporting you right back, please donate to the cause! A one-time donation makes you an org member and gives you a right to vote in this year's fall elections.

Also, it gives you a really rosy schmozy feeling of pride in fandom, right down to your toes. :)

(Which pride I will take with me, as I contest this takedown notice. AGAIN. )

Our movie night was fabulous last night. Everyone loved Bride & Prejudice and a bunch of people stuck around for Bend it Like Beckham. And then after that we all just kept hanging out and talking, and we wound up discussing, among a host of other things:

• Inception fandom, and why Arthur/Eames is the monstrous phenomenon that it is
  
• why the fandom as a whole is amazing and epic and also why it can be problematic and marginalizing if you don't ship the white male slash ship, and how we combat that and acknowledge that while still enjoying ourselves
  
• gay serial killer fics - specifically, this amazing fic where Justin Timberlake is one. Seriously. it's AMAZING. go read it.
  
• tangentially, this meta-textual postmodern creepypasta-inspired Bandom vampire epidemic fic, which I can't even talk about without just breaking down and shouting GO READ IT RIGHT NOW. and i don't even like bandom. or vampires. or epidemics. so.
  
• 80's action flicks and the requisite parts of all of them, namely homoeroticism, conservative agendas, and mullets. :D
  
• Inception library AUs, where we all wound up very seriously searching for one in particular for about half an hour. We found like 20 others instead.
  
• vidding and vid cons, and Yuletide, and dream_holiday

i don't even know what else but DUDE. I LEFT AFTER NEARLY EIGHT HOURS. AND THEN I COULDN'T SLEEP BECAUSE I JUST LITERALLY LAY AWAKE WITH MY HEAD TEEMING WITH INCEPTION META, AND FIC, AND THE GIDDINESS THAT COMES FROM HAVING SUCH ENERGY AROUND THE FANDOM THAT YOU LOVE. And it is amazing, absolutely amazing, that that energy still exists in Inception fandom a year and a half after the movie came out, and that so many of us are still here and wanting to be right in the center of it.

But.



What I always want more of is even more discussion about the movie, the characters, the plot, the backstory, the architecture, the ridiculous, the awesome, EVERYTHING.

So.

LET US HAVE A MEMECEPTION!

MEMECEPTION!

How to play: 1. comment here, and I and/or other people will ask you 3.14 inception-related questions.^*

For example:
1. What part of Inception did you like the most?
2. Which character did you want the most backstory on, and why?
3. Why does Limbo look more like Kansas City than a paradise?
3.14. If you could build anything in limbo what would it be?

OR: What are your top 3.14 favorite garments worn in the movie?

OR: What are your top 3.14 favorite scenes from Jizzy's Domesticverse?

AND SO FORTH.
2. You reply with your 3.14 answers!
3. You ask someone else for their 3.14 things!
3.14. WE GO TIL WE PASS OUT!

READY?

BRRMMMMMMMM!

* this may be 3, or 4, or 3.5, or whatever. Math: not really our strong suit.

inception fandom i loooooooooooooooooooooove you ♥_♥ YOU ARE MY SOUL SOUL

Dear Yuletide Author,

Thank you so much for writing for me! I am more excited about this Yuletide than I have been for any out of all the last 7 years! (and wow that is a long time!)

Watch this space for a detailed letter, but in the meantime, for you and everyone else, please enjoy the awesomeness:

Stuff about me: I really will love anything you choose to write for me, and what I really want more than anything is for you to have fun and indulge your creative side or your whimsical side or your angsty side or whatever side you want!
And maybe check out some of the other fandoms I signed up for if you have time!, just because they're all such wonderful films+girlband and I love the idea of sharing them. :)

I know it's apropos to mention our squicks, but I don't think any of these fandoms really lend themselves to things like necro--lol WELL, OKAY, MAYBE IN THE CASE OF THE ROOM--or noncon or, you know, vore or things like that. But as long as you warn me what I'm in for, I don't really have many squicks, tbh, not even regarding age differences or incest pairings--basically, I come from HP fandom, okay, you will never be able to shock or squick me. Actually, no, I take that back. BABIES. BABIES SQUICK ME. please don't put babies in your fic. Apart from that, there's not a whole lot, really, so feel free to write whatever you like. :)

Oh, and I should say: please don't be ableist/sizeist/racist/homophobic/genderphobic/misogynist, or, if you must have a character be any of those things, please do your best to ensure that the story narrative clearly condemns it.

Okay! On to the requests!

Request #2: Boy (2010)



(aka the greatest thing in the entire world ♥)

I originally had Michael Jackson as my fourth character, but the Yuletide gods rejected it, so I'm not sure if it made it into my final details. What I was thinking was some sort of whimsical scenario (maybe real, maybe imagined by Boy or his dad) where Michael Jack-son comes along and saves the day, or they somehow get tickets to travel to see him perform, or have some kind of visionary encounter with him or his spirit, etc. I just love the way he's portrayed in the film as being kind of divine, in the sense that he is ALWAYS THERE WITH THEM (and for that matter, all of the 80's in general - the trio of siblings named Dallas/Dynasty/Falcon Crest always kills me, for example), and it would be awesome to see fic that plays with that somehow.

I love all the characters in this film and would love to see fic that delves into the family relationships, or follows Boy or his brother as they grow up; or even just fic that toys with the idea that Rocky actually does have powers! :D Anything that taps into Maori culture would be amazing, but obviously the film is about Boy and his Dad and his family, and I'd love any fic that followed that--especially if we get more glimpses of their grandmother, who is clearly awesome. Or fic that plays with Boy's crush on Chardonnay and Dynasty's quiet-but-imo-obvious crush on Boy. Or anything that explores the opening epigraph ("you could be happy here... we could grow up together" from E.T.) and how Boy and the people around him, adults and children, all grow up together in Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. ♥

(Also, this is totally irrelevant, but isn't the soundtrack fabulous?)

Request #1: Miss A



Miss A! I LOVE THEM. :D :D :D :D They are my favorite K-pop girl band, and I love my K-pop girl bands. Min is just, nghhhhhh, I love everything about her, her attitude, her style, her amazing voice and dance skills. Same goes for Fei, who's so beautiful and polished and quiet but not shy, and who has the world's greatest smile, and looks so happy when she dances.

I ship Fei/Min hardcore, because I think their personalities complement each other really well, and they both clearly love dancing so much, and they are gorgeous together /shallowness--but I also love Jia (!!!), and Jia and Min together, and Fei and Suzy together--I think Suzy is adorable and smarter than she gets credit for (and omg when she wears her giant round glasses I die of love). I love all of them together as friends, but feel free to write shipfic, in any combination you want. I have read and loved Jia/Suzy as well, and I'd be open to all pairings/triads/quadrangles. I just want more fic for Miss A! :D

For the Asian pop fandoms, I always love exploring the restrictions placed upon the performers by the studios - JYP, SM Town, JE, etc - and how the very deliberate public personas created by the studios for each band member compare and contrast with who they really are. Like, how does Jia *really* feel about having to change her hair color every five minutes? Does Fei really fit the mold of the older, more sexually experienced one while Suzy is the virgin? etc etc. I'd love anything that shows how the four of them form bonds of friendship (and more!) while subverting the ways in which they basically are constantly on display for the pleasure of the male gaze. Like, how do they behave differently once the cameras are off, etc etc? OH, ASIAN POP STUDIOS. I love to hate to love you.

I also love that the group has that multi-national quality/background, and didn't necessarily come together organically--for example, I think Fei is more comfortable (she seems more open, talkative, natural) when she's in China, and I wonder if Min's time spent training in America while the rest of them were training in China makes her feel less connected to the group overall. I'd love anything that explores that aspect of their team dynamic.

Anyway, the point is: MIN. I LOVE YOU AND YOUR LEGS AND YOUR VOICE AND YOUR SMILE AND YOUR AMAZING DANCE MOVES. Yay. <3

P.S. My own Miss A fic (Fei/Min) is not very prolific, but it's here, in case you're interested. :)

Request #3: Ten:

because the internet is an amazing place, click here for the entire, phenomenal film.

So, I'm glad that I'm not the one writing fic for this film, because it's so powerful I wouldn't know where to begin. One of the great things about it, though, is that it gives you so many things to work with--there are so many stories and so many directions to take. Is there any way she can salvage her relationship with her son, and/or is there any way to deter her son's path as he becomes a mouthpiece for the sexist politics of his country? Is her friend able to successfully begin rebuilding her life following her declaration of independence? Does the main character ever meet up with the hooker again (and, if so, what happens? Obviously this should not just be about sex but is that a possibility, and if so, what does that mean for the main character's continual exploration of her own sexual and political independence, as well as the hooker's?)? What about the old lady who journeys to the Shrine? Does the Driver ever meet with other people as she drives through the city? What is the rest of her backstory? What kind of job does she have, and how does she feel about it? How does the rest of her family feel about her divorce, and in what ways does she bond with her newly single friend?

This is obviously a really loaded film to deal with, but it's a hugely rewarding one, and I would love any take on it that honors the spirit of the film and continues to explore the many questions Kiarostami raises about gender, class, generational gaps, and power politics, while giving us a closer look at these characters.


Request #4: Sweet Smell of Success:

have I mentioned the internet is AWESOME?



Run, do not walk, to this fucking masterpiece of American cinema.

(Dear Yuletide Author, I wound up not requesting this fandom, but some kind Yuletide fairy nominated and requested it anyway, so you should totally watch this film when you get a chance, because: amazing!)


P.S. A bonus in case I decide to sub out one of my requests with the following:

Request #4: The Room!



O HAI, YULETIDE WRITER! I already gave you a bunch of details for this one in my yuletide letter, which I could include because I asked for (and received) The Room fic last year. Normally I don't request the same fandom after I've just received fics for it, but I felt like all my other choices were way too serious, and I really wanted something to lighten the mood. And nothing lightens the mood (or crushes it into miserable oblivion???) like Tommy Wiseau!

There are so many hilarious places to go with The Room. The great thing about it is that the more seriously you treat the original subject matter, the more hilariously over-the-top it becomes. (I have this whole post in my head somewhere comparing The Room to Sweeney Todd: no, think about it, it works! Johnny=Sweeney, Lisa=Lucy/Joanna/Mrs.Lovett, Mark=Anthony/Judge Turpin, Denny=Toby, and The Room=The Barber Shop!) There's always something more to explore in this hilariously deadpan and unironic plebefic, and whether you treat it as a farce or as a melodrama, you're guaranteed to please. :D Just have fun, and remember: it is not the Spoon that gets thrown, it is only yourself!

I am so proud of my mom, oh my god.

From an email she just sent me:

I am SSOO glad you have the right attitude about the Twilight series. All the women here are talking about how they & their daughters love the books & can't wait to see the movie. I stood up & said my daughter says the Twilight series is undermining female independence from, and is promoting subservience to, men. Everyone fell silent.

SO PROUD, this just made my whole week. <3 ILU MOM <333333333

Note: This essay is a revision of an essay I wrote for death_note a while back. (Okay, like, 3 years ago. What.) It is a commentary on the manga, anime, and both films of Death Note, and contains major spoilers for all of them.

Death Note is one of those iconic, apocryphal stories that it feels like everyone's read or at least heard of by now and presumably not just because Zefron is playing Light in the remake.

If you've somehow missed it, let me sum it up for you as:



( three-year-old meta, five-year-old manga, 3,000 words of L/Light shipping disguised as ~social commentary~, what could possibly go wrong? )

in which Alfred Hitchcock explains that he writes fanfic:



From his legendary 1962 marathon interview sessions with François Truffaut:

There's been a lot of talk about the way in which Hollywood directors distort literary masterpieces. I'll have no part of that! What I do is to read a story only once, and if I like the basic idea, I just forget all about the book and start to create cinema. Today I would be unable to tell you the story of Daphne du Maurier's The Birds. I read it only once, and very quickly at that. An author takes three or four years to write a fine novel; it's his whole life. Then other people take it over completely.

Have you noticed that masters of their craft, the Hitchcocks and Lovecrafts and Gaimans and so forth, inherently get this concept, that the idea is larger than the individual it originates with?

So I just saw this film! It was the first time I had ever seen a digitally projected film in a theatre, and the clarity and the difference in color and picture quality were so astounding -- granted this was on a brand-new and pristine screen as well -- that I literally did not blink for the first thirty minutes of this film.

I thought it was amazing, the claustrophobic and deliberately invasive camera; the transitions that went from simple to esoteric and back again; the jump shots; the interspersing of the narrative about the nuclear family with the macro-story of the cosmos and everything in it; the brilliant sequencing of the men with their different shuffling walks, all impaired; the gorgeous, gorgeous Kubricked sequences of the universe and its patterns and evolution. I was mesmerized the whole time. I was ready for it to end when it ended, because the narrative of the family ended on an anticlimactic note to me, but I thought the whole film was just stunning and powerful and extraordinary.

I also want to say that I thought Sean Penn's character, who was so minor, was something of a homage to Peter Falk in Wings of Desire--the way he wanders around his office like a stranger in a strange land, balancing all those voice-overs with his weary, lost face. Yeah, I definitely got a Wim Winders vibe from that, though I think that might be just in my head.

So anyway, I was like, YAY FILM, and then I came back and the internet informed me that apparently, large crowd walk-outs have been common at all screenings of this film. Also that it was booed at Cannes. ALSO that apparently it's a "Christian" film with "Creationist" elements.

Which. Sorry. What? Why are people walking out of this film? WOULD THEY WALK OUT OF A SHOWING OF 2001? I THINK NOT. Booed at Cannes? What! And how is a 15-minute sequence showing the evolution of the earth and the cosmos a Creation myth?

Did I even see the same film???? What the heck.

Title: Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks
Author: Lauren Myracle
Genre: Teen/Young Adult
How I got it: personal purchase
Where to buy it: From your local indie bookstore; from Powells; from the Book Depository.
In a nutshell: Carly's just returned from a bohemian summer camp to her upper-class white Southern family, and a sister who's starting high school with a whole new set of assets, if you know what I mean. Returning home carries its own challenges for Carly, always the smart, responsible daughter; and returning to school is a whole different set of problems: changing friendships, a sister who's terrified of her new body and her new environment, and unexpected challenges to her new progressive belief system.

Throw in a surprise crush, some serious pining (from multiple characters), a swim coach on a power trip, and an adorable set of abandoned ducklings, and you have Lauren Myracle's brand of mayhem: Southern values with a helping of irony on top, and equal parts hilarity and tear-jerking as Carly and Anna learn to trust their new identities, and each other.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Do the characters make you want to rip your own face off? Nope! They're great. I especially liked younger sister Anna, and Carly's new best friend Vonzelle.

Does the plot make sense? Yep! It's a pretty simple, though layered, story of two girls coming of age and learning to understand themselves, each other, their embarrassing parents, and their own privileges and responsibilities as they move closer to adulthood.

Is the prose abysmal? No! Lauren Myracle's narrative invigorates this story through a smart, confident, self-aware heroine. But like all girls her age, she's still woefully unaware about the big stuff, and that comes through with hilarity and poignancy.

Does it end on a cliffhanger only designed to make you buy more books? Nope! This is a great, solid standalone book. Before I left Virginia I gave my copy to myrafur's oldest daughter, for her to read when she's a little older and trying to cope with her younger sister. :)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Verdict: Taken by itself, I really enjoyed this book. It's got a fresh narrative voice, a really engaging dynamic between two headstrong and vibrant siblings, and an important take on things like privilege and race from a Southern teen trying to deal with and be aware of her own privilege and social responsibilities.

As a Southern who had a very similar experience of returning from summer camp w/a whole new value system and finding everything back home in total upheaval (to put it mildly), I related a lot to Carly in this book. As an only child with no siblings, I still related to, and greatly enjoyed, Carly and Anna's relationship. This book made me want a sister of my own for a second--that's quite an achievement, believe me!

I always relate to LM's experiences of the South, which are honest and unflinching but also loving. And the way LM writes parents interacting with their teenage kids is spot-on. Often when I was reading I was cringing in embarrassment and recognition (for both generations)! The cast of characters is well-handled, and although you can see early on who the sympathetic friends are and who will turn out to be total jerks, there's still a bit of subtlety involved as Carly comes to our own conclusions.

A subplot involving Anna's fear of heights and her swim coach's tyranny over her inability to perform a high-dive in public is the most compelling of the various threads of conflict that Myracle weaves together, but there are powerful, funny, memorable moments throughout the book, and I bawled my eyes out at the ending.

At the same time, I have to tell you, guys, I don't know what to make of what I've labeled LM's "weird girl dichotomy," wherein it feels like she wants to deconstruct the gender roles her heroines inhabit, but at the same time, she also wants to teach young girls how to inhabit them. It creates a very odd sense of imbalance for me.

(As I write this I am listening to Shina Riingo sing, "I don't know how to be a girl," because it sums up my life and especially my feelings with regard to this writer, this book, and this post.)

Quibbles (Mild spoilers below):

( So here is my deep dark confession about Young Adult literature. )

But more of that in the next review. For now, I'll just say I really loved this book, warts and all, and obviously-- obviously! -- I wanted to go run out and adopt a basket full of baby ducks when I was done. <3

P.S. I love this cover! The cover of my edition was the hardback edition, which is also uber-cute, but I loooove the poolside image of the paperback cover a lot. It's so pretty, and far more true to the book itself.

~in which the reason we have the greatest love triangle in literary history is because a fangirl shipped Gwencelot~



So I'm reading a series of Arthurian romances by the 12th-century storyteller Chrétien de Troyes, who after Geoffrey of Monmouth invented much of what's now our standard Arthurian canon.

The first time in known history that the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot appeared was in Chrétien's romance The Knight of the Cart. This romance, according to Chrétien himself in the prologue, was a plot provided to him by his patroness, Countess Marie de Champagne (daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine).

While historians have been able to trace other parts of The Knight of the Cart to earlier sources, there is no earlier source for the love triangle. So, if the author is speaking the truth about getting the story from the countess, then it's possible and plausible that the countess came up with that piece of it on her own, and suggested that Chrétien work the romance into the plot.

In other words, he went to tell the story of King Arthur and Countess Marie was like, YOU SHOULD MAKE LANCE AND GWEN GET TOGETHER I TOTES SHIP THEM :D so he did! --thereby proving once again that everything is fandom. :D