quietprofanity

You know, two separate things were annoying me, but then I realized that they actually kind of related.

This is totally stating the absolutely fucking obvious, but you all know I'm into the fanfic and write the fanfic and the thing I'm anticipating most in the world at this current point in time IS fanfic. So you can assume that I'm cool with taking stuff apart and putting it back together and sometimes will even like a fanfic as much or maybe even more the original, right? You know, like Gallant is aroused; Goofus is Horny. That's way better than the original. Okay, so the bar was really low on that one, but STILL.

Anyway, it can happen. It usually doesn't. But it can happen. I want to talk about two instances where IT HAS NOT HAPPENED.

( I am a pompous bitch. )

So Mom has Internet control and, because the books I'm currently reading offer me a choice between consistent irritation (in the case of Kushiel's Chosen) and OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP (Universe X Vol. 1) I started writing more of my fanfic and was like, "Dudes, I totally need a cameo by a 1970s feminist." So I dusted off my old History of Feminism textbook (While I'm thinking of it, why didn't I keep the one about feminisms in other countries? I'm so stupid ...) and was scanning through the excerpts of the works of Robin Morgan and Susan Brownmiller (one of whom will be in the fic ... I sort of WANT it to be Morgan, because her writing is like the left-wing, feminist version of "The New Frontiersmen" and that makes me inappropriately gleeful, but Brownmiller is more popular and probably makes more sense in the long run ...).

Then I decided that required too much thought and I picked up my copy of Female Chauvinist Pigs and read my favorite parts while I was at the laundromat cleaning my comforter. (And just realized that Morgan blurbed the book. w00t!) This didn't really help with anything but that book always energizes me even as it makes me re-assess myself as a feminist and a woman.

I tried to look for clips of Morgan and Brownmiller on YouTube. Didn't find much of anything, but I found some of Ariel Levy. Then I found that she was put on a playlist of a person's "Favorite Women" and one of them included Motherfucking Camille Paglia.

And I'm like, "Rebecca, don't watch. Don't watch, you're just going to get upset." But then I was like, "Aw, it can't possibly be any stupider than what she said about date rape," which are quite possibly THE WORST LAST WORDS IN THE UNIVERSE but I clicked anyway.

Paglia: "I think students have sex with their teachers because there is far too much of a friendly atmosphere between teachers and students. I think this is a part of the therapy culture."
Me: "AAAAAAHHH NO FUCKING WAY AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID! You're so STUPID!"

These days I react to Camille Paglia with a sort of fascinated embarrassment. She's like that person who you used to be really into and now that you're broken up you're like, "What did I see in you? Why did I like you? WHY?" Her and Christina Hoff Summers. Although Summers is more like that person who seemed really nice until you learned she liked to shill for conservative fake feminism steal cars on the weekend.

... Those metaphors suck. Sorry.

Anyway, dissident/conservative/backlash feminism was an embarrassing time of my life and I'm glad I'm mostly past that ... at least I hope.

I should probably read some more feminism books, but um ... er ... well, I just have to take a picture of my book piles soon, because that shit is just SAD. Anyway, I think I only have Vindication of the Rights of Women in there, but maybe I should bust it out and read it soon.

It is here. Taste the wonder!crack.

The Twilight Lady is like the cardboard box in the toybox that is the Watchmen fandom. Nothing's in it. It's really only surface. And yet somehow everyone's got great ideas for it and wants to play with it.

(Not that I didn't give the box a spin ... noooooo.)

All the fanfics I feel good enough about to re-introduce to the world are up on quiprofanfics. Come for the sex! Stay for the lolz!

I'll talk about them more tomorrow. Until then, you can play with the tags page.

So, I took this undergrad Chaucer class in Spring 2004 because that was my idea of fun back then. Chaucer was basically The Canterbury Tales and we didn't even finish them but whatever. It was unique in that 1.) the teacher insisted we read pure Middle English. This was a pain in the ass at the time, but now whenever I see Modern English translations I'm like, "But ... but this is for BABIES!" 2.) I was sort of the "token Jew" in the class, and the teacher would encourage me to kind of give the Jewish perspective on stuff.

At the end of the class, we had a big party where we were encouraged to cook Medieval food and stuff. Since I lived in a dorm at that time, I offered to just bring cups, BUT the teacher said she would also like us to do readings. And even though I wasn't writing for pleasure very much, at the 11th hour (either the day before or the day of the party, I can't really remember) the idea for a re-telling of "The Prioress' Tale" a.k.a. "The One with the Anti-Semitism" struck me and I wrote this thing called "The Banker's Prologue and Tale." With the exception of a few couplets, I didn't bother to make it rhyme, but I tried to keep the general structure and how the Tales "sounded" in my head.

You may think differently, but ... I don't know, I really like this one.

( The Banker's Prologue and The Banker's Tale )

Oh and, yes, despite the "We're taking back our oppression!" flavor of it, the banker isn't a fully reliable narrator. I was trying to keep with the characterization of the tales, too. :)

- Learned that Normie is still alive ... Liz Osborn apparently divorced Harry and took the son with her. What's this world coming to? Anyway, I don't feel like doing the fanfic now. I'm sorry, guys. :-( That was my big driving point, and part of the fun of fanfic is trying to fix things within the "rules" but by now it's kind of like playing that game in A Separate Peace.

Dan Slott looks like he's making lemons into tasty lemonade. Lots of people want to drink but ... eh, I'm still annoyed. I feel like Annie Wilkes being unable to get over Rocketman. (Except I don't have an urge to chop Joe Quesada's foot off. No, really. I don't. I don't lack that much perspective.)

- Also got an idea for LoEG in anime times ... Eva can be demi-Lovecraft Gods wrapped up in armor and that's why Shinji and Asuka are crazy. Lupin III and Cutey Honey can pursue Allan and Mina. Eastasia was Japan lying, saying they won the war and they send the kids on an island to kill each other. The world looks like Tokyo-3 and everyone has a persocom. Also jokes about why the country can't manage to kill a giant lizard.

But then it kind of felt like too much work ... and kind of corny. And I can ape anarchist themes but I don't think I can really turn the medium on its head the way it deserves to be turned. Oh well.

- Why do I want to ape anarchist themes, anyway? I'm not much of an anarchist. I don't really think I have much of a unique worldview. Other than, like, the world has internal rot. But not in this Don DeLillo sense where evil suburban commercialism has sucked the life out of us. Just because your neighbor might attack your kid doesn't mean the fun birthday party you shared with your other neighbor doesn't have any meaning ... if you catch my drift.

- This last weekend was my own personal Shakespeare weekend. I watched my four-hour Ken Branagh Hamlet, and then the commentary, and then the documentaries, and then the previews (Olivier's Othello make-up makes him look puke green or purple ... not very black), and then I read about half of King Lear. It made me a little crazy, I think. But I'm having fun.

- Dad bought the dogs over to visit. It wasn't as disastrous as I expected.

- Dear Romance Novel Community: The Smart Bitches and Nora Roberts' hardball line on plagiarism has made me respect the romance novel community far more than this bleating about being nice does. That Mrs. Giggles is saying this really makes me boggle.

- I HAVE ONLY 40 UNREAD BOOKS! YAY! YAY! YAY! :D :D :D

- Oh, I like ... have a pet now. He's a fish named Reggie and since he's a beta he hates me. But I haven't managed to kill him yet, so that's a good sign. This was all my Dad's idea; since we as humans eat fish (I actually ate fish TODAY) keeping others as pets shows a sign of outright lunacy as a species. But oh well.