{ split subject }

new in projectjulie:
• mandysbitch asks me: Who the F**K Are You? in an elaborate interview about my fannish orientation, wherein you can learn more than you ever wanted to know about fictocriticism, girlslash goggles, and doppelcest...
• Laura and Tory have smokin' hot sex: the sequel! plus, one week till part three (which I might have accidentally written a complete 2000+ word draft of in a single afternoon -- who are you and what have you done with julie!?).
• an ultimately rather perfunctory meta post about gender and femslash that's been on my list for quite a while but for some unknown reason got written today.

as enamored as I am of OTP 2.0, I secretly love how the sheer size of bsg_femslash's Kara/Laura tag gives the statistical lie to our talk of this being an ensemble rather than OTP-based fandom. 81 uses, with Laura/Tory, Laura/Maya, and Laura/Six tied for second-place pairing with 15 or 16. take that, Starbuck!

and it makes me reminisce about how we got here. yeah, for a minute we were all aflutter about the prospect of becoming a Major Femslash Fandom, and maybe in the end that didn't materialize. but it will always be *my* major femslash fandom, top to bottom, start to closed canon (the point when I finish passing the torch, or whenever I complete the season 4 fic that I really hope I won't be compelled to write). in the beginning (through mid-2005, we're talking) there were the trailblazers, like meeshy who created the comm and yahoogroup and minerva_fan who introduced us to our OTP and others who've been faithful supporters all along (jennyo, tellitslant, sheepfairy, ariestess and shatterpath). in the middle, there were my people (including thenewhope, queen wrangler of femslashers), who called ourselves the Quorum of Five, which has since largely disintegrated in ways that I mourn, and in other ways deepened into friendships that are no longer necessarily or primarily about BSG femslash.

and then a funny thing happened: I don't know where these folks came from or how they got here, but all of a sudden there was this whole new generation of baby BSG femslashers around! and they pimped and betaed and squeed at and sometimes fell in love with each other, and really built a community. it makes me all flaily-happy, so I'm going to attempt to introduce you. ( Read more... )

if this made you too feel all warm and fuzzy inside, consider writing something for the Season Three Battle or helping del.icio.us the masterlist...

as a footnote, I wish I'd done a similar catalogue of SVU fandom back in the day (or did I? I know I made heathers chronicle me the oral history, pre-2004). it was my glorious first LJ fandom, and left a hole in my heart when it met its untimely demise. R.I.P. Olivia Benson! it dawned on me, recently, that I need to disabuse myself of my notions of being a femslash fandom BNF expert. ralst has taken livejournal by storm, more power to her, and I have the utmost respect for the work she's put into passion_perfect, turning it into an empire unto itself and the engine behind the static archive. P&P has picked up where SVU left off (partly by dissipating and partly by veering off into more obscure shows), not with all the same people but with all the delightful snark. that's gotta be the mainstream of femslash, insofar as there is one, and I'm not participating in the comm even as a lurker. it's so obviously not ME -- not the fandoms, not the writing style, not the approach. I guess I'm at peace with being what theholyinnocent calls a pretentious twat? it just worries me, with this dissertation, that the things that make a lot of femslash meaningful are alien to me (though I can, you know, understand them, just not organically -- and I still love a good lesbian romance novel, for the record, it's just that I never read them anymore).

and finally, you guys! BEST. SEQUEL. EVER. seriously, I squealed like a little girl during the preview at The Invasion. I might spontaneously combust when the movie comes out! (I was an Elizabethan fangirl first.)

i. calling all girlslashers: you know you have to watch Damages, right? I mean, you can trust afterellen if you don't want to take my word for it (click the "Damages" tag for more), but seriously? this is the most mind-meltingly gay series to come to summer cable in recent memory. picture The Devil Wears Prada as a serious serial drama, then substitute high-powered law firm for high-powered fashion mag, turn Meryl Streep into Glenn Close and make her character about five times as scary, and you will begin to comprehend the power of this OTP.

if that image isn't enough for you, here are ( a couple ubergay things that happened in the pilot ) it's getting good critical buzz, but honestly I wasn't overly impressed by the clunky, derivative anti-corporate thriller plot. Ted Danson is so endearing as Evil CEO that you almost want HIM to win! but OH PATTY. go ahead, DL it and see for yourself. and then join damages_fx.

ii. someone is clearly falling down on the job, because it was only by accident that I found tallulah71's new BSG vid Sunday Bloody Sunday. and yeah, I also went, "really? isn't that a bit heavy-handed?" but it turned out to be everything one could possibly want from a vid to that song. I said, in my comment, that she managed to make it simultaneously a biting political commentary and a heart-wrenching emotional juggernaut. and there are these beautiful sequences of parallel clips in it about humans and cylons, in hate and in love. (oh, and iamsab said, "it had really good 'people pointing guns at each other while trembling.' not just Lee. he's usually the trembler.") it gives me chills, man, every time.

seriously, this deserves to be part of the pantheon of Big Name BSG Vids. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the ones that get recced right and left, but if there are any other new ones like THIS out there that I don't know about, please rectify the oversight. (no Adama/Roslin or Kara/Lee, kthnx.)

also, you should watch jarrow's Snape vid, along with everything Brad Neely ever does. TRUST ME. Professor Snake is totally my girlfriend!

iii. I got a haircut and lost half my sprout. TRAUMA. to be fair, Miguel did ask me three times if I was sure I wanted him to cut it. thing is, I DID want him to do something with it. really, I wanted for him to have some overarching artistic concept. or at least, to cut only the three inches he showed me with his fingers, and not the six inches he actually lobbed off. I won't even have enough for tiny pigtails for a week or two; luckily I have the flower clip and there's one and only one hairstyle I can do in the meantime, with the remaining spit of curls flipped up so it somewhat covers the unfortunate spikes. of the good: the back is perfectly fauxhawked, just how I want to keep it for the foreseeable future. I just don't know HOW I'll keep it this way while the top grows back out enough to work with, because I don't really feel like paying $30 a pop to maintain it (I can mohawk by myself, but not fauxhawk). this is why I started Operation Grownup Haircut 18 months in advance of interviews, I suppose. pictures not forthcoming.

iv. also, after exercising heretofore untapped reserves of willpower in the various eyewear boutiques where I shopped for sunglasses, I accidentally bought new glasses frames at Lenscrafters. I pick them up tomorrow, and I'm rather trepidatious, because can they really be the ubertrendy Frames of Ultimate Destiny that I was trying to hold out for?? but they were subtly cateyed metallic pink with (woefully logoed and undecorated) orangey plastic sides, and maybe it's enough for them to be the Frames of Opportunity, because did I really want to put new $500 lenses in year-old frames (however magenta)? pictures forthcoming (I hope).

v. (as seen on twitter) we saw Jorja Fox (again) at Brite Spot! she's such Silverlake hipster dyke and it makes me very very happy. we're not maintaining a very high volume of celebrity sightings, around here, but Jorja's always a good one.

vi. I have NOT read Book 7, nor am I planning to do so anytime soon, but I HAVE read all your Book 7 reaction posts. which means I am spoiled for *everything* that happens, hurrah! it traumatizes me (despite said fandom's current wankopalypse) that I'm apparently so utterly out of HP fandom. I mean, I still have a tag! I did see the movie! *clings*

vii. I accidentally did this:



it's accurate, I think, except I might technically be slightly stronger on the J, and I/E is pretty much a tossup.

viii. I retired a whole mess of icons, leaving me slightly shellshocked, but now I have so much space for shinies! (c.f. temporary Damages icon that I threw together; nyuszi has promised more and better). but I cannot, for the life of me, find the girlslashy Grey's icons. WTF, people?? my kingdom for a good Addison/Cally square. also, some combination of Ugly Betty's Alexis/Wilhemina/Christina (I found Betty/Amanda). and I wouldn't mind some Teen Girl Squad. SEND HELP.

ix. the Which LOLcat Are You? results page is genius. it's like a zillion times better than the quiz itself (which gave me icanhazcheezburger cat, when *clearly* I am but-I-eated-it cat).

x. lest you think I'm spending ALL my time writing long, pointless lj entries, look how I've started posting tiny bits of my dissertation @ cyborganize. go team me!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! remember how I wouldn't shut up about Angelina Jolie/Katie Holmes rpfs?!? well, the celestial spheres can finally return to alignment because fickitten went and did it!!!

Behind Closed Doors is meaty and chilling and subtle and hopeful all at once. it tells their story believably and unflinchingly, and it will break your heart a little. run, Katie!

to celebrate this happy occasion, I inaugurated my scanner to record the aforementioned OK! Weekly article for posterity.

and oh dear lord, last night I dreamt that I spent the day with RON MOORE. me and several friends had won some sort of contest for a screenwriting workshop. so we were supposed to finish an (as far as I can tell, fabricated -- something about Lee/Kara UST after she gets back with the arrow, but not like on the show) episode as an exercise. I talked about how I adore the precision of a good TV narrative, but I wasn't particularly inspired by the constraints of this particular scenario. I chastised him about certain secondary characters [confidential to quasiradiant: your paramedic Ishaye (sp?) is coming back in S.3! did you know that's Jamie Bamber's wife?] who could have been MORE GAY -- such as Cain. I did not, however, mention fanfic to him, even though he has said he doesn't mind, because cathexys says not to! [confidential to my unconscious: give me Mary next time, pretty please!]

I cried more than usual during NPR this morning. everyone is talking about where they were. I was woken up by sirens in brooklyn, after the first plane. none of it seemed real, on TV, and I didn't understand what had happened until later.

change of plans, kids.

a) I'm leaving NYC on sunday morning, instead of wednesday or thursday as planned, so I can spend 20 or so precious hours with iamsab in the bucolic land of central MA
b) after that it goes: a week in Boston (finishing of field lists), 4 days in Providence, weekend in Provincetown, 4 days in Connecticut (writing of Cain), weekend in Portland ME
c) and then, never fear, I'm coming back to the city for most of the first two weeks of august
d) then I'm going to Michigan/Toronto/Montreal
e) then school starts!

so because I pushed the date back, I've made about 8 separate plans with friends for the next two days. apparently I have an unusually high number of friends. today = lunch with surblimity, visiting Tekserve, hopefully a chat with theholyinnocent (I'll call!), and then nerd_dog's birthday party! tomorrow = lunch with SA, hopefully D+LC and E in the afternoon, and then clyde_man and I are seeing Cars (or X3).

I promised I would because last night s/he went with me to see The Devil Wears Prada, aka Smart People Excel at Stupid Jobs, aka The Movie That Was Created for aeonian. we were supposed to see Cars but clyde saw the poster and said "oh I want to see, that, I love Meryl Streep," and I said "eeeeee, I didn't even think to ask if you'd go with me, because it's a chick flick" -- so it's not like s/he wasn't warned. clyde hated it, of course. I thought it was a pretty lame movie, but the monumental gay more than compensated for the lameness! Meryl Streep was absurdly hot. I would have preferred someone a bit more pre-gayed than Anne Hathaway, but I can work with what I'm given. how much do we want Miranda/Andrea, now? can't you just picture Miranda ordering Andy to fuck her in the same imperious voice she uses to order her to do everything?!? well never fear, the brain trust has come through for you! aeonian wrote Bare and quasiradiant wrote Ravenous, plus jennyo wrote Discreet Lesbian Chic.

really, the fireworks femslash porn battle was THE BOMB!!! here are my prompts with links to prezzies -- plus there are some other gems (Facts of Life! Bones! Ziva/Miss Parker!), but it's going to take me forever to get through the masterlist and I don't have time to rec beyond this. go forth and read!

( an embarrasment of riches )

• just for the record, I'm not buying that the underscore is the new bullet as per iamsab. I love my bullets! they are so satisfyingly round and centered. this is to say that yes, here we have yet another post full of randomness. you know you love it. (it's a bitch to tag, though.)

• and to put fannishness first -- a big wet HAPPY BIRTHDAY to sinful_caesar. I was a bad friend and didn't send her anything. what she has sent me is an appreciation for the glorious slashiness that is Wicked, the musical. truly the mind bloggles. a case in point: For Good, the final love ballad between Glinda and Elphaba (the Wicked Witch), which you may also see in moving pictures in this video, which features Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoworth rehearsing it.

I'm feeling the urge to drabble Elphaba/Dorothy (among various pending femslash100 projects) -- partially as a result of the hotness of their whole enemies dynamic in the original film, which I just saw some stills from. I worry the Gelphie fandom will hate me forever.

• also, before getting started, let me just acknowledge that the weather has been stunning. october and still gloriously sunny and in the 70's. these sorts of aberrations always feel apocalyptic to me, like the friendly face of catastrophic climate change a la The Day After Tomorrow. or, on a less epic scale, I'm anticipating getting slammed by a horror of a winter, just when we least expect it, lulled as we are into complacency by Indian summer. the weather in Amsterdam was lovely too (especially considering it was forecasted to rain all weekend), but closer to 60. just warm enough that I could sit on a bench in the Vondelpark with my laptop, revising my paper. not quite warm enough that I wanted to sit and eat outside at sidewalk cafes, though the locals seemed to be game.

( Amsterdam )

• when I wasn't at the conference or at a museum or foraging for food or reading for school, I was at the hostel catching up on LJ (free wireless is love!). I don't know why I always end up commenting in a mad obsessive spree, but apparently it works for me. so I'm nearly there* and yet again resolving not to get behind any more no sir. haha. I should really cut back, but I don't wanna. girls_today is sorely tempting me to start reading in HP again, but I shall be strong. it did, however, bring to my attention to a totally mind-blowing Umbridge/Hermione fic (yes, you read that right) by yamapea. I really do *heart* wrongness, because this is like my dream pairing. it's disturbing, explicit, and it absolutely works.

• the point being, overall, that this trip was everything I'd hoped.

• lately, I've been particularly enamored of the words evanescence, effervescence, efflorescence.

• I wrote this all very quickly and stayed up too late in order to do so. but you know, if I don't blog it that means it DIDN'T HAPPEN. ergo, more soon...

* does not include comments from March 1, 2005-June 21, 2005, which have been set aside as a project for some even more absurdly remote date.

leavethesky asked, so I put together a set of sorts off the top of my head. please please help me out if you've got more!

( Janeway, CJ, Scully, and Hermione like it rough )

eta: there's some SVU on leavethesky's post, but I didn't attempt to rec it. but then I remembered this loooong O/A story where the dynamic duo are exploring kink, and Alex takes Olivia to a private BDSM club where she makes out with Jeffries... is this ringing a bell to anyone? I recall corresponding with the author, and now I believe it was actually an unfinished story Lostintranslation sent me -- which reminds me that hir story that I wrote about in my paper has some BSDM too (and sexual assault, so exercise caution). anyway, while I was poking around P&P looking for it I found this uber which is yummy. and mandysbitch, you should know that there's an Olivia/Lilly series there (by Cheyne). someday I really gotta update my database-in-progress with new P&P...
oh, and mikeepm's Stalker series is really disturbing in the best way!
eta: some people from SVU started kinky_fanfics, so look for more kinky girlslash there...

randomly enough, I'm now the moderator of femslash100, which has been inactive for more than a year. please, for the love of femslash, PIMP this community chez vous and on any drabble or girlslash comms you can get your hands on. and come play!

in return: norah recently asked for pimpin' fics, so I put together some recs. I said: I'm not sure about my judgment in terms of pimpin' specifically, but here are sets of stories in my main fandoms that I think are particularly spectacular (many of which I've recced before). most are NC-17. for diversity's sake, I've only included one story per author:

( girlslash galore )

I suppose scopophile is ready for pimpage. rather than joining a bunch of comms in order to do so, I'm wondering if I can enlist your help. if you are a member of any nerdy theory communities such as academics_anon or literary_theory, I'd be much obliged if you'd post something short and sweet like this:

scopophile is a reading group on critical theories of pornography. for more information, go here.

*

the tri-fandom drabble-a-thon jr. needs YOU (to PIMP it chez toi). you are more popular than I am.

*

vegas_afterdark is a slashy CSI rpg. it's sort of amusing, actually. but I'd be more amused if catherine and sara (or, more specifically, catherine/sara) were there. it's already been pimped on cathandsara, but nobody took the bait. so if you know anyone you can personally pester on my behalf, well...

*

I did some girlslash nominations for hp_journos (2004 Harry Potter fic/art awards). I've certainly only read a wee smattering of the bounty available in this fandom. but of the fics I've happened to stumble upon, love, memory, I think these are the best:

( hp girlslash recs )