A question for my all-knowing, all-porning flist: what is the origin of the kink meme?

The gimmick, for those who are unfamiliar: somebody makes a post declaring a kink meme, and people post in comments (frequently anonymously, occasionally not) with requests in the form of fic prompts. Others than comment on, typically in the form of enthusiastic seconding, or write fic in (frequently anonymously, occasionally not) in reply to these requests as they are made. These requests typically embody some specific kink, hence the meme. From what I gather, the idea's antecedent is probably the anonymous love memes that go about every so often, where people post their username and others then anonymously make nice comments about them. But I don't know where or when people started writing fic in these things. (Fanlore has no entry for the concept of "kink meme," which seems to me to be a pretty gaping hole given that several fannish pages refer to kink memes.) The first one I remember seeing was for the 2009 STAR TREK flick, but being as I am not in fandom for the porn and because there are huge areas of fandom I know absolutely nothing about (see: SGA), I don't know when it started or in what fandom.

The other curious thing about the kink meme, to me, is that the anonymity function is designed to facilitate people asking for/writing exactly the kinky perverted fanfic they're asking for with no inhibitions from some attendant sense of shame. This strikes me as odd, because as several fandoms -- most especially SUPERNATURAL -- have made it abundantly clear at this point, fandom *has* no sense of shame.

("Damn, they're hot! What? They're brothers? OKAY INCEST IS AWESOME NOW YAYE.")

GRD with zombie soccer ball:



(He actually does have a very nice trot)

Remember when I said that when he moves you can see the bony great dog under the fluff?



BEAR ATTACK!

1403 words and breaking for lunch and laundry and dog outs.

..and chatroom entertainments....

[14:51] matociquala: Today I find myself wondering when we will realize that treating international terrorism as a "war" legitimizes it, and that we should treat it as what it really is.
[14:52] matociquala: A crime, and thus a matter for international law enforcement.
[14:52] cristalia: Mm, yes.
[14:52] katallen: :: nods ::
[14:52] cristalia: Thing is, that requires empowering the international courts.
[14:52] cristalia: And the US at this point will never do that.
[14:52] matociquala: and police forces.
[14:52] cristalia: Because they won't like what the international courts have to say to them.
[14:53] matociquala: alas.
[14:53] cristalia: So as usual, this could really all be solved by people being grownups.
[14:53] matociquala: Rule of law is HARD.
[14:53] matociquala: And you don't always get what you want.
[14:54] cristalia: (Umf. Out of cheddar. :-( )
[14:54] cristalia: (OTOH, out of cheddar because I ated it. :-) )
[14:54] matociquala: *blames the rule of law*
[14:54] cristalia: Yeah, well. Fairness sometimes sucks.
[14:54] matociquala: if it weren't for that, you could go out and take the cheddar of anybody you wanted
[14:54] cristalia: That's part of the point.
[14:54] cristalia: heeee
[14:54] cristalia: I can! For six dollars!
[14:55] matociquala: But you could spend that six dollars on an ARMY.
[14:55] cristalia: And shall on my way home from errands!
[14:55] matociquala: and then get free cheddar forever.
[14:55] cristalia: Eh, you'd just have to feed them.
[14:55] cristalia: And they'd eat all your cheddar.
[14:55] matociquala: ...don't you bring logic into it
[14:55] cristalia: *g*
[14:55] matociquala: I WANT AN ARMY
[14:55] matociquala: *Army costs $6 billion*
[14:55] cristalia: Lotta cheddar, that.
[14:55] matociquala: *uses it to get $6 in cheddar*
[14:55] matociquala: *calls it a win*

So all the snow was supposed to come yesterday, and it was nice and swirly but the temperature was above freezing so it didn't stick, and it was kind of lame and nothing really happened.

Then I looked up from my computer this morning sometime after 8 am, and we've got a minor blizzard going.

Snowfari 2010, featuring Scout and Shelby:

( Read more... )

You would think that three layers of cotton, wooly mitts, the hat coffeeem made for me, a wool afghan, a silly dog, a heating pad, fleecy slippers, a pot of tea, and a laptop would be enough to keep me warm. (The dog gets pushy with me when I take too long getting to work. Because while I write, he's on duty as Chief Couchwarming Officer. I think he's a little bit of a workaholic, this dog.

You would think.

Right. Exercise and breakfast accomplished, though the meat really thinks it gets more food. Maybe the cold is it attempting to convince me it will only use that chocolate bar for heating!

Today's tea: Upton Tea's Makaibari Estate Long Leaf First Flush Organic. Yum. A very nice Darjeeling which I am managing quite nicely without milk. I bought this with the gift certificate ammitnox gave me. Thank you! It's lovely!

And now, to the word mines.


 

There are happies, ever after,
but little mermaids turn to foam;
the gravest hearts give way to laughter,
some cats turn king, and don't come home.

Stories end. One way, another;
the ending turns to suit the tale,
Hero, villain, often brothers;
heroes win, but sometimes fail.

A story never sees its ending.
The denouement is often rough.
I've given up on happy endings:
a happy segue's good enough.

Okay, so I spent odd moments of several days puttering on it (and MAN do I need a new computer), but here's the rendered cover to my Yuletide story "Killing Elvis." I may get around to adding this to the actual post up on AOOO, if I can figure out how to do that. Which I can -- they haven't officially added fanart yet, but there are fancomics up there, so it *is* possible -- but I may not get around to figuring it out for a while.

( Ta-daaahhh! )

I'm back!

There will be a few more catch-up trip posts, as there's tons of stuff I never got a chance to write up. Such as the obsession of many people we met with Cameron's movie Avatar. I swear, every other conversation, someone would mention it. I was beginning to think it would be impossible to escape back to the US without getting dragged to a screening. We probably would have been, except that we fled to Hong Kong... where Oyce called her Dad to tell him we'd arrived safely, and caught him in a movie theatre, watching Avatar.

The next day, we were having dinner with her aunt and uncle, and asked them if there were any good Chinese movies playing.

"Nothing's good!" said her uncle.

"That's not right," said her aunt. "What about that movie with the blue people?"

In an unrelated incident, I also want to mention something which happened in China. We went to a temple complex dedicated to the journey of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang (aka Tripitaka) to India. This was immortalized in the novel Journey to the West, which was remixed in one of my favorite manga, Saiyuki, where he was called Sanzo.

In an infamously poorly subtitled bootleg of the anime of Saiyuki, Sanzo, who might reasonably be called a monk or priest, is called a rabbi. The place he comes from, usually translated as Shangri-La, is called Asgard. Add to that some oddly-translated epithets, and the bootleg is known, at least to me, as "Rabbi Sanzo and the Fuck-Monkey of Asgard."

I cannot begin to convey my glee when I discovered that every one of the scholarly and otherwise well-translated plaques at that complex referred to "Rabbi Xuanzang."

I am guessing that both the anime and the temple used the same (strange) dictionary. There were also references on the plaques to amrita, the immortality-giving drink of the Gods, which is usually translated as nectar, or sometimes ambrosia or elixir. Here it was called a "wonder drug." Not very elevated!

85,000 words. 25,000 to go.

Outdoors, it is all snowpocalypse now.

My Storytellers Unplugged column for January, "Everyperson Blues," is here.

SO IT BEGINS.



Man, the dogs are going to be bored out of their minds cooped up inside today.

The Winter 2009 issues of Icarus: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction is now available, with a story by Tanith Lee.


There's a guest post on Writer Beware about the difference between a book distributor and a book wholesaler: Guest Blog Post: Distributor vs. Wholesaler--Getting Your Book on the Shelf. This is something a lot of new writers don't think about, and you don't see it mentioned in articles extolling the glories of self-publishing. (The articles that don't explain that while the self-published books can be ordered online, they aren't going to end up on bookstore shelves where readers can find them.)

Unfortunately, a lot of small presses and POD self-publishing companies try to make you believe they have the distributor relationship when, in fact, they have the wholesale relationship. Since Ingram won't reveal its client list, it's hard to know which is which. However, I believe that right now, Ingram requires that a publisher that's a distribution client must have about $20K+ of income from Ingram in order to qualify. If you think logically, would even PublishAmerica, the powerhouse of POD presses, qualify? Probably not. PA has the titles, but not the sales. PA, and hundreds of other POD-based presses with far fewer titles than PA, would never be accepted as a distribution client. Simply wouldn't happen. They are with the wholesale arm--i.e., they're listed in the Ingram catalog.


It's 40 and dropping here now, with a 40% chance of ice pellets. Yikes.

Hey, hawkwing_lb-- you were right. You (and feorag, and katallen, and autopope, and charlieallery, and mevennen, and brisingamen, and peake, and fjm, and silme, and--well, all y'all) are in fact freezing your ass off because you seem to be missing your major warm-water current.

It's in Greenland for the winter. If this keeps up, my sneaky Viking realtor ancestors with their misleading advertising may turn out to have been merely prophetic.

Ten pictures of places that were either directly part of movies or that reminded me of scenes from movies. To make it an even ten, I've included one TV show.



You can click on the pictures for larger versions if you like to.

There was a man who wore the sky
and let the stars in shining train
trail behind as he passed by,
blow in the wind, and catch the rain --
when hung, at day's end, up to dry,
it shrank, so that the moon did wane.
The sky's a little smaller now,
and stretched a bit, if you compare;
the moon is oval now, not round,
and Orion's taller, when he's there.

2010, and why I will not be attending many conventions this year. My deadline dance:

"The Unicorn Evils" -- immediately, more or less

The White City and attendant chapbook: March 15
Grail: April 15
"Spell 81a": April 15

"Uniform": June 15

A Reckoning of Men: July 1
untitled noir objective stuntwriting thingy: July 1
untitled vampire thingy: July 1

"Ligature": July 15

The Steles of the Sky: November 2

---

No fixed deadline:

space opera thingy
"The Romance"
Karen Memory
Smile
Singularity Rent novel

(In lovely German accent) "Hey, I'm Benjamin."
"Sorry, can't shake hands right now."
"Ooops! Sorry!"

(later)

"I like you so much I didn't even shake hands with that lovely young man when I had you on belay."
"What troubles me about this is that it implies she might have shaken hands with him if she didn't like me a lot."
"Or if Benjamin were a little better looking."
"Impossible."
"That you would have shaken hands?"
"That Benjamin could be better looking."
"Or if she only liked you as much as she likes Steve."
"..."
"Let's test it. Hey! Steve!"
"...which Steve?"

This is a PSA and also a gloat: Stephen Booth's King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy is now available from the most excellent people at Cybereditions. How do I know this? Because I HAVE A COPY. I am not clutching it in my grubby little paws even as we speak because I have to type, but otherwise I totally would be.

Despite its unwieldy title, KLMIT is my favorite book of literary criticism EVER. It radically changed the way I thought about plays and narrative, and I am incapable of talking about King Lear (as my friends know to their chagrin) without citing it. It is ALL OVER my dissertation. It is also READABLE (which, sadly, one cannot always say about books of literary criticism) and conveys, along with the intellectual fascination, the joie de vivre that the best Shakespeareans bring to discussions of Shakespeare. I have been trying to find a copy to love, hug, squeeze, and call George for probably fifteen years.

In conclusion, GLOAT.

The thing you have to understand about snow panic in Alabama is that it's not about the snow. Mostly, it's about us not being prepared for snow; a meager two inches is considered an epic blizzard. It's also about the side effects of snow--I live in a heavily-wooded suburban area full of giant, beautiful, old trees. Very old trees. And they all have dead branches here and there hanging on by a shred of bark, so when you have just enough snow to weigh them down, they break off and fall onto the power lines. Or worse, the entire tree is mostly dead and it falls across the road or onto (and usually through) your house. There was one Epic Two-Inch Snow that ended up with a three-foot-thick, forty-foot-long pine lying across our street (and in what used to be someone's sun room), while live power lines were sparking in the road. In fact, my mother reported last night that, as she was driving home, she saw a number of official-looking trucks on the side of the road, presumably stationed for speedy tree removal.

It's also about the ice. None of us know how to drive on it, because we don't get it often enough to figure out how and then retain that knowledge. One time there was a Special News Report on Safe Winter Weather Driving, and I am serious, it was, in its entirety, "Drive slow." And now, over to Jim with the sports! So basically, entire schools, businesses, and highways will be shut down for safety reasons while all of Chicago points and laughs. I am not even kidding: my sister may not be able to get to work on Friday--

Oh God. I just realized that if we are all iced in together for the next four days, a remake of The Shining is going to break out.


While we're here, a teensy bit of Twi-spam, because I am getting a lot of email about this, and also, I enjoy the progression of the headlines:

Attn. Jackson Rathbone: Missing something?

'Eclipse' Script Wasn't Leaked, Says Summit. 

Nikki Finke: Yes, That Leaked Movie Script Is 'Eclipse.' 

1. I don't want to read it. I'm to a point where I don't even watch clips of movies I know I want to see anymore. I get so bored in the theater if I feel like I've already seen the movie. 2. I suspect the wink emoticon in the script (as seen at the first link) is forced product-placement sarcasm from screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg. 3. My dazzle is somewhat chagrined that (people tell me) the werewolf-vampire nose-fist bump is not in this version of the script, because, quite honestly, the Edward/Seth stuff is the only thing I find remotely likeable about Book!Edward. Also: COME ON! WEREWOLF-VAMPIRE NOSE-FIST BUMP! If there is anything funnier than that, I can't think of it right now.

Meanwhile, I am trying to work--I got a good bit of novel note-sorting and categorizing done yesterday--but am having a hell of a time. Lots of interruptions, and I can't concentrate for shit. Also, my new calendars (50% off!) came in from Amazon yesterday, but without the books I had bought for research, and then I realized I had forgotten to order a couple of other researchy things anyway, fnarr. Also-also, I bought another pair of fingerless gloves because I was concerned that my homemade recycled ones were fraying a bit from being worn so much, and I am really hoping they arrive before the cold snap is over. This is Alabama, after all.


OH OH OH I ALMOST FORGOT I have two questions to ask you:

1) How do we get e-books from my stepfather's Kindle onto my parents' computer? They can't figure out how.

2) Those identity protection/theft-prevention services, are any of them actually any good?

Brushed! Giant ridiculous dog! Now with samurai topknots!

This is such a Stephen Reyes song.




I'm serenaded by a chorus of a thousand burning cigarettes
You've been taking chances, mama
While I've been placing bets
So tell it to the ashes, they know we served
It may be good for the soul but it's hard on the nerves

The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name

There's nowhere to run
I've got no one to tell
My face has become a mask and I'm not wearing it well
For five days straight
I've been breathing fire
Don't have room on my body
For another scar

The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane
Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name
Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame
A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name