Impossible Things

Challenge #12: Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life.

I'm going to call one person out by name, and hope that I'm not putting her on the spot. beatrice_otter has been my primary beta and person I bounce ideas off of for almost 10 years now and she is endlessly supportive and willing to listen to me flail around, as well as helpful in catching plot holes and telling me when I've lost the plot entirely, and catching my myriad typos and homophone confusions. I'm not sure Pi'maat would exist without her help and occasional gentle head pats telling me it's going to be okay, and I am very glad to have her in my fandom life.

I'm also hugely fond of the people in both the Ad Astra and vuhlkansu Discords for having the sort of deep-dive worldbuilding conversations where, to take an actual recent example, you start out with someone trying to make a better representation of a canon map of an alien planet and end up trying to work out how plate tectonics could produce those mountain ranges and figure out what that sort of water-to-land ratio would really do to the climate.

And of course, Dreamwidth is fantastic. It really feels like a town, small enough to have a genuine community vibe, but not so small that you can't find new stuff from time to time. I genuinely appreciate all of you for being here, for listening to me talk about my various obsessions, and for posting about your own interests and creative pursuits. 💛

A lot of the credit for that has to go to denise and Mark for sticking with this project for 17 years, and sticking to their principles, not taking VC money, not monetizing the community, and generally being pro-social and decent humans, which is sadly not as common as it should be in people who run social platforms.

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

Y'know, there are a lot of tropes that I like in theory, but which have a tendency to fall flat because the idea is cool but the characterization isn't there. I bring it up because my first thought when I read this prompt was "Megastructures! Progenitors! A megastructure built by a progenitor race!" The problem is, too many stories lean on the coolness of the idea and forget to do character and relationship work and so I get bored as soon as the initial "oooh, neat!" factor wears off.

The tropes I really love in practice and not just in theory are the ones that involve jiggling the characters around and seeing what falls out. Some of the cliche common fic tropes like amnesia and body swap are great for that. Seeing two characters trying to handle each other's bodies--especially if there are powers and alien biology involved--or having one character act without the weight of memory while the other is crushed by it, that stuff is gold for playing with character and relationship dynamics.

Time-travel fix-its, where one or a handful of characters wake up in the past and are given the chance to fix something that went wrong in canon, are also a lot of fun, for similar reasons. The time-traveling character knows things that the people around them don't, and usually they have to keep it a secret. Although these sorts of fic are most satisfying when you are specifically mad at something in canon. I was pondering what a TNG time-travel fix-it would look like, and while there are things the characters would like to fix, there is nothing in the show that I as the viewer would specifically want changed ... at least not enough to care about a time-travel fix it. But MCU fix its that undo some of the dumber PTB decisions? DC fix its that fix Bruce's relationship with Jason without heaps of unnecessary angst? Yes please and thank you.

AUs are good--specifically canon-divergence "want of a nail" style AUs where one big thing went differently, or close-canon parallel universes where some things are different, but the setting is broadly recognizable are good for that too. I like them both as self-contained stories, and as stories where two universes meet and compare differences.

I like competency porn, and my definition of competency encompasses emotional intelligence. Give me two people having a hard conversation in good faith and I am there for it. I also like stories that highlight quiet competencies, especially domestic labor, emotional labor, or admin work--basically female coded stuff that'd not even enough respect. It doesn't have to be female characters, though. Anyone doing hard, unglamorous work that's shown to be important will get me, especially if it's respected in story.

I like unconventional heroes, but also conventional ones. Stories where the two team up and actually get along and respect each other are great. I'm thinking of Miss Marple and the police inspectors who know she can run circles around them and listen carefully to her advice, or Jessica Fletcher when the cop of the week is working with her rather than against her.

Ugh. I know the moment I hit post, I'll think of half a dozen more tropes I love, but I've rambled long enough.

Challenge #6: Top Ten

My anxiety sounds like metal scratching on glass and I am comfort-seeking so for the snowflake top ten, have ten things, mostly media, I turn to for comfort.
( Read more... )

Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom.

John Green says of going to home games for AFC Wimbledon, "I'm with 8,000 people whose love is oriented in the same direction as mine." That, to me, is fandom. It's a group of people who have oriented their love in a similar direction, whether that's toward a show or an actor or a band or a character or a hobby or something else entirely. (Honestly, love oriented in the same direction might be foundational to almost all human-built institutions, and the problem with some of them is that the object of their love doesn't inspire pro-social behavior, but that's outside the scope of this post.) It doesn't matter what the object of the love is so much as the way that all that love aimed at a similar place amplifies itself, like vector multiplication.

The funny thing is, the way I do fandom these days, It's almost less about the object of the fandom and more about the idea of fandom, the love and the passion it inspires. Which is not to say that I'm not in some fandoms. I'm very active in Star Trek fandom, and love hanging out with people who love it with me. It's always fun to find people who share some of my other current interests like Sherlock Holmes, Murder She Wrote, Superman, and Jane Austen, or to reminisce happily with people who remember the loves that I'm less active in but still remember fondly like X-Files and Stargate.

But there are definitely people in fandom spaces with whom I share no fandoms, and I still enjoy their company, because they're doing the fandom thing too. That is, they're passionate about something, and so passionate that they want to talk about the thing, and make more of the thing, and put their joy and passion into the world so that other people can share it. Elsewhere on this year's snowflake, someone mentioned how much they love seeing someone be passionate about something, even if they don't share that passion. I like that. It is a joy to see humans be happy and excited about things they love, and to be unabashedly passionate about them.

Let people enjoy things has become a meme, almost a cliche, but that's because it so often needs to be said. Fandom at its best is a safe place where people are allowed to enjoy things without mockery or disdain, and in a world where that is all too often not the case, that's a very valuable thing.

"Conspiracy" is a weird episode. I don't know why I got the urge to rewatch it, much less icon the heck out of it, but here we are.

( Onward for 36 icons featuring beardless Riker and Enterprise glamor shots )

Murder She Wrote - 9
Superman: TAS - 4
Birds of Prey (2020) - 1
Star Trek: Lower Decks - 8
Star Trek: TNG - 8
Star Trek: Insurrection - 5

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This one has a great premise, excellent characterization, and is a lot of fun.

Q Switcheroo (10660 words) by V_NUS
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: William Riker & Ro Laren
Characters: William Riker, Ro Laren, Geordi La Forge, Data (Star Trek), Q (Star Trek), Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Miles O'Brien, Jean-Luc Picard, Worf (Star Trek:TNG/DS9), Guinan (Star Trek)
Additional Tags: Mission Fic, Canon Compliant, Takes place between Disaster (5x05) and Conundrum (5x14), POV Multiple, Bodyswap, Enemies to Friends, Bajoran Culture (Star Trek), Q Being Q (Star Trek), Minor William Riker/Deanna Troi
Summary:

Q is sick of listening to Commander Riker and Ensign Ro arguing. To fix this, he forces them to swap bodies-- and if anyone finds out what's happened, they'll be stuck as each other forever...

What if there’s no ethical way to have unlimited access to every book, film, and record ever created? And moreover, what if that’s not something we should want?

What if we simply decided to consume less media, allowing us to have a deeper appreciation for the art we choose to spend our time with? What if, instead of having an on-demand consumer mindset that requires us to systematically strip art of all its human context, we developed better relationships with creators and built new structures to support them? What if we developed a politics of refusal — the ability to say enough is enough — and recognized that we aren’t powerless to the whims of rich tech CEOs who force this dystopian garbage down our throats while claiming it’s “inevitable?”

Tapes and other physical media aren’t a magic miracle cure for late-stage capitalism. But they can help us slow down and remember what makes us human. Tapes make music-listening into an intentional practice that encourages us to spend time connecting with the art, instead of frantically vibe-surfing for something that suits our mood from moment-to-moment. They reject the idea that the point of discovering and listening to music is finding the optimal collection of stimuli to produce good brain chemicals.

—Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes by Janus Rose

It annoyed me that that meme was missing J of all letters. I asked kingstoken for a prompt and she gave me "jelly beans". I looked them up on Wikipedia and learned something new about early 20th century slang. And then I wrote a thing.

Jelly-bean McQueen

Sherlock's American informant was knowledgeable, but Watson found his dialect quite unintelligible at times. "I've heard him called Jelly-bean McQueen," the informant said, "And by golly it fits. That boy's a Jelly-bean if ever there was one."

"A what?" Watson asked.

"A Jelly-bean," Sherlock said.

"I am familiar with the confectionary, but what has it to do with our suspect?"

Sherlock tutted. "Really, Watson, you must keep up with the slang of the modern times. A Jelly-bean is young man made of more flash and style than substance, and generally quite idle. A fop. A dandy. Naturally."

"Oh, yes. Naturally."

---

(Per Wikipedia this slang came into use in the 1910s and 1920s, so it just fits the timeline of ACD-era Holmes.)

Also on AO3

I can vouch for the fact that Sunbasin makes good soap. I use Enigma (unscented) and it works great. Yes, it's pricy for a bar of soap, but it actually reduced the amount of products I was buying overall because it's gentle enough to work as face soap¹ so I stopped buying a separate facial cleaner. I also use their shampoo bars, specifically the juniper pine and rosemary mint. I get it as a subscription, three soap bars and two shampoo bars mailed very three months², which is convenient, and now my shower is so much less cluttered, with only a soap bar, a shampoo bar, and a bottle of conditioner.

The socks are also nice. I don't subscribe, but I have occasionally bought a pair on clearance. The quality is good, and I appreciate that they have more than one size.

But even if you're not in the market for soap or socks, the video is worth watching if just for a bit of happy news about what can happen when people actually care about something and work to make it better.

¹ Your skin may vary. FWIW, I have what I would describe as sensitive but not very sensitive or problem skin. I don't have any specific skin conditions that I'm managing.

² My last order in March cost me $54.90 including tax and shipping (shipping was free) which works out to $18.30/month over 3 months which seems like a reasonable amount to spend on luxury shower products.

Rec the first:

brilliant (like a confession) (13621 words) by kathkin

The best Clark reveals his identity to Lois story that I've come across. Lois decides it's time to get over Superman and admit to herself that she's in love with Clark Kent. She asks Superman for advice before approaching Clark and things spill out from there. It's a fantastic premise, and a great execution. Just really well done all around.

Rec the second:

Star Trek: Lower Decks — Warp Your Own Way by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio

A Lower Decks Choose Your Own Adventure-style comic. I never actually liked the Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, so I wasn't sure about this, but it's absolutely brilliant. There's a puzzle element to it, and also a fantastic twist that I will not spoil. Also the story is really good, with high stakes and horror despite the comedy, and a genuinely affecting ending. Highly recommended even if you aren't a Lower Decks or even a Star Trek fan. I honestly don't think you need to be either to enjoy this one.

I have three versions of "All Along the Watchtower" in my music collection. Huh.

Anyhoo. sg_fignewton has yet another brilliant Canon vs. Fanon post about Daniel as a clumsy geek and it gets into, among other things, the trope that Daniel is frequently bullied at the SGC. This is a bit of fanon that I tend to disagree with. I started to comment to Fig on her lovely post and somehow it ended it fic. That happens kind of a lot with me...

Untitled

( Daniel yanked his T-shirt over his head and bent to lace his boots. )