you guys i'm really sad at life and upset with myself right now. send me happiness plz. kthnxbai.

I've been feeling increasingly alienated from academia, or at least my corner of it, and in convo with a fellow disenchanted MA sufferer, articulated this -

You're contextualizing texts in classrooms while decontextualizing yourself from the world.

This is really what bothers me most about being an academic of the kind my school is training me to be - there's a sort of willfull blindness that infuriates me and makes me feel disconnected from the communities I claim as sites of occupation and study. I feel useless, and I hate the sensation of it. 

It's called the ivory tower, immaculate and apart, the seat of higher (literally, elevated, 'tower') learning - but I want the mud, I want the dirt and blood, I want to be small in the face of suffering rather than removed from the presence of it, commenting on it with the calm distance affords.

I'm tired of being a pretentious academic. I don't want this as my identity. I need to change.

I'm icon shopping right now! I've left a bunch of slots open in my user pics, and I'm going to be filling most of them in over the next few days. 

I'm kind of picky about icons. I don't usually like the ones with text; I'm by nature highly textual, so words on top of my pictures distracts me and makes the icon less about image (which I think it should be) and more about word, and overall I feel the impact/message has been lessened or even lost. I also prefer icons with colour. Most of my icons are fandom-based, but my default one was chosen for personal reasons. I tend to like icons that convey a very specific tone; I have an icon I use pretty much exclusively for things that are depressing, from world news to angsty fic posts. I have a stalker icon for when I want to comment on someone's post and let them know I like them/their writing possibly too much to be healthy. 

What (if any) icon preferences do you have?

Summed up here. 

My own thoughts, casual as they may be: 

1) flashbacks to RaceFail what with all the survivor-blaming and "privilege? what privilege?" discussion

2) I really, really like the idea one commenter had, of including a "Warnings: to the best of my knowledge there are no warnings needed for this fic" to fics so that any reader who is wary can be assured she/he isn't taking a chance in reading an unmarked fic. I think I'm going to start doing that. 

3) Given that a lot of the discussion seems to hinge not just on warnings in general but also warnings for misogyny related crimes, such as rape, consent issues, assault, and abuse in its myriad forms (with the derailing tactics of attempting to move away from dubcon warnings to "do I need to warn for allergies now, too?"), there is something that just boggles me. These works of (fan)fiction, depicting - I'm assuming sympathetically, empathetically - events of graphic violence are works where the author tends to occupy, or see through the perspective of, the one assaulted. The second most common viewpoint is that of the rescuer-figure who has come to help the survivor of assault. In both fictive instances, the author tends to (not always, not in every case, but for the majority in my sampling of this genre) present an empathetic portrayal. The level of irony is astounding when this empathy given to fictional characters in fictional settings is not extended to real survivors of assault, real supporters of those who have survived assault, in the real setting that is the social networks of our journaling sites. If a dubcon fic made you cry and ache for the characters, why can't you cry and ache for fellow members of our community? Why is it permissible to allow fictive voices be heard, but silence the real ones?

4) There is no 4. The 4 is a lie. 

5) I do have a trigger. It's not related to any consent or assault issues. It is a somewhat common trope in fanfic, but I navigate around it just fine, and heed warnings when authors are considerate and compassionate enough to post them. I was recently triggered by a non-fanfic source and spent a few days randomly breaking into tears and trying desperately to regain my equilibrium. It's hard. It hurts. I don't know anyone with enough malice to deliberately want to hurt me in that way - but it didn't stop me from being hurt. It didn't stop me from flashing back and contemplating self-harm. Triggers are different from squicks, which you can walk away from. Triggers are embedded in you, and the impact they have is enormously damaging.

6) Regarding the notion of warnings = spoilers, why not post warnings separately under a cut with the addendum that if the reader has triggers, they may want to check out the warnings; if the reader has no triggers and would like to avoid spoilers, to ignore the warnings; if the reader has no triggers but likes spoilers, read the warnings; etc. It's a little extra work, but it seems like a middle ground between avoiding harm to readers and preserving authorial control over spoilers, etc. 

Upsides:

1) got both Black Skin White Masks AND Wretched of the Earth for under $20 (Zoinks bookstore on Bloor; technically used books, but both in new condition)

2) ate gloriously cheap, wonderfully delicious Thai food (@ Urban Thai, ironically in Little Italy)

3) got a truly awesome cappucino

4) spent time with friends

5) wrote porn at the Star Trek kink meme (over here) (warning: somnophilia)


Downsides:

1) blisters. Blisters. Ow.

2) still freaking out a little over my mom acting weird.

3) still hate grad school; am clawing at the metaphorical bars of this academic cage.



I guess we'll call it a win?


Edit: forgot to add, have invite codes. Leave comment and will give; first come, first etc.

 

This = my desktop foto. It kind of betrays where it is that I live. I took it with my camera phone. 

( Click this way, the voyeurs among you: )

Five times Chekov almost lost his virginity and one time he did (originally posted here):

Warning: to the best of my knowledge, this fic needs no warnings. 

 ( a mild dose of crack )

 In my copious amounts of free time (hah! Oh, god, the term papers...), I have committed fic, over at the kink thread. 

Warning: depiction of starvation and PTSD symptoms.



( 6 times Jim didn't talk about Tarsus IV )



( and the 2 times he had to )

 Heard via harpers_child , Dollhouse is renewed for a second season. I am not sure how to feel about this, but for now I will be happy(ish). 

Fanfic for Jesse Hajicek's Metanoia (most art by Rah). Sexual content warning! Characters are not mine, lovely as they may be. All comments appreciated and welcome.  I think the Valentine thing is taken from a mini comic I can no longer find; if you know it, link me please?

Lately, 'sloth' has been more than appropriate as a nickname - Wikipedia tells me it's more than just laziness, it's apathy and joylessness too, a giving in to entropy. I want to blame feeling this way on a lot of external factors (school was on strike, RaceFail was pretty damn depressing, far from home, various global disasters), but mostly I think I'm still just sad. It hits me at really random moments. I think grief is one of those things, you breathe it in and don't breathe it out, it sets down roots and vines and twines inside you and doesn't let go, when you move it moves with you. 

Well, well, I'll attempt to kickstart the creativity again in the hopes of beating down my slothful ways. 

/whining

During my current bout of being bizarrely ill, my television has gifted me with multiple episodes of both The O. C. and iCarly. And, despite the former being so completely self-involved whiney teenage overly privileged youth and the latter being a product of YTV/Nickelodeon - I'm actually enjoying them. Like, Ben McKenzie is adorable! Who knew? And Miranda Cosgrove, like, I kind of think she is awesome. I love her delivery and comedic timing and how much chemistry she has with every other character on the show. I love her character's best friend and her other best friend and her older brother. 

I'm kind of baffled at myself. (And also shamefully seeking fic. Not so much for iCarly - though maybe? - but for the O. C., I know there is quality stuff floating out there, I'm kind of in search of it now - trolling pit of voles, aka fanfiction dot net - and delicous recs. Gah, the shame, it burns. Like venereal disease or the fires of hell.)

 ahahaha, YAY, despite my computer illiteracy I managed to fix the lack of usernames on my reading page. I am inordinately proud of this. *beams*

( Pretty boy brings the gay (aka Kings) )


( Spies and their lies (aka Chuck) )


( Pen>sword (aka Castle) )

Given it is the month for poems, I figured I would start off with one of those; in this case, Rolf Jacobsen's Some People, translated by Robert Bly.


Some people
ascend out of our life, some people
enter our life,
uninvited and sit down,
some people
calmly walk by, some people 
give you a rose, 
or buy you a new car, 
some people
stand so close to you, some people
you've entirely forgotten,
some people, some people
are actually you,
some people 
you've never seen at all, some people
eat asparagus, some people
are chlidren, 
some people climb on the roof, 
sit down at table
lie around in hammocks, take walks with their red umbrella,
some people look at you,
some people have never noticed you at all, some people
want to take your hand, some people
die during the night, 
some people are other people, some people are you, some people
don't exist
some people do.


In other news, new Chuck tonight! \o/ 

I've got to say, show does a really good shop of taking ideas that make me cringe at in theory, grin at in practice. 

 Disclaimer: The characters and places mentioned in this story do not belong to me. I intend no copyright infringement.
Warning: scene of violence and death involving guns; overall emotional messed-up-ness. ( The one where Haruhi is an extra twin. )

Warning: to the best of my knowledge, this story needs no warnings. It does contain a lot of Shawn!whump though, of both physical and emotional varieties.

 

( ZOMBIES IN PSYCH )

 

Warning: contemplation of self-harm; general messed-up home life and depiction of semi-abandonment. ( Sam, growing up.  )

 Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. 

Warning: angst and depiction of child endangerment.