beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Is there anything more satisfying than spending the day doing inventory?

... or more frustrating? ( Read more... )

New shelves!

Dancing did not happened. I cancelled it because I had forgotten how horrible it is to move around in this weather, and then spent all day moving around in this weather.

New shelves are functioning correctly and filling nicely. Comic boxes are in their new home and plenty of space above for the magazines, as soon as I rearrange the house enough I can get at the magazines.

I figured dancing would be either indoors in the hot humid nastiness or outside on the irregular surface under grey skies with possibility of rain and, earlier, thunder. So I did not go. And next week I won't be going because Norfolk Show means all of Norfolk trying to get through one roundabout about when I'd need to go round it. And neither of these decisions please me, but they're the right ones. probably. but boo.

Shopping worked pretty good. I got a new plate to be for serving foods on, but got it in ordinary plate size and not their serving platter. I'm not sure that one would fit in the sink, let alone the washer. I also bought a tower fan, which I suspect is Too Much Fan, but okays, I have it now. It makes a variety of weird noises and the timer continues to make noise after you've unplugged it, so seems like that bit is clockworks or something, That or it's about to blow up, guess I'll find out.

Foods also worked, everything in its place, and there were two brands of non dairy ice cream with two or possibly even more flavours each! I bought the sort I've tried before in chocolate and vanilla. If I eat it all I can try the alpro. But obviously that will take a while.

... it better take at least two weeks cause I'm shopping more local next week. Means I'll miss picking up my apple thing. Boo.

My day was only exciting if you appreciate good shelving and alphabetisation, but I do, so, :-)

There are layers of trouble with superhero names.

Today I am daydreaming being a superhero and I get as far as introducing myself and I start feeling all apologetic and like it's going to work about as well as movie Star Lord.

Like, okay, there is this tradition of renaming yourself for a particular ...task, role, lifestyle. That's pre established. And there's reasons for it like protect loved ones and avoid being drafted. Layers of argument to be had there, about accountability and so forth, but that just means it needs to be a persistent pseud. See also every argue about anonymity on the internet. But unlike screen names, which anyone can sign up for and are mostly not going to be read for deeper meaning, a superhero or supervillain name is, like, saying you're a Name.

Like you might not be claiming you're A-list but you're still saying you can play.

( Read more... )

If I was on the Flash I'd not just be arresting 'villains', I'd be trying to recruit them. Think of all those powers harnessed for good! And of course it can work, Eo!Wells had Killer Frost working for him, anyone can make the new choice. And like that guy who bullied Barry in school, given the chance to step up he died to protect others. Okay, by generous interpretation, but still. They live in a world that doesn't have an ongoing tradition of heroism to step in to, someone has to get it started. And they're working at STAR labs, so that's the perfect excuse to go with All Star Squadron.

... not that I've read any of those adventures, it's an old Name from before before, but an issue was also the first appearance of 'retroactive continuity', which, with all the time travel, seemed appropriate. ... I thought I read the word retcon started there, but a different wiki page says that had to wait for 1988, and the phrase version was 1983.

ANYway, I can name the team, as long as I don't imagine myself founding the Justice League or Avengers. But naming me?

A superhero name is in some respects a declaration of one's qualities, and it seems arrogant.

But. What seemed creepy to me in the Flash? Cisco naming everyone.
Wells points out that someone already has a name, but given that Wells is Reverse Flash he's not a viable moral compass, even when he's right.
It was in the episode Power Outage, and they'd just killed the dude, and Wells had made a big deal of knowing all the names of all the people he'd killed in the 'accident' with the particle accelerator - though some of those were probably 'killed' and actually just got their powers, seeing as everyone he had memorised was a known name in other 'verses.
So in context knowing his name - the real name of a real dead person - is a mark of respect. But even after Team Flash capture people, they keep calling them by names Cisco assigned them. And that's quite the reverse.

Barry in Supergirl's world refers to an electric villain. "We call him Blackout."
... dude was in a bodybag, he never called himself that.
Why keep referring to him that way?

It's dehumanising and it distances them from their own consequences.

I can see why they'd need a filename for each meta when they don't know who they're chasing, but continuing to refer to them that way after? Not cool.

Except of course when someone like Cold takes it up and runs with it. But even then, he announced himself to the world, he left off the Captain part, and team Flash I think kept using it.


Renaming other people, super rude.

Renaming yourself, super assertive.



Maybe if I thought smaller I'd feel more like the names fit. But I always pick one that's like More Boss Than Anyone, or something where I know what it's meant to mean, like I'm some kind of good example, and then I just... can't always imagine actually wearing the things.

I certainly never use them anywhere people can see. Even though naming your characters is perfectly respectable. ... though not so much your marysue ocs...



So there's a lot of practical layers to the naming thing - like do you go with something that tells your powers or conceals them, and how many syllables is even practical anyway - but I always get stuck on, just, like

hi, I'm a hero

... even for the length of a story I feel weird getting that far.



... which may explain one part of my writers block.


But I have seen so many more characters I'm supposed to look up to than characters I can even slightly identify with, I just feel... small. And like the stories happen to someone else.

And yet it's so powerful whenever the story tells you to be your own hero.



So I should be able to stand up and choose a Name.


... I just might have to put up with the laughing for a while until the plot makes me big enough to wear it...

Record high temperatures are happening.
There are articles on the bbc right now about road tar melting.
I think it is fair to say British structures are not built for this.

I got rid of the heater cooler thing because I had too much anxiety about actually using it. Don't know why. Anxiety is unhelpful that way.

But now I need to replace it. I need to decide how fancy things need to be and if I just want a floor fan from Tesco or something. But I need something that moves the air around.

Am melting. Can see me in the really reflective new TV, and there is too much of me, and it looks kind of melted. Which is age appropriate but funny.

I'd like to open a window for air but it honestly might still be more hot out there than in here still.

toooooooooo hot.

went for a lie down at 1745, woke up at 1945 realising Doctor Who had just happened.
But the iplayer works so well I'm not worried. And the iplayer is my first thought over even the recorder box, which I know just did.


Dreamt something complex with a murder mystery that's hard to investigate because cloning. ( Read more... )

A remote worker partnered with a replicant investigating natural twins is a starting point to demonstrate social prejudice about origins, even before you add the assumed racism and ablism.

But I think it requires someone more socially adept than me to go into that kind of ground without just echoing the nasty, instead of doing something worthwhile with it.

I mean there has to be some kind of conclusion based on good is a thing you do not a thing you are, and the difference between honor and reputation especially when reputation is collective. But... tricky.

I realise it is unproductive to yet again get stuck wondering
which butterfly got stepped on
but I have spent the day reading so much on fire safety (so much. the Guardian coverage alone is extensive, and I found myself checking other papers, as if there were secret nicer timeline news out there instead)
and it's equally unproductive in the end, but worse for my mental health.

so, butterflies, and time travel.

( Read more... )

I'm kind of seeing time traveller retired ladies, pillars of the bake sale and horticultural society, always ready with a quiet word, and knowing who to speak it to for most relevant effect.


But maybe time traveller little old ladies who used to be space marines. So they can train local forces, if something too outre turns up.

... and maybe can still fit into the power armour, on special occasion...



Trouble with writing this stuff is I maybe might be able to pull off time travel as heists, working around the eyes of history to improve the timeline nobody sees, but I'm woefully uninformed on how... actual people work? So all this stuff with being part of a community, I'd not know where to start with that. I mean, I watch films where people hit problems until they go away, I'm just reasonably certain it's no damn use in the vast majority of circumstances. Cathartic though. So I keep defaulting to that.


But what you really need are good planners who can get people organised and moving, and even more, people that know how to listen.

These movie sorts that charge in reckoning they know best are dramatic, but the ability to listen to the right warnings and learn from other people's plans is the only way to be better than one single human in a wilderness.




Sometimes I feel I should get more involved in actual politics. Try and get real things done. But that would involve talking or otherwise communicating with real people, and working in groups, and people wanting to choose me to work in their group, and just being able to work in the first place. And even fulfilling all those conditions, the worse the problem is, the harder I bounce off into talking science fiction, because there's only so much I can even.

So then I think I should just write up the fiction. Get people moving that way.

... and then I see my recent word count and just kind of feel bad.




But. Butterflies.

Small maybe works, for to start.

Dancing was Outside today.

Which means the floor is all rough and variable, and there's almost no space, so backing up means backing into the road bit. I know we're on school grounds and it's just a drive to a car park, but there were two cars, and I do not like it.

Also it is harder to remember the dance when your feet so not trust the floor and you have to keep watch for cars.

I know it was hot, but I dislike this solution, especially since the sound was all wrong and the air made my throat hurt from all that green outsideness.

But we did a bunch of learnings and we did the dance where we step forwards and back into the gaps in the line and there were indeed gaps in the line. So we win at dancing.

Sainsburys shopping was good, Asda no longer has five alive in their website, and I can't find anywhere else at all at all to buy it. Big sulk. But I have a bunch of Ribena so I guess that will have to do for the rest of ever.

I'm actually in a pretty good mood but that's cause I filed the sulking away on the way to the next thing. Which is a useful skill.

Hope everyone had nice days.

I dreamt I checked in to a hotel for an afternoon nap - while I was having my afternoon nap - and by coincidence there was an SF convention setting up ready for the weekend. It had a room full of craft tables and another where someone needed to make name badges. It did not have huge numbers of name badges, nor had it filled the hotel to the point I couldn't randomly get a room. So I was like yaay party, but also oops the fading away of conventions.

I looked on the con calendar I know about and as well as a lot of local sounding things that don't give you much info on what they actually do, there was one for a fandom I've partied with before. But it's a month before the event and they have one guest announced. And the shiniest con passes cost £595. The cheapest ones cost £120. Could this really be what cons cost these days? Who turns up for a one guest convention with no recent announcements anyway?

Finding out about these things when there's no word of mouth in my circles anymore because I barely HAVE circles anymore is just... trickier than it used to be. And I know some stuff happens on facebook, but I can never find it. Same problem tumblr, though I see photos after. Twitter baffles me because so bite sized and yet people bend and best it to be longer rather than moving somewhere that works. And anywhere I look it's either drowning in chatter or fading away.

I'm not saying I miss mailing lists, but, well, some days, you know?

probably fandom is somewhere, but it's not on topic, and it's not where i can find it.



and I'm not booked to go to any cons before next Redemption, which is having date and location difficulties, but is nice when it works.



I know what I'm looking for in a con has changed too, but since it hasn't changed to gigantic signing fair, that hasn't made things easier to find.



So, had a nap, woke up grumpy about my lack of parties lately.


once I got over the panic breathing bit where I was lost in an endless hotel where all the stairs had been replaced by ladders and there was no lift.

... not a restful nap.




Sometimes I try and think of things to do
and realise I could plan a thing myself.
If I planned it small enough and considered it a 'money goes out' sort of gig then I wouodn't need to worry it would turn out like last time.
... last time was twenty years ago, I was... more ill, it was overly ambitious, and in the end not even my mother turned up. so. several people have been instructed to sit on me if I try and do that again. But the fact remains that people do, and semi successfully on occasion, so I theoretically could.

Don't know what I'd even do though.



Maybe start smaller. Maybe invite known writers to the Norwich Science Fiction Group and call it an Evening With, very exclusive, like a dozen people or however many fit in the basement.

... maybe invite favourite actors, you never know your luck...

Course from their point of view it might not be so much lucky if only the usual two of us turn up...

I did not think it was possible to find places for all the things that were on the shelves, but I had underestimated the capacity for stacking things in corners.

... if I hear a slithery and sustained series of thumps
I'll know I was right first time...

But right now not even a magazine is on the old shelves, and the only thing left to move is the old shelves themselves.

:-)


I have already rewarded myself with nice foods.

Next I shall read a book. Or listen another audio. So many choices...

Today I looked up the etymology of Tory and Whig, and then started trying to find lists of more stuff like that, because fun.

Turns out it more or less means the Plunderer or Outlaw and Country Bumpkin parties.

Which I had heard but wasn't sure I quite believed until I saw it in respectable etymology. Because they called themselves that. Like, not at first, but for ages they happily owned it.

So all these fantasy politics stories that make up ordinary sort of color and animal names for political parties? Not going hard enough. Turns out you should start with Monster Raving Loony Party and then pretend they got elected a few hundred years ago and everyone got used to it.

Though if you do go animal mascot, the US Whigs were apparently Raccoons, so now I'm having some very Guardians of the Galaxy related mental images. I mean, if you're going to have a fantasy race, Rocket makes a perfectly reasonable prototype, they don't all have to be green. ... look like Rocket, called Whigs... *blinks a lot*

I also decided to have a party called the Salmons, who are the Everyone Go Back Where You Came From people. ... because calling them kippers is too much local.

Your basic yellow bird party is staying though, because then you've got the Canary family, big political movers of Central and the Middle Lands.

Though Canaries, around here, means the football
https://www.canaries.co.uk/
whose colors are truly eye watering when used to decorate a whole building. ... high school let students vote on how to decorate the new block. Mistaaaaaaake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaries disambiguation page says it was a dance too. Nifty.

The reason Norwich are called canaries is pretty cool, wiki page says "the city of Norwich had long connections with canaries owing to its 15th and 16th century links to Flemish weavers who had imported the birds to the Low Countries from the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean." Said weavers are the Strangers that Strangers Hall in Norwich is named for, http://www.heritagecity.org/research-centre/social-innovation/the-strangers.htm

So to get the name of a football club you've gone through a whole history of religious refugees and the economic history of Norwich, which was a powerhouse in its day, especially in textiles. Religious tension, extremism, international politics, and jobs. History is awesome.

And if I'm pulling a fantasy AU version of the Canary family that's a pretty detailed one right there.



It's all well and good writing the fantasy history of wolves vs lions in big wars, but the little birds were so much more interesting because varied. Fighting is fighting, but it's a tiny fraction of the full business of civilisation.


... and now I'm wandered off to read more history. There's always so much I don't know where to start.



But today I started with etymologies of Tory, and it was so interesting I'm now pouting I can't find a simple list of such nicknames, to plunder for writing purposes.

I am listening to The Diary of River Song, the Big Finish Audio adventures.
They're proper adventures, with death defying danger and plots and so forth.
But I keep on tripping over the thing where the story thinks the important things about River thematically are that she's married and that she's been manipulated. And, like, yes, that's... that's a whole multi season Thing, I can see why they're picking it up from there. But it means it's about women's victimisation and struggle for agency, sort of in capital letters, even though she's just doing a bunch of stuff that would be perfectly reasonable for the Doctor.

... they warned us when we started the Cultural Studies degree, but did I listen? Noooo, I thought all the meta would make it more fun...

I look forwards to her swanning in to somewhere and nicking stuff and acting all in control. She has done some good bits of that but the whole backwards and in high heels theme is the fun bit of River Song.

Writers killing the one black man to demonstrate someone else is evil
kind of has a built in problem.

*sigh*

Also it's no fun flinching all through the episode in full expectation it's going to happen.

I don't see what else the episode had going for it.

Felt like the Doctor was just watching and he and Bill could have been swapped out for any number of other people.

Not my sort of thing at all.


The last couple of minutes obviously have potential though.

So I've been thinking about the bit where a woman raised by women in an all women place finally meets a man and is like oh wow how strange what even is it, with or without the I like this part.

And, like, have you seen women?

Even just afab cis women?

Have you seen all the shapes at the olympics? Because there are many, many shapes. There are short women who are skinny all over, there are tall women who are large all over, there are curves but not necessarily, there are women doing shotput who I feel more superheroes should look like but know they won't because them and the hammer throwers are, like, emphatically not Power Girl shaped, even though their discipline is mostly power.

And even the whole facial hair situation, it's really variable on whatever gender, and now there's shaving, so, depending on culture, unlikely to be relevant.

Basically as long as they've got their underpants on they're just, you know, maybe sort of stocky, not very femme, but not actually entirely novel or surprising.

And the other way around, okay, past a certain point women are more notably new shapes, but men can be soft shapes too, it takes a lot to be a mindblowing new view.

And, like, we're used to society and language categorising everyone as one of two things, so we divide them up at a glance, however rude that is, and however often we're really getting it wrong. But if you live somewhere that just doesn't, you just wouldn't.

Like Leckie's Ancillary books. That's the only time I can remember right now I've seen this done plausibly. Though Bujold's Athos had a go.

Like society is really invested in the idea there are clear and obvious differences between two binary genders, but, you know, no.

... this is one reason monosexuals puzzle me deeply, but it's their thing, I'm not being judgey. I'm just kind of confused at the idea that the attractiveness of biceps or shoulders or muscles all doing stuff together somehow depends on which gender category they're in. Or, like, hands. Hands are awesome. Why are they variably awesome based on plumbing? I can see why personality might put you off, but I really don't get it about gender.

But still.

If man gets washed up on island of women, I figure he's probably just going to get called sister a lot, until he gets assertive about pronouns.

Unless of course she finds out she's fine with that.