Read all the fic again

I have read all the John/Rodney m/m >10,000 words where No Archive Warnings Apply on AO3.
All.
Again.
Also all the Sam/Rodney, which took about an hour, because nobody likes that. Or possibly the het lives somewhere else? I don't know, I can't recall having sought out het before.

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Fandom's continued fascination with the white guys is kind of awkward.


I need a new fandom to read in. I don't know where to start this time. Read something at random? Find a character who isn't a white guy and read all about them? What am I looking for in my fic reading experience anyway? More than I get on TV. More queer, more interesting women, more integration of sex into lives. Plus I never voluntarily read anything that doesn't have like aliens and demons and saving the world a lot. Doesn't really aim the reading much though, just from that.


Maybe I should do writing again. I could write more stuff that's more like what I keep hoping to read. Just not in fanfic, so much.

I'm weirdly not in fandoms at the moment. I mean, I'm reading on AO3 in a steadily omnivorous way, but I'm not watching episodes of anything, I'm not reading comics, I've not read many books I particularly liked lately, and I definitely don't read much through fandom newsletters or interact much with other fans. Doctor Who watching when in season is about it, and Doctor Who is less a fandom and more the background oxygen of life.

I don't know. I'm just kind of cranky and dissatisfied lately.



Maybe I should do the reading I need to do for college before Wednesday. And the reading I need to do before Friday. It seems quite likely it will be Friday before I'm finished with that.

Merlin is making me sick

There's a basic built in problem with the Arthur story, the way its been told lately. It's about a good king and a wicked witch. And it worries me greatly that this remains popular. Two different tellings lately focus on Arthur and Morgana both claiming the throne through their father. Both of them have Arthur be The Good One and Morgana be The Bad One. Arthur has his supporting cast of knights, and Merlin, and Gaius, and Gwen who has very few lines lately but pouts and worries very prettily in low cut dresses. Which is pissing me off. Morgana had women on her side once, but this season she killed them and there's more men everywhere. Does that make it better or worse? That she can't claim power on her own, she just messes around with a man doing all the doings? Worse, I think. It's all about how her claim to power isn't legitimate and Arthur's is. Why? It keeps on being gendered. With Merlin there's a whole theme of oppressed magic going on, and Uther was plain evil, and freeing the magic users would seem like a good idea if there wasn't a new and different deadly magical threat every week. Then it just looks like he had a point. Stupidly messed up telling, that. But this week ( Read more... )

No, it pretty much looks like one side is all blokes, and they're rejecting this uppity woman.

I don't know what story they're trying to tell, but with the structure of the setup, that's the story they're telling. Woman trying to claim power? Eeeeeevil! Stop her! Go work for the bloke, even when they're oppressing people, because hey, still got the important qualification for the job.

If there were an equal number of stories about a queen trying to hold on to a righteous land while her evil brother plotted against her, it wouldn't be a Thing. But are there even ANY stories like that? Not so much. Not on TV. Not in popular culture.

And it remains so popular.

I know, I watched it, why watch when I always end up complaining? I watched this season of Merlin because it was on the recorder box and I wanted to wash my brain out. Well, it didn't do that. This isn't a story of good vs evil. It just pretends to be. And who gets painted as evil? Every bloody time?

I need things to watch where women get to be strong and not be punished for it. Where women get to be strong and its a legitimate and valid occupation. Where women get to be strong and get celebrated for it in their own culture.

It would really really help if right now I could think of any.



PS: there's a secondary rant about black people, invisibility of, reduction to serve story of angsty white dude, etc etc et bloody c. One of the knights is black, yaays. Is that the knight that gets all the stories? Is that the knight that gets any of the story? Is it heck. And it's not like there's a shortage of bits with knights in them. I could go on at length, but, you know, second verse, same as the first. It's always the same.

Persepolis

Today I read Persepolis, which we'll be studying from Wednesday for Contemporary Narrative.
I kind of can't deal. This whole unit has been grisly death, war, persecution and (attempted) suicide. I think I'm going to have to prioritise my mental health above getting a decent grade and just leave the things in the lessons and not do much studying outside of that. Which will mean putting in only about a quarter of the work, maybe less, but if there were a lesson that required me to repeatedly bang my head against the wall I'd opt out of that, and I think that would hurt less.
Humans suck. Humans are stupid and selfish and evil. Not all of them, just the ones we've been reading about in that lesson.

I'm going to have to go watch Doctor Who instead, I can't deal with that other view.
Because I'd rather live in the hopeful places, thanks. Even if the other stuff is 'reality'.