Things that sound like such a good idea

Had a dream involving many, many, many clones of Captain James T Kirk. Pretty reboot version. Many of them wearing very little. And dancing sexy. For an audience that would indeed get to take one home with them.

The fact that this was a total horror story might not be immediately apparent from that summary.

I guess it's a good sign that even my subconscious knows that growing clones for sex trafficking is deeply, deeply creepy. Especially when they all seem to be on something. And lacking essential Kirk-ness.

*shudders*

So in the dream I stalked out, and ( Read more... )

So now I'm left kind of wanting to write some complex political Star Trek fanfic, mixing series and alt canons liberally, with at the center of it this bio politics that maps in places to disability rights and in other places really really doesn't. ( Read more... )

The major problem with doing this as fanfic is unfamiliarity with source. And, okay, the genius of the reboot movie is it changed up so much all you really need is that one movie and some vague ideas, but such an approach would bug the hell out of me. I don't know Kirk, except from movies. How can I be writing him?
And do I really want to be writing him, and be constrained by the judgements of Doing It Wrong, or can I tell a better story with someone else?

... ignoring the whole thing where I haven't been writing. I think my word output this year is pretty high, I did more than 50K on the summer project, but it hasn't been words that are fanfic. For ages.

Also, fanfic does not tend to like original characters, especially ones that are necessarily a lot like the author. Only this is a story about disability, bodies and brains and minds and how they interact, about social constructs and social connections and how people relate to each other and how artificial and alien that can be even with only humans around, and if there isn't an autistic person in the middle of the story it's a whole different story. The whole genetic memory and katra thing can say less when you're only talking about the one kind of brain. It's a story with me in it or it's a different story. But fanfic doesn't tend to want that.

Really I can't be ignoring the 'haven't finished a fanfic in very long time' aspect, because I won't be doing this one, I'll be going back to my Contemporary Narrative essay and then going back to college.

But for a freaky nightmare this one had some interesting bunny possibilities.

urban fantasy + science fiction

I have been reading more first books to try and find something that is what I consider proper Urban Fantasy and not just Paranormal Romance. The covers and blurbs aren't usually terribly helpful. So far all I can figure to do is read them and see what the sex to plot ratio is. So far if the main character is a succubus, sex worker current or former, or goes into heat regularly it has not so much worked out as urban fantasy. If the plot is basically a skimpy covering for shagging lots of people it's not the genre I was looking for.
... I'm likely to read it anyway, but.

But! The other thing I have noticed is: a lot of urban fantasy is secretly science fiction.

I get annoyed about books with inherited powers, where the different races of fantasy are, you know, races, including magic users. It's an old aristo model, it's all wrong. I want stories about study and deciding who to be and making yourself over. Magic should be great for that, but thus far that's not the story I'm mostly finding.

But I am finding a lot of near-ish future alt worlds, where humanity turns out to have lots of species, ( Read more... )