ficathons and why I keep signing up

NH Summer brings out the Big Bangs - the massive efforts that are always due within days of each other. Then the NH autumn brings out a slew of small ficathons. Then it's winter and there's solstice, yuletide, and (the named and unashamed) Christmas ficathons.

In the last couple of years, I've kind of realised that I join ficathons because I don't get the kinds of fics I want to read any other way. And even then, I don't always get the fics I want to read.

What do I want to read in my fanfic? Action/adventure fics with a male/female relationship, and where the female character is not only permitted to be awesome but actively encouraged to be. And, frankly, that's rather rare, in any of my fandoms. Even the writers who like the female characters tend to focus on the male ones. And I don't want to be thrown a bone by the slashers when they deign to include my favourite female characters; I want something where my favourite female character is awesome and happens to be attractive to the guy who makes up the other half of my pairing preference.

Actually, I think that what I really want is a genderswapped heroic narrative trope: where the girl solves all the problems, gets involved in all the action, and gets the guy into the bargain!

There don't seem to be too many of those around...

The Spiders Leave Me Alone If I Don't Bother Them

(a.k.a. a post I typed up last week thinking about how people think about themselves)

I'm always rather curious about people and how they think of themselves.

Do they think of themselves as good people - whatever that definition may mean to them? Maybe they're good people with a few bad habits, yeah, but nothing that needs consideration or work? Or perhaps they're doing just fine where they are, thanks, and, okay, so they're not perfect but the neighbours are even less perfect and so there's no real need to change?

This last week while in Adelaide and fighting user attitudes and reading news blogs, I've been thinking about the idea that the way people think of themselves tends to affect how they behave when someone challenges their perception of themselves as "good".

The original thought was more about complacency in work behaviours than in personal behaviours, but I think it's the same thing in several ways - complacency of opinions and beliefs and the innate entrenchments that mean we refuse to examine ourselves and our thoughts and our practises.

When someone holds up a (metaphorical) mirror and we don't like the reflection we see? Sometimes we punch the person holding the mirror. Sometimes we punch the mirror. Sometimes we turn away and just don't look. And sometimes we grimace and take a closer look.

But my experience is that people tend to react to challenged perceptions based on how they think of themselves. The more they think of themselves as "good people" or "in the right" or "better people than the neighbours", the less likely it is they're going to self-examine. And I think that holds no matter what you believe or where you come from. If someone intrinsically believes that zhe's right, or okay, or doesn't need to change, zhe's not going to rethink zir's position and zhe isn't going to take criticism well - why would zhe? Zhe's right!

The users of the old system here are accustomed to their thought patterns, to the way they do things - they don't like having to change their behaviours or challenge their assumptions. Nobody ever does. But some accept being challenged with better grace than others.

And let's just say, I'm kind of tired of being punched this week.

the sound of me going CRAAAAAP!

I blame it on the work situation. Work has so scrambled my brain that nothing is where I expect it to be.

The atlantisbigbang is due tomorrow. And I am not ready to hand it in.

TOMORROW.

There is no way I can get what needs to be done, edited, and corrected done, edited, and corrected by tomorrow.

*cries*

Very little has been completed these last few months. My brain is full of plotbunnies (emphasis on 'plot') but I can't seem to scrape together enough focus to write anything more than pr0n and kink. It just escapes me. Eludes me. Precludes me. Deludes me? I dunno. My brain is mush and my muse can't seem to concentrate.

I'm asking for (another) extension. If I don't get it, my personal deadline is Monday, and I shall post it in chunks every couple of days until the story runs out.

This year has been a shocker for Big Bangs and me...