EXCHANGE INTERFACE

I'm going through the fic positivity thread, starting with people who haven't got any replies to their comment and seeing if there's anything I can add (if there's anything in their repertoire that I'll read).

In the meantime, I've discovered I'm actually pretty bad at telling people what they're good at in writing as a whole. I can focus in on specific stories, specific characters, specific concepts, but if you ask me for the big picture...? Nope. Can't do it.

It's a bit like my view on bands - I may like most music by a band, but I'm not about to commit to all of their music. There are bands and singers who have a better chance of getting my attention and keeping it and being put on my playlists, but that's still not a guarantee.

Ah well, I'll keep working my way through the list...

The original link is here: Basic Income Could Transform Society.

There's a discussion about it on FFA. The conversation threads go in all directions, although the ones that I enjoy reading about are the ones that examine not the economic success/failure of the concept, but the reactions to the concept - their own, the other anons', political groups/societies - and what it says about their own preconceptions, presumptions, and prejudices.

For me, I think, one of the key points is not "does it work?" but "why do so many people want it to fail/rejoice in the idea that it might fail/refuse to even contemplate tests to see if it works?"

Starting a local movement. I know at least one woman living in my area who has many FB people who don't like Australia's current stance on refugees.

Job prospects for 2017.

Working out how to minister more to people-who-are-not-like-me and people-who-don't-have-my-opportunities.

Spending more time in contact with my cousin's wife, who is just starting out writing.

George Michael. Carrie Fisher. Vera Rubin.

( epitaphs of heroism )

Maps of the World's Countries Rearranged By Population: take the largest geographical countries in the world, and move the countries with the largest population into those spaces.

It's quite fascinating: apparently Indonesia would get China, China would get Russia, the US would remain pretty much the same, while Canada would now occupy Pakistan. (India gets Canada. Man, the US racists would SHIT BRICKS; they've got Ethiopia on one side, and India on the other...)

Australia would end up in Spain (weather's not bad, but this whole 'land borders' business is a bit shoddy), while Pakistan gets our "shores guarded by oceans wide". That'll make a difference from the mountains they're used to...

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Thank You, Mr. Trump: A letter about the things that Trump has revealed in US society and the US mindset; while it's not nice to discover You're Actually Not All That After All, it'll be a good kick in the butt for some, even if others drag their feet.

As a middle-aged white woman, I thought we'd come further than we have. I'm grateful that you've shown that I'm wrong. That just means that I have to help the change that should happen.

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Unpacking Casual Sexism/Racism In The Classroom: or, how to start a discussion, not a defence.

Some thoughts on how to unpack the way we speak: 'you're such a girl', 'man up', 'that's gay'. I have no doubt it works better on those with a mindset to learn than those who think they know everything or that they're okay, but it's something that I think I'm going to have to try somehow, particularly when dealing with racial microaggressions.

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Speak The Truth To Trump: An article from Christianity today, pointing out the flaws in voting for Trump from a Christian (Evangelical?) perspective. I don't agree with all the points they make, but the ones they make about how all earthly political systems are going to be flawed and trying to coerce them into working our society into a theocracy can too easily become idolatry of human processes are very relevant, I feel, particularly for American Evangelicals I know for whom this idea of 'a Christian society governed by Christian laws' is something that they really want.

(title from "the thargomindah road" - an old Australian song)

The neck always feels a little fragile the day after a visit to the chiro. And I have a headache that I fear would be probably more than threatening if not for the panadol I took a couple of hours ago.

I'm not sure I can write tonight. An awful lot of things are all churned up, including the oncoming winter, the state of Marvel fandom, my feelings about my health, and a lingering feeling of aloneness in fandom.

Anyway.

Have a link: Eleven million deaths as clickbait - a commentary on That Thing What's Currently Happening In Marvel.

And a number of fics:

oh, there's a show alright but it may not be the one you want
“So, after months of trying to keep you lot quiet and under the radar, you’ve managed to completely blow your cover, start a manhunt, and declare yourselves gay for each other in just over fifty hours.”
Sam/Bucky drunk!Vegas!Marriage fic with a side order of Maria/Steve UST that is ridiculously popular considering I dashed it off after an amusing Tumblr post. (Hey, I did say I kind of wanted to write Sam/Bucky, looks like my brain got hijacked with hijinks - and, btw, my fingers just typed 'bijinks' which, um, yeah. Hi, Freud!)

Casualties Of War
It’s better this way. Anything between them could only ever be a casualty of the events and people that need them more.
6K of extremely self-indulgent Maria-Saves-The-Day fic, featuring Valkyrie, all the Avengers, and Maria/Steve. I'm not sure what the first commenter meant; anyone willing to hazard a guess/explain it to me?

Every Breaking Wave
She's thirty-five when she realises he's never seen her as an old woman.
Someone prompted me with "Captain Hill + 'mourn'" and this is the result. It's an AU based off 'The Time Traveler's Wife', and extremely angsty, mentions a character death, and features a character coming to terms with her own death. Same series as Lepidopterae.

Return To Me
Four days is an eternity between ransom message and rescue.
Someone else prompted me with "Captain Hill + 'come back'" and this is quite possibly even more brutal than Every Breaking Wave.

trying to break the mold
Three-quarters of a potential sedoretu, shooting for orbit, burning like fire.
A little Steve/Bucky/Peggy sedoretu ficlet. WARNING: follows MCU canon, so unfinished/unhappy ending.

I'm presently working on:
* a Maria Hill movie plot that would fit into the MCU
* To The End Of Love (need to switch off my inner editor/critic and just write this on out; it's kind of awful)
* the next chapter in the Steve/Maria Neighbors AU, after they went to Italian with her grandparents and kissed
* the next chapter in Sam/Bucky drunk!Vegas!Marriage.
* and to top it all off, someone actually went and asked for "Captain Hill + loss", which involves "one character dying while in the arms of the other". Geeze. This WILL end badly.

So much writing. And BEARS of so little brain.

Plus two quilts to prep for the Sydney Quilt Show which is in LESS THAN A MONTH (what, when did this happen) and which have to be finished, ready to hang, and dropped off in a nearby suburb by the middle of next month. (Oh, geeze, I hope it's the middle of next month.)

It was a really, really good movie.

That doesn't make it any less of an insult to a Maria Hill fan: that this was an opportunity for other people to see and admire and appreciate Maria as the Everywoman trying to hold the world together, and it got put aside for more White Hero Guys.

( longer: spoilers, themes, thoughts )

Okay, so that wasn't so much about the plot. But then the plot doesn't really bother me all that much except in terms of history that needs to be included if I'm going to be canon compliant. It's the relationship dynamics, the interconnections between people and how they shift that are interesting.

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

I'm going to talk about a scene that most people wouldn't think is one of my favourites, but it was pretty much the moment I knew I was going to be a little longer in MCU fandom than just that first year.

In the first episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Maria Hill is interviewing Grant Ward to be a part of Coulson's team.

Maria Hill: Everything's changing. A little while ago, most people went to bed thinking that the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying metal suit. Then aliens invade New York then were beaten back by among others, a giant green monster, a costumed hero from the 40's, and a God.
Grant Ward: I don't think Thor's technically a God.
Maria Hill: Well, you haven't been near his arms.

Frankly, before that point, most of fandom behaved as though Maria was basically scenery; as Ward mocks her later that season: she was eye candy, and barely even that when compared the Black Widow. She wasn't a proponent of the Avengers Initiative, which meant she wasn't one of the Good Guys (like Coulson or Fury), and her most redeeming feature seemed to be that she was one more woman in the movie canon.

I saw more in the character from my second viewing of the Avengers movie.

I saw a very droll, very dry sense of humour displayed in the exchanges with Stark: "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" and "He turns." I saw a deep sense of duty and responsibility to chase down an enemy who's already turned two of their people. And a deep and serious affection for Phil Coulson in her reaction to the news of his death, and in the deadly glare she levels at Tony and Steve from the bridge.

But that scene of Maria interviewing Grant Ward? That was something that other people in fandom could grasp - that Maria Hill had a sense of humour which she could let out to play when the world wasn't at stake, that her connections with Fury and Coulson were deeper than their disagreements over the Avengers Initiative, and that she could put up with shit in the name of getting the job done.

And it brought me great joy to see my view of the character confirmed - and to have the character brought back into the universe.

(I'm debating whether I want to do Challenge 6 right now. Challenge 5 was to make a fanwork, which i have no trouble doing, only all mine went to fandom_stocking.)

Where's My Cut: On Unpaid Emotional Labor

The MetaFilter discussion

starnise's post
elf's post
siderea's post

And this was prompted by another friend's discussion about 'one-sided relationships in fandom', where a friend will happily inundate you with something ze loves (and you don't) for 3 hours, and then vanishes the instant you start talking about something you love and ze doesn't.

Yes, I've been there.

Emotional labour.

I don't get very meta on LJ anymore; my interests are primarily fannish. But this struck a chord for me in the situation I'm in right now, in the situations of my friends that I'm watching unfold before me.

This is mildly out of left field, but I’m starting to wonder.

What if the Steve-pairing endgame in the movies really were Maria/Steve?

( yes, yes, I know, it's ridic, but WHAT IF? Hear me out! )

So, igrockspock nails it about Natasha, female agency, relationships, and Age of Ultron.

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scribble_myname is trying to make me sign up for Lost Libraries, which is the counterpart to invisible_ficathon which I did last year and which simply didn't gel for me. The premise of Invisible Ficathon is to write fanfic for a non-existant canon that is referenced in a work of fiction. My problem is that all I wanted to do was write the canon into existence, which apparently is what the Lost Libraries exchange is doing this year. (Invisible Ficathon will be run next year again - they're going to swap IF and LL on a two year cycle.)

Which, yes, I could sign-up for Lost Libraries, however see my post last night about writing.

Plus, what I really want to write is the MCU fusion into Fox Force Five:

Maria - leader and operations organisation
Melinda - transport and logistics
Natasha - infiltration and undercover
Sharon - munitions and weapons
Skye - hacker and technology

With Jemma as their medical, Darcy with the research, Pepper as their money, and Peggy as the one who initially recruits them all.

IT WOULD BE AWESOME.

(No, my MCU AU recip did not ask for this. But now I'm wishing I had!)

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I have one MCU AU story fully outlined from go to whoa, one that's just a scene, and one which pretty much ends up as an excuse for smut.