Of potential interest to HP fans: Xia Junsu, formerly of supergroup DBSK/TVXQ, currently of group JYJ, and musical theatre actor who just finished a run as Death in the Korean tour of Elisabeth, has released the MV for his current single, "Tarantallegra."



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For reasons of spoon shortages and the necessity to focus on RL for a bit, I have defaulted on Yuletide. I will still be watching the pinch hit list, and if something hits that immediately gives me a story idea I know I can write, I might still see if I can get it fast enough. Otherwise, I hope you all have fun writing your own assignments, and I hope to rejoin you next year, when hopefully circumstances will allow me the resources to indulge in this much-loved holiday tradition.

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( Spoilers for X-Men: First Class, natch. )

~ Recs sought.

~ I am in serious need of icons, clearly.

*In fact, family lore has it that one of my ancestors was a, ah, procurer of cadavers in Edinburgh back in the day. There is no evidence he "helped" anyone achieve the cadaver state, however. Ahem.

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Those who have been breathlessly awaiting the return of Back Catalog Theatre can at last inhale.* Last night witnessed our much-delayed viewing of A for Andromeda, starring Tom Hardy and Kelly Reilly (John Watson's promisingly badass fiancee in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes). Going in, we knew the movie was about alien contact, and we'd seen several declarations that it was extremely boring, so we braced ourselves for bringing our own fun with occasional scoffing. We'd consider it a bonus if both TH and KR were allowed to be as pretty as they are.

The good news is, they mostly are. Both KR's costuming and TH's mustache fall under the heading of Unfortunate, but it's nothing like TH's costuming in Minotaur. Even more good news, depending on how you look at it, is that a lot of the movie consists of TH and KR's characters engaged in intense conversation with each other. Not quite as good news, the dialogue is mediocre at best, slightly garbled in that way that lets one know there wasn't a lot of budget devoted to audio equipment, so TH and KR's lovely voices mostly go to waste. The plot, such as it is, is a mash-up of the least interesting bits of Contact, Bodysnatchers, and the Terminator franchise, but actually reminded me of nothing so much as a tin-eared, glacially-paced take on the Kim/Henry subplot of Eureka. In other words, there are some interesting ideas here, but they're not new ones, and they've already been done better elsewhere. In fact, the most novel aspect of this production is seeing TH play a geeky, lab-coated, overtly intellectual character who is acknowledged as a "genius" in the script, but naturally not actually listened to when he tries to warn those around him of the dangers of their course. It's also interesting to see the physical dynamic between his character and one of KR's; he is still adult Tom Hardy, broad and respectably tall, and she is still very slim and shorter (though either also tall or filmed that way), but when she quietly, physically threatens him, they both make it believable. She looms and invades his personal space, and he doesn't exactly shrink, which would have been too obvious and obviously staged, but he does clearly evaluate her potential to hurt him, and determine she could do so.

Mostly, though, this movie illustrates the potential for TH and KR to really spark the screen if they are ever cast together in a good movie. Even the soundtrack plays as something cribbed from early '90s New Age CDs mostly meant as sleep aids. As I said to Cass, I think TH's character here would serve as an interesting backstory for Eames, but I'm not taken enough to recommend anyone see this.

*I sincerely hope nobody was actually holding their breath. Also, I am seriously considering a "they can't all be minotaur" tag.

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Scenes of a Sexual Nature is aptly named. It's a mosaic movie, featuring conversations between several couples one afternoon on Hampton Heath. There's the married couple whose discussion of an article on orgasms the wife is reading implies they're not entirely sexually compatible, while the husband voyeuristically stares at another woman whose underwear is exposed. There are the widow and widower who met once, decades ago, when they were both engaged to other people, and are now meeting again at the same bench. There's the gay couple negotiating terms of exclusivity, with the promiscuous partner played by Ewan McGregor. There's the dating couple messily and loudly breaking up. There's the couple in the midst of the most amicable divorce in the world. There's the loving, long-term couple reuniting who turn out not to be what they seem. There's the couple on a blind date.

And then there's Tom Hardy, who plays That Guy who wanders around the Heath, propositioning women who are there alone until one of them agrees to sleep with him. He's very, very pretty, but it should surprise no one that he doesn't meet with a lot of success.

What makes a mosaic story work is that each individual substory is brought to some kind of conclusion, and several thematic threads tie them all together. While a few of the substories here are given a resolution, most of them just stop, as though the filmmakers ran out of time. Aside from all being set on the same day at the same location, which is the thread with which the movie starts, the stories aren't tied together. A few characters wander in and out of each other's substories, particularly Tom's character, but they don't make enough of the right kind of impact for that to feel like a satisfactory connection. It speaks to the quality of what's there that Cass and I were both startled and displeased when the credits started rolling, because we wanted more of these characters and their interactions, but it's what's not there that ultimately determines this movie's success. Or rather, lack of it. This remains simply a collection of scenes, interesting, but hardly the sort of cohesive narrative that makes for a good movie.

In other news, Cass and I have determined that Nolan almost has to be a 3rd Rock fan. There are way too many shoutouts in Inception, when you're familiar with Tommy Solomon's life. I don't suppose anyone has yet written the story in which Arthur is Tommy Solomon? It would explain some things.

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Still high on JGL's virtuoso performance in Mysterious Skin, Cass and I decided to take on the most critically acclaimed of TH's movies, Bronson. We'd read up on Bronson himself, plus hunted down the trailer and a few clips to prepare ourselves. Cass had also found some interviews TH did on the topic, which she shared after we'd watched the movie (I prefer to check out the source before hearing any of the creators' takes on it), and which deepened her love of the man. At this point, I think she might be fonder of him than Yoochun, which is saying a hell of a lot.

Anyway, the movie was less violent than we'd expected (though it does contain full frontal nudity of TH, partial female nudity, and a scene of a mental health patient defecating into his own hands), funnier (in a very bleak and tragic way), and about as bizarre. We were both confused by criticisms that it somehow glamourized Bronson, but perhaps the critics meant that they thought it made him more sympathetic than they felt was warranted. Certainly, it made us both sad that the system has failed him so thoroughly, even as we were absolutely certain a personality that disturbed should not be free to interact with the public at large. It's nothing short of amazing that the man hasn't killed anybody yet, and certainly it's not for lack of trying, as the movie demonstrates. Unfortunately, as the movie also demonstrates, both the prison and mental health care systems of Britain are ill-equipped to deal with someone with his particular personality disorder, which I am not remotely qualified to even armchair diagnose (and to be absolutely clear, I know for a fact that the U.S. prison and mental health care systems couldn't deal with him either). Thus, he keeps getting stuffed into solitary, in part just to give the staff who deal with him a breather. I don't think there's any question that this is a tragic state of affairs, especially since it seems inevitable that his next release from solitary will lead to yet another attempt at a hostage situation and violent, damaging take-down by prison guards.

TH deserves all the praise he's gotten for this role, and more. He is riveting, hilarious and terrifying and heartbreaking. I definitely recommend checking out his interviews on youtube after viewing the movie, because his accounts of his interactions with Bronson are just amazing, and I love when actors are that dedicated and articulate about what they're doing. Cass and I are both so impressed.

I'm fighting off a migraine today, which means more 3rd Rock may be all the back catalog viewing we'll be doing. We're into fourth season now, which is when JGL cut his hair for 10 Things I Hate About You, and when Tommy got very, very irritable, which means a whole lot more Arthur expressions. I suspect this is about the point when JGL really started to loathe the concept of celebrity, but that's just me making guesses about external factors. It could just be that the writers recalled sixteen is a tough age, and Tommy Solomon is a person of retirement age stuck in an adolescent's body. That would make me supremely prickly, too.

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Well, we'll see how bigass it actually gets. I may run out of steam and cut it short.

I wrote two stories this year, both Moulin Rouge!, both for rm. They are "Goat Song" and "One Parisian Night (in One Thousand)."

I actually signed up to write Arabia, which is how we matched, but despite planning to offer Arabia since last Yuletide, I had failed to do any of the research that would have really made the offer viable. As soon as I got the assignment, I started poking around the internet for resources on what I wanted to do, but it quickly became evident that I hadn't given myself the necessary time or spoons. So I reluctantly set my idea aside and took a look at the other detailed request, which was for Satine/Christian/Count von Groovy. That's the one I ended up finishing first, but the entire time I was working on it, I continued to ponder Arabia's story. I was so disappointed in myself for offering it and then not being able to come through, and a part of my brain just kept poking at it and looking for an angle from which I could write something to highlight this utterly fascinating character.

( Bigassness happened after all. )

And now it's time for me to eat a lot of cheese.

ETA: Also, I should mention that Eliza and Cass kept me from failing quite as much as I might've, and also made sure both stories were at least vaguely readable. I get by with a lot of help from my friends, is what.

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Dear Yule Goat,

First, thank you for offering to write one (or more) of my fandoms! You rock just for that! I dearly love each of the things I've requested this year, so whichever one you decide to write, I'm incredibly excited to read.

You might notice that I've requested chromatic characters in each fandom. Especially with the amount of media I consume, I've really come to value underrepresented perspectives, plus I'm more than a little bit of a culture geek. *G* I'm a fan of stoic yet passionate women, of deep friendship and loyalty and strong worldbuilding. I dig a sense of history and/or mythology, but I also love zany comedy, which I think could be especially fun if you're writing CSJH. The really important thing to write something that sparks your interest, that gets you excited. If you enjoyed writing it, chances are good I'll enjoy reading it, and we both win. *G*

( Details for requests in Anyband, CSJH, Vienna Teng's Gravity music video, and Bride of the Water God under the cut )

Again, all of the above is only meant to help, in case you need a more specific prompt than fandom and character. If you've got an idea of something to write already, go for it! I can't wait to see what you'll come up with. And thank you again!

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And Anyband, I have created what is essentially a stub of a page for Anyband on fanlore. Arguably it's better than nothing, but I'm betting something with some actual dates and Hangul and mini-bios of the artists and maybe some links would be better still. Since I should really be unpacking my house instead of this, I shall leave those bits to other people, if they are so inclined.

Oh, yeah, AND: I added both soccer soldiers to the Anyband Yuletide listing, as well as the chair-dancing soldier, his commander, the dancing bald man, and the little girl and her mother. You're welcome.

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As background for all the moving-related tasks I have to get done, I have decided to rewatch Yami no Matsuei. This is actually the first time I'm watching my official DVDs, as opposed to fansubs, but last night's experiment proved that even if I stay in front of the TV for the duration, my attention does not allow for reading subs. Since part of the point is to find out what's different, I'll have to wait to do the subbed version until I can actually read the screen. Thus, I have decided to subject myself to the English speaking version. I figure a split attention span can only help for that one.

Pray for me.

One reason for the rewatch is that I am slowly adding my fanworks to AO3, using my journal archive for reference on original publication date (we shall not speak of how I'm going to manage the stories I wrote and posted before I got a journal; I may just go with a publication date of 01-01-2000 and be done with it). I'm in the midst of 2005, which means I've spent the past few days hip-deep in YnM and Saiyuki, which has given me the urge to refamiliarize myself with both fandoms. Saiyuki will require reading, plus buying all the volumes I'm still missing, and also the urge is currently stronger with YnM, maybe because I've been pondering a format change for fuda_100. Whatever the case, it was much on my mind even before I hit my drabble blitz period. I actually have vague thoughts for roughly a dozen meta essays, with such topics as the potential Christianity of Tsuzuki and/or Muraki (it would explain some things, but screw with some others), the arguable Christianity of Ruka, my subconscious' apparent need for Orisoka never to resolve their issues with the Muraki elephant in the room and how that impacts my ability to write Shinigami!Oriya, my theories on Hisoka's mom's family and onmyoujitsu, the Kurosaki Curse and what could be done about it (more likely to be incorporated into a story than make it into essay form), anime characterization versus manga characterization (aka where the heck anime!Oriya came from), and...I dunno. The allegorical significance of Tsuzuki's sweet tooth or something. I'm not sure any of them will ever see the light of day. Probably bits and pieces of them will spill out in comments to other people's coherent YnM-related posts; that seems to be the form most of my meta takes these days.

ETA: Oh, man, the exposition dump that is Episode 1 is even worse in English. And what is UP with Watari's sucktastic accent?

Son of ETA: So I should have taken up heavy drinking before embarking on this little venture. Good to know.

Daughter of ETA: I am flinching every time Hisoka opens his mouth. Time to go back to the subs. I'll just have to watch them again when I'm actually watching (it's not like I don't have the dialogue memorized, I just want to see the differences in translation).

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Okay, so, I have not been able to plan our move (across the COUNTRY) until we received our actual, hard copy orders confirming that, yes, we were moving across the COUNTRY. For various cracktastic reasons that are so typical of the military, we did not receive those hard copy orders until, uh, last week. Which means we have until the last week of September to prepare our household for moving, schedule with the Navy to get packers and movers in and get stuff moved out (and hope they don't already have a backlog of more than a month), find a place to live (across the COUNTRY), cough up deposits and pet deposits and rent, make sure the cars can drive (across ETC.), book a flight for invisibly disabled and unable to roadtrip cross-country anymore yours truly, book hotel rooms on either side of this madness, keep the fanpuppies from freaking out because we are freaking out, and probably lose our minds, assuming we still have them at this point. Oh, yeah, and we get to do all this while Señor is on one coast (but not in the state to which we're moving, oh no), and I am on the other.

And I'm not sure if it's a sign of messed up priorities or just my brain coping by focusing on something kinda inconsequential that I am actually worrying about being offline when possibly Yuletide nominations will be happening. I mean, the fuck kind of thing is that to worry about when I could be homeless in October?

Anyway, with all of that happening, I think I can perhaps be forgiven when my reaction to LJ's latest is to say, "Oh, HELL, no," install a Greasemonkey script that will not allow anyone to cross-post comments from my LJ to anywhere, and to disable comments on entries from here on out. I recognize and respect the decision of some people who follow me on LJ not to use DW, but at this point, LJ has taken away my option to allow those parts of my LJ group to avoid DW and interact with me while still protecting my own peace of mind. And my peace of mind? Pretty damn important to me right now, and not to be threatened by the shitty antics of a greedy corporation. So there you go, and that's where I am.

If anyone is still in need of such beasts, I do have DW invite codes. If you take one, let me know (on DW, because again, comments disabled here), and I will cross out the code here.

GRAGGN5NYN245AAAAJ3H
KP68Y465RBAE7AAABFYL
V9ZP6NAH8NQ9TAAABFYM
NSMPWM7XN3GZRAAADMCY
5B8K4XE6AZQJSAAADMCZ
T6GC7NWZJCMAFAAADMC2
V6ZC6CYVYEG3GAAAD474
H4AVA58VVZ9AGAAAEF76
GVT4GF2738PRHAAAEF77
DRW3VXY274PF4AAAKMRW
9PWSYJ7GQQC5HAAAKMRX
CHGCQZZFT5J2HAAAKMRY
48TCAYEPE7RQ5AAAKMRZ
QKJSEQTDS7Z5QAAAKMR2
YDB9F5SVBV44AAAAKMR3
MC3D7W7DAJSXBAAAKMR4

ETA: Also posted these to the dw_codesharing community, so if you want to refer someone to a place they can get a code without first having to wade through my moving freakout, you can send them there.

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Note for linking: Please link to the Dreamwidth version of this post, which is public, and comment there if at all possible. Thank you.

Let me preface this by saying it's useful to get context, most of which is provided in astolat's posts here, here, and here. I have seen the discussion in other places, and the more context you get, the more useful this post is likely to be, but I think astolat's posts and the comments therein may be all that's necessary here. I could be wrong.

I would also like to note that I have avoided use of the term "warnings" in this post, and I would ask that people not use it in comments. I don't feel that the negative connotations of the word serve any side of a labelling discussion, since the sense of judgment interferes with productive dialogue, and productive dialogue is explicitly what I want to engage in here.

( On to the food metaphors, which hopefully make sense. )

To sum up, I personally realize that any labelling system instituted for vids in general, or Vividcon in particular, will of necessity indicate variable things to variable people. That said, I still think such an explicit labelling system would be of use, particularly when contrasted with the nearly complete lack of such a system. I get the impression a fair number of people agree with me, we'll just all have to keep in mind that we're using our best judgment here, and our best judgment is necessarily subjective.

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I'm digging all the various recastings going around, and thought I'd try my own chromatic recastings of a few shows I watch these days. First up is Leverage.

Leverage actually has two actors of color in two of the main roles, and has received a chromatic recasting, but my intent was to recast everyone from the Pacific Rim actors' pool in honor of my late Uncle, who was Hawai'ian and would have approved of this idea. So, Hardison and Eliot got makeovers too, to keep with the theme.

( Cast this way and image heavy )

I'm working on Fringe next. But first, I'm finally going to bed.

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I'm posting this unlocked on my DW account, because I don't really give a damn if the authors in question see it or not. In fact, if they see it, feel bad for being jerks and pulling this ablist shit, and quit doing it, that would be awesome.

Necessary background: I'm Celiac. This means that I can't digest gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye, and oat products of all stripes), and in fact it does active damage to my intestinal tract, making me more susceptible to ulcers, reproductive problems including endometriosis and ovarian and uteral fibroids, migraine, fibromyalgia, IBS, acid reflux, gastrointestinal failure, any condition to which my family is pre-disposed, and some forms of cancer. I already have most of these conditions.

So I'm reading a story in the CWRPF fandom, as you do. It's kind of cute, with Jensen-the-waiter serving Jared-the-serial-dater and all his various first dates. Jared is optimistic of finding true love; Jensen has had his heart broken in the past, so he's cynical and snarky, but still responds to Jared's flirting, then kicks himself for it. Jensen also has a system for predicting whether a couple will work out based on what they order, and it's a running gag in the story that he's just a little bit of an asshole.

Then Jared comes in with a date who is vegan and wheat-free. Mention is not made of why he is these things, only that he's adamant, and Jared and Jensen both decide he's a pretentious jackass, and then Jensen serves him coffee with dairy milk instead of soy milk. Reader, I wanted to reach through my laptop monitor and rip their faces off, then find the author and smack her with a few textbooks on the GI tract until she got some vague clue that medical dietary restrictions are not a character flaw*. Suddenly, rather than hoping Jensen and Jared found some kind of happily ever after with each other because they were cute together, I felt that they deserved each other, and I hoped at least one of them developed some kind of medical issue that required complete avoidance of a food the other loved.

I had this issue with the movie Sleepless in Seattle too, which has clearly been a strong influence on a large portion of fandom. Bill Pullman's character cannot eat wheat. Again, the reason is not explained. Again, this is presented as a character flaw on his part, and a clear reason why he's not good enough for Meg Ryan's character. When he has his epiphany that she's the one who doesn't deserve him, it's framed as delusion on his part, but frankly, he's right. Any person unwilling to accommodate the necessary dietary restrictions of a loved one does not deserve that loved one, and is an asshole to boot. Period.

Chew on that, writers, next time you decide a dietary restriction is a great shorthand way to indicate the inferiority of a given character.

ETA: Just to be clear, it is also assholish to accommodate someone's dietary restrictions, but bitch about it, or mock them about it (if you use the words "fussy" or "picky," you are a jerk, I don't care if you think you're "just joking"), or make a big deal out of what a huge inconvenience it is. Trust me, those of us with dietary restrictions are well aware of just how inconvenient our dietary restrictions can be. Many of us have nearly died from them. Many of us are suffering chronic medical complications due to them. How's that for inconvenient?

*In fact, no dietary restriction is a character flaw, including those restrictions that are religious or ethical. It is assholish of someone who has chosen to go vegan to berate their loved ones who have not, but that doesn't make it less assholish of said loved ones to disregard that person's choice not to consume animal products of any kind. In the case of medical dietary restrictions, though, you are endangering a person's life when you disregard the restriction, and I look forward to the day when such people can be legally prosecuted for reckless endangerment and manslaughter.

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Wrangler RPF avec moi!

Check out the rest of the Wrangulatorverse, starting with "forma." Perhaps I shall write one myself, after I open the can of worms that is significance of name order in pairing listings in certain fandoms (and certain segments of certain other fandoms, which is gonna be the fun part) and if it's possible to do synonyms with a disambiguation option.

ETA: Pray for me. I just claimed seaQuest.

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Put in CSJH and Chun Sang Ji Hee for CSJH. For Dong Bang Shin Ki:

DBSK
Dong Bang Shin Gi
DBSG
TVXQ
TVfXQ
Tong Vfang Xien Qi
Tohoshinki
THSK

Currently, there are no Banjun Theatre stories in the archive. Like Anyband FPF, my instinct is that it should be a distinct subfandom that's searchable on its own or as part of a DBSK search, but the ability to create subfandoms and metafandoms isn't yet in place, so if you've got a Banjun story, just put it in as a new fandom.

Now I get to decide if I want to wrangle more synonyms for CSJH or concentrate on one fandom at a time and wrangle all the synonyms for the DBSK pairings that are already in the system (oh, sweet mother of Mike). Also, I'm not quite sure what to do about the fact that Minho is both a DBSK pairing and a member of SHINee. I don't think I can wrangle it into one fandom when another's guaranteed to want to use it, even if they're in different Tag wuzzle fields.

Oh, yeah, and Chaotic Butterfly's now a fandom, and I moved The Good King to movies and threw the synonym "Good King Wenceslas" at it. Somebody let me know if there's fic for the carol and I need to change that.

ETA: Went ahead and synonymized TSZX, TJCK, Tenjo Chiki, Tenjochiki, and Tian Shang Zhi Xi (which I'm gonna have to mess with if they change the code to allow non-English accented characters).

ETA 2: THIS IS ANOTHER REASON TO HATE THAT STUPID "THE GRACE" BS. *snarls and synonymizes it, though she wants it on record that SHE OBJECTS*

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Refreshed self on Yuletide source yesterday, and was reminded of how much I love it. Love also gives me wings. Today, fighting with the denouement of my Yuletide story. Either my recipient will like it, or ze'll learn to embrace the details field and Yule letter tradition next year.

Has anyone actually submitted the suggestion to the AO3 pantheon that the character limit on the pairings field be extended? Also, I am pondering wuzzle wrangling. I might not have the spoons, on the one hand, but on the other, I have a *koff* decent knowledge of some, ah, obscurer fandoms. Also, I just like saying it. Wuzzle wrangler. It's kinda like speaking Welsh.

No Nuna Exchange stories so far, but I suspect that'll change at the end of the month, if this year is anything like the last two. Also, I have been sounding off a bit in nuna_fans so as not to blast the dbsg comm with my special blend of "you people are stupid," "damn kids get off my lawn," "vive le revolution," and "would you like some self-absorption with that entitlement?" Tl;dr version: three members of DBSK are suing their management company for, frankly, unspeakably vile terms of contract. Cue mass freakout by kids afraid they'll break up and inclined to blame the three members for bringing it up rather than the company for, y'know, pulling shit. Cue Rana wanting to reach through the screen and beat a whole lot of people with her keyboard. Or just tell them all to grow the hell up before they interact with the rest of the human race.

Returning to writing, because it calms me, or at least allows me to channel my severe misanthropy in ways that won't get me arrested: my Broken Toys story is in fragments that nearly equal 3K words, none of them anywhere near a climax. So I guess I know what I'll be doing once the Yuletide is drafted.

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Or, How to Lose Your Mind in Three Torturous Steps

Bearing in mind that I am lost somewhere in the middle of step 1....

( All hope abandon, ye who enter here )

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If you are signed up for yuletide and are following the community, you probably already know both about the idea to address detail-expanding request letters to the Yule Goat, and the rather rudely-worded anonymous objections to same. Anonymous did not bother to identify hirself as either Scandinavian or Scandinavian hyphenate, and declared the concept of addressing one's letter to the Yule Goat as universally offensive.

I am here to tell you, that assertion is factually incorrect. As a Scandinavian hyphenate, the Yule Goat is part of my cultural heritage (a related heritage to the one from which we get Yuletide, in fact), and I am personally rather tickled at the passing of the concept into the wider Yuletide community's consciousness. Everyone, of course, must determine for themselves if they are comfortable using the term, and I cannot speak for every Scandinavian hyphenate (or any Scandinavian) any more than can anonymous. For myself, I will be using Yule Goat, because now I can be fairly certain my author will know what the term means, and, very importantly, I can't appropriate what's mine. Really, I'm not quite sure how to feel about anonymous' implicit assumption that no actual Scandinavians or Scandinavian hyphenates might be taking part in Yuletide, therefore the term Yule Goat is absolutely inappropriate for any Yuletider to use, but uh, they'd be wrong.

Since I'm making Anyband my gimme fandom for yuletide this year, I thought it would be a good idea to write up a bit of a pimping post for it, as well as link to the cf (commercial, basically) on youtube. The uncut cf is still under nine and a half minutes long, and while I'll be providing some background on the performers in this post, you really don't need to know much beyond what's in the cf itself to write for the fandom. This is just in case you want more information for grounding purposes.

Anyband is part of the Anycall series of cfs put out by Samsung for their cellphone called, appropriately enough, Anycall. The Anycall series takes various Korean entertainment celebrities and puts them together in interesting configurations for mini-stories that usually run about five to nine minutes and then get chopped into thirty to forty five second fragments for airing on TV and commercial websites. In the case of Anyband, those celebrities are BoA, an insanely popular female pop music soloist who recently debuted in the U.S. (at the Gay Pride Festival in San Francisco, if I remember correctly), Xiah Junsu, member of the also-insanely popular male acapella (this is not all they do, but it's significant they can and do sing live unaccompanied and sound awesome doing it) quintet, Dong Bang Shin Ki aka TVXQ (internationally), Tablo, member of the ridiculously popular male rap group, Epik High, and Jin Bora, female jazz pianist. The premise of the cf is that the four, close friends since grade school, fight an oppressive military regime via the revolutionary medium of pop music (though they dress punk), using their Anycall cellphones to get the signal out, since the regime controls the technology-based information network. The cf was filmed in Brazil, I believe specifically Rio de Janeiro, and the oppressive military regime featured is derivative of works like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World in ways not seen since Equilibrium, though of course minus the drug use (hey, kids could see this!).

So, umm. Derivative, industrial, near-future dystopia and pop music in the service of selling a cellphone. Sounds like a winner, don't it? Well, surprisingly, it is. Of course, it helps if you are already a fan of any or all of the four performers involved. So let me focus on them for a bit.

Actually, first, let me show you the cf. Because if you can't watch it without wanting to stab your eyes out, or listen to it without wanting to shatter your own eardrums, then it doesn't matter how much I talk it up, it's not going to work for you. The songs are in Korean and English, as is what little dialogue there is, but the text of street signs and such is English. I've got links to English translations of the songs later in this post.

( Cut for embedded videos, fangirling, and longass nattering about singers and musicians )

Also, I mentioned translations of the songs that appear in the cf, since that's pretty much all the dialogue you get. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the following, since I neither speak Korean nor read Hangul, but this way, you'll have as much of the sense of the meanings as I do. Also, I am putting these under a separate cut, so if you already know and love the cf, but are curious about the translations, you can skip right down to this bit.

( Translations of the Anyband songs from the cf. )

And that, folks, is Anyband.

Also, if this pimps some of you into DBSK fandom, I am totally okay with that.

...Shame? I think I looked that up in the dictionary once.

There's a lot of great Yuletide advice floating around out there that's meant to assist participants in not ruining Yuletide for anyone, including themselves. Thus, a lot of this may be redundant. Still, I find myself needing reminders on some of this stuff, and somebody else might find it useful.

I've divided it into segments that correspond with the stages of participation in Yuletide, so if there's a particular portion you worry might give you trouble, or that has given you trouble in the past, you can just jump straight to that bit.

( Peace On Earth, Good Will Toward The Nominations Process )

( All I Want For Yuletide Is Any of My Requests )

( On The First Day of Yuletide, My Author Gave to Me a Fandom That Filled Us Both With Squee )

( I'll Be On Chat For Yuletide )

( I Saw Three Betas Correcting My Draft, Correcting My Draft, Correcting My Draft )

( Lo, How a Yuletider E'er Writing )

( Deck the Halls With Words of Gratitude )

( We Wish You a Merry Reccing )

( And A Happy New Year )

And those are some ways to not only not ruin Yuletide for yourself or anyone else, but to try out various aspects of the Yuletide experience to maximize your enjoyment.

Cross-posted to my Dreamwidth, Livejournal, and Insanejournal accounts.

Suppose there was a community co-moderated by at least three, but preferrably six or seven, people who held different views in the current warnings debate. Suppose the purpose of this community was to create a directory of the individual labeling policies of fanworks creators, with links to their work and any public policy statements. Suppose this information was gathered strictly from creators who volunteered it themselves, using their exact phrasing. The community would not attempt to enforce any kind of labeling format or standard, and would not pass judgment on any policy. Suppose that, along with the above, the directory included information on whether or not the fanworks creator was reachable for questions about a particular work, and the preferred method of contact if so.

As proposed, would such a community be useful to you? As proposed, would such a community be hurtful or offensive to you? What concerns would you have about such a community? What suggestions would you have to address those concerns (note that you absolutely do NOT have to offer suggestions in order to voice concerns)? What might you think was a good name for such a community?

If you are not comfortable voicing your concerns in public, I am reachable at ranalore at gmail dot com. I'm sorry, but I do not and do not ever plan to allow anonymous comments.

Title: In Living Memory
Author: Rana Eros
Fandom: Dark Angel
Summary: "What is precious is never to forget."
Author's Notes: Written as a coda to the episode "Two." Betaed by Eliza. Summary from the poem "The Truly Great" by Stephen Spender.

( In Living Memory )

The great thing about writing a meta essay in response to fannish discussions, and then submitting it somewhere like ffsymposium is that, when the topic inevitably rolls around again (and again and again), rather than having to write up your thoughts all over again, you can just link to said essay, then expand on it or say how your views have changed since then. Saves some typing time.

Thus, I give you my take on fannish criticism, in its several forms, and what I consider to be the appropriate and "civil" response from an author. I now co-mod a community in which it's required for an author/artist/vidder to include a "criticism comfort zone" rating in their headers when they post new work to the community. This rating lets other community members know how welcome different types of feedback are, and anyone who doesn't respect the rating on a piece gets a warning, followed by banning if they repeat the offense. However, we also make it explicit in the community rules that, if someone wants to review a piece, what they say may not match the creator's comfort rating, because reviews are not for the benefit of the author. Nor is reviewing limited to pieces actually posted in the community. So everyone has to decide whether she can cope with that before joining the community. If not, she needs to not follow the community, or at least not read any reviews of her work that come up. While we as mods make certain reviews stick to the work and not the creator, it's the creator's job to recognize whether or not she can separate herself from her work. Authors who try to shut down discussion of their work that is not aimed at them get a warning, followed by banning if they repeat the offense.

We haven't had to ban anyone so far, in part because members are very hesitant to post either reviews or concrit, even when the author's explicitly requested it in her comfort rating. I have no doubt part of the reason for this is because you get nonsensical tantrums thrown by authors who can't differentiate between concrit and reviews, authors who say they're okay with concrit when they aren't, and authors who can't separate themselves from their work. You get these authors attacking people for anything other than unalloyed praise, and this can make fans hesitant about saying anything remotely critical even when there's evidence it would be welcome. My fellow mod and I, both seasoned veterans of many a fandom kerfuffle, do our best to make critical comments when we can, in part to help out the creators who ask for criticism to help them improve, but also in part to demonstrate that said creators aren't going to bite people's heads off when they do give the level of criticism requested. I've been considering including my crit rating in the work I post to my own journal, because there are a lot of people who read my journal who already know I welcome concrit, have no problem with reviews, and so on, but there are a lot of people who don't. And maybe, just maybe, if enough fannish creators speak up about welcoming constructive criticism and reviews, those creators who don't think criticism should be allowed (as opposed to those who just aren't comfortable with criticism in their own space) will stop thinking they have any right to speak for all of us.

Title: A Ghostly Galleon
Author: Rana Eros
Fandom: PotC
Author's Notes: A double drabble for Brigdh, who requested: PotC, any character, "I shall be back with the yellow gold/ Before the morning light"? Gibbs decided a bit of a maritime ghost story was in order, to get us in the mood for Halloween coming. Eliza agreed. Title from "The Highwayman."

A Ghostly Galleon

She comes with the full moon beaming through the clouds, her ship riding its light on the water like a highwayman in the old country. 'Twas no highwayman ever as fierce as Bloody Bess, though; the woman King of the pirates, whose husband is Death.

Bad luck to have a woman aboard, I see you thinking it. You don't know the half of it. Bad luck for merchants indeed, for 'twas a merchant company cost her her love. Your gold will not buy mercy from her. She might leave you a rowboat and the coat on your back, if you do not speak her ill.

Do not speak her fair, either, for all her fine-edged beauty. Bess has her lover. Remember his name. And remember who made her King, that mad immortal on his haunted ship. There be none of those three you'd want to cross.

So, good merchantmen, take care, when you ship your pretty trinkets, your spices and your coin. Keep a sharp eye on the moon, on its path across the water. If it leads to you, tack your sails to take you straight home, and pray she has not already caught the scent of your gold.

END