nrgburst: (taylor apple bite)
I love that we got so many Vault tracks on Red (Taylor's Version)! I am mostly listening to them, actually - I feel like her vocal control and maturity shows a little too much in the re-recorded tracks? This album is all about the headrush, spinning-out feeling of falling wildly in love and then getting your heart absolutely crushed. The desperate edges in her younger self singing these feel more authentic to me still, but maybe it's just because I'm so used to hearing them? So my fave tracks to play on repeat right now are New to Me ones: The Moment I Knew, Come Back...Be Here, Nothing New, Better Man, Message in a Bottle and All Too Well (10 minute version).

Actually the last track (and the accompanying short film) is mostly what I want to talk about, because it's brought up a lot of talk about age gaps in relationships in a couple of different places for me, and I had some very different conversations about what the film depicted:


Taylor cast these two very deliberately - the ten year age gap is the same as the one between her and Jake Gyllenhaal, and this song is famously autobiographical about their relationship when she was 20. Back when ATW was the 5 minute version, it seemed like a song about great love found and lost, but it's morphed into something a lot darker and expository in its new iteration. So he's been trending on Twitter since the album dropped.




"I'll get older but your lovers stay my age." OUCH. Taylor dragging him full out, spelling out a few more memorable incidents (like him standing her up on her 21st birthday), this noticeable relationship pattern of his and his emotional withholding power games. 

In fact, the film's main point is the starkly unbalanced power dynamic in the relationship. Older Guy (Dylan O'Brien dressed and styled like 2011 Jake G) is always the one in the driver's seat, not including or acknowledging his much younger girlfriend (Sadie Sink) when with his friends, and then gaslighting her when she explains how horrible that made her feel before finally being the one to break things off. And the thing TS seems to be pointing out is: this kind of power imbalance isn't actually a rare occurrence with age gap relationships, and it's one some men seek out deliberately.


I think age gaps aren't necessarily problematic; it's the power/experience/financial gap that is. I think this post sums it up pretty well:

The thing about All Too Well is not the age-gap itself, but the age gap at that particular stage in life. Because a 10 year age gap between a 20 year old and a 30 year old is not the same way as a 10 year age gap but between, say, a 30 year old and a 40 year old. With 30-40, we’re talking about two people who can consider themselves in similar stages of life, they are both full adults. But someone who is just turning 20 and someone who just turned 30 are two people who are in completely different stages of life.

When you’re 20, you’re just entering that awkward phase between being a late teen and a young adult, and trying to figure out how the fuck adulting works. When you’re 30 (I imagine, since I’m not 30 yet), you’ve already more or less have the hang of it. You can’t expect a 20 year old to experience life the same way as a 30 year old, no more than you could expect it the other way around. Expectations are different, needs are different, thought process is different, literally everything. I’m sure there must be some couples that make it work, and good for them! But they’re exceptions, not the rule. In most cases, the relationship is clearly too unbalanced to be called healthy.

On a personal note, my mother was in Uni when she met my (24 years senior) father, who had gone back to Hong Kong after his divorce expressly for the purpose of finding himself a young, new wife. She never finished her degree: he took her back to Canada, where he isolated and abused her (and us kids) for almost 15 years. And my SIL is mid-divorce right now from her 10 years older husband, who she met while he was coaching her club at Uni. You know the thing I remember most about her talking about him? "Kenka shinai," she said, absolutely beaming. (We) don't fight. It took her literally years to realize it was because she was just doing everything he told her to. And yes, he followed the pattern too: they're getting divorced because he was cheating on her with his new girlfriend, a university student. 


I'm glad Taylor is speaking up about this? Like it's a dynamic that our culture and media reinforces as Absolutely Fine and even Ideal - see how hard it is for a 40-something year old actress to be cast as a love interest for a 50 year old actor. 🙄 And I am absolutely not saying all men are serial predators, or that all age gap relationships with this specific age gap are doomed. But I'm glad she's putting the full truth out there now that she can look back at the relationship from a distance and go, "yeah, that was fucked up." Just look at her new album cover. It's her in the driver's seat now.


nrgburst: (watney do the math)
I've been seeing lots of discussion about tagging recently on tumblr, discord and my f-list, ever since AO3 announced its decision to limit tags to 75. I think most of it is thoughtful and productive - I think awareness leads to people acting more thoughtfully (although as [personal profile] wheatear  has pointed out, there's no such thing as perfect tagging, though I'd argue that being aware of how and why people use tags in your fandom can certainly lead to "better" tagging. And I think the reason that AO3 made this decision is obvious: there's actually such a thing as "bad" tagging

I think the most obvious offenders are like manspreaders on trains - it's not egregiously harmful that they're taking up more space than others, but it can still be a real nuisance (and may present significant obstacles to some, like those using a screen reader, who can't "just keep scrolling" past). And I think a lot of it can be attributed to ignorance? I think most of the people tagging their fics like it's an ingredient label, listing every character, setting and trope that appears, however minutely, are usually newbies to the whole fandom thing. Ditto those uploading every single shortfic they write as "chapters" of a single fic and tagging every iteration of fandoms and characters - I think they're unaware of how much of an annoyance it is to have this massive, mostly irrelevant "description" appearing in whatever tag users have clicked on and of how readers actually use tags; they're just labelling, like a kid decorating their fic with stickers. It's not deliberately malicious, but it can still be damn irritating? Those are the garden variety Wall-o-Tag offenders, though: the full context of what actually forced AO3 to crack down is the site clogging trolling of STWW, a fic with several thousand tags (and its copycat trolls). It was such obvious abuse of a system that relies on the good faith tagging of authors (and one that affected millions of users at once) that it led to AO3 finally setting up this tag limit before it even introduced a long promised block function. 
 

At the other end of the "bad tagging" spectrum would be under-tagging, which basically functions in a way that "underadvertises" a fic and is detrimental to authors who were hoping to reach a wider audience or worse: "underwarns" for triggering/unwanted content and leads people to click on fics that will upset them. 


So what can be done to combat bad tagging/promote better tagging? 

Well, ao3commentoftheday has published this little flowchart of questions that I think are a great guide! And I think the better you know your fandom, the easier it will be to judge what you want to be tagging and how. For example: I know to tag background pairings in other tags in GoT fics, because there is so much content that people get annoyed when they find their OTP relegated to the background if you've tagged them in the character tags. TQG in contrast: such a small fandom that people are happy for whatever scraps of a pairing they can get. 

Listen to what people are complaining about on your shiptag on tumblr, or on your relevant discord server. Remember you can always add or delete tags - AO3 lets you do both with ease, so if you get complaints or suggestions, take them into consideration. 

Any other thoughts, oh f-list? 
nrgburst: (NK COME AT ME)
So I spent the weekend backing up fics and reviews that are on ffnet to AO3, since signs are pointing to ffnet circling the drain. Another one bites the dust, but I'm not terribly sad about it since AO3 is superior in most ways anyway, and I've only been putting up fic on ffnet as an afterthought. Still, it made me rather nostalgic. I had completely forgotten how I'd had a phase where I wrote a new, spite driven Forwood fic after every new ep of TVD, and re-reading all those old reviews made me think of the Genesis awards forum. <3

Also I noticed the stats on one of my series while I was clicking in and out, and if one more person bookmarks it is going to be SUBLIME. :DDDD 



I really want to write a new Skittles chapter that is exactly 3030 words to make it all 3s, but I don't know if I have it in me! LOL Besides, this author has already won at AO3 word/chapter count number manipulation, LBR. I find it extra delightful that it is Lucifer fic! Link here I've only read the first chap of the first fic, but so far it's good!



Also: made a couple new TQG sets recently. This Chess Players/moving pieces set was another fun challenge. I had to learn to make pale GIFs because I wanted it to look chessboard-y, and I think the final effect is pretty nice, although Tumblr isn't playing nice with the timing and refuses to sync the GIFs which are actually all the same frame order and length! Grrrr. Anyway, it was neat to look at the different way the actors learned to move the pieces, and I love the elegant way Beth captures pieces the best, although I found capping Benny violently taking pieces the most amusing. Like he would hit the piece with his, and then use the dead piece to punch the clock after, and apparently TBS modeled it off how Bobby Fischer played.

I also tried that trendy vibrant painted background GIF effect on the first GIF of this B2 set. Will have to attempt it again in a scene with less movement, but I think it's a decent first effort!


nrgburst: (baaaaaaa)
Every time I see a FB friend proudly declare that they've silenced all mention of politics on the feed because it's all just negging, I'm sort of amazed that they think they're privileged enough not to have any of this affect them at all. Sure, the "get over it, it'll be fine" assholes are mostly white men, but the number of white women and MOC who put up statuses like this make me feel SERIOUSLY JUDGEY.


IT WON'T COST MUCH. JUST YOUR VOICE! THOSE POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS (are not me hahahahaha)


Thank you to those who marched. Thank you to those who are organizing and fighting back. Here's a good list of places to send money if you also have no political voice/vote in any country. (Expat for too long.)


Jane the Virgin continues to delight. The humor (The puns! The total disregard for the 4th wall via the narrator!) and political snark is totally on point, as are all the character dynamics. I lovelovelove how every single character gets their own POV explored! Nobody is a foil or a prop- they're all their own people, with their own selfish (and unselfish) motivations, actively writing their own stories. This show totally deserves all the accolades it got in S1, although it makes me sad that the ratings remain lackluster. :(((

Anyway, this GIF of Jane pretty much sums me up right now:
jane ew gross

nrgburst: (Johanssen NoYes)
Day 10

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs.



Mutual pining and Mirroring )  
nrgburst: (caroline loves you!)

Day 2

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.


My first couple of fandoms changed the way I interacted with media- instead of just consuming, I analyzed minutely; I created something back. The AN at the end of my first fic makes me smile a little now with its bewildered: am I even allowed to write a story about somebody else's story? Is this plagiarism? Or blasphemy? I just REALLY NEEDED TO WRITE THIS OKAY DON'T SUE ME.  And all because the ending of The Bartimaeus trilogy pissed me off to no end. (I might have a slightly more mature response now. Not sure. LOL I still write fic in response to NOPE INCORRECT feelings but half the time it's because fandom is being gross instead of me expecting the most happily-ever-after ending.)

My second fandom (FFVII) was the first really interactive one- I helped oversee fic awards, logged in daily to a chat to debate meta, and wrote over 60000 words of fic. I still occasionally see two friends from that time on LJ and tumblr now, but for the most part that circle has totally dispersed.

I also have to mention TVD- this is the first fandom I was in where canon was still being made. Interview spoilers! Stalking actors on social media to figure out if they were filming! Trying to guess character arcs from episode synopses! Getting attacked on my blog after expressing anti-ship opinions nowhere near the ship space/tags! FUN TIMES. XD I don't watch or HAVE INTENSE FANNISH FEELINGS AND/OR CAPSLOCK OPINIONS anymore, but I still like to see TVD GIFsets scroll by on my dash and fandom friends squee over the way narrative arcs have played out. (I don't think that we ever truly leave fandoms, I think they just hold our interest to a lesser degree.) 

One of the sad things about fandom is that sometimes these people you have fantastic chats with will just up and disappear. I kind of wonder what they are doing now. Did fandom-famous author ever get published after flouncing? Did very young writer ever go to Uni? Are any of them dead and I just don't know it? So I guess I want to say: thank you for being in my life, for engaging with me over this great piece of media. It was a fun ride. (Also your ship is still not canon, okay.)

Hmm, I think I might have lost the plot a bit. LOL Um, here, have a list of other media that has had a formative impact on me even if I'm not particularly fannish over them:

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Star Wars (the original trilogy)

The Little Mermaid (1989)

Dragonflight and Damia by Anne McCaffrey

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Super Mario Bros.

Grey's Anatomy

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Every Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ever

The Joy Luck Club (1993)

nrgburst: (jyn may the force be with us)
So this was going to be a straightforward squee post about Rogue One, which we saw yesterday.

Spoilers galora. )

Moana

Dec. 7th, 2016 12:30 pm
nrgburst: (Rey suspicious)
SUCH AN AMAZING MOVIE. I haven't been so moved by an animated film since Frozen, and the themes are arguably similar (the search for identity, the importance of family, perseverance in the face of monstrous defeat) and yet not (wanderlust as one of Moana's defining and redeeming character traits, the value of culture and history on one's personal choices). Plus the music is awesome (Alessia Cara sings the ending version of the theme!), and I keep tearing up at this song:


WATCH IT. It's an inspiring, thought provoking and emotionally satisfying journey. Plus it's a pretty narrative for an actual historical puzzle. SO MUCH LOVE. Now pardon me while I play the soundtrack to death.
nrgburst: (Victory!)
Wow. Finished at last.
It's both cool and weird at the same time.
Thinking back to when I was first writing Aftermath, with the idea burning in my head amidst the frenzy of wedding preparations, I feel incredibly gratified that the story has come this far. It was just a little Cloud/Tifa fic. They sooo needed a break from what canon was tossing them. And I had a few ideas for other chapters. So in Oct/Nov last year, I sketched out a rough plan- it looks like this:

The rest under here... )  about the original version of A Taste of Home. Am I a writer or a storyteller? Do I tell instead of show? Is there a flair to my writing? These are questions she brought up that I still ask myself  as I write/edit my chapters. While I won't claim that I'm a good writer now, I think I'm a much better one than I was a few months ago. And like teaching, where you go back over a lesson to see how you could have taught it better, I think that ongoing self-scrutiny is what leads to improvement.

Part of the experiment was also seeing how well I could work with deadlines. The verdict? I did well getting out chapters every month... until I got pregnant. Hey, you try writing when you're falling asleep in front of the keyboard! :P Jonathan Stroud recently wrote in his NaNoWriMo pep talk about how writers have to be dedicated to writing under pressure. A year's deadline is actually only 5 or 6 months when considering all the editing, etc. that a book also needs to go through.It takes dedication and a certain amount of "forcing yourself" to get that first draft out. And since this was supposed to be practice for writing my own novel, I'm feeling buoyant about my future as a novelist. (BTW, I'm not doing NaNo, but I got a peek at the pep talk through somebody in the Bartimeaus community! LJ, I <3 you.)

Another part was keeping it realistic. I did a lot of research, both in my canon sources to make sure my characterizations were accurate, and on scientific things like solar energy. This was actually something Stroud recommended on bartiforums that I read ages ago. Want to make your fantasy story believable? Look it up, and stick in proper details. It's a lot of work for a line or two, but then it no longer sounds like you are just making stuff up. Yes, your readers can tell when you have no idea what you are talking about. And actually, the geeky part of me found this a lot of fun. Bioluminescent creatures are pretty cool!

Another thing I tried was writing in different styles. Could I make it clear who was talking through simply dialogue? What if I had two time-lines? Am I any good at writing an action sequence? (Something I avoided for a long time- until a reviewer mentioned it.) Creating suspense? Making a scene sparkly and euphoric? Maybe. I tried, anyway. You know what they say about practice...

I also experimented with symbology and themes- Square's "wolf" interpretation of Cloud's character, for example. Was I successful? I don't know- honestly, I think I've only had a single reviewer notice the deeper themes. So this probably still needs work. But I don't mind- I like knowing they're there, at least.

In my quest for improvement, I joined the Genesis Awards forum. Not just a forum where the LTD is done to death, but one where fanfiction writers actually talk about writing. It's amazing what sort of tips you can pick up by reading through old threads. And in getting some in-depth feedback from another member, I realized that, for example, my knowledge of punctuation was not up to standard. (It still isn't. Sigh. Double dashes still look weird to me, [livejournal.com profile] wheatear .) I also started to read a lot more critically- both my own work, and that of others.

It wasn't until Full Circle got nominated (for which [livejournal.com profile] abrogate_nadir  gets eternal gratitude!) that I finally got a beta, though. (Ha! Irony!) It was great to have that second critical opinion of my work. It made me a lot more confident about publishing, and I've actually done few retro-edits to Level Up, Preludes and Full Circle (Epilogue)- something I used to do compulsively for the other chapters.

Actually, I'll still be editing- judging is just around the corner, and I want it to be in the best shape possible before it goes before them. I have no idea when I'll start writing again, but I think "Crucible" will be my next project. A short little 5 chapter fic that will require loads of research. Sounds like fun, right? :)
 

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