aron_kristina | Entries tagged with queer thoughts

Tomorrow we're having a spring party thing at my church, and I'm leading the traditional male choir. I don't know if it's traditional in any other part of the world than Sweden, but here it's sort of been decided, for obscure reasons, that at spring it's supposed to be male choir. Actually, the most traditional day to sing spring songs is last of April, but you can do it most of May too.

Anyway, I'm a bit stressed about this, but in a good way. The practice basically consist of 30 minutes on the day, because it's that kind of low pressure choir, and no one will mind if I fuck up a bit, but this is something I know how to do, in theory at least, and I want to not do it badly.

This is the most famous of the songs, it's called 'Längtan till landet'. I don't know which choir this is, but they're obviously good.

Also, because I think it's awesome, during the LGBTQ-festival in Göteborg my church is going to hold a rainbow service :D

Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/187145.html

In my quest to get people to write more yummy porn for me to read I hereby present the first part of my guide to writing femslash. This part focuses on the actual acts of sex between women and not the writing of it. That comes in part two.

So without further ado I present:

How To Write Femslash
Part 1
Lesbian Sex 101

( This way to education )

You know how it's this thing all over in pop culture and fandom and stuff that bendy people are hot, or that it's implied that the sex will be hotter and better with people who are flexible? Is this true? I mean, has anyone actually done a study to see if this is the case? I'm wondering since I'm rather unflexible, but my sex life doesn't seem to have suffered from this. So, does anyone know?

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Unrelated: I finished listening to "I shall wear midnight" yesterday (a Discworld novel, Tiffany Aching-centric), and now I've got the plot bunny to end all plotbunnies. Must write! But first, must apply for jobs.

( Plot, which is spoilery, behind cut )

Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/181048.html

Working in a clinical lab you get to have some pretty bizarre conversations. Such as the one today, about which sample would be worst to soill on yourself. I claimed that HIV infected blood would be the worst, while one of the secretaries thought urine would be the worst because she thought it was gross. On reflection though, I'd probably say that a stool sample would be the worst, at least if it had a horrible parasite in it...

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In completely different news, my tolerance for reading about white men shagging has lessened, or maybe my interest in it. Or both. This is a Good Thing, and I will celebrate it by eating ice cream.

Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/173641.html

So, if you're in Sherlock fandom you probably haven't missed this fic (link goes to the anon comment version).

Now, there's nothing wrong with it, certainly, the process of coding it alone must have been really time consuming (though I wonder how it works with a screen reader), the fascinating hing about it is the fandom response.

It seems that what fandom really wants isn't well written fic about the characters, isn't deep meta or people having brilliant theories, no, it's fic about ourselves. And not really ourselves either. We want fic about men in fandom, because apparently our own experience as women in fandom just isn't enough. And yes, I am judging you.

The fic I really want written about fandom is meta fic about femslash, and female characters, and how it feels to find a safe space only to realize that you're a fucking freak here too. Not that I mind that much, I've been a fucking freak my entire life, it's just strange that in an environment that is supposedly composed mostly of smart, brilliant women we don't care about out own stories, and when we do we use male characters to tell them. Because men are apparently just that much more interesting.

I will never stop finding this strange. And maybe I should take a break from fandom since it just pisses me off.

Current Location: G�teborg
Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/172196.html

I watched Howl's Moving Castle, and as I watched I realized that while I've seen the entire movie, more or less, I've never actually seen it in order. I must have watched it a my parents, when they had movie channels, and just went in and out of it. It makes more sense in the proper order. And of course after reading a synopsis of the book...

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So, Martin Freeman won a BAFTA. Good for him and all that. Just, this interview rubs me wrong in some way. "Gayest story in the history of television". What does that even mean? Apart from John's sister and her wife (or ex-wife), no one is actually named as gay in the series. Is it just because it's two men who have a close friendship? That's gay? More gay than Torchwood? More gay than Queer as Folk? More gay than L-word? My respect for Freeman jus went down. Way down. I don't get why close friendships always get sexualized, or joked about. I feel like we should have gotten further, but apparently not.

So if anyone has some light to shed on this I'd be happy.

Current Location: Hemma, Lund
Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/170109.html

Things I have learned from fandom, part 1 (because I'm sure there will be at least a part two):

1. The majority of all fanfic is written by people who either have no idea what they're writing about, or are not very good writers. Or both.

2. The majority of all sex scenes are written by people who either have no idea what they're writing about, or are not very good writers. Or both.

3. The majority of people in fandom are women (I seem to remember numbers like 95%, but I might be wrong).

4. Despite fact #3, most fanfic is written about male characters, from a male perspective, focusing on male romantic relationships. (Note: I don't actually have proof about the last statement, it's possible that gen or het beats it, but I doubt it)

5. This proves this quote by Martha Vicinus: "All societies that I know of have denied, controlled, or muted the public expression of active female sexuality." Quote is from the essay "They wonder to which sex I belong."

6. This means, if I'm not making myself clear, that in a subculture, or part of society, that is almost exclusively controlled by women, we, the women, are still controlled by the patriarchy. We still, as a group, cling to our ideas about normativity, gender, race, age, ability, etc. We still see the white, able-bodied, mid-thirties man as the POV character in our own space. We have moved from one space to another and taken all the demons with us.

7. It's strange that you can feel subversive when you write straight porn, but in a very guyslash dominated fandom this is entirely possible.

8. The fics I think are the best written ones of mine are not the ones that get the most comments. The ones that get the most comments and appreciation are always guyslash. When people comment on the stuff I'm really pleased with I get inappropriately happy though.

9. I still think we can, and are, changing, albeit way to slow for my tastes, and I'm glad I've found other people on both LJ and DW who share this belief, and who are, by being themselves, changing the world micrometre by slow micrometre.

Crossposts: http://martinius.livejournal.com/166908.html

Written for the second annual mini meta fest at

fem_thoughts.

The thing is, I'm probably not the right person to write this, but I will anyway. For me, fanfic is divided first and foremost by fandom. I know some people will read things for fandoms they don't know if they like the writer enough, but I can't do this.

Secondly, it's divided into shippy and not shippy. Fic can of course be very plot driven but still have romance or an established relationship in the background, and then it will still be considered not shippy by me. Shippy fic is the kind where romance or sex is the point of the fic.

Last comes the distinction of het, guyslash or femslash. It's not a really important distinction for me, since I will read and write fic of all kinds, but I know it is to others, and in some way I think marking something as femslash is important, to show that we exist, that femslash exists. I've recently begun tagging my femslash on AO3 to make it easier to find, and to help the statistics (if someone was going to make such statistics). But to me personally it doesn't mean a lot in terms of reading.

If we're just going to look at the word, femslash to me is fic in which two (or more) characters who see themselves as female are in a romantic or sexual relationship, or are on the verge of entering into such a relationship, or if one character pines after (for?) the other. If one or both (or more) of the characters are in a straight relationship at the time, or have been, or will be, or indeed any other kind of relationship that can't easily be labeled as lesbian it will still be femslash. Sure, if it focuses a lot on the straight relationship it might not be very good femslash, but still.

The only exception is poly relationships, at least if the focus is on that aspect of the relationship and not the characters as they relate in twosomes within the poly relationship. And this only applies if the characters are of two (or more) different genders.

All in all, I do think it's inherently problematic to divide things according to sex or gender, but while I wait, and work for, a society in which sex and gender is irrelevant I will continue to label things when appropriate.

Current Location: Hemma, Lund
Current Music: Franz Ferdinand