#sff chatter

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

My best friend and I have been watching Star Trek: The Original Series for months, mostly because we're both sometimes busy and can't coordinate, but he does adore Star Trek (it is hard to overstate how much, except with regard to Picard) and even though I'm a TNG kid, I am almost always having a great time with it.

Overall: I love the stage-y Pepto-Bismol meets bisexual flag aesthetic of so much of the show, the actual bisexual vibes of so many characters (unintentionally? allegedly? I guess?), the effects that have aged remarkably well almost as much as the ones that have aged terribly, but are part of its charm, and of course, many of the characters. And I definitely have enjoyed the mixture of cheesy silliness with deeply earnest aspirations towards transcending its own era, even though it falls short (I'm an early modernist; I have a high tolerance for works that are ultimately of their times, but visibly trying to cut through the miasma of their eras' norms).

Anyway, some thoughts on each episode I've seen thus far!

[It's every episode up to "Metamorphosis", so there are a lot.]

1— "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - a pretty solid way to start the experience for me, and I see the religious skepticism has been baked in from very early, even though it's obviously still finding its footing at this point. I actually enjoyed seeing the wobbly character dynamics and world-building as it's figuring itself out.

2— "The Man Trap" - I really enjoyed this one! Despite some fundamental silliness, there's an interesting mix of horror and pathos (I support the salt vampire!).

3— "Charlie X" - a mixture of "oh God, poor Janice" (an impression that will repeat often) and an interesting take on the interaction of power and youthful masculinity. Charlie's outrage at his desires being stymied by literally anything or anyone at any time feels unfortunately timely, as does his petty vindictiveness against ... um, every woman ever, and Kirk's entirely correct lecture about it. I also found something particularly intriguing in the contrast between Charlie's admiration of Kirk's form of masculinity and how viscerally threatened he is by Spock.

4— "The Naked Time" - I adored this episode with zero irony. I particularly loved the revelation that Spock is ashamed of his feelings for Kirk (......) and the guilt he feels over his emotional distance from his mother combined with his understanding of how isolated she must feel in Vulcan culture. But I also laughed through the entire rest of the episode. Just a great time.

5— "The Enemy Within" - oh, hella yikes take on, uh, the inherent need for a good leader to have an anxious, violent, rapist side to his personality kept under control by a fearless, but vacillating and cerebral other side. (The premise seems even more egregious after "The Galileo Seven" makes a whole episode out of the idea that Spock's intellectual discipline and reserve undermine his leadership capabilities unless he behaves in a way that can be seen as fitting into human emotional norms.) I did cackle over the space dog fluffy alien creature and its evil twin, but poor Janice x100 :(

6— "Mudd's Women" - easily the worst episode to date, good God. Quite apart from "I guess sometimes you just have to be complicit in sex trafficking carried out by a lovable scamp who definitely hasn't gotten the post-capitalism newsletter" and the godawful ending, I am baffled by everyone on the Enterprise acting like they've never seen a beautiful woman. None of Mudd's women can hold a candle to Uhura (who I think isn't even in this episode?) and women getting obsessed by eternal beauty and devoting themselves to unappealing men is a tiresome aspect of ST that I wish had stopped here. Or never shown up at all.

7— "What Are Little Girls Made Of" - ah, the iconic phallic stalagmite! Nice to have context. I appreciate how smart and resourceful Kirk ends up being here. I liked Shatner's performance as the Kirk clone (he's actually been good in all the various Evil Kirk performances I've seen thus far), too. But I also really liked Spock's entirely justified annoyance at Kirk using racial slurs to communicate IT'S NOT ME.

8— "Miri" - this one is unfortunately dragged down by Kirk using his femme fatale allure with a girl framed as barely pubescent even if the actress was technically an adult. He's clearly not remotely attracted to her and working to save his crew, but it's still really unpleasant to watch, especially with a very young-looking actress. That said, the disease is creepy as hell, and it's a great McCoy episode. I was pretty fascinated as well by the concept of a drastically protracted childhood where the horror is not being trapped in the body of a child, but of actually remaining a child for enormous lengths of time.

9— "Dagger of the Mind" - this one would have been pretty mediocre, in all honesty, if not for the existence of Helen Noel. Helen is staggeringly beautiful, yes, but she is also better than everyone else in this episode, even my usual fave Spock. I like Kirk a lot and I still don't know what she sees in him.

10— "The Corbomite Maneuver" - it's a fun episode with some very good lines, but a bit like cotton candy.

11— "The Menagerie" - I had heard about this one, but didn't know all the details! The show-within-the-show only slightly strains credulity, and the plot is certainly more compelling than SNW (sorry to SNW fans; I watched a few episodes and it was fine, but too polished and heterosexual to feel like a true prequel to the boundary-pushing Candyland of TOS).

12— "The Conscience of the King" - this one was a bit over-theatrical in the most literal way, but I still really enjoyed it. The episode provides a genuinely fascinating backstory for Kirk, revealing that in his youth, he was a survivor of a terrible atrocity (and from what else we've heard, it seems he was moved elsewhere and became a bullied nerd for awhile before finding his true calling in space). The "real" villain of the episode doesn't really work for me, but doesn't need to, because her villainy is vastly and rightly overshadowed by the atrocity.

13— "Balance of Terror" - I can't describe this episode any other way: it fucking rules. This is maybe my favorite Star Trek episode that I can remember ever seeing. The revelation of the Vulcan-Romulan kinship is super compelling, and the intensity to this episode's take on the frequent Spock vs the Microaggressions subplot feels entirely organic and believable.

14— "Shore Leave" - fine, but rather a letdown after the glory of the previous one. The back rub early in the episode is as hilariously unsubtle as reported, and Spock's emphatic indifference to the sexbot ladies is, hmm, interesting. Otherwise, it is silly, entertaining-enough ST ephemera for me. I like these episodes existing as part of ST as a whole, but also don't feel especially invested in most individual cases of it. And God, Kirk's youthful nemesis Finnegan is so incredibly obnoxious and his little jig motif is so awful that (given "The Naked Time") I'm starting to wonder what gripe Star Trek has with Irish people.

15— "The Galileo Seven" - you know how I said that Spock vs the Microaggressions is a frequent subplot in these episodes? This one is "what if that was just the whole episode?" It's not terrible, but it's not terribly interesting, either, and the implications are pretty gross if you think about them.

16— "The Squire of Gothos" - I guessed the reveal a bit early in this one, but not in a way that made me feel like it was super obvious. The hints were there if you were paying attention, so it was rewarding to figure it out, but not obvious. Spock's speech about intellectual discipline and power really speaks to me right now, by the way.

17— "Arena" - the Gorn finally appear! Or a Gorn, anyway, and it's kind of wild that the 1967 episode's twist is that the real villain is colonialism, not the Gorn at all. Yet in 2020s Star Trek ... well, anyway, it's a good episode despite the incredibly dated monster effects.

18— "Tomorrow is Yesterday" - time travelllllll hell yeah, and it's quite a decent plot.

19— "Court Martial" - this one was tense and interesting, though I don't have much to say about it apart from really liking the lawyers.

20— "The Return of the Archons" - this was actually very effective, quiet terror for me (maybe extra for me as a queer person raised Mormon, lol). I think it also has one of the better instances of Kirk Fries A Machine With Logic.

21— "Space Seed" - an absolutely fascinating villain alongside absolutely dire gender politics. I did like seeing Khan for the first time.

22— "A Taste of Armageddon" - this had a very interesting war game concept, but I don't remember much about the episode beyond the concept tbh. It was fine.

23— "This Side of Paradise" - this one was interesting, especially given the allure of the "paradise" for Spock specifically (also for everyone else, but there's something especially bitter about whatshername's total indifference to his consent, and yet how complicated his feelings end up being about the whole thing). Kirk's fixation on his authority!!!!! in this episode feels unappealing and rather strange, but I didn't think it was really all about authority and The Human Need For Struggle(TM) that ST will keep returning to (don't like that aspect, though!).

24— "The Devil in the Dark" - an excellent episode IMO, including the incredibly dated rock alien special effects. Wouldn't have it any other way! I honestly appreciate how often the reveal in TOS has been that a scary "monster" is just some innocent person from another species getting screwed over by human ignorance and colonizing.

25— "Errand of Mercy" - Kirk is a patronizing asshole in this episode, can't lie, but given that he's being very obviously paralleled with the Klingon officer, it serves a function that's at least interesting. I'd like if that aspect of his personality went somewhere a bit more cohesively, but I'd rather have the episodic yet forwards propulsion of TOS as a whole, so it's okay.

26— "The Alternative Factor" - this has an interesting concept, but I remember thinking that it was forcing a bunch of usually competent people to make some very stupid decisions (though, tangentially, the fact that this is a change from the norm is at least something: I really enjoy that TOS in general avoids my beloathèd "our protagonists are the protagonists of the entire setting and every other character is an NPC who lacks moral vision and competence independent of the protagonists' influence"). I will say that the repetition of the alternate-universe effect is honestly pretty bad even when I'm grading on a 60s curve.

27— "The City on the Edge of Forever" - this is a very compelling, tightly-written episode that does good character work for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, even if its underlying premise is a bit challenging to buy at points. I always enjoy getting to see McCoy's medical ethos at play, as we do here. Spock's jealousy is also amusingly transparent against all the high drama.

28— "Operation -- Annihilate!" - this is a hilarious title for a pretty good episode, actually. I enjoyed it and especially enjoyed Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock here. It's not like I ever don't, but it did some substantial heavy lifting.

29— "Amok Time" - so it turns out, the Spock/Kirk fans have not been exaggerating all these years. I didn't think it was likely they had, just given what I've seen this far, but damn. This is a fantastic episode, it's got interesting world-building for Vulcan, it's incredibly homoerotic even by TOS standards, and despite my fondness for Spock and Kirk, goodforher.jpeg with respect to T'Pring. If Vulcan men don't want their childhood brides plotting their deaths, maybe they should legalize divorce! Just a thought.

30— "Who Mourns for Adonais" - so this episode relies on "actually, every broadly appropriated cultural detail from an exotic distant land was just given to its people by ancient aliens," only this time, it's targeting Greeks! It does get details about ancient Greek culture and religion very wrong, if anyone was wondering. In any case, I guess Star Trek's weird issues with "ethnic whites" is not only with the Irish, though given that my father's background is specifically Greco-Irish, it feels like a weird personal attack. That aside, while "ancient aliens did it all!!!" was not as much of a thing at the time as now, Greek people were definitely more racialized in the USA then, so the use of the trope here was not as trivial as I think it can "read" to modern audiences, esp in the USA.

Apollo's actor does a good job with some hard dialogue, I will say, but I really wish Carolyn had just been playing along and biding her time rather than obviously being a silly female swayed by flattery of her beauty and delusions of vicarious power. Kirk's speech to her is good, but really dragged down by how bad the writing for her is. I did like Kirk's "actually, I'm a strict monotheist" retort to Apollo, though. I know Kirk's characterization eventually goes down a different route, but given the heavy involvement of Jewish people including Shatner in Star Trek (despite Roddenberry's antisemitism), and the historical use of the Greek and Roman pantheons in the oppression of Jewish communities, Kirk's indignation at the idea of worshipping any other god feels apropos.

31— "The Changeling" - Jim Kirk DESTROYS another implacable machine foe with LOGIC!!!! I can just imagine the YouTube series now. Seriously, though, it's fine and a drastic improvement from the previous episode, and I always enjoy a solid ST:TOS episode while I'm watching it. But it was not exceptional IMO.

32— "Mirror, Mirror" - YESSSSS I TOO GET TO EXPERIENCE THE MIRROR UNIVERSE. I loved this episode, honestly. The Mirror Universe is terrible, but super fun both in concept and execution. I love the competence of the prime universe team in the brief cut to them immediately clocking Mirror Kirk's group as imposters (though I did want more from Mirror Uhura who is just kind of there, though...). I love Mirror Spock being this warped but recognizable version of the character. I love the concept of Mirror Kirk being the perpetrator of war crimes exactly like Kirk's formative trauma back in "The Conscience of the King." I love the evil cutthroat BDSM space Byzantines vibes of the Terran Empire (is there an unimaginably decadent and deadly Byzantine Empire in the history of the Mirror Universe? I hope so. We deserve it after "Who Mourns for Adonais" tbh).

33— "The Apple" - this is a pretty fun one. The protagonists as the sort of serpent of this "Edenic" garden, coupled with the awful god creature is super entertaining, and it works well enough despite the show's erratic approach to religion.

34— "The Doomsday Machine" - damn, the commander in this episode is such an asshole. He's clearly meant to be, though, and his Ahab campaign turning out to not be entirely in vain at least makes it seem like there's a point to spending so much time on him being the worst.

35— "The Catspaw" - by coincidence, my best friend and I ended up watching this not far into November, just a few days after Halloween. About five minutes in, I said to him, "Is it just me, or is that castle clearly just Spirit Halloween?" He delightedly said, "This planet is Spirit Halloween!"

There's a bit of racial essentialism about ALL HUMANS that would be uncomfortable if it were not so patently ridiculous. The idea is that human beings have a basic racial fear of cats that the tiny aliens exploit—yes, "cats" in this episode refers mainly to the human fear of the house cat, aka the most successful and beloved domestic species on Earth, not lions or even cougars. The alien terrorizes the cast by taking the shape of a fluffy black house cat of varying sizes, but never any other kind of cat. This concept is hilarious, just to be clear. I enjoyed every moment. Even a super-large house cat is just even more friend-shaped floof to your basic human, let's be real, so the deadly threat is impossible to take seriously even before the giant house cat is revealed to be an incredibly horny alien lady with illusion powers (this persona is also an illusion, but the horniness is real). But are not all cats at some level horny alien ladies with illusion powers? I feel pretty sure that Star Trek thinks so.

36— "I, Mudd" - and the award for Most Improved Character has got to go to Harry Mudd. My bff and I actually had a great time with this episode, in part because the entire cast seem to be having a great time with it. I especially loved the twist with Uhura seeming to fall to the womanly weakness of desiring eternal beauty and the easy life only for it to be a trick. Mudd is still a sleaze, but a much funner one to watch this time, and we've just started quoting Spock's "He didn't pay the royalties" at random moments. The stereotypical nagging wife is what it is, but I'm grading Mudd episodes on an extra curve.

37— "Metamorphosis" - and at least, we've reached the most recent episode I've seen, so my impressions of this one are much more fresh. Somehow, I had no idea we first met Zefram Cochrane in TOS and not in First Contact. Also, wow, the actors for him and for the Commissioner are really attractive—not quirky 60s attractive, either. Cochrane reminds me vaguely of Henry Cavill and the Commissioner is simply gorgeous despite the blinding color scheme of her costume.

The gender essentialism sure is something at this point, I've got to say, when the characters are blandly agreeing that of course a sentient electric cloud must have a fundamental gender that you can kind of tell by the color scheme. Uh huh, but it is genuinely interesting that Cochrane clearly cares about the cloud and tries to protect her from our heroes until he realizes she loves him, but is so affronted at the idea of the cloud being in love with him and his (very obviously sexualized) communion and companionship with her being part of that.

He projects his revulsion primarily onto Spock (Spock vs the Microaggressions strikes again!), but literally everyone finds his attitude narrow-minded and weird. The feeling is kind of like if you met an idolized long-dead relative only for them to use a homophobic slur you've never even heard of.

The resolution of this little drama comes from the cloud bodysnatching the dying Commissioner, a young woman who longs to be loved by anyone at all after a life of being a loveless career woman. She is, to be clear, a career woman whose job is all about preventing warfare and who is deeply stressed about it, which seems a kind of love to me. But she is mostly framed just as this super abrasive, loveless career woman because it's TOS (and they eventually conclude that any woman could do her job and they'll just find a different one to stop the war).

Anyway, all this results in the somehow-female cloud fusing with what remains of the Commissioner's consciousness, curing her body of some fatal disease. Now that the cloud is fused with an actual (hot) human woman, Cochrane is totally chill with her love for him, and decides he can have a very strange threesome love her after all, and they'll live out these bodies' natural lives together until they both die (since she lost her electric cloud powers of healing and immortality when she bodysnatched the Commissioner, I gather). It feels weird and low-grade shitty on his part, although I like his actor's performance, because it makes it so clear that his aversion was only about appearances.

I think the cloud should have moved onto someone who would appreciate her devotion and restorative powers, like, say, the dying Commissioner lady who actually has this whole speech about how badly she longs to be loved and how she doesn't get why Cochrane is being such a baby about the adoration of a cloud. Look, I'm just saying the cloud could be bi and deserves someone who would appreciate her.

I know this was never going to happen on a nationally syndicated show in 1967, but I think it would make more narrative sense and be much more satisfying! Cochrane would love space adventures 150 years in the future—he was thrilled and excited about the idea of seeing the reality of the Federation and alliances with other species! And the Commissioner would appreciate a cloud girlfriend and immortality so much more than him. Hire me, Paramount.

[vgilantee]

wip title game

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how nondescriptive of ridiculous. let people sent an ask with the title that intrigues them the most, then post a little snoppitnor tell them something about it

so @alwayskote tagged me but i hate titles so they’re usually the last thing i come up with… so most of my doc titles are boring and only there at all so i don’t have a million docs called “document x”. but also the ones with titles are so old i actually procrastinated my way into a title lmao

finish what he started - commander cody smut

apex predator - john price smut (it’s actually called monster price… i need to change that whoops)

soft focus fog - benedict bridgerton series

kix x reader - what it says on the tin

ethan landry - on camera - abandoned… lmao

chaos cubed fic

worlds apart - neteyam sully series, also abandoned

NPT: @glossysoap @xxshadowbabexx @the-rain-on-kamino @cas-backwards-tie

[galaxysodapopdraws]

Hey, sorry If I come across as asking too much questions, but any disability (physical and mental) for your au?

Oh no problem I love answering things about my au! Here’s some of the ones I can think of at the top of my head:

Both Chuck and Shard have missing limbs. Chuck’s being his leg he lost in a battle with eggman. Shard’s hand never formed when he became organic for the first time because there was a blaster gun instead of a hand so nothing came from it. Both do have prosthetic robotic limbs but shard doesn’t really use his often since he’s so used to not having another arm. And chuck has a regular prosthetic leg and a wheelchair when his robot leg breaks down.

Paulie, Chuck, Aleena, Sonic, and Tails all have some form of autism with sonic also having adhd. Paulie and tails share a heavy love for aircraft and can and will go on ramblings about them if prompted. Sonic doesn’t express to much and can sometimes be hard to understand how he’s feeling.

Speaking of paulie, he is selectively mute. Which passed on in a way to sonic having him mute until he turned five. But paulie is mostly mute out in public or in unfamiliar areas. He is very much a chatter box when it comes to his family or close friends though. The entire family does know sign language because of this.

Tania was born very premature and has several health issues she needs to watch for. Mostly having to do with her lungs and asthma. Because of this Brenda is pretty much a stay at home mom now to keep an eye on Nia.

Undina of course has a wheel chair but pretty much all fish mobians need one.

Actually pretty much the entire SFF have autism now that I think about it. And of course the guy keeping an eye on them, Chuck has it to lmao.

That’s all I’m putting for now unless something changes in the future. Thanks for the ask!

[ktempestbradford]

[image description: A quote tweet. Original from Academic Chatter: What one tip would you give new-starting PhD students?

On top of that, a Jonathan Fine tweet that says: Best advice I got in grad school was not to be angry when someone got something they didn't deserve but instead to be hopeful that I would get something better that I also didn't deserve]

I need this advice poured into every author--especially SFF authors--just when they are starting to get published and have friends who are published and maybe around the same place in their careers or slightly ahead. Because that's when the "They don't deserve to write for X!" and other similar thoughts start to float in.

[yvesdot]

My book rec blog post is now available to read on Shepherd!

In short, I recommend you five books based on a theme my own short story collection, Something's Not Right, embodies: in this case, casually (or very explicitly) LGBT-friendly SFF. I specifically focused on books I hear about less often, sorting by GR reads/reviews, so hopefully everyone can find something new to read! As always, please feel free to send me asks about any book on this list for more details or friendly chatter.

And, when you’re done reading on Shepherd, come right back here for a bonus two recs I just couldn’t leave out below the cut!

(EDIT: I wrote up an end-of-2023 post for Shepherd, but the founder, Ben Fox, refused to print my name correctly. I won't be working with them again.)

The Left Hand of Darkness didn’t make the cut due to its well-crafted politics and worldbuilding, a focus on which is certainly not in my wheelhouse as a much more character-focused author. Still, just because my writing skews more low SFF doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy high SFF from time to time (see Gideon on the official list) and I absolutely loved The Left Hand of Darkness, which is a gorgeous classic featuring a completely nontraditional approach to love and gender. (Also: shockingly popular for a book nobody my age has heard of.)

Kaleidoscope didn’t make the cut in part due to tone: it’s a much quieter, more mysterious read than Something’s Not Right, centering around two young boys who love one another. It’s also technically a children’s book, though one of the precious few which feels as though it wholly respects its readers for their age and level, without ever having to dumb itself down for them. Selznick takes us through infinite views—like the titular kaleidoscope—into their characters and reveals every dimension of young gay love. 

[fairestcat]

We Did The Thing: Musings On the AO3, Wiscon, and Winning the Fandom Culture Wars

HOLY SHIT WE WON A MOTHERFUCKING HUGO.

Ahem.

More seriously - or at least more verbosely - I think we won the fandom culture wars. How weird is that?

This is a sort of rambly post. It's about the OTW and the AO3, but it's also about Wiscon, because that's the community I'm in where old-school SFF fandom and transformative works fandom collide, and it's where I've watched this transformation happen over the last decade.

Back in October I made a tumblr post about the history of the OTW/AO3: On the AO3 all these years later.

That post is mostly just quotes from the comments to @astolat's original post that started the AO3: An Archive Of One's Own - and quotes from the post I made back then linking to hers:  An Archive of One's Own, Or: Why Shouldn't We Ask For Everything We Want?

Those posts are from May 2007. I was on the OTW Finance Committee by that fall.

One year later, in May 2008, I went to my first Wiscon. I was on two panels: "Fanfic and Slash 201," and "Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works."

They were back to back on Saturday night. "Fanfic and Slash 201" from 9:00 to 10:15 and the OTW panel from 10:30 to 11:45. All fanworks panels at non fanworks-specific cons were late night panels back then. Or, occasionally, on Monday morning after half the con had gone home.

I don't remember who else was on the Fanfic 201 panel, but the OTW panel was me, @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon. The three of us had never met before that con. @oliviacirce and I had been in Chicago Friday night for a Panic! At the Disco concert and hadn't gotten back to Madison until 3am. I have no idea how we were even still coherent for a 10:30 PM panel.

None of us wrote the panel description, which reads even more impressively antagonistic in retrospect.

"The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), led by fanfic writers, fan vidders, and fan artists (including writer Naomi Novik) seeks to establish a new regime in copyright law, in which 'all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity.' Should there be an exception for fanfic under copyright? Is OTW a good idea? (Some fans are afraid that OTW's activities will end BigMedia's tolerance for fannish creations.) What does the law say? What's the viewpoint of those who create original works -- should authors lose control of their original creations, as long as fans claim protection under a fanfic exception? And what about OTW's commitment to offer protection for RPF (Real People Fanfic)?"

At the time I would have said it was a pretty good panel, and yet we spent a distressing percentage of the panel defending the mere right of fanworks to even exist.

I went back to Wiscon in 2009, which was an...eventful year. It was the first Wiscon post-Racefail and it sparked a lot of discussion of intersecting modes of fannishness and particularly online fandom vs. offline con-based fandom, which was at the time a much bigger divide.

Wiscon 2009 was also the year @ellen_fremedon went to a panel on historical fiction, and got jumped on by Ellen Klages, who was one of that year's Guests of Honor, for the sin of mentioning fanfic in her presence.

After that Wiscon I posted Wiscon, Media Fandom and The Larger Fannish Conversation, about my experience of that divide, particularly as a transformative works fan at Wiscon.

Here's the thing: online media and fanfic fandom is a vibrant, active community within broader SF fandom. [...] And to a large extent media fandom is where the young female fans are, the women who are the future of fandom. We're there at Wiscon too; I was amazed by the number of people from LJ fandom I saw at the con this year. And yet, when it comes to having a voice in larger fandom, we're still the embarrassing cousin shuffled off into the corner (or the hotel lobby). Even at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, we're mostly under the radar, carving out a tiny niche for ourselves.

Last year we had two general, broad-topic fanfic panels. This year we had a fanfic panel, a vidding panel and the media vs. book fandom panel, which was not explicitly a media fandom panel but had an audience heavily weighted towards media fandom participants. And I walked into those panels and I thought "Here! Here are my people!" But it was frustrating too. Why are we relegated to the corner, why are we willing to be relegated to the corner? The conversations we're having, the things we're doing, they don't exist in a vacuum, they're relevant to the larger fannish conversation, they're especially relevant, I think, to the conversation going on at Wiscon. And I think it's time we were a bigger, more open part of that conversation.

So, we set out to make that happen. The OTW and the AO3 were a big part of that. Everyone who was worried at the time that the OTW would bring too much attention to fandom was right to be afraid. And wrong to be afraid too. Because that attention was how everything started to change. The OTW was fandom coming out of the closet, and like any coming out it was a powerful, transformative moment for those involved.

In 2010, a group of fans held the first ever Wiscon Vid Party. 

At Wiscon in 2010, we held the first ever vid party in one of these hospitality suites on the Saturday night, from 9pm to 3am. That's six hours of vid programming! It was mostly unthemed, other than "here are some amazing vids!"[...] The general vibe of the party was loud, a little bit raucous, and pretty informal. We had a mixture of sofas and armchairs, stackable seating, and standing room. People came and went at will. We put a sign on the door asking people to keep conversations to a minimum, and it worked pretty well to keep chatter down while still allowing people to relax and have a good time. It was pretty much like a really big living room.

I missed that con due to the whole move to Canada and get married thing I did, but I remember my first Vid Party in 2012, looking around the party room and having this amazing feeling of being surrounded by my people.

I loved Wiscon, but it was always a fraught experience. There was always this worry that I'd say the wrong thing in the wrong place and suddenly get that disappointed, "oh, you're one of those fans," response. The vid party was the one place at the con that you could just walk in and that worry went away.

And then there started being more of those places. We started suggesting more and more fic and vid related panels.

In 2012, @oliviacirce and I were both on two transformative works panels. "What makes a great transformative work?" and "Fans Fix SF." In a step up from previous fanworks panels at Wiscon they were both during the day. But they were also both in the smallest panel rooms at the con, and both panels fit comfortably into those rooms. Conference 5, where "Fans Fix SF" was held, is still the only room Wiscon uses for programming that's so small it isn't wired for microphones.

And then in 2013 I suggested ten panels for Wiscon and nine of them ended up on the schedule. They weren't all explicitly transformative fandom panels, but a lot of them were, and most of the panel descriptions were informed by my experience in transformative works fandom. Looking back, that was a sea-change moment, because an interesting thing happened. There mostly stopped being transformative fandom-specific panels at Wiscon, because it started being okay, even expected, that fanfic and other transformative works might come up on any panel, from the audience or the panelists.

At Wiscon 2018, I went to a panel on #OwnVoices fiction. Every panelist was a published author and/or professional editor. In the course of the panel, every panelist mentioned fanfic in general or the AO3 in specific in an explicitly complementary fashion. I nearly burst into tears in the back of the panel room.

Afterwards, I met up with @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon to flail about it, at which point we realized that it had been ten years since that first fateful OTW panel where we all met. And that ten years both felt like so long ago, and also so recent for everything to have changed so completely.

At Wiscon 2019, the three of us were on another panel together. We called it "Fanfic: Threat or Menace - Ten Years Later," and this time I wrote the description:

Do you remember a time before the AO3? Do you remember a time when mentioning fanfic at Wiscon risked a lecture on its illegality and/or immorality? We sure do! In 2008 we met on the panel “Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works,” & spent most of our time defending the right of fanworks to exist. In 2018 we were amazed to realize just how much had changed. Let’s talk about how the perception & reception of fanworks have changed, both in fandom at large and right here at Wiscon.

We made it onto the schedule. They once again put us in the smallest panel room. We looked around the lobby on Thursday night and said, "yeah, that ain't happening." We eventually moved to one of the largest panel rooms.

It was almost completely full.

I started the panel by reading out the original panel description from 2008. There was laughter! revolutionaryjo came up afterwards and asked to take a picture of the description on my phone. There were so many people in that room who had no idea what the Wiscon of a decade previous had been like. It was amazing.

Best Related Work? The OTW and AO3 changed the nature of the relationship between fic readers and writers and the entirety of mainstream organized SFF fandom.

The Wiscon Vid Party is still happening, and it's still a marathon of amazing vids, but it's not a really big living room anymore. The Vid Party is the Friday night feature in the biggest panel room. There are Premieres. There’s a sing-a-long. People come who have never watched a vid outside of Wiscon. People come who've never even heard of vids outside of Wiscon. The first year the Vid Party was in the big room, I walked into the room just before the show started, looked around, and realized I didn't recognize ⅔ of the people in the room. And I was so happy. Because I no longer need the Vid Party as a safe space to let down my guard, the entire con is now that place.

We did that. We made that happen.

The OTW made that happen. The AO3 made that happen. But also, a whole lot of individual fans made that happen. We stepped out of our corner, we stepped out of our closet. We demanded a seat at the table. And now we have a motherfucking HUGO AWARD, and when Naomi Novik got on stage at the Hugos and asked everyone who felt that they were part of the AO3 to stand up to be acknowledged, a notable number of this year's other Hugo nominees were among the attendees who got to their feet.

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[sneezingpotatoes]

A/N: Wow it's been a while :3 I decided to take a break and lurk on SFF BUT NOW IM BACK :D (Don't ask me about the last fic because I lost the motivation LELS) Anywho, this is a totally different fic that's not related to the other fics I wrote! I just got motivated to write this fic and I decided to post it here. :3 Also I'm writing/editing this in the app so I apologize in advance if it looks like poo poo and has typos xD SORRY. HERE YOU HAVE IT

***

Snow fell all around the two. Umeji mumbled a curse to himself for not checking the weather before he left the apartment with his trusted co-worker. Umeji heard him mention something about snow, but then again, when had he ever REALLY listened to his partner? Umeji took a quick glance at the boy with his gentle, Brown eyes; He could tell that Taizo's jaws were clenched shut in order to prevent his teeth from chattering, he was hugging his arms tightly in order to provide himself a little warmth, and he kept sniffling from the cold winter air that cracked the dam deep in his nostrils, releasing a stream of snot that threatened to coat his upper lip.

"Here..." Muttered Umeji, as he unravelled his own scarf and tied it around Taizo. Well sure he was cold too, he could've sworn that he was even colder than Taizo himself, but it was his fault after all that they were in this mess. It was the least he could do. "The cab should be here in less than 10 minutes." Though he said these words, 10 minutes felt like 10 years in the still and silent cold. To make matters worse, they were out in the middle of nowhere with no other people or buildings around them; just the lovely company of nature. Boy did he feel like an idiot. It was a setup and he should've known that this lead was nothing more than a trick. Why did he have to bring Taizo along with him to investigate?

"Umeji..." The boy whispered a frail breath to the man as he took two steps closer to him, footsteps engraving the merciless snow, "Don't beat yourself up about this."

Umeji winced in defeat. It felt like no matter how hard he tried, Taizo could always figure out what he was thinking or felt. Maybe that's what made him a great detective, he humored to himself.

"We had fun, didn't we?" A familiar smile creased the boy's lips, engulfing Umeji Into a warmth so warm and gentle that even an oak fire couldn't produce such warmth. The older man nodded slightly, shifting his eyes away from the boy. "... Thank you, Umeji..." The boy muttered as he dug his face into the man's side, despirately seeking warmth. The other man was surprised, even though he shouldn't have been. This was nothing new; it had happened before- plently of times. He lifted his right hand atop the boys head, gently fiddling his fingers throughout his hair.

The boy giggled, nudging his face deeper into the man's side, being tickled by the man playing with his hair. Taizo's laughter stoped abruptly as his face slowly lifted out from his side, giving Umeji a clear view of his face. The boy's lips were slightly trembling as his eyelids dropped into only a sliver, and the man could feel his head begin to slowly tilt backwards from underneath his palm.

"Ihh... Ihh..!"

He pauses, looking up at the gray sky, desperately trying to hold onto the sneeze that's been pestering him this entire trip, before it leaves him once again to be lost in the depths of his nostrils. The older man silently watches, being intrigued by the situation. Umeji had never seen the boy so much as hitch a breath all the 3 years they worked together and this was his first time seeing Taizo look, well... Vulnerable.

The boy brings up a shaky, curled index finger to linger underneath his small snout, still silently hitching to himself. The man wonders if he should help the boy or just watch him helplessly struggle in the fight with this pestering sneeze. Umeji hestitantly brings up his left hand, pointing his finger towards the boy's nose before he--

"Hh...! Iksch!" With a sharp hitch, he snaps forward, snapping at the waist with a weak, catlike sneeze. He remains hunched over, shoulders still jerking with quiet "Kngtsh! H'Ksht! Ikscht! Tshnk!"s in their wake. After the fit ends, he rises back up, sniffling uncontrollably while irritably wiping his now pink-rimmed nostrils with his index finger.

Umeji stands in silence, stunned by the boy's cute, catlike sneezes. He then realizes he's staring and clears his throat. "Bless..." He mumbles, almost inaudibly through his coat collar, but the boy still hears him any way, and nods his thanks in return. Umeji wished he had tissues to give him, but he never carried them with him, and he was never prepared for situations like these. Even though he had bad allergies himself, he just didn't like to carry tissues around on his person. Without thinking, the man unzips his heavy coat, pulls the boy close and wraps his coat flaps around the boy, shielding him from the cold air.

"N-nani?!" The boy yells, feeling deeply embarrassed by this action. He weakly tries to break free, only for his efforts to be in vain. Knowing Umeji, he was way stronger than him and his efforts were like a baby poking a boulder. Umeji mentally cursed at himself, already feeling his nose start to run. Damnit.

"... You'll catch a cold..." Umeji mutters, biting back the shivers that are trying to make his teeth chatter. His coat was unzipped, and he didn't have a scarf anymore, which left his neck and chest exposed. He sighs, feeling the boy jerk up against his torso. A pause, then another jerk. And another jerk. The man tightens his hold on the boy in order to keep his balance and to warm him up more. The last thing he wanted was for him to catch a cold. And now of all times. The boy leans into Umeji, feeling exhausted and worn. "Bless..." He whispers silently above the boy.

The two silently stand in the snow together, with Umeji's head resting in the hair of the boy, enjoying each other's company before the honks of a cruddy taxi interrupt the still moment. The man slowly unravels himself from Taizo, wishing the moment didn't have to end so soon, and escorts him into the taxi, closing the door after his partners' seatbelt is fastened. He gets in through the other door, scooting beside him and ordering the driving to take each of them home. Taizo first, of course. The boy tiredly rests his head into Umeji's chest, looking depleted. It had been a long day. It was time for them to rest.

[coindex]

Analysis

Singapore – home to some 400 fintech startups and 100+ financial institutions–is more ambitious than ever to take the global fintech hub crown. The government-led, corporation sponsored Fintech Festival is into its second year, this time bigger and better than last.

Totalling five days from Nov. 13-17, the festival event welcomes attendees with its warm tropical weather on the small island state. I was lucky enough to be invited as a media member to witness the biggest get-together of every player in the fintech ecosystem: startups, investors, financial institutions, corporations and government agencies.

It’s always summer in Singapore. Photo credit: Lucia Ziyuan

Covering everything trending and topical in fintech from distributed ledger technology to regulatory risk, we are seeing highly prestigious speakers and government officials making appearances at the event. While it would be impossible to report back every detail, I will try my best to highlight the noteworthy in this article.

The festival experience

The festival was an indoor event that took up three exposition halls at the Singapore Expo. Upon arrival, the event arena was already buzzing with delegates of all sorts of nationalities chattering in every accent imaginable. After registration, I was immediately greeted by huge showcase booths from festival sponsors: Deloitte, Prudential and KPMG among others.

Corporate sponsor booths like Deloitte’s take up the majority of exhibition real estate

Compared to other fintech events I’ve been to, the booths at this festival were way more creative and inviting with genuinely exciting new technologies on display. Deloitte, for example, showcased their voice and tone recognition technology for mitigating risk. PayNow-the biggest peer-to-peer payment network in Singapore–exhibited how money can be moved instantly with just the recipient’s phone number with an experiential showcase.

There is definitely no lack of happenings for the week celebration. The festival breaks down into three main types of events and many smaller segments running concurrently. There was so much going on every minute at every corner of the venue that one can easily be held back by FOMO. Just as I headed towards an intriguing conference talk about the open ledger, at the same time there is another exciting, inclusive fintech talk happening on a different stage.

While the crowded floors are a little challenging to navigate and too many events happening concurrently, with the help of the official event app I was able to plan and bookmark events that interest me beforehand. Even conference talks I attended were a full house–people were standing around for these hour-long talks. The crowd enthusiasm was amazing.

SFF event app. Image source: Google Playstore

There were also several workstations and lounge areas to chill out and have a chat, along with abundant food options, thanks to the varieties the Southeast Asian food capital has to offer. I even bought a pre-packaged customizable salad from a vending machine using touchless payment and thought of Nick Szabo’s famous smart contract as vending machine analogy. What a fintech moment.

cashless payment at salad vending machine. Photo credit: Lucia Ziyuan

Fintech Sandbox–a top-down approach to innovation

As the official host, the presence of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) looms large throughout the whole event. The government agency’s ambition to take a top-down approach to innovation was pronounced–there is even a dedicated fintech arm within the organization called “Fintech and Innovation” group.

Most notably, MAS is known for their bold experiments within the fintech regulatory sandbox. If you haven’t heard of it, the Fintech Sandbox is where MAS gives the green light to test out new products or solutions in a controlled environment in instances where these new ideas would not have passed regulators’ scrutiny to go ahead.

At the festival, MAS Sandbox came to life with a sandbox stage literally build with real sand. In a speech by Mr. Ong Ye Kung, minister for education and second minister for defense, we had a glimpse of what a structured liberal regulation framework would work for financial innovation.

Sandbox literally made out of sand as open stage. Photo credit: lucia ziyuan

Mr. Ong cited the example of PolicyPal, the first graduate of the MAS fintech sandbox and now a licensed insurance broker after testing its solution in the sandbox with a limited pool of users. He further mentioned that MAS will “further loosen the regulatory boundaries for sandbox cases where the risks do not outweigh the potential benefits of the solution to consumers.” That would mean even a bigger playground for cutting-edge fintech innovators.

Other MAS-led innovation initiatives include partnership with MIT Media Lab on key areas including Distributed Ledger Technology, the global Hackcelerator program and MAS Fintech Awards for which projects in and outside of Singapore were rewarded with generous cash prize.

Fintech is maturing

While there is still a lot of hype around emerging fintechs such as ICO and AI bots, we get the sense from conferences and speeches that fintech is maturing now with a more “grown-up” attitude.

For one, more innovations are happening in the traditional, seemingly “undisruptable” section such as RegTech and Insurtech. On the other, fintech makers’ attitudes towards regulation is loosening up. Fewer people are talking about disrupting, and the many mid-stage fintech ventures are seeking alignment of interest with regulators and financial institutions.

At a panel discussion titled “Alternative Payments: Beyond Hype,” Brad Garlinghouse from Ripple, Taavet Hinrikus from Transferwise and Tim Grant from DrumG sat down to talk about altcoins and more. When asked if society will be going cashless, all of them said fiat is not going away anytime soon. Talking about the role of financial institution in fintech innovation, all three expressed positive sentiments towards working with regulators. Taavet Hinrikus said that “tech entrepreneurs are getting better at dealing with entrepreneurs. Turns out regulators listen to you.” Brad Garlinghouse went a step further to say that it’s “important for the industry to be proactive and talk to regulators.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, breaking down altcoin hype for the audience. Photo credit: Lucia Ziyuan

And political leaders are watching fintech closely too. In a speech on financial inclusion by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands given at the festival, her majesty gave 9 pointers for successful inclusion of fintech: data privacy, cyber security, digital literacy, financial literacy, digital ID, connectivity, interoperability, fair competition and physical infrastructure. You have to agree that these are very on point insights.

And governments are going out of their way to compete for innovation solutions. At the closing talk by the Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, we saw the government’s efforts to position Tokyo as a desirable destination for financial innovation such as financial awards and advertisements much like a promotional outdoor ad for tourism.

Conclusion

30,000+ participants, 100+ nationalities–this year’s fintech festival has to be the biggest industry event in recent history. It’s promising to see such strong growth and shared enthusiasm in this industry. There is no doubt that fintech will continue to make big waves in 2018.

But we also walked away with more questions than answers. Despite the globally shared language in fintech, there is no commonly agreed approach to fintech innovation as the regulatory environment in each country is very different. What does it mean for financial inclusion to scale? What would true interoperability look like especially on the Blockchain? What does it mean for innovators to work with regulators on building infrastructures, and how?

Perhaps at the speed we are moving forward with technology, we will see the answers reveals themselves at the next fintech festival.

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[vgilantee]

thank you guys so much for your input! i think i've stated before... somewhere, this was more a poll for a guaranteed fic for march. this means that there is a chance that there will be a fic, but it's a low chance.

knowing that you guys are okay with skipping the march fic definitely eases the self imposed pressure on me. so thank you for that reassurance

so the results for this poll are in, but there is a tie between two answers, so we have another poll!!

(please bare in mind that if you answer the second one, i would also gravely appreciate if you sent in a request too, because i currently have no ideas for a short fic)

[vgilantee]

you ever look at something you wrote while half asleep and realise that most of the words needed for it to make sense got stuck in your brain

like i know how the scene is supposed to play out i can see it. but i apparently forgot to like... actually write them down

[vgilantee]

i fell asleep and now it has the most notes out of any of my fics is this what it’s like to be popular? /j

that being said requests! if you have ‘em hand ‘em over! specifically for wednesday characters. i did have a list somewhere but i can’t be bothered hunting for it rn lmao

[motorgirls]

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[motorgirls]

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[motorgirls]

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