Obligatory disclaimer: YMMV

This warning entitlement thing? So getting out of hand. I think warnings are a good thing. Death, non-con, BDSM, PWP, kink, incest, slavery, self-insert, etc. Seriously, the offensensitivity meter on some people is set way too high. They absolutely must be warned for anything that might set off their triggers, whatever those may be. Divorce, breech childbirth, kitten stuck in trees, lactose intolerance, congressmen with wide stances, any disordered, dysfunctional, or unethical behavior must be warned for! Or you get yelled at. Or someone rants about it somewhere. At what point may the author quit flipping through the DSM-IV and matching up potential diagnoses with developments in a fic for warning lists?

I am not anti-warning. I think a considerate person should have warnings up when the plot hits the buttons of a significant number of fans who might open the story. If I kill off a major character, I warn for it. If I have fluffy crap, I warn for it. Most fandoms have an understood or actual list of usual warnings. I am against people thinking that a writer should warn for everything that anyone, and them in particular, might find objectionable, offensive, or triggering in the story. I'm not warning for alcoholism, cheating, divorce, marriage, gambling addiction, or whatever. It's too much to try to figure out what dysfunctions I've woven into my story might bother someone somewhere and then put in a long list of warnings. And then hope it doesn't spoil the fic. It just can't be done. Everything annoys someone, somewhere.

A completely non-Naruto related, possible wankery rant by Lightning O, for once

Hey, uh, your summary had me thinking ( ...cut for consent issues )

I woke up in the wee hours of the morn to catch the end of Flying Daggers which I'd started watching before bed (<3 imac) and I caught it perfectly. And I CRIED with such emotion. I cried and cried and understood everything, even Andy Lau. (I've seen this movie before but... yeah... I'm seeing a lot of things differently lately.)

It's such a beautiful movie and it belongs to Zhang Yimou and shouldn't ever be associated with anything else.

Then it took me a long time to fall asleep.

This entry is so vague. But in the end, it doesn't matter, it's all okay.

Tags: yes
Current Mood: happy

I'm really starting to get somewhere with judo. I think that if I keep working hard, I'll earn a coloured belt by the end of the year. Who knows what will happen after that? Even if I leave Sydney Uni, I like the people in the Sydney Uni Judo club a lot, so I'll probably still go. In that group of people, you see the very best side of the culture of brotherhood in a martial arts class, where everyone wants to help others move forward and you look forward to seeing your judo buddies every week. Of course, women are welcome too, but mostly they go to the women's only class, so my class is mostly male.

I can't remember the last time in my life when I've been in as good shape as I am now, although I got close when I was studying capoeira. I went for a one hour bike ride with a friend yesterday, and that felt like light exercise. I think I'm slowly becoming an active person.

OK, author? You know the French guy? The one who was born and raised in France, has a French accent so thick I could pick it up and beat you over the head with it, and has to keep asking what English words mean because his first language is French and all?

If he got a MySpace message in French, he probably would not need to run it through an online translator because he's "so used to speaking in English".

Just a thought.

Dear young female fic writers in general (and young female HP fic writers in particular)*,
Please stop describing your characters as "thin but curvy." Thin women generally have small hips and small breasts. Curvy women generally have broad hips and larger breasts. Given the context, I think you want us to picture someone with a tiny waist and hips (thin) and huge breasts (curvy.) Not to put too fine a point on it,  but breasts are fat tissue. Hence, unless surgical enhancement was involved, your very thin character will not have a D-cup rack.  If you look at naturally thin actresses like Kiera Knightley and Kyra Sedgwick, you will notice that they do not have exceptionally large breasts. Please take note of this, and remember there is absolutely nothing wrong with being just plain curvy, sans the thin, or with being just plain thin, sans the curvy. See Marilyn Monroe and America Ferrera for examples of the former, and Kate Bosworth and Natalie Portman for examples of the latter. Your fic will be much better for giving your character a figure that actually occurs in nature.  
Frustratedly yours,
Jamie
P.S. If you have your 5'4" character worrying that she is not thin enough at 113 pounds and wanting to "get down to 100 to be thin" I will be both insulted (I'm 5'5" and 130 pounds and not fat at all, thankyouverymuch), and more than a little worried for your health. Also, it might give readers less secure in their image than I issues, especially if they really like/look up to your character.
*I understand this is a bit of a generalization, but most stories of this type I have read have been written by young women (11-15.)
ETA: Sorry if I offended anyone-I do realize that there are thin people with large breasts naturally, and I do apologize if I inadvertantly insulted you. The rant is more about the perception that some fanfic writers seem to have that the very thin'n'busty figure is the only attractive one, and that it is much more common than it actually is.  I just wish that all of us (from thin, to average like me, to curvy) could get some love in fanfic (and hell, real life) for our figure types.

Squicky content in this batch. You were warned. ;)

(link)
“Harry Potter? Hurt?” Molly scoffed laughingly. “He's Shogun Dumbledore's personal champion, the best in the land with the sword and with magic. No harm will have come to him, you can be sure of that. Now you go and get yourself ready, dear – it wouldn't do to show Harry-sama that you'd been crying.”
“Hai.” Hermione walked daintily to her room, careful not to step on the hem of her elaborate pale-blue kimono.
*
Cho was very popular with the customers, and used tricks and lies to get them to give her more money. She was also always bragging about how Harry had once spent the evening with her. Hermione knew, though, that Harry had never returned to Cho because she was bossy and mean, and he even suspected she had caused her previous favourite customer, the samurai Cedric, to be sent away to battle where he was killed.
*
She surveyed herself in the mirror again to make absolutely sure she looked perfect for Harry. Her hair shimmered like molten brown gold in the moonlight, her deep mahogany eyes gleamed soulfully, and her pale skin and delicate features gave her a mysterious air like a ghost or a yuki-onna. Her clothing covered but hinted tantalizingly at the elegance of her slender body with its well-placed curves.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: stroked
Current Music: Draco singing about rodeos

* Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

* No captions. It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

* They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

* You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.
( The rest behind a cut.. )</div>

Dear Fandom,

Sorry for beating a dead horse, but I'm disappointed in (general) you. It's the 2000s, yeah? I'm sure most of us have been taught that gender equality is a Good Thing, and I'm sure a lot of us, like me, even consider ourselves feminists.

...Can we please stop being sexist now? (I'm directing this rant mostly at you, fellow slashers.)

There's a very serious double standard going on here. Character A: Clingy girl who, in the beginning of the series, is annoyingly persistent about getting this guy who's not interested in her. Character B: Clingy guy who, in the beginning of the series, is annoyingly persistent about getting this guy who's not interested in him.

Both characters grow throughout their respective series, and they become much more mature, confident, independent people. And less clingy, too. Oh, but what do you know? Most fans can't stand Character A. She gets bashed a lot, and usually portrayed as a caricature of her useless former self, not as the strong woman she becomes. Meanwhile, Character B is also usually portrayed as his bratty former self, but he also has a giant cult of obsessively devoted fans who like the fact that he's annoyingly persistent. Fans who like the fact that he's always yelling/nagging at the guy he's in love with, and who like how he flies into fits of jealous rage when there's even the slightest possibility of his potential love interest forming a relationship with someone else.

Let's get this straight. (Haha. Horrible pun not intended.) A lot of female characters are hated because it's so "gross" when they're chasing unrequited love, or when they need to be rescued, or when they're trying too hard to be sexy. But it's okay for a male character to do these exact same things?

D: WTF is wrong with this world?!

(In case you guys are wondering, the characters who inspired this rant are Sakura from Naruto and Wolfram from Kyou Kara Maou, though the problem isn't just about them. Replace Sakura for Generally Useless Girl and Wolfram for Every Other BL Guy and it still happens, because BL Guys can get away with everything that their female equivalents can't. And no, I'm not bashing Wolf - I actually like the mature versions of both of these characters.)

Ok, so...

When you, specific author, says the following in a femslash fic (names replaced for confidentiality):

"Maria licked Joana's lower breasts (...)"

It makes me imagine Joana having two pairs of breasts. And after that, when you say:

"(...) Joana whimpers as Maria starts kissing her middle breasts (...)"

... Well, that makes me imagine Joana having three pairs of breasts. Let me tell you, it's a weird image. And I don't even know why! (Why you make me imagine that, not why it's a weird image.)

And this is just sharing a weird fact, because this has never happenned before; but every time you, same author, say something like "Joana reaches her arm (...)", "Maria looks at her breast (...)", or even "She pulls her leg aside (...)", can you tell what happens within my imagination?

I'll tell ya. I imagine that they have only one of whatever you just said. It's pretty weird suddenly imagining a one-armed Joana when in canon she has both arms perfectly intact. I'm not saying it's written wrong; it's just weird and hilarious at the same time because this is the only story that makes me imagine things like that.

So, in the end, I still appreciate your story because it just gave me some good laughs. :D