elanya

...although I am probably the last person to have seen the movie.

( Black Widow-y thoughts under here! )

Hello journal-land! I'm still out here, still trying to stay connected. At least, still shouting into the void (mostly void, partially stars).

I keep having Things I want to Write About - yesterday when I was walking Jola it was about storytelling media and how I feel more engaged by participatory stories, but they are harder to share with non-participants. Shorthand whining, I suppose for "no1 currrrrr about my game-inspired fics". The same old thing. I just wish I could find more effective ways, because I have always felt way more 'fannish' about these kinds of things, but they're so limited in audience. But those are the stories, for the most part, that consume my brain. I was going to rite about this in more detail, but apparently this is all you get. I am dedicating my Trope Bingo line to some gaming characters though - pre-canon (mostly) NPC adventures, so as to limit my audience even further... I suppose I could argue that as they are 'pre-canon' they might be more accessible to outsiders, but I don't know if that is at all true. I've realized that I really am terrible at gauging accessibility in that regard. If I tell you something doesn't require canon knowledge - well, I might be wrong. But try it? It could be good anyway :V be bring so much to the table when we are engaging with fanworks, and we're not always conscious of it all.

What else. I am working on my second story involving those characters, not for trope bingo. I am enjoying treating it as a serious story, thinking about structure and plot and pacing and stuff, and not just 'these are the things that happen and the feels that are felt', but how those things are communicated to my non-existent audience. So that's good practice, I suppose, if nothing else?

I need to be applying for more jobs still. I have two in my sights and I will be screaming into that void tonight. One is in Saint Louis, the other in South Orange, New Jersey. We'll see. I have not heard back about a single other thing I have applied for so yaaay.

I also have some Wrangling Staff work to keep at. I have been doing little chunks in the morning to keep on top of small things, but there are some Big Things that Need Lots of Brain I want to focus on and I've been having trouble with that. balancing with job searching and everything else is a little wearying, honestly. But I'll survive. I need to get back on top of some of my wrangled fandoms too, as far as the freeforms go. Holding on there too, at least!

so, that's me. I'm back home as of Sunday, and Maze has been velcro kitty since then. He is clingy in the colder months already, but this is pretty spectacularly so. I have two knitting projects on the go,. which is not my usual modus operandi - one for home, and one for work. I may have said this already. I already fucked up the lace in my Ishbel >_<

Okay, back to working at the job I have for the moment!

Today you get a topical post! fishmalk asked about ( five things I like to see in fanfic... )

Whelp, after episode 7, ( I have some more thoughts! )

So, tonight, I am going to be watching a video of my BiL, wererogue play through the first part of Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, while three of us (I, my sister, and he) talk about it. We're making a Let's Play! And I'm super excited!

Video Game Let's Play's are a big part of online videogame culture, which is a very heavily male-weighted (but certainly not exclusive) thing. I've never been comfortable with the idea that men don't do fanworks, or not transformative ones, or that if they do they're a minority. My general observation tends to be, as we discussed in the last ficthropology episode, that this production is still gendered, in that men and women who do fanworks on the whole are approaching them very differently. Of course you get crossover, and I would definitely not go as far to say that men have a monopoly on more technological expressions, because vidding is a largely female section of fandom and it involves a lot of technological skills, and of course podficcing is a largely female enterprise as well. I don't think the pattern translates to a huge divide, but I do think it is there and it is something I am curious about, in the general way I am curious about fandom from an anthropological perspective. Fandom is so just broad, and fascinating!

So, I'm really curious to see... a number of things as regards this project. Both me and my sister will be commenting, but as neither of us have played the game - how will our comments be received? I'm mostly on board because of the pirates. I've never been much of a video game *player*, but I have a long history of watching people play them that goes back to the days of my youth when my dad and sister would fight over the Nintendo (Dragon Warrior 1!). I'm curious to see how we get on with this project overall, really - what will we have to say, do any of us really have the time required to pull this together technically? My podcasting experience, such as it is, has shown me how tricky it can be to get a good audio track, let along tossing video in the mix there. I'm certainly very hopeful that we do, and as state, I'm super excited to give it a shot :D

I woke up early with all these *plans* and then I sat down at the computer and now it is going on three hours later. Bah!

I had some ideas for pirate-meta that I want to write up. In addition to talking about Black Sails, I may be going to do some conversational narration stuff for an Assassins Creed IV Let's Play with my bro-in-law. I have some things I'd like to talk about for the show though specifically - anyone have any preferences as to whether I talk first about Ships, or Wrecking?

I also had some ideas for what to do with my dissertation, article wise, which is that i want to write something that is looking more just at "here is what i can tell you about Harbour Island from the archaeology I did" and leave the big question theory for something else. I did some outlining while it was still in my brain, but it is hard for me not to hop into the theory >.>

I also had an anxiety dream last night that I was totally unprepared to run the LARP I want to do for Webercon. I don't think that it was really *about* the larp, per sey, though I do need to start working on it more seriously, but more about how I am a social fraud, and of course my RL friends mostly only tolerate me, some of them actively dislike me, etc. although the people who didn't like me in the dream were not relatable to actual real people, though there were actual real people that I know appearing in the dream, so that's something :p Either I don't know who doesn't really like me or they don't exist, I'm not sure. Even in the dream I was more concerned about the people I did know being disappointed, I think? Anyway, I am really a fairly confident person, but I'm also terrible at socializing with people. I don't participate in conversations the same way, or something? I don't know. I played pool with some t=friends on Thursday and despite it being people I know I was mostly quiet while other folks were chatty, and it left me feeling a little marginal and I think this has affected my subconscious. Which I almost wrote as 'self conscious'. Oh, brain, you ain't subtle :p I do think that I am *differently* socially awkward than most of my friends, and that does make it hard for us to connect sometimes.

Anyway, I *should* start working on something. I have other things I'd like to do today, or at least this weekend, as well, like laundry, baking, maybe even *shock* tidying my room.... I can find the floor, sure, but everything else is covered in things (mostly clothes and paper) that need to be put away :p

Oh and in other fun news, we definitely have a pipe issue of some kind in the bathtub. we thought it was water getting on the floor (for a variable configuration of 'we'), but it happened (or, at least, I noticed) again today and that was definitely not the case. I emailed lukoni but I'm really not sure what the best solution is going to be :/ No showers, anyway, I suspect, until we have a better idea what's going on. Yay?

In other mild annoyances, I ordered yarn for my sweater the other day, but the company emailed to let me know that they didn't have enough skeins in the same dyelot (I had asked for them all to be the same). They were really super nice about it and offered to backorder, but that was going to take eight weeks+! (Not their fault, that's just malabrigo for you >.>). I cancelled the yarn, but am still getting needles from them, and am now yarnhunting elsewhere. Even though they didn't have what I wanted I was really pleased with their customer service and will definitely be looking at getting other things through them again.

To end on a high note, though, I did at least get my prompts all finished for the Invisible Ficathon, and I am very happy with all of them! Now I just need to finalize my offers... Aftwer I go out and get some kitty litter!

So, what I actually managed yesterday was to Buy All the Things, including a proof copy of my dis in colour, paying for my storage unit, and buying yarn to knit a sweater as a knit-along with longpig. I also bought needles to knit said sweater with (I have 6s in the set I got for Christmas :)

And then I watched Black Sails with earis. This was episode two. The show continues to be a confusing mix of good and terrible historical details. There was a lot of Drama this episode, including surrounding one of the more compelling original characters, a mixed-race whore named Max.

...I'm not going to give spoilers about the show here (but I make no promises about the comments). But I am not going to spoiler censor for actual history, because this shit happened 300 years ago, and also who knows how things will unfold on the show. I kind of want to write something more explicitly meta about this, but I'm not sure if anyone would care? I could write about the setting, things they get right, things that are wrong, snippets about what is know about various historical figures and how they are being portrayed in the show, etc. Anyone anyone?

How about this - I'll start with a list of characters who are very based on historical people, of characters who are taken from other media, and of characters whose existence has some basis in historical fact:

Real Peeps:
Charles Vane - And yes, he was a bit of a violent psycho. Don't know if he looked as good in leather pants with his hair half pulled back...
"Calico" Jack Rackham. Who really did serve under Vane. Spoiler alert: Johnny Depp's character is probably named after him. You know - Captain Jack >.>
Anne Bonny - Although technically she doesn't come onto the scene for another few years. She starts on Rackham's crew, as I recall.

Fictional Peeps (we're all at least passingly familiar with Treasure Island, right?):
Captain Flint - Treasure Island
John Silver - Treasure Island
Billy Bones - Treasure Island

Historical Basis:
Richard Guthrie. This is the most surprising, I'm sure. There *was* a merchant, Richard Thompson) who lived at Harbour Island who was rumoured to be colluding with the local pirates (especially those operating out of HI rather than Nassau proper. His house would not have been anything like the one shown on the show. HI was even more of a backwater than Nassau, though it did have close ties with the Carolinas. That and the mention of him successfully bribing the Lords Proprietors were some of the biggest "lol-no" moments of the show for me. Also the sugar planter from the Carolinas....

Thompson was very locally prominent, and served as a Deputy Governor under Woodes Rogers. His daughter (name unknown) also ( married a pirate: )

I think I mentioned the first episode when I released it into the wild, but I have just (finally) posted the second episode of ficthropology! Four of us discuss Henry Jenkins's Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture for about and hour... Something to listen to while you're puttering about with your Christmas baking, perhaps?

If people have any advice on how to promote this kind of thing, I will happily take it, as well :)