Cam's Corner of the World

So, there's this secret over at f!S (direct link) and this date rape joke in a movie and I get strong urges to rub my temples. But instead I'll go on a minor rant about consent.

( What consent is and what it isn't )

/rant over

In brighter news, I guess everyone and their grandmother has seen Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent, right? (Over 20 million YouTube hits, so I guess so!) I knew in advance she'd be good when I looked at the clip, but damn. The Telegraph has some more on her. Given her lifestory, I can't help but wish her well. Be awesome!

CSI had awesome murder-at-Sci-Fi-convention episode - first one I've watched since Grissom left. And I enjoyed it heaps. Some BSG people in it as well, including Ron Moore going "you suck!" at someone wanting to 'reimagine' an old SciFi show. Hee. But man, didn't quite feel like the CSI I used to watch, with no Grissom, no Warrick and no Sara. I guess that's why it takes a special episode to get me watching these days. Oh, CSI as you once were to me, I miss you.

I miss mah BSG too :( I wish I could take over the world and order it to come back and be awesome. Shut up, I can be delusional.

In other news:
- Actual snakes on a plane!
- Booted Illinois governor to become reality star? Um, yeah.
- BNP claims Jesus would have supported them. Um, no.
- Norwegian officer killed in Afghanistan.
- Pirate Bay founders found guilty.
- Scottish police have eight Jedi officers. Hee.

Whut, I have 195 icon spaces now. Not sure if I should curse or thank LJ. Of course I went peeking around some icon communities to see if I could find some to fill the space up with shiny Narnia ones, mmm, and thus ran into one of my pet peeves.

Friendslocked icon entries. Actually, any sort of entry posted to a community or newsletter with a fake LJ-cut that leads to a flocked post makes me grit my teeth. Yeah, it's your LJ whatever you choose to lock is none of my business. But if you want to promote in public, have it available for the public, ffs. (I remember I had an issue with a Who newsletter comm for that reason some time back.)

I do sympathize with the annoyances of icon thievery and trolls, but demanding people friend you just because there might be one of 100 icons you posted they like or they have an opinion to share in a discussion you have actually promoted in public or they might want to read a fic you posted a teaser for? I find that a bit uncool. Doubly when it's not even warned in advance it is a flocked post.

Then again, maybe I'm just grumpy.

Totally love icons for Christmas, though. Now I have space for them even. Mmm. Shiny icons.

Now, I've seen the 'list your top ten ships' meme go around, but I'd thought I'd do a slightly different one. So here goes, ten lessons about love I've learned from fictional couples/friends/families. And because love isn't just romantic love, not all my examples are either.

( Images, mush and my ten picks behind LJ-cut for the sake of your flist )

And since we're on the topic of love anyway:
The Fandom Appreciation Meme: My Thread

Link me to yours if you have one as well.

*waves* I live! Sorry if I got any of you worried - bad cold did get quite bad, but I am much improved now and even back to work. Which NSB rewarded me for by cancelling my morning train. In the rain. Bite me, NSB. (Yes, I know it wasn't your fault this time. Bite me anyway.)

And how are all you smashing people?

An interesting article on the legality of fanfiction, by a copyright lawyer.

Pretty good - and looks beyond the US, too.

Cast news for CSI that could be rather omnious.

That's bound to cause some wank too.

In them other fandom news, JumpCon looks pretty dead in the water. With these news and these and these, it sure doesn't look good. Owie. Wasn't there just that FedCon disaster too?

Watch yer money, people.

Have almost finished my Adama/Roslin gift exchange fic and feeling good about it. Will be my longest A/R fic so far. Yay? I would however like a volunteer to read and tell me if the format works - no beta work or proofreading or any such required, just an honest opinion on whether the fic works as a whole.

Now to catch up on life, work and the online...

In other news:
- Belgium's PM resigns over continued division in the country.
- Italian officials found guilty over G8 protests in Genova.
- An attraction in Swedish amusement park Liseberg collapses, injuring over 20. (Among them five Norwegians.)
- Murder rate in Norway plummets.
- Norwegians should complain more, thinks researcher.

- Doctor Who fandom managed to make fandom_wank over something other than shipping or sexuality. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

- Made of fail: riversongfails. Because what Doctor Who fandom needs is character-hate comms. For sure. Though I suppose it's a bit better than actor-hate comms, as we had with Freema in the beginning. Interfering with the OTP is a capital crime, clearly. Laaaame.

- MUST. STOP. READING. SPOILERS. Except I tell myself reading Doctor Who spoilers help me know what to prepare for when modding T&C during the finale. Yeah, that's it.

- Speaking of spoilers, want some for BSG. I'm having severe Battlstar Galactica withdrawl. Woe, new fandom crushes always bring the heartache too. WHY YOU LEAVE ME SHOW. WHY.

- How cute is this BSG story? So Mary comes on the phone giggling, introduces herself and then APOLOGIZES for messing with my interview. Apparently she, Edward and other members of the BSG gang were driving around a Kamloops neighbourhood, lost. Did I mention that Mary was trying to lead them home?! The BSG gang lost in British Columbia, hee. And apparently Mary calls EJO "The Ed". Aww.

- Brother, coming into my bedroom after watching half the BSG mini-series: So when they had this whole beginning about Cylons rebelling against humans and coming back, I thought I'd get to see some human superiority at war and general 'yay, humanity!'
Me: ... (Laughing) Yeah, not so much. It's a bit more 'oh dear, humanity'.

- The GSR wank hasn't quite died in CSI fandom yet, I see.

- I think CSI and Doctor Who fandom together has made me seriously twitch whenever someone wants to get into a ship versus ship debate or even tease me about what I ship. (Those I still care about, anyway.) It's like I have Post Traumatic Ship-Wank Disorder.

- Am I the only one that saves a lot of fandom icons I'll never use on my LJ just to look at them from time to time? Seriously, I have a folder for my icon ogling needs. I am weird, y/y?

Anything exciting fannish I missed?

Work tomorrow, then a week off. Wheee. Now, dinner and Spain versus Russia. I think I'm cheering Russia. Or rather, whoever is most awesome today. Bring it on, football!

I'm sorry BBC, but when you headline a story with "Great tits cope well with warming", I wasn't actually expecting a story about birds. I realise this is because I have a pervy mind and you possibly don't, but come on! There's no need to encourage me. (Also, I don't think the reason it's the 4th most read on the BBC website at the moment is because it's about birds, if you get me.)

In various fandom notes:
- I am so glad I'm not doing the episode reaction post for The Doctor's Daughter, or Wankbait As We Know It (as I like to call it). Granted, I might have to do one for the last few episodes of the season, but I'll wah about that in good time. If there's not at least one blow-up before the season's done, I'll be surprised.
- Spotted at dune_drd: Doctor Who done in the style of Battlestar Galactica's opening. It works strangely well! And fuels further my Doctor Who/BSG crossover idea, yes.
- BSG spoilers of previous mention have gone buhbye. Proof they were real or proof they were bogus? Either way, I want new episodes. Lots. Now. I have zilch patience and I like to know how it ends. I even peek at the end page of books quite often before I'm even midway. Why am I addicted to shows that do mean things and are still running? Woe.
- falena84 sent me package with BSG artwork! I made a remark about wanting an icon with Roslin/Adama and "in bed with the military" for various me-reasons, and she'd drawn me that. Aww. I have the best friends. Also, there was Berlusconi book, but luckily not with fanart of him attached.
- CSI shippers seem to be sad. Nick/Sara lot are having talks with Nick/Greg shippers about the horrors of Nick getting a girlfriend and how to protest to TPTB. Catherine/Warrick fans are just depressed. GSR shippers are a bit upset someone called the kiss disgusting. Shipping - breaks your heart like a breaking thing, y/n?
- I had another one of my 'have stories ideas at night, get up to scribble down before I forget' thing last night. Only now I wonder what the hell my scribbles mean. 'Waiting for dawn on the last night before the first year there' - whut?

In life:

- I has teh dumb and have agreed to run for the firm's relay team in the Holmenkollen Relay. It's a sort of big thing in Norway. My part is over 1 kilometre. Sigh. Many of those not running are coming to cheer us, though, and we're going out to get pissedeat afterwards, so that should be fun. I actually like most people I work with. Huzzah. And we even got t-shirts and hoddies with company logo on to run in. How very almost professional-ish.
- Monday is public holiday in Norway. Whee.
- The weather is currently so nice it's dreamy. When Norway does May, it does May good.
- So, Norway's Christian party is not-okay with homosexuality, but transsexuals they want to support? Ooohkay.

What do you got on?

I made my first World of Warcraft filter post, so if you want in and haven't said previously, now's a good time.

In that real life thing:

Norway got hit by storm 'Tuva' at the end of last week - hurricane-strength wind and rain/snow. joy. I got caught in a bit of an afterthrow on Friday, and had sideways snow-as-wet-as-rain plummet me sideways. Was cold all weekend. Fuuuun. This winter? Made of fail. Please to be fixing.

American election process is wearing me down. I mean, this is just to elect each of the candidates - the preidential election campaign itself will go bananas later. Argh. CamDad is also all excited - not because he cares about either of the candidates, oh no. They're all on a fairly even plateau of dislike. Dad just likes the numbers - statistics, votes, failed prognosis, precentages, break-downs... He's going to have fun and leave me excited text messages. I am going to raid Fanthom-lord Karathass and slaughter things.

Britney Spears and Heath Ledger coverage is also wearing me down. Entertainment Tonight airs on one Norwegian channel and even zapping by it makes me feel strong amounts of rage. Seriously, am I the only one to find it completely vulture-like and want to smack the hosts with fish assortments? Even their fake!sympathy is so bad I want them to take acting schools. Please to be stopping.

Then again, the rest of the media is probably as bad. Gah.

I have gotten addicted to watching Mastercheef goes large when I get home from work, as it is on just when I get home and is nice to relax to and also stirs appetite for dinner. Mmmm. Masterfood.

In that fandom thing:

I am a sheep - feedback meme. Bææ.

Am I the only one to find it a bit dodgy to announce a challenge in a comm but requiring interested to leave their e-mails and only give it out there? ... Probably I have too sad and cynical a mind, but that just makes me wonder if the challenge contains something that is a no-no on the comm.

Writer's strike leads to less wank in fandom's affected by it, Y/N?

This list of ships in CSI fandom has some explanations that crack me up.
Warrick and Sofia: Blue eyes/green eyes. Could be interesting.
Sofia and Calleigh: Let's jump ship, and fly the butterfly to the princess.
Henry and Mandy: The wonderfully new Handy! "I'll marry you!"
Catherine and Horatio: They met in Miami.
... Oh CSI fandom, you give me much funny.

Posting an icon with Rose and the text "You've been shipping Doctor/Martha since I've been gone" cool/uncool? Hmmm. (Of course, my immidiate temptation would be to have it go "Yeah, for sure! Wanna join?" and then they lived OT3-ly ever after. But that's just me.)

And how are your things?

If you want a Christmas card or are on my gift exchange and haven't given me your address yet, please leave it here. I'll be doing cards and packages this week and the next, as would rather avoid last minute stress. (phdelicious, your moose will probably be sent at the same time - sorry it's taking so long.)

Been sick whole weekend and am still, but so many people are sick at work I have to work extra nevertheless. Wah, whine, wail etc.

So, I have to watch the CiN special and catch up on CSI stuff. On the latter, just from poking in at TalkCSI, I can tell reactions to the recent episode were plenty:

- GSR fans are unhappy CGR fans are happy...
- ... which makes CGR fans unhappy...
- Meanwhile, "george and jorja!! GET TOGETHER AND LMAKE NICKA ND SARA GET TOGETHER!!" says a Nick/Sara fan. Are we going to have to go through the whole "actors? NOT the characters they portray" again?

Ze wank never dies.

I'm too tired to look up Doctor Who blah and also I think I've lost track of all the grudges now and will probably just get confused. But I have decided having a ship is like being a football fan. You do adore your team, but you also have to live with sharing it with other fans you might not like - streakers, hooligans, people you just dislike, the annoying shouter in the front row, the guy always booing the referee, the neighbour always singing along to those embarassing football songs. But there's also friends and joy and excitement and hot men and feeling of togetherness. There's a lot of love in being a football fan. There's also some annoyances and getting lumped in behaviour you might not agree with, which is never fun, but there you are.

In other stuff:

- My AU!John Smith/AU!Rose thing (probable title Normality in November) is almost done. Will need a beta. Anyone willing to do it? It's not a long epic, but a bit longer than some of my usual treats.
- Will probably also need beta for Here be Ghosts, a CSI fic.
- Norwegian townships drawn into dodgy American economics. Geez.
- See Hillary Clinton went after "sovereign wealth funds". Hai. W R teh kingdom of Norway, owning ur economy. Heh. (Biggest fund of its kind in the world. One day to be the biggest fund of all.) Though I agree on visibility and accountability in investment funds. And ethic guidelines, though Hillary might not be with me on that.
- Christmas tree shortage in Europe.. Ooooh dear.
- Massive strikes in France. Being a social democrat, I'm usually found in the favour of the striking, though I have to admit it gets a bit too much at once sometimes. Yowza.
- If you're missing your show meanwhile, and wondering what all the writers are striking on about, see here.
- British shows do well at the Emmy Awards. Go UK.
- Norway's football team sucks and breaks my heart. Woe. It hurts to be a football fan sometimes.
- Top Gear's episode on roadtrip in the US last night on Norwegian telly made me laugh so hard I cried. I don't even fancy cars that much, but Top Gear? Made of win.
- Does Islam have a sense of humour?
- Many exciting adventures in Zul'Aman are being had. Huzzah.

Tell me something new?

So, got some new people on my flist again - Hi! - so I thought I'd write a bit about (some of) the stuff I'm interested in, why I'm interested, things that tend to annoy me, blah blah random stuff.

( Doctor Who, CSI, Lord of the Rings, football, World of Warcraft, politics, books )

That make you any wiser? In any case, feel free to ask if you are wondering about something.

Fic to-do list:
- "Anywhere but Cardiff" ficathon entry, Ten/Rose.
- brass_love ficathon entry, Brass has adventures in Norway.
- Five Times Rose Suspected and One Time She Knew, Nine/Rose Ten/Rose.
- Symptons of Life, GSR post-Living Doll.
- Consider whether to pick up An Adventure in Norway again.

It's a good thing I will probably have September off, I'm thinking. If I can get myself to write and not play lots of WoW instead, that is. *reminds self to kick self*

Snagged from my flist:
Writer's Meme: Sometimes it's ok to pimp yourself out. Post a list of your top five fics favorite you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.

( Five fics of mine )

Spread the love?

Meanwhile, this is an interesting look on Bush's latest 'Vietnam could have been won, like Iraq will be' line.

Dear Bush,
Even if I sort of vaguely agree that an American pull-out now will probably not help Iraq much at all (gone far too messy for that to be a simple solution), please LEARN HISTORY before you try to decide what the lessons of it are. Particulary if you're trying to preach these lessons to us. Kay?

Loveless deep loathing,
Cam

In other news:
Belgian police with more money than they can spend.
Propaganda games for children from WWII. (Amusing fact I didn't know: The invasion of Norway cut Britain off from supplies of playing card board, exacerbating the shortage of raw materials for making games. Oh dear.)
Denmark might stake claim on the North Pole. (Greenland was a Norwegian colony originally - but it would be quite interesting if they became independent, like Iceland did.)
Bolivian congress gets violent.
The Abu Ghraib whistleblower.
Study on sex among older people.
Texas carries out its 400th execution. (And also tells the EU to piss off.)

Good Odin, how dumb are you after having been caught plagiarising more than twice, you go and do it AGAIN?!

Impressive stupidity - or dedicated trolling. *pats poor CSI fandom*

So, having slept through a slight Rose versus Martha ladida in Doctor Who fandom, my question to fandom is this - Does it really bother you to have a fic with both Doctor/Rose and Doctor/Martha in? Speak now or forever hold your whinebreath.

Yeah, I feel like writing it sometimes and I'm curious about how others feel. I like both, I think, though not necessarily for the same reasons. But liking the one doesn't stop me liking the other. Maybe I'm just greedy. Probably, yeah. Give me my ships, for I want pornfic. Or something.

But sometimes I think part of my attraction to what characters I like and not like is a lot in what I can do with them in writing, not always what's in the show. Does that make sense? Even when I'm not writing, I spend a lot of time thinking about writing and maybe I've conditition my brain.

So I like Rose, because there's a lot of things I can write about Rose. I like Martha, because there are a lot of different things I can write about Martha. I like the Doctor, because he gives me a headache trying to think like an alien. Bastard. And I like ships, because writing those lets me fiddle with ideas of sex, love, power dynamics, characterisation, hurt, rejection, ideals, fantasies and a whole range of other issues. And also there can be porn.

It's not all about writing, of course, because there's a lot I could use Jack to explore (and ship with!) and still I don't. I can't really seem to like him - not that I dislike him either. He's tennis. He isn't golf, because golf makes me want to throw the balls at the people playing it. He isn't football, because football I will arrange my life around at times. He's tennis. I will watch tennis if there's nothing else whatsoever to do and maybe if someone bribed me, but I'll look very bored while at it. Eh, tennis.

That possibly makes Doctor/Rose biathlon and Doctor/Martha athletics, both of which I watch and enjoy but are quite different sports. (Nothing is football. Football is too awesome to be anything but football.) Grissom/Sara is handball, which I enjoyed playing but not so much watching. (Yeah, I like writing it more than watching it. Hmm.) And so I could probably go on and I better not, because it's confused enough as it is.

But the thing is, it's very hard to put sports up against each other because they vary in what skill they require, what their focus is and how they play out. And that's often how I feel about ships.

Is my reasoning here making sense to anyone, or am I just weird in how I approach my shipping and likes? And you got any ships that are like sports?

*continues writing Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Martha to be contrary*

A question, those ship-inclined - do you ship mainly on basis of what you think the characters want or what you think the characters need?*

( ...If you go with what you think a character needs, do you ship a little differently than if you ship by what you think the character wants/you want? Blah blah pondering on shipping... )

So can what approach to shipping you have lead to differences in fandom, maybe even potential conflicts? What do you think? Obviously, other factors can also play into who you ship - eyecandy-factor, lack-of-alternatives, friends-ship-it, fanfic and what-not. (And mustn't forget trusty I-just-want-porn-any-porn-dammit.) How would you define yourself? Opinions, thoughts, arguments, porn, hit me with it.******

***** Yeah, I'm trying to understand why shipping can lead to such wanky wars and violent vendettas again. You know, apart from the fact that people will always dislike other people. There's always some hate, it just needs a reason. Shipping might be a convenient cause that isn't oh Odin, I just loathe you, you oozing fungus of repulsiveness WHY ARE YOU IN MY FANDOM STAB STABBITY BEHEAD.

Meanwhile, Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Martha, Doctor/Rose/Martha, CSI Fic of Many Ships pornfic previews here. In the interest of fairness.