Arachne Kallisti

Stolen from daphnie_1:

Ask me my Top Five Whatevers. Fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! Fandoms, ice cream flavours, cartoon moments, women in my fandoms, OTPs, ideal holiday destinations, goals for the future, celebrity crushes, books I wish would be made into movies, love songs. And I will answer them all in the comments.

Go on, you know you want to. Help keep my brain working on a very boring day.

I have just spent the morning in a meeting arguing about what activities best serve The Greater Good.

Yes.

My boss used that precise phrase.

If I can't get some WH40K fic out of this job, I'm just not trying.

It was early on in the 41st millennium that one of the darker secrets of the Adeptus Astartes first became known to the Inquistion. We had known, for some time, that certain Space Wolf initiates responded... badly to the genetic legacy of Leman Russ, becoming bloodthirsty mutants known as Wulfen.
The other, darker secret of the Space Wolves was kept hidden for millennia, until its ravages finally became too prominent to ignore.

Quite apart from its genetic component, the Canis Helix contains a memetic virus that rewrites important sections of its host's conceptual space. Specifically, it begins overwriting certain important concepts with "wolf".

The Wolf Virus might have stayed secret for millennia longer, were it not that its effects are progressive. What might have been passed off as a perfectly normal tendency to want to name everything after one's favourite animal gradually developed into the tendency to adopt names like Wolf Wolfborn of the Wolf and go into battle accompanied by wolves, riding a giant wolf, or, in extreme cases, with a rather surprised wolf strapped to each pauldron.

Matters came to a head when it became clear that certain Space Wolf veterans were in fact convinced that they were required to be armed with a bolter and chainwolf. Despite the most valiant attempts of their Iron Priests, fitting a chain to a large predatory animal proved to be not only difficult but not very effective in combat.*

We have become aware that Lord Grimnar, after seeking counsel from Commander Dante of the Blood Angels, has in fact opted to deal with this by establishing a Wolf Company for those afflicted (or as its longer-standing members refer to it, a "Wolf Wolf"). Rumours that Lord Grimnar required an interpreter during said talks are unsubstantiated.

It is absolutely imperative that the Inquisition refrain from detailed discussion of the Wolf Virus. Quite apart from the likely response of the Space Wolves**, the possibility has been mooted that the memetic nature of the Wolf Virus means that it can, in wolf, be communicated through verbal or wolf transmission of the very concept. If this is indeed the wolf, then this wolf may have devastating consequences for the Imperium of Wolf.



*It should, however, be noted, that a squad of chainwolf wielding Long Fangs routed the Tau army on Gethsemane IV within a matter of minutes. We are not yet certain as to whether their retreat can be attributed more to sheer confusion, or to pity for the condition of the wolves.
** The last Inquisitor to raise the issue was killed by Tau whilst attached to the Space Wolf presence on Gethsemane III. The Ordo Xenos is currently investigating claims by Commander Eirik Wolfsblood that the Tau now have such impressive firepower that they can shoot you in the back from a different planet.

"...beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella..."
- Comte de Lautréamont

I've always had a bit of a thing for Surrealism. A few years ago, ignisophis and I ran a LARP set on the borders of Dream, which took place in paintings which preserved the dreamscapes of a powerful dream sorceror, and all the characters were named after surrealist artists. I've been reading up on the Surrealists again recently, after being bitten by the desire to write a proper myth-arc for Dark Heresy - but more on that in another post, I don't want to spoiler my players before they get to the surreal goodness.

1. A series of Magritte-inspired poems by Mark Young. Not always successful, but generally interesting.
2. The story of Gef the Talking Mongoose. A particularly bizarre bit of Forteana.
3. A psychological study appears to suggest that surreal experiences improve your pattern recognition capabilities. Clearly you should all play in more of my games.
4. The Codex Seraphinianus is a bizarre surrealist encyclopaedia of an unreal world, written in an invented language that may in fact be utterly meaningless. It's remarkably difficult to get hold of a copy, as the previous printings have been limited in scope and it's extremely rare and valuable. As the_whybird mentioned, it almost has the vibe of an Unknown Armies artifact designed to trap bibliomancers - books are generally valued for the information they contain, but this book is incredibly valuable precisely because it contains no information whatsoever.

"Surrealist beauty is convulsive. That is, you feel it, you don't see it - it exists as an excitation of the nerves. The experience of the beautiful is, like the experience of desire, an abandonment to vertigo, yet the beautiful does not exist as such. What do exist are images or objects that are enigmatic, marvelously erotic – or juxtapositions of objects, or people, or ideas, that arbitrarily extend our notion of the connections it is possible to make. In a way, the beautiful is put at the service of liberty."
- Angela Carter, The Alchemy of the Word

1. The Guardian has a comprehensive guide to tactical voting if, like me, you trust Cameron's Tories as far as you could throw them.
2. Nick Clegg has gone on the record suggesting a possible LibDem/Tory coalition if Labour end up coming third. I'm sure that's actually a principled stance based on respecting the will of the electorate, and I'm sure Clegg thinks they could drag the Conservatives towards the middle ground. I just don't believe that's actually ever going to work.
3. Ben Goldacre appeals to us all to shore up Dr Evan Harris. Personally, I have a massive amount of respect for Dr Harris, and if I could vote for him, I would.
4. Newsnight's election anthems for the three main parties. Because sometimes you just have to laugh, else you'd decide it was time for the Guy Fawkes mask and the knives.

ETA: Charlie Brooker mocks the candidates' public personae mercilessly here. Go him.

A question I've been considering for some time: how do you write flawed heroes, anti-heroes and villain protagonists without sounding as if you endorse them? In particular, how do you write characters who hold opinions and values that are utterly appalling by contemporary standards?*

It's fine line. You don't want to present their opinions too uncritically, and you don't want to make excuses for them, but at the same time you don't want to patronise your audience by making all the characters you don't agree with into puppy-kicking caricatures.

I guess part of the question I'm asking here would be: is there anything you can do to prevent/minimise the Misaimed Fandom problem?

( Cut for spoilers for Watchmen, Life on Mars and Dollhouse )

*sparked off partially by wanting to write WH40K fic, and partly by this discussion here on "ironic" racism - I didn't want to hijack that discussion, so I've taken these issues over here.

It was a bit like eating a smoked salmon, asparagus, white truffle and champagne risotto made by someone who can't actually cook. All the ingredients were fantastic, but had been put together with only the haziest idea of in what proportions, in which order, and for how long. Still, if you prodded the sticky mess and picked off the charred bits, there were some delicious morsels in there.

( Autopsy of an Epic Mess: contains spoilers for both parts of the End of Time )

Anyway, this has kind of inspired me to go hunting fics for my favourite fascinatingly wrong Slashy Nemeses again, and here are some recs:
1. Chasing The Paradox - a lovely, twisty, timey-wimey Doctor/Master romance, kind of sweet and deeply disturbing at the same time.
2. Intoxication - Academy-era fic, in which Ushas has to cope with Koschei's attempts to seduce Theta Sigma crashing through her study whilst she is trying to revise. Fairly dark comedy, in which Koschei comes over distinctly stalkery, with some dubious consent issues.
3.The one where Koschei goes all BDSM on Theta's arse - Academy-era fic, as NSFW as you might imagine, all psychological and creepy with definite consent issues.
4.Bit of femmeslash for a change of pace - Rani/GLaDoS. It really does work.

Tropes of fanfic and pop culture as first spotted in classical literature:

1. The Mook - discovered by Livy (thanks to prochytes for pointing this one out, and setting me off on this train of thought): "I doubt not but that...to persons reading of so many wars waged with the Volscians, this same circumstance will suggest itself, which often served as an occasion of surprise to me when perusing the writers who lived nearer to the times of these occurrences, from what source the Volscians and Æquans, so often vanquished, could have procured supplies of soldiers." . The Volscians existed to attack en masse and have their arses kicked. Like ninjas, or orcs,or Imperial Guard.

2. Slash fic - possibly the first example would be Achilles/Patroclus, given that Homer never explicitly states they're a couple, but they act so much like one that everyone else has kept on writing them as one. prochytes also mentioned a play in which is was suggested that Heracles performed his Twelve Labours because he was in love with Eurystheus, but I'm having trouble tracking this one down.

3. The Deconstructor Fleet - Neon Genesis Evangelion did it to giant robot anime, Watchmen did it to superhero comics, and Euripides' Electra did it to the Oresteia. It's all answering the same question: just how badly screwed up would these people actually be, and would you want to run into any of them in real life?

Also there's the Take That in which Euripides takes a moment out from the plot in Electra to discuss how implausible the scene where Electra recognises Orestes as her long-lost brother is in Aeschylus' version.

Actually, Euripides comes over to me as clearly hating an awful lot of the tropes of Greek tragedy and wanting to produce works that really, really screwed around with them. There is a reason why I keep picturing Euripides as Warren Ellis in a tunic and sandals.

4. Fix-it Fic/Ret Con - Euripides again, in as close to fluffy mode as he can manage, specifically Helen. In which it is revealed that Paris ran off with an illusory Helen, and the real Helen has been languishing in Egypt, hence was never unfaithful to Menelaus and they can get back together and sail off into the sunset.

Can anyone think of any others?

The Digital Economy Bill got released yesterday (full text here), and it's not looking good. They've still got the "three strikes" disconnection policy, based on allegations by copyright holders rather than actual criminal proceedings, and there's also provisions for new measures and executive bodies to be created on the fly by the secretary of state. Because there's no way that can go wrong.

Anyway, if you want to get informed:
1. Cory Doctorow takes this about as well as you'd expect him to.
2. CNET are also not keen.
3. The Guardian points out how this legislation could be misused if, say, future governments want to suck up to Rupert Murdoch a bit more.
4. Apparently Mandelson is deeply worried that people are using cloud storage to distribute pirated materials, and so wants to remove the right to keep uploaded files private.

If this is doing to your blood pressure what it did to mine, you may want to
1. Send a strongly worded letter to your MP, if you have one.
2. Get involved with the Open Rights Group, and sign their photo petition.
3. Sign TalkTalk's anti-disconnection petition.
4. Join any of these Facebook groups: I won't vote for any MP who supports Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill, A fair say on copyright reform, or Don't Disconnect Us.
5. The Pirate Party UK are exactly the sort of seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time single issue party I tend to get sniffy about voting for, but they might be a useful place to go for copyright reform resources.

*Note: I don't think that trying to find some way to get creative types compensated for their output is a bloody silly thing**. I think it's entirely reasonable to want to be able to make a living off having good ideas. It's trying to pretend that digital copying is going to be made to go away rather than having to be addressed that's the bloody silly thing.

** By the way, points for spotting the reference.

How much do I hate C++? Enough that I started making macros again.

I blame all the TNG research I've been doing for Amaurot, and the fact that the_whybird is a bad influence on me.

Caps by Trekcore and captions by roflbot.

( ALL YOUR BORG ARE BELONG TO US - 16 macros under the cut. )