worryingly jolly batman

via ilyena_sylph.

Pick nine ships you are currently into and three ships you don't like and then answer questions about them.


1. Dean/Castiel
2. Sam/Castiel
3. Sam/Dean
4. Dairine/Carmela
5. Stefan/Elena/Damon
6. J2
7. Steph/Tim
8. Steph/Cass
9. Rory (GG)/Paris
10. Jo/Ellen
11. Bruce/Tim
12. Dairine/Roshaun
( questions )

1. Just FTR, this week's issue of Batgirl is epically funny, reminiscent to me of YJ and its slashy, sassy, pop culture loving ways. Overall I have been hugely, hugely impressed with this series. Bryan Q Miller really "gets" Steph and I have been charmed by the way he's kept the book light and funny, while simultaneously dealing with what are, to me, very serious issues for Steph: independence, adulthood, her worth as a crimefighter. I have always loved Steph, but he makes her tremendously appealing to people who aren't fans as well; her sincerity, her good cheer, her terrible jokes, her tendency to narrate her own life, her desire to be her own woman and her awareness of her own flaws - I really think this is the best writing Steph's had since before she became Robin. The first seven volumes of this run have just been collected into a trade, Batgirl Rising; give it a go!

2. Last vid meme post!

Day 19 - A movie vid you love
Sorry, did you say a meta vid I love?

Kill A Man by zimshan
Supernatural, gen/Wincesty overtones, spoilers through season 5, violence, use of screencaps and stills

( read more )

Day 20: A narrative vid you love
Hurricane by laurashapiro
Farscape/BSG, Starbuck/Aeryn Sun, two pilots walk into a bar, sex, little bit of violence

So everyone has seen this vid already, but if my some faint chance you haven't, RUN DON'T WALK.
( read more )

OKAY WOO ALL DONE LOOKIT THAT *twirls*

1. I had this big rant about how I started watching Supernatural again last week and how I kind of find the whole angel-demon-apocalypse thing weird/boring and yet I suddenly really like Castiel (which I really didn't back when I was last watching the show, beginning of S4) but it was kind of confusing and off-track and vaguely anti-Christian and also turned into a rant about how I just hate apocalypses so I deleted it and instead I think everyone should give me Dean/Castiel recs. I think this is the third time I've returned to this show, maybe the fourth, and I have to say I don't know why. There are better shows on TV. There are shows with actual women on them, which I happen to really enjoy. But w/e it sucked me in again.

2. Here's a profic rant that's been building up for awhile, probably since the Wellington book festival. I was not having a great week and didn't get to much, but I did get to the Margo Lanagan and Neil Gaiman panel about writing ~~Darker and Edgier~~ YA.

Anyone who's cracked a book lately is aware of a surging interest in young adult fiction. This is at least partly because the shit is really selling lately, and not just to teenagers: also to women of all ages (like me). One aspect of this is that the stuff that's really selling is fantasy; for awhile in there it was urban fantasy, now, of course, it's paranormal romance. It's worth noting at this point that I think some of the greatest fantasy being written at the moment is being written for teen audiences. Gaiman (Coraline, The Graveyard Book) and Lanagan (Black Juice and many other short story collections, Tender Morsels) are only two examples. However, they are certainly poster children for a particular style of writing and for a fairly significant crossover audience.

Naturally they were asked about this: writing for YA, the differences between writing for YA and writing for adults, writing graphic violence and/or sex, how has the crossover audience affected YA, etc. They both said basically the same thing: they don't think of themselves as writing YA books. They write the books with the protagonists they want to write and then their publishers decide and you know kids can read all kinds of stuff these days and blah blah blah they're way too cool to make marketing decisions, which is all, you know. Fine. It's fine. I understand what they're trying to say: they're trying to say that the children's and YA reading audience is sophisticated, can be much more sophisticated than they are given credit for. And this is true, particularly for children who are prolific readers. (I was going to get into a discussion here about the relationship between privilege, especially educational and financial, and being a "good"/"sophisticated"/voracious reader, but I think I'll talk about it another time so I'll just leave it there.)

But Neil Gaiman couldn't answer the question without taking five minutes to diss the problem novel, which he described in this way (paraphrased): "Back when I was a journalist I would come across YA/teen books for review and they were all these horrible things about your brother being a drug addict and becoming HIV positive and your stepfather beating you up and your girlfriend getting pregnant."

Now, Gneil is hardly the first author or book reviewer or editor to take a swipe at the problem novel (sometimes also described as an issue novel and not to be confused with the social problem novel), which is indeed a staple of the YA genre (and has been since, oh, The Catcher in the Rye). Wikipedia has a fairly nice definition and brief summary of attitudes to the problem novel which I will quote here:

Problem novel is a term used to refer to a sub-genre of young adult literature that deal exclusively with an adolescent's first confrontation with a social or personal ill. The term is rather loosely defined ... as dealing more with characters from lower-class families and their problems; being "grittier"; using more realistic language; and including dialects, profanity, and poor grammar when it fits the character and setting.

I would add to Wikipedia that problem novels are famously YA but are not exclusively so: they're just as common in picture books and middle-grade and intermediate novels.

Now, first off let me point out that the problem novel has a frankly illustrious history. To Kill A Mockingbird is a problem novel. So are The Outsiders, The Chocolate War, Maniac Magee. These are widely-acclaimed novels, and if you check the list of Newbery and Carnegie Medal winners, you will see problem novels cropping up often. (I think Tithe is a lot like a problem novel too, by the way. Francesca Lia Block has written a few.)

So there's no doubt that problem novels can be good. Those novels, their existence and their value, doesn't need to be justified. However, it has become increasingly clear to me that adult readers, writers, reviewers, don't understand and often don't appreciate the problem novel, the ones that don't win Newbery awards, and it's these people who are popularising crossover YA fiction and it's a real attitude problem.

Anne Fine (Goggle-Eyes, Madame Doubtfire, Flour Babies, Step by Wicked Step, Round Behind the Ice-house) has won the Carnegie medal multiple times. Jacqueline Wilson (The Illustrated Mum, The Suitcase Kid, Bad Girls, The Story of Tracey Beaker) has won the children's Whitbread several times. These are women who write prolific, straightforward problem novels, about divorce, adoption, stepfamilies, shoplifting, mental illness, death, bullying, romance (not all in the same book.) (Note: these are both Brits and I'm referring to them because I read a lot of both of them. Judy Blume would be a US analogue.) But I do not think they are understood and they have no crossover audience of which I'm aware. And this is because - and I think this is crucial - they aren't writing for adults. They aren't writing ~the books that come to them~ and then letting their publisher pick who to market it to depending on what's hot. They are writing books for children and young adults about issues that are of vital and pressing concern for actual children and actual young adults. And these are the writers that are being dissed when we diss problem novels.

They made a movie of one of Anne Fine's books, Madame Doubtfire. Maybe you saw it, it had Robin Williams in it and it was pitched as a family film. But in order to make it as an American, Hollywood movie, they had to cast - well - Robin Williams. They had to change the protagonists from the children to the adults. Because Madame Doubtfire is profoundly a book about children. I have no doubt that it would not have sold well as a family film, because they have to be sold to adults as entertainment for adults. And I think this is a signal of why I find all this talk about crossover audiences and fiction for all ages and blah de blah upsetting.

Sure - we can sit around slagging off Go Ask Alice til we're blue in the face (and I think GAA is problematic because it's a bit of a cautionary tale, but w/e). But problem novels are profoundly not for us. They're for children and middleschoolers and young adults who, actually, do want and sometimes need to read about someone whose brother is a drug addict and whose girlfriend is pregnant. They can be crucial for teens in crises and for helping teens not be in crises and "at-risk" teens and children. Slagging them off is, to me, part of a process of co-opting the young adult market for 23-year-old women like me and I don't want a bar of it. Stop doing it, everyone.

Little bit o'links:
Justine Larbalestier on problem novels, great suggestion in the comments about differentiating between "problem novels" and "lecture novels"
A whole blog about problem novels, although - hahahaha - their 2007 intro post refers to the "new trend" of problem novels.
Diversity Roll-Call: Problem Novels, which includes the cover to the problem novel (actually a short story collection) that might have been most important to me personally, Am I Blue?
Problem novel recs at The Englishist.

Cross-posted with comments enabled to http://labellementeuse.livejournal.com/324225.html. There may be further discussion in comments there.

Last week was hideous and horrible and I'm glad it is over, over, over. I handed in three assignments, one on thursday and two on friday - the thursday was beyond awful but I was very pleased with both the friday assignments so it evens out, kinda.

( went out last night )

Have had a very silly and unproductive day today, since it's pretty much the last day for a couple weeks I can afford to just do nothing. I re-read Neal Stephenson's Zodiac and a shitload of fanfiction, ( including )

So perhaps I wasn't productive today, but it was pleasant, except I went down to get a video out and ended up with some of the fifth season of The West Wing - see, I read a good Sam and Josh-centric WW fic today and I was like, oh... I should finish watching that show. But I got it out and started watching and realised that a) I had already seen half of the episodes, on account of how I stopped partway through the fifth season; b) the reason I stopped watching was because Sam wasn't in it anymore and it was just kind of tired; c) Sam still isn't in it.

So that was lame, and now I'm probably going to go watch some Supernatural that I've seen eight thousand times already. SIGH. Life hard.

So spn_appreciate's challenge for today is "rec three authors/vidders/artists who you've never recced before", which of course for me is like... I don't know. Very, ridiculously, pointlessly easy, since I rec sporadically or not at all - and not, may I add, with any kind of consistency whatsoever. So, I could & should do the whole go out and find a new and exciting author and rec them, but I'm very tired and I have to do two challenges tonight so instead I'll rec a bunch of series and WIPs that I read regularly or things I've read very recently.

rei_c's Five Districts, Five Drugs series. Sam/OCs, Sam/Dean
I just found this series and it's probably been recced non-stop, but I don't really keep up with rec lists so. If you do try this set aside a lot of time to read it. It's a series of five multi-chaptered fics - about five long chapters per fic except for the final part, which is ten chapters. They all go AU from the first season, and the premise for each is that Dean comes looking for Sam as in the Pilot but finds him not at Stanford but with different lives in a different part of the city. While they're mostly dark (the degree varies) they do also have mostly happy endings, which I personally prefer. Warnings for drug use, incest (obvs), and most of them also have a horror warning plus some bonus extra cautionary notes. I normally find this kind of oppressive darkness unrewarding but I really enjoyed these very much.

indysaur's Everybody Experiments in College, RPS AU, Jared/Jensen (link to part Six which links to preceding chapters. A note: this is still a WIP but should be finishing up in the next part in a few days.)
Um... Jared/Jensen. College AU. It's fun, it doesn't overthink itself, does exactly what it says on the packaging and I am really enjoying it. I believe it's also the author's first fic in this fandom? So real fun.

'Most everything by conquest! Particularly:
the Miracles and Saints universe, which is Dean/Michael (the older brother from "Something Wicked"? Er, I should add, it's futurefic). This started off as a multi-chaptered futurefic about Michael and evolved into an entire universe and, well, I'm fond. (I should note: many of these stories also contain Dean/Sam or implied Dean/Sam.)
I also like Counting Games, which is a series of Dean/Robert Chase, you know, from House? Bear with the idea because it's awesome. Also, when I say series, each is pretty much complete in itself, it's not a WIP.
Aaaaand a standalone for those of you who don't like the hot manlove: Back to the Beginning, Dean/Jo, R. Not hugely happy but excellent. It's post-Born Under a Bad Sign, and is probably my favourite fic dealing with the whole "I'll call" business.

And speaking of Dean/Jo: a week or so ago I read 602 by abrupte (Dean/Jo, R) and enjoyed it very much. I was particularly impressed with the way it dealt with Dean/Jo in the sense I believe that Dean is not going to be in love with Jo anytime soon, even if they were having sex. And I think 602 really dealt with that in a way I liked very much.

And why not carry on with a Dean/Jo theme: But the Engine Doesn't Turn by elohvee. WARNING FOR CHARACTER DEATH and implied Sam/Dean. But I still enjoyed it, and I fucking HATE character death, so there you go.

Aaaaand since I'm talking about Jo and I've covered slash and het: Pit Stop by valiant, NC-17, Jo/Jess, AU (obviously). Not much to say about this one, basically a pornlet, but it is SMOKIN' and I love fslash in this fandom, which - unlike most fslash, I find - tends to maintain its gritty tone.

Whew, I sure got through that pretty damn quick. \o/ I should do that more often! Um, yay, go read, etc.

Also, your thought for the day is: Charisma Carpenter. Cordelia (Chase). Kendall Casablancas.
... wouldn't you get sick of the [k] phoneme?

ETA: oh yeah, will eventually answer comments on last two posts, but THANKS to those of you who commented, you're excellent and A++ helpful.

1. Stupidly excited by Sam and Dean on the cover of the Dom Post's TV Week. I can't wait to watch the pilot on actual television. *silly*

2. theyworkforyou.co.nz.

3. John Key gave his first big speech today - his Orewa, I guess you'd say. I know he's actually forgoing the Orewa speech (Winston Peters will be speaking instead), presumably to avoid recalling Orewa '04. The transcript is here, and I just want to tell you all that I told you so. Oh yeah, he's all about his tough upbringing, and how everyone can take advantage of opportunity, and it doesn't matter how much money your parents have if you can just see the ladder and make your way up it. (What a metaphor, honestly.)

There are in the middle of the speech some fairly dramatic surprised that I am reluctant to admit impressed me. He acknowledged (or appeared to acknowledge) the fact that poverty and crime and blah blah are cyclical and that not everyone can get out of these neighbourhoods. (The speech was all about bad neighborhoods and New Zealand's "emerging underclass", which is terribly interesting because National is not exactly historically the party of the poor. Everyone wants good health and public education systems. These come with taxes. Left wing parties say, okay, we'll take the taxes; right wing parties say, hey, we'll take the tax cuts and pay for them ourselves. Except that the less money you have, the smaller your tax cut is, the less it helps you out, and the less likely you are to be able to pay for expensive private education and medical care, which you have to go to because the tax cuts meant there wasn't enough money to maintain high standards in this area. Oh, diversion.) He talked a bit about engrained helplessness and youth suicide (sort of) and it's actually very exciting to see someone mention youth suicide.

But the third section is basically unsurprising and frustrating, a lot of things about how throwing money at the problems won't fix them, smaller government, family dysfunction has flourished under Labour (he "proves" this by pointing to the Kahui family, who were receiving about a thousand dollars per week all up from the government. I don't know how many people were receiving some of this money and he didn't bother to explain what they were getting it for, but seriously. One hot-button example does NOT demonstrate that family dysfunction has flourished. Anecdotal evidence is only worth the paper it's not written on.) He was quite explicit about being tough on parole (Graeme Burton is a gift to his policy making. I'm only surprised he didn't bring up Jayden Headley since he's name-checking horrifying high-profile news stories...) and obviously anti "the rights of criminals" which, more on that later. He also spent a lot of time on welfare dependency which just makes me want to say ARGH. yes, there are people who are welfare dependent - but - right now we have the lowest unemployment ever and 67% of npeople on the dole are only on it short term - ie less than six months. NOBODY is acknowledging this.

The fourth section is just bizarre - apparently, the way to solve problems like kids coming to school without lunches is to encourage philanthropism in local businesses. Um, okay, then. Good luck with that, Mr Key. You may be happy giving away some of your millions but the whole thing about tax cuts doesn't come about because your core voters are real generous types. (Although I guess they like to *think* of themselves as generous, as long as they're being generous to hungry kids and not criminals, or sick people, or disabled people, or teenaged mothers. Or roads. Or schools that aren't in their classy neighbourhood.)

4. There was a very interesting article on the difference between NZ and Scandinavian prisons in the Dom Post today. It's not online as far as I can see but read it if you get a chance; basically it was about the fact that Scandinavia acknowledges that simply being in prison is a significant punishment and works to make sure that its prisoners don't suffer unnecessarily in prison. And let's all remember what Scandinavia's crime rates are. (They're low.) Ironically on Sunday there was a big cover of the news paper - Bailey Junior Kurariki has been denied parole at 17 for his part in killing a pizza delivery boy when he was 12. Parole Board basically said he was a very high risk of reoffending, that he had not matured in prison and showed no sign of remorse. Wow, guys, that's a huge shock. You took a 12 year old (who was obviously pretty screwed up to begin with), chucked him in prison, and five years later he's probably a worse danger to society than he was before he was convicted. Who could have predicted this outcome?

I know that when I say this,
I may be stepping on pins and needles;
But I don't like all these people
slagging her for breaking up the Beatles.
(Don't blame it on Yokey!)

-- Barenaked Ladies, Be My Yoko Ono

THE END.

( oh no, apparently I do have more to complain about )

( SPN 2x02: Everyone Loves a Clown )

In a slightly related matter: boy, am I tired of seeing eighteen year old characters get labelled as "barely legal" and people complaining about how characters that look seventeen or eighteen are "jailbait." Okay, yes, I am aware that technically in the USA eighteen is barely legal but... come on, folks. Is there anyone who believes that the larger part of teenagers over the age of sixteen aren't capable of getting it on fairly responsibly? Bah, I don't articulate this very well, but every time I see eighteen year olds having sex labelled as "barely legal" or seventeen year olds being "underage" I just go "bzuh." A label like that predisposes me to think in a certain way about the maturity and behaviour of the people in question and many of them are ways that just don't apply to seventeen year olds.

( okay, a bit more )