tumbl-fail

Sep. 17th, 2016 09:08 am
penfold_x: (district 3)
I've tried three times. Is it the seizure-inducing gifs? The inability to track conversations? I don't know, but my fanosaur brain just can't.

I know Tumblr is wear it's at, and am glad that many of you are having a good time there and want you to continue. I would love, though, if you're writing something or otherwise arting, an LJ post just linking to your Tumbl-fun.
penfold_x: (home (angel trio))
Over the past six months, on three separate occasions, I've dreamed of an alternate universe in which Angel ended differently.

Not a universe in which the show was real but rather, a universe in which Wheadon/rightsholders made an Angel film for theatrical release (similar to Serenity) after the end of the series. In the first dream, I had to move heaven and earth to get out of work on time to see the first showing, which was ridiculously crowded (apparently, the film was a hit). Because it's my subconscious, Wesley was pretty instantly resurrected, and the fang gang went on to battle evil in an appropriately cinematic fashion.

In the second dream, there was a follow-on made-for-tv movie in which a few of the regular cast members were replaced by other actors. In both cases, I can't remember anything of the plot; my angst in the first dream was more about trying to find a theatre that had room for me. The third dream--last night--was all about my overwhelming need to understand why Alexis Denisof wasn't included made-for-tv movie. Was it scheduling? Illness? I needed to know. My dream-self haunted Google and pelted [livejournal.com profile] gimmelgirl with questions.

I have zero idea why my brain keeps returning to Angel. I haven't thought about the series in a while, and it's been more than five years since I pursued fanworks or re-watched episodes. Generally, I think of dreams as the tumblr of recent thoughts; prior to sleeping last night, my brain was focused on 1) linguistics and the transition from Middle English to Modern English; 2) Divergence!Claudius and Eibhlin, and 3) Netflix's terrible collection of apocalypse movies. Where does this weird alternate universe come from? Why does it keep returning?

penfold_x: (district 3)
This question is closely related to the geography of Panem, but unfortunately, we don't get as many clues to base speculation on, especially if you define canon narrowly. We know from the first chapter of The Hunger Games that there are about eight thousand people in District Twelve. Katniss tells us that the Capitol is a city, and speaks about Eleven being a large district, speaking in front of crowds, etc., but doesn't provide any other numbers. In chapter 15 of Mockingjay, Beetee says he's been 'playing with numbers' and believes death toll of the rebellion may put Panem in danger of killing themselves off. While that's not as helpful as an actual number, I think it implies that the total population of Panem is near to a threshold of a human version of minimum viable population, or at least, a minimum viable population for maintaining Panem's current level of technology (since there's a significant difference in the number of humans required to maintain a basic, subsistence farming-based society and what we think of as a 'modern' society).

click for speculation )
penfold_x: (nerd (wesley))
I recently read Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I've been searching for a while for a way to improve my habitat, so that my space is relaxing, joyful and pleasant. Kondo seems to get exactly that concept, and her position on organizing is forget finding new and more elaborate ways to store--radically pare down what you have, so that it is much easier to store in your space.

I think that she's right. I'm surrounded by entirely too much stuff (a problem I've been failing to deal with for a while now). I started with clothes, as she recommends (pictures and details to come), and that was difficult but not impossible, and I saw a lot of benefits (oh my goodness, I want to tell you about my sock drawer!).

The next category she recommends you organize (yes, there's an order of categories, and then orders within categories) is books. I've got a lot of books and magazines; I'm a news junkie and one of my hobbies is politics and sociology. There's also the obvious cross-over with fannish stuff: book series, tie-ins for movies and television series, comics and graphic novels, and fanzines. I'm not going to even try to deal with fannishly produced books and manga while working the 'books' category; for me, I think they fall mostly in the hobbies category, which would normally be dealt with later in the process.

Even though I can make the space, I don't want to keep everything. My free time is a precious commodity, and I think I should be realistic about what I'd be likely to re-read (or read for the first time). But even with that knowledge, it's hard to cut down what I have, and I'd appreciate feedback/ideas. What general level should I be using to cut down to? Does it matter that reading so closely aligns with my other hobbies/interests?

My books fall roughly into the following categories:

* Textbooks: law, politics, psychology, history, French. I'm thinking toss the law books, as they're not useful for re-study (because of the way law is taught, wherein cases are presented for discussion rather than presentation of rules/principles). For a practitioner, they're useless. Hornbooks and nutshells are more useful, but I've tossed those as they've aged (because the ones I was using were becoming OBE). I'm also inclined to toss the politics textbooks, as they're all from the mid-nineties and none of them are classics in the field (someone's incorrect guess about what they post-cold war world would look like isn't really worth saving, right?). The history books aren't particularly good either, and I think I can find anything I need on the Internet. The French I'm keeping because I have used them a few times since graduating, and I plan to use them again to brush up before any travels to French-speaking countries. The psychology are a hard spot: what if I want to look up information on child development, abnormal psych, etc, for a fanfic? I haven't really used them post-undergrad, but I can't shake the feeling that I might.

* Professional materials: law journals, books/pamphlets/briefs published as a part of prior jobs, papers published by others in my specialty. The law journals... I'm not sure why I saved them, except that I guess when I finished school that's what I thought lawyers did. Some of the recent ones I might find an article or two of interest in, but the others... If I haven't read them now, I'm not going to pick them up in my free time now. And if I really need an article from a journal from fifteen years ago, I've got my Westlaw account. Briefs, articles, and other materials I authored however... I think those need to be archived some where. Most of it I'm not going to use as a writing sample, but I do want copies of things that I wrote, and for me most of that doesn't live digitally. There's also one very big professional topic that I worked intensely on for years where, even though I don't know if I'll ever write that journal article I was planning, I think I need all the materials that I have from that issue because it's a huge career thing that may become relevant in my life again at some point (either to teach or write about, or just to remember), though I think I should move it off of the book shelves and into storage boxes.

* Sociology and political philosophy. I'm perpetually interested in what makes human societies (especially the US) function. I'm constantly reading new texts and, even though I rarely re-read books, I sometimes go back to extract factoids or compare with something new I'm reading. Keep 'em all?

* Political biography. Keep everything that wasn't disappointing, and anything I haven't read yet that still looks interesting (I think I have a high chance of picking any one of these up as a random 'oooh, let's start a new book' choice).

* Religious: Bible studies, apologetics, popular topics. Keep apologetics and popular topics; like sociology and political philosophy, I think I use them enough as reference that they're still good to keep around. Toss Bible studies (they should be like a course--you take it once, then it's done). Cull the C.S. Lewis for duplicates, and keep only the best copy of a given work.

* Cookbooks. So many gifts I don't use! Toss everything but the three I do use, as I can find almost anything I need on the Internet.

* Mainstream popular novels (eg, spy novels, drama, chick lit). OMG TOSS THEM. None of these are passions, and they're so easy to buy another of if I need them, for some unforseen reason. Keeping these are like keeping wrappers from my candy bars. I feel a little twinge getting rid of my Tom Clancy novels--when I was in school, he was one of my favorites; I read his whole back catalogue, and eagerly anticipated anything in the Jack Ryan/John Clark universe. But I haven't re-read them in over a decade, and it's not as though I wouldn't be able to find replacement copies if I had a burning need. I also feel just a little off about tossing my Stephen Fry novels but, like Clancy, if I'm jonsing to re-read, it shouldn't be an issue to find them again.

* Science fiction and fantasy novels. Keep the ones I love, but get good copies. For example, why are my half of my Harry Potters beat-up paperbacks with cracked spines? Keep the ones I haven't read yet but feel I am likely to read, regardless of the condition. Donate books I read and enjoyed but won't read again (or didn't read and don't particularly feel likely to); if it's not a passion, what do I need the copy for?

* Random classics. Sure, I enjoyed these books, but... who needs single Shakespearean play lying around? If Shakespeare or Austen were passions, then sure, I should get good copies of all their works and keep them, but the honest truth is there's a good reason why I wasn't an English major. Same goes for my books of Keats and Frost poetry. I read and enjoyed, but I don't go out on beautiful summer afternoons to re-read them under a tree in the dappled sunlight. I'm not a poetry buff, and keeping them around doesn't make me smarter or more sophisticated.

* Art, museum, coffee table. Mostly souvenirs from travel or gifts. The photos are generally lovely, but I don't display them as coffee table books. Really hard to part with, though, as I remember how much they cost, or the friends who gave them to me.

* Reference. Most of these are travel books, which I would purge except they also feel sort of like souvenirs? I also have some books on purchasing a home that I'd like to keep until such time as I actually do that (!) and a few books on nutrition that I think might be helpful in the future. And that copy of the Army handbook on nuclear, biological and radiological threats just seems like the sort of thing it would be bad luck to throw away.

* Magazines. I don't keep news magazines any more (I used to have soooo maaaaany). Right now, my only non-fannish magazines are my decades-old issues of Victoria magazine. At one time, this was the aesthetic to which I aspired. I couldn't get rid of them when I tossed the news magazines because I was still thinking about all the recipes, photos, etc. Theoretically, I could still use them as design inspiration, but I think the look is slightly more fussy than what would please me today.

* Fannish tie-in materials. Oh Lord, so many books in this category. I think I'm going to treat this as a separate, hobby category and do them when we get to the hobbies area. *head in hands*
penfold_x: (Default)
I love thinking about the mechanics of the Hunger Games universe. Even before I was making up stories in my head about my favorite characters, I was intrigued by the puzzle of how this post-apocalyptic society functions. I've devoured all the metas I can find, and my reading preferences tend strongly toward the elaborate world-builders of the fandom.

Until recently, my favorite Panem map was Vanja1995’s (scroll down for some excellent reasoning for his district location choices). My few quibbles with his choices were that I located the Capitol in Denver, flipped the locations of Nine and Ten, flipped the locations of Two and Five, had Four a little closer to Louisiana, and figured the size of One and Three to be much smaller.

[livejournal.com profile] fernwithy's excellent essay and map have changed my mind on a number of points. I strongly recommend reading her essay, as she's noticed a number of points in the books that I think almost conclusively pinpoint the Capitol and Thirteen which, in turn, provide some strong hints about where several of the other districts are located.

original fernwithy larger

Fernwithy's Map

The Capitol )

Districts Twelve and Thirteen )

Districts Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten )

I also concur with her theory that, like Twelve, the urban districts are probably small, fenced in cities, and surrounded by a wilderness that the citizens are not allowed to enter. If the population of Panem is as low as Beetee suggests at the end of Mockingjay, it makes sense to concentrate the population where possible, in order to conserve resources such as power and gas. From the Capitol's perspective, it also makes the urban districts, which probably have a higher population and access to greater technology/potential weapons, easier for Peacekeepers to 'secure'. I think this 'security' is implemented not just to keep the workers from running off and trying to make it in the wilderness, but keep the urban districts from developing the natural resources around them. The more the Capitol controls access to crucial goods like power and food, the greater leverage the Capitol has to quell any attempts at rebellion, and ensure the urban districts cannot develop into economic rivals to the Capitol.

That said, there are a few areas where I have some different theories:

fernwith altered2
Penfold's version of Fernwithy's Map


District Three: I've got a massive amount of headcanon about this district. Although I agree that some of the districts are colonies created by the Capitol sending segments of its population (including refugees from around the world who sought more habitable land after the cataclysms and resulting wars, as [livejournal.com profile] fernwithy writes), I think several of the districts started as independent organizations of survivors (including some refugees) who were later absorbed by the Capitol, either through what was intended to be a mutual protection pact that devolved into a colonial-type relationship, or were forcibly annexed. I like this idea because I think it gives the districts a longer period of time in which to develop their distinctive cultures and genetic 'looks'.1 I also think it's likely that survivors of the cataclysims and wars would concentrate in a few locations, rather than just one or two, because of how difficult it probably was to travel after what appears to have been a severe technological crash, and how relatively dispersed the population of the US is. Generally, I think the cities are better locations for survivor city-states, so, in my headcanon, Three, Six, and Thirteen were independent political entities before or concurrent with the founding of Panem.2

Regarding location, I don't think we get any real hints in canon, apart from the numbering of the districts, as to where they may be located, and the numbering may signify the order in which the districts were added to Panem, rather than their relative distance to the Capitol. Some areas are eliminated just because the canon hints seem to put another district there, but that still leaves a lot of empty space.

In this space, I chose Phoenix. It's the sixth largest US city by population; most of the top ten are either under water or beyond Twelve. Three doesn't have to be a very big city, but I think it helps if both the research and manufacture of almost all technology occurs there. Larger cities are also more likely to have some redundant systems that would help keep or get them running. I also like Phoenix because aerospace and technology are its major industries; if Silicon Valley is underwater, Phoenix might be your next best choice for that type of expertise. It's also got plenty of sunshine and nearby large, empty areas to put solar and wind farms (at least until the Capitol rips them out). And Phoenix is still close to Salt Lake City (at least as compared with Six, Seven, Eight, etc).

District Four: Don't have any real disagreement here just a couple of slight quibbles. First, I extended the district boundary back to encompass more land (and pushed Ten back to maintain a no-mans-land), in part to provide more room for canning/other processing or preservation and shipping facilities, and in part to make the district more comfortable. As Four seems to be on more positive terms with the Capitol than the non-career district, I think the Capitol might give them more space to expand and live comfortably, perhaps even to do some local farming. I also wanted to expand the living area in Four a little closer to Louisiana; all of the characters we meet from Four have Irish-sounding names, and New Orleans is the closest area that once had a large Irish population that I know of.3

District Five: I like [livejournal.com profile] fernwithy's placement of Five at Yellowstone, given the natural resources available, however, given the Capitol's choice to concentrate power generation in a single district, I think they'd be better off if Five is structured like the other natural resource districts, with a capital and multiple smaller settlements. I spread the boundaries out to encompass large parts of Wyoming and the Dakotas, in order to capture existing hydro facilities on the Missouri River, existing wind farms in each of these states, the shale oil in North Dakota, and plenty of open land where more wind and solar facilities could be built.

District Six: As [livejournal.com profile] fernwithy notes, we don't get any textual clues. I like Omaha, for practical and sentimental reasons. Omaha is pretty much in the middle of this vision of Panem, and would be a good location for bringing in goods from Four, Eight, Nine and Ten. Omaha was also the center of the First Continental Railroad, and in the Nineteenth Century, every major railroad served Omaha because of the Omaha Stockyards. It's still Union Pacific's headquarters. If the US has a railroad city, I think Omaha is it.

Of course, this is all just guesswork, but I love trying to work it out. Major thanks to [livejournal.com profile] fernwithy, who upended my thinking about the location of the Capitol and Thirtieth, consequently rearranging my speculation about most of the other districts. If you haven't read her Hunger Games fan fiction, I highly recommend it.

1 Though, of course, no one knows how long Panem existed before the Dark Days, so if you postulate a very long period of time, you could reach the same result that way.
2 But not Eight, because it is so bugnuts cold in Minneapolis (colder than Toronto!), and because of its relatively low population density.
3 Or the Capitol settled a bunch of Irish refugees there and the names have nothing to do with Four's location.
penfold_x: (research is sexy)
Cleaning out my email I found a message I sent to myself over a year ago (!!!) to post about Prof. Ilya Somin's interview on the Institute for Humane Studies podcast regarding Themes of Liberty in Star Trek. Although the podcast is really for lawyers/policy wonks who are interested in pop culture portrayals of liberty, it's fun for seasoned fans, too. Of course, Star Trek is a story, not a philosophical blueprint, but like much of science fiction it has strong themes that are meant to comment on the world we live in, so I often find enjoyment in exploring the internal consistency and implications of those commentaries.

Prof. Somin obviously does as well, as he's given some serious thought to how to reconcile the pure socialism of the Federation's proclaimed economic system ("we've evolved beyond money," etc) with the unfortunate experience of such systems (e.g., that humans have not yet found a way to implement a socialist economic system that does not also include a great curtailment of personal liberty, contra the portrayal of expansive personal liberty in ST), and the implications of calling the union a "federation," where it is likely not all planets share the same economic, political or cultural systems. He resolves the inconsistencies by proposing a (Piece of the Action-style) protection racket:
Well I think obviously the way Gene Roddenbury intended it is as a utopia. The idea of a predatory, imperialist racket is something I came up with tongue-in-cheek as a possible way of reconciling the federalism and the socialism in a way that only Earth is socialist, while the rest of the federation has either a mixed economy or a more capitalist system, and then Earth seems to dominate Star Fleet, the military division, and that may be because what Star Fleet really does is force the other planets to pay tribute and support Earth’s socialism.
He expanded on his 'theory' in his 2007 essay. The podcast reminds me of a presentation on "The Economics of the Star Trek Universe" given by an economist some years ago at Shore Leave, which reached similar conclusions regarding the irreconcilability of the purported economic socialism of the ST universe, and the level of production/material abundance portrayed. The podcast was part of a series on Themes of Liberty in SciFi which included a fantastic interview with [livejournal.com profile] eldritchhobbit on Firefly.
penfold_x: (oh rly? (watson))
Starting a tough couple of weeks. Going to manage them by invoking the power of John Watson's BAMFtastic indifference to BS:

penfold_x: (dire need of a crumpet)
As I mentioned in my desert isle fics list, I'm new to OldSchool!Who fanfiction, but what I've read I'm really enjoying. I love print zines and finishing up work on The Brotherhood 7 (which features a Ten, Donna, and Jack story by [livejournal.com profile] wendymr crafted from the purest awesome) has made me long for more print fic.

MediaWest, only a few weeks away, is my best shot at scoring Classic Who fanzines, but like a lot of things in DW fandom, it's difficult to know where to start. There's a huge number of zines that were in print, but many of those were letter/info zines or a mix of fiction and essays, and of course, fanworks vary widely in quality.

I'd really value recommendations. My peculiarities are:
* I would probably enjoy the commentary zines, but I'd prefer to start with zines that are at least half fic.
* I'm more about the characters than the awesome aliens/timey-wimey stuff.
* I lean toward the hurt/comfort side of the force.
* Gen, please.

Making recs brings fannish karma. Scientific fact.
penfold_x: (twilight tardis)
Over the past couple of months, my interest in Classic Who has been revived in big way. You would think having a history with a show would make it easy to get back in the fandom, but the last time I was this captivated, John Major was prime minister. Commercial internet was in its infancy (I did not have access), and watching episodes involved finding a source that could get past the PAL-VHS divide (and, oh yah, the Atlantic) or being lucky enough to live in a region with good public television.1 Access to guidebooks or other tie-in materials was limited, especially if you didn't live near an active fan community. I familiarized myself with older episodes by reading the Terrence Dicks novelizations I bought from the bins underneath tables at the Star Trek conventions.2

In the meantime, Doctor Who has grown exponentially. In many ways, this is wonderful. For example, you can imagine the macro face I made when I stumbled onto Big Finish (I CAN HAZ TARDIS?!?). I am never going to be short of squee. But it is also a little overwhelming. There is so much to enjoy, I am not sure where to begin but I am quite sure that I am doing it all wrong.

It is also making me weirdly defensive. I have the urge to make an icon that says "I'm not here because David Tennant is pretty. I'm here because Sylvester McCoy gives me an inimitable feeling of childhood wonder and security for the plot."

For the love of all things holy, would someone just show me where the towels are kept?

This post has been brought to you by [livejournal.com profile] penfold_x's inability to find an active Classic Who fic-finder community.

1 Defined as "plays episodes from a range of Doctor Who eras weekly," as opposed to "plays three episodes of Tom Baker over and over, until permanently preempted by The Joy of Painting."

2 Imma gonna to stop reminiscing here because this post is rapidly degenerating into "When I was your age we only had one con a year! And we had to walk there, in three feet of snow. Uphill! Both ways!" *waves old lady cane*

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