Interview Meme
The rules, gacked from witchqueen:
1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.
Five questions from witchqueen:
1) How did you get to femmeslash?
Hmm. I've been reading femslash for as long as I've been reading Buffy fanfiction, and possibly for as long as I've been reading fanfiction.
I got into LJ by following authors like hjcallipygian and likeadeuce from FF.net, and I used HJ's friends list as my reading list for the longest time. I'd read stories that sounded interesting from su_herald, and one can assume that they'd include het, gen, and femslash. (I do read m/m slash if something sounds interesting, but the threshold is higher--"Giles/Xander" isn't automatically interesting to me the way "Buffy/Faith" is.) I noticed that a lot of my favorite stories were wisdomeagle person, so I made sure I checked her journal frequently as well as HJ's flist.
Eventually I got my own journal and Ari and HJ were immediately friended. I had been writing plotty stories for FF.net, but stories that typically had one or two or a thousand pairings thrown in because Buffy gen is somewhat inherently OOC. Dawn doesn't have a canonical sexuality the way the other characters do, so in one epic--I believe it was "Windows of My Soul," the Drusilla-gets-a-soul one--I threw in a Dawn/Amanda scene. Because it's hot, as well as a bunch of other reasons, and maybe someday I will write "Why Femslash: The Het Male Version" although I do sort of feel I've really hashed out most of the reasons in my journal already.
Anyway, here I am, a het/gen fan who might occasionally dabble in femslash, with a couple of femslashers on my flist, and somebody announces cadence_k's new community, femslash_minis. Now f_m consisted of a new exchange every two weeks--and so suddenly I'm reading and writing massive amounts of femslash and friending my co-participants left and right. And suddenly I've become a member of a community and one day look at myself and realize, I've become a femslasher. So the short answer is: it's all cadence_k's fault.
2) How did you get to my LJ? Why have you stayed around?
metafandom. Because you are consistently interesting.
3) What's your academic background? Not so much your CV, but what are the precepts I should know your working from if we talk meta?
My CV is pretty much non-existent.
I identify as a radical feminist, and what I mean by that is that I see sexism (as well as other injustices such as racism, heterosexism, ageism, and classism) as rooted in systemic patterns embedded in the heart of our patriarchal culture, language, and behavior. I try to be an anti-foundationalist, with a shifting negotiated grounding, but I haven't quite worked out how that works. Nonetheless, I take as normative moral claims that sexism, racism, heterosexism, and other injustices are real moral evils and that informs the rest of my philosophy--especially epistemology, metaphysics, and theology. I believe that truth is a construction without it being in practice endlessly manipulatable.
4) If you were organizing fandom into big separator categories, how would you do it? Would you keep the slash/het/gen divide? Would sourcetext be a useful distinction? What if it were all just story length or genre or degree of intertextuality? Or, you know, whatever you would do?
Femslash and m/m slash would definitely be their own genres, no more naturally sandwiched together than femslash and het or femslash and gen, and preferably with names that didn't imply that one was a weird simulacrum of the other.
5) Are you now, or have you ever been, a Discordian? Discuss.
I am now, and have been for many years now, a Discordian. My Episcopalianism has in some ways eclipsed my Discordianism, because I have a faith community with which to worship as a Christian but sadly not as a Discordian, but my Discordianism remains important to me in many subtle ways, and I incorporate silent Discordian prayers and mantras into the Christian mass.
I should point that a more elaborate description of my spiritual journey, with a more in-depth description of my history as a Discordian, can be found under flock here, and that I have many things to say about both my religions, some flocked and some not, which can be found under my religion tag..
And these five from musesfool:
1. What's the story behind your LJ username?
My LJ username, alixtii, is the first name of my Discordian Holy Name, Alixtii O'Krul V. I picked it because I wanted something that seemed wild and crazy, and thought the double I's might do. Actually, I began with the thought that maybe the spelling of the name might be in a state of constant flux, but I got bored with that pretty quickly. Nowadays, I just think of it as my name. It's what people call me when I'm online, because it's who I am.
What is cool is that it's unique enough that out of six billion people in the world, every single Google hit for "Alixtii" refers to me.
The "episkopos" in "Episkopos Reverend Alixtii O'Krul V, TRL" refers to the fact that, according to the Principia Discordia, "AN EPISKOPOS OF THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY is one who prefers total autonomy, and creates his own Discordian sect as The Goddess directs him. He speaks for himself and for those that say that they like what he says." This was a matter of necessity as I don't really know any other Discordians.
I have done the "get ordained online by the Universal Life Church," but I also consider myself the founder and sole member of the Church of St. Jesu the Heretic, Discordian. According to the Principia Discordia and other sources, every human being is a pope--and yes, I do keep my Pope Card with me in my wallet, between my ACLU card and my blood donor card.
I'm the fifth not because there were four other Alixtii's before me but because 5 is a special number to Discordians. Also, I was born on the fifth day of the Year of Our Lord 1984, and 1*9*8*4=288 and 2*8*8=128 and 1*2*8=16 and the difference between 1 and 6 is 5.
"TRL" stands for "three random letters" which, technically, they aren't.
2. Name your five favorite female characters.
Well, the five biggest targets of my fannish enthusiasm would be Dawn Summers, River Tam, Kitty Pryde, Cindy Mackezie, and Drusilla. Which doesn't answer the question, but I'm completely clueless how to compare Sara Crewe to the Childlike Empress and come out with a favorite.
I love a lot of female characters very much.
3. Which of your icons do you most associate with yourself?
My Mesektet/Dark Champions icon is the only one I've never rotated out (not counting ones like the Avril one I used on this post which are moe recent), although it was a little bit before I first rotated it in. I don't really associate my icons "with me" so much, except maybe the one of Riley putting up the "Lesbian Alliance" banner. Mostlly they're designed to communicate a message, even if the message is "Avril is hot when she wears glasses."
If pressed, I'd probably have to say the "Got Freud?" Drusilla icon, which is currently out of rotation but was the first icon this journal ever had.
4. What's your favorite time of day?
The morning, around five-thirty or six, when I'm not yet expected to be doing anything and don't need to get ready for work. I can foof around on the computer completely guilt-free.
5. You have to explain fandom to aliens. The fate of the planet depends on it. You have five minutes. Go.
Some people aren't supposed to be writing certain types of stories. They do it anyway.
ETA: I should write Catherine/Amy bodyswitch 'cest. Y/N?
1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.
Five questions from witchqueen:
1) How did you get to femmeslash?
Hmm. I've been reading femslash for as long as I've been reading Buffy fanfiction, and possibly for as long as I've been reading fanfiction.
I got into LJ by following authors like hjcallipygian and likeadeuce from FF.net, and I used HJ's friends list as my reading list for the longest time. I'd read stories that sounded interesting from su_herald, and one can assume that they'd include het, gen, and femslash. (I do read m/m slash if something sounds interesting, but the threshold is higher--"Giles/Xander" isn't automatically interesting to me the way "Buffy/Faith" is.) I noticed that a lot of my favorite stories were wisdomeagle person, so I made sure I checked her journal frequently as well as HJ's flist.
Eventually I got my own journal and Ari and HJ were immediately friended. I had been writing plotty stories for FF.net, but stories that typically had one or two or a thousand pairings thrown in because Buffy gen is somewhat inherently OOC. Dawn doesn't have a canonical sexuality the way the other characters do, so in one epic--I believe it was "Windows of My Soul," the Drusilla-gets-a-soul one--I threw in a Dawn/Amanda scene. Because it's hot, as well as a bunch of other reasons, and maybe someday I will write "Why Femslash: The Het Male Version" although I do sort of feel I've really hashed out most of the reasons in my journal already.
Anyway, here I am, a het/gen fan who might occasionally dabble in femslash, with a couple of femslashers on my flist, and somebody announces cadence_k's new community, femslash_minis. Now f_m consisted of a new exchange every two weeks--and so suddenly I'm reading and writing massive amounts of femslash and friending my co-participants left and right. And suddenly I've become a member of a community and one day look at myself and realize, I've become a femslasher. So the short answer is: it's all cadence_k's fault.
2) How did you get to my LJ? Why have you stayed around?
metafandom. Because you are consistently interesting.
3) What's your academic background? Not so much your CV, but what are the precepts I should know your working from if we talk meta?
My CV is pretty much non-existent.
I identify as a radical feminist, and what I mean by that is that I see sexism (as well as other injustices such as racism, heterosexism, ageism, and classism) as rooted in systemic patterns embedded in the heart of our patriarchal culture, language, and behavior. I try to be an anti-foundationalist, with a shifting negotiated grounding, but I haven't quite worked out how that works. Nonetheless, I take as normative moral claims that sexism, racism, heterosexism, and other injustices are real moral evils and that informs the rest of my philosophy--especially epistemology, metaphysics, and theology. I believe that truth is a construction without it being in practice endlessly manipulatable.
4) If you were organizing fandom into big separator categories, how would you do it? Would you keep the slash/het/gen divide? Would sourcetext be a useful distinction? What if it were all just story length or genre or degree of intertextuality? Or, you know, whatever you would do?
Femslash and m/m slash would definitely be their own genres, no more naturally sandwiched together than femslash and het or femslash and gen, and preferably with names that didn't imply that one was a weird simulacrum of the other.
5) Are you now, or have you ever been, a Discordian? Discuss.
I am now, and have been for many years now, a Discordian. My Episcopalianism has in some ways eclipsed my Discordianism, because I have a faith community with which to worship as a Christian but sadly not as a Discordian, but my Discordianism remains important to me in many subtle ways, and I incorporate silent Discordian prayers and mantras into the Christian mass.
I should point that a more elaborate description of my spiritual journey, with a more in-depth description of my history as a Discordian, can be found under flock here, and that I have many things to say about both my religions, some flocked and some not, which can be found under my religion tag..
And these five from musesfool:
1. What's the story behind your LJ username?
My LJ username, alixtii, is the first name of my Discordian Holy Name, Alixtii O'Krul V. I picked it because I wanted something that seemed wild and crazy, and thought the double I's might do. Actually, I began with the thought that maybe the spelling of the name might be in a state of constant flux, but I got bored with that pretty quickly. Nowadays, I just think of it as my name. It's what people call me when I'm online, because it's who I am.
What is cool is that it's unique enough that out of six billion people in the world, every single Google hit for "Alixtii" refers to me.
The "episkopos" in "Episkopos Reverend Alixtii O'Krul V, TRL" refers to the fact that, according to the Principia Discordia, "AN EPISKOPOS OF THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY is one who prefers total autonomy, and creates his own Discordian sect as The Goddess directs him. He speaks for himself and for those that say that they like what he says." This was a matter of necessity as I don't really know any other Discordians.
I have done the "get ordained online by the Universal Life Church," but I also consider myself the founder and sole member of the Church of St. Jesu the Heretic, Discordian. According to the Principia Discordia and other sources, every human being is a pope--and yes, I do keep my Pope Card with me in my wallet, between my ACLU card and my blood donor card.
I'm the fifth not because there were four other Alixtii's before me but because 5 is a special number to Discordians. Also, I was born on the fifth day of the Year of Our Lord 1984, and 1*9*8*4=288 and 2*8*8=128 and 1*2*8=16 and the difference between 1 and 6 is 5.
"TRL" stands for "three random letters" which, technically, they aren't.
2. Name your five favorite female characters.
Well, the five biggest targets of my fannish enthusiasm would be Dawn Summers, River Tam, Kitty Pryde, Cindy Mackezie, and Drusilla. Which doesn't answer the question, but I'm completely clueless how to compare Sara Crewe to the Childlike Empress and come out with a favorite.
I love a lot of female characters very much.
3. Which of your icons do you most associate with yourself?
My Mesektet/Dark Champions icon is the only one I've never rotated out (not counting ones like the Avril one I used on this post which are moe recent), although it was a little bit before I first rotated it in. I don't really associate my icons "with me" so much, except maybe the one of Riley putting up the "Lesbian Alliance" banner. Mostlly they're designed to communicate a message, even if the message is "Avril is hot when she wears glasses."
If pressed, I'd probably have to say the "Got Freud?" Drusilla icon, which is currently out of rotation but was the first icon this journal ever had.
4. What's your favorite time of day?
The morning, around five-thirty or six, when I'm not yet expected to be doing anything and don't need to get ready for work. I can foof around on the computer completely guilt-free.
5. You have to explain fandom to aliens. The fate of the planet depends on it. You have five minutes. Go.
Some people aren't supposed to be writing certain types of stories. They do it anyway.
ETA: I should write Catherine/Amy bodyswitch 'cest. Y/N?