Warning for discussion of the warning firestorm
So, remember when I said this? That before I read the current firestorm about fic warnings in bandom (and beyond) that I suspected that fuckwittery was being perpetuated on all sides?
I was wrong. Completely and totally wrong.
After reading this and perusing all the links on metafandom, I'm gobsmacked at how hateful the anti-warning-because-it-impinges-on-my-artistic-integrity crowd is being. As for people like Zvi and liviapenn and a whole bunch of the other "fandom isn't safe, SUCK IT!" people? I'm going to have to address in a whole separate post how hateful it is to put forth AND NOT BE KIDDING that survivors of sexual assault, child abuse, depression, etc. somehow have an OPT-IN PRIVILEGE where membership is by choice.
My first uncharitable response to their assertions is to want to grab them all by the scruff of the neck, drag them to an ISA or rape survivor support group meeting and watch them try to tell a group of survivors to their faces that they have privilege because clearly telling them in a textual medium isn't going to get through, although I'm pleasantly surprised at the vast amount of people that have the patience to even try. Then there's Zvi's la la la, you may not talk to me about this anymore post which drips with the kind of hypocrisy and, yes, privilege such that I almost lost my last ingested meal when I read it.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a good starting summary here.
This hits home for me because I am a survivor of sexual abuse. It's not something I talk about on LJ that much except in heavily filtered posts, but one thing I can speak to? Anyone that wants to tell me that I'm privileged and that I had a choice in being a member of this particular demographic? Is invited to get clubbed repeatedly with All-Star Empathy Bats and Here's How You Act Like a Decent Human Being Stick in the hopes that maybe it'll take.
"Fuck you" doesn't begin to cover it. So I'll stop talking about it now until I can be coherent on the subject.
I also have nothing to say about Michael Jackson's passing because I'm a little put off by people lionizing him. It's one of those things where, because I'm a sexual abuse survivor, I'm having a little difficulty separating the man (and his actions) from his art right now.
Actually, I do have one Jackson-related thing to say, and that is this:
Killdozer did the best cover of Janet Jackson EVER: NASTY.
Genius, genius, genius - one of those cases where the cover far surpasses the original. (But Killdozer was kind of famous for hilariously effective covers, weren't they?) When I DJed at KALX, I found Killdozer's cover buried in our bins on 7" vinyl and it was on heavy rotation for a few heady months. If only they'd made a video of their pasty Wisconsin selves covering the song, you know?
Meanwhile, in the Jesus, You Really CAN Find ANYTHING Uploaded to YouTube department:
Trouble Funk:
I DEFY YOU TO NOT DANCE TO THAT.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH, TROUBLE FUNK:
WHOA.
In college I had this boyfriend (half Armenian, half Italian, ALL New Jersey, bitingly funny and sarcastic, and let us say that that was an interesting combination). He now has like three PhDs in inorganic chemistry and I expect any day to read that's been nominated for a Nobel Prize. He was a grad student, I was an undergrad, and when we first met, we hated each other. I was in my always-clad-in-black days, he habitually wore all white and had the kind of housekeeping skills that required donning hazmat suits to enter his apartment, and we met by happenstance because he was my roommate's boyfriend's best friends. Seriously, we did not like each other until we both wound up one night at a party and we discovered that we both liked Trouble Funk. We were so far out of each other's dating spheres that when we DID start to date, not a few people would regularly tell me that he was the last guy on Earth they expected me to like.
(He was, however, pretty dreamy in a Greco-Roman god sort of way - curly black hair, blue eyes, big shoulders, and he got extra points for wearing these funktastically HUGE seventies eyeglasses with a cutting sense of irony.)
Anyway, whenever I listen to Trouble Funk I always think of Jody. Trouble Funk? Yeah. Trouble Funk got me a boyfriend.
So I promised, in that post showing Carter Hall fucking people up, a post devoted to showcasing that Kendra Saunders is as hardcore as Carter Hall.
Here's a preview example: Kendra vs. Shayera Thal, Thanagarian bad-ass:
Facing a Thanagarian also-wearing-Nth-metal warrior with a gun in your face?
No problemo. Use the Right Hook of Doom to slam her ass down so hard that she BREAKS A BUILDING.
I rest my case.
(I also need to point out that Shayera Thal is SO bad-ass that roughing up Kendra is her idea of AFFECTION.)
I was wrong. Completely and totally wrong.
After reading this and perusing all the links on metafandom, I'm gobsmacked at how hateful the anti-warning-because-it-impinges-on-my-artistic-integrity crowd is being. As for people like Zvi and liviapenn and a whole bunch of the other "fandom isn't safe, SUCK IT!" people? I'm going to have to address in a whole separate post how hateful it is to put forth AND NOT BE KIDDING that survivors of sexual assault, child abuse, depression, etc. somehow have an OPT-IN PRIVILEGE where membership is by choice.
My first uncharitable response to their assertions is to want to grab them all by the scruff of the neck, drag them to an ISA or rape survivor support group meeting and watch them try to tell a group of survivors to their faces that they have privilege because clearly telling them in a textual medium isn't going to get through, although I'm pleasantly surprised at the vast amount of people that have the patience to even try. Then there's Zvi's la la la, you may not talk to me about this anymore post which drips with the kind of hypocrisy and, yes, privilege such that I almost lost my last ingested meal when I read it.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a good starting summary here.
This hits home for me because I am a survivor of sexual abuse. It's not something I talk about on LJ that much except in heavily filtered posts, but one thing I can speak to? Anyone that wants to tell me that I'm privileged and that I had a choice in being a member of this particular demographic? Is invited to get clubbed repeatedly with All-Star Empathy Bats and Here's How You Act Like a Decent Human Being Stick in the hopes that maybe it'll take.
"Fuck you" doesn't begin to cover it. So I'll stop talking about it now until I can be coherent on the subject.
I also have nothing to say about Michael Jackson's passing because I'm a little put off by people lionizing him. It's one of those things where, because I'm a sexual abuse survivor, I'm having a little difficulty separating the man (and his actions) from his art right now.
Actually, I do have one Jackson-related thing to say, and that is this:
Killdozer did the best cover of Janet Jackson EVER: NASTY.
Click to viewGenius, genius, genius - one of those cases where the cover far surpasses the original. (But Killdozer was kind of famous for hilariously effective covers, weren't they?) When I DJed at KALX, I found Killdozer's cover buried in our bins on 7" vinyl and it was on heavy rotation for a few heady months. If only they'd made a video of their pasty Wisconsin selves covering the song, you know?
Meanwhile, in the Jesus, You Really CAN Find ANYTHING Uploaded to YouTube department:
Trouble Funk:
I DEFY YOU TO NOT DANCE TO THAT.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH, TROUBLE FUNK:
WHOA.
In college I had this boyfriend (half Armenian, half Italian, ALL New Jersey, bitingly funny and sarcastic, and let us say that that was an interesting combination). He now has like three PhDs in inorganic chemistry and I expect any day to read that's been nominated for a Nobel Prize. He was a grad student, I was an undergrad, and when we first met, we hated each other. I was in my always-clad-in-black days, he habitually wore all white and had the kind of housekeeping skills that required donning hazmat suits to enter his apartment, and we met by happenstance because he was my roommate's boyfriend's best friends. Seriously, we did not like each other until we both wound up one night at a party and we discovered that we both liked Trouble Funk. We were so far out of each other's dating spheres that when we DID start to date, not a few people would regularly tell me that he was the last guy on Earth they expected me to like.
(He was, however, pretty dreamy in a Greco-Roman god sort of way - curly black hair, blue eyes, big shoulders, and he got extra points for wearing these funktastically HUGE seventies eyeglasses with a cutting sense of irony.)
Anyway, whenever I listen to Trouble Funk I always think of Jody. Trouble Funk? Yeah. Trouble Funk got me a boyfriend.
So I promised, in that post showing Carter Hall fucking people up, a post devoted to showcasing that Kendra Saunders is as hardcore as Carter Hall.
Here's a preview example: Kendra vs. Shayera Thal, Thanagarian bad-ass:
Facing a Thanagarian also-wearing-Nth-metal warrior with a gun in your face?
No problemo. Use the Right Hook of Doom to slam her ass down so hard that she BREAKS A BUILDING.
I rest my case.
(I also need to point out that Shayera Thal is SO bad-ass that roughing up Kendra is her idea of AFFECTION.)