Mr Kapusta - May 2021 to March 2024 Update
Okay - so that's an epic gap, so this is an epic post...
Life:
So, long story short, since April 2021 I've got through three hard drives and a back-up system - which somewhat stymied my migration plans to get all my stuff onto my then new(ish) computer. I still had my work kit - but, unfortunately, work take a surprisingly dim view of the sorts of things I habitually use my IT for - who'd've thunk it? Happily, the silver lining in this incredible saga of IT woe is that I never got a chance to migrate much of anything onto each bit of kit before it failed. Meaning that, fingers crossed, and with more than a little help from my friends, I think I have managed to salvage almost everything.
Following my various kit failures, I then had issues with my anti-virus thingamy, and then I misplaced a charger, so currently have no juice on the kit that matters for all things fandom. So, all round, not doing brilliantly on the IT front.
Work, on the other hand, has definitely taken an uptick. I changed roles shortly after my last Kapusta post, and then again a year or so later, and although for various reasons I am stupidly busy at the mo, my team-mates are jolly decent folk and consequently, day-to-day, work is actually not that bad. Which is nice.
With very great sadness, having found my way back onto Lj (admittedly, intermittently, between IT disasters), I stumbled across a couple of posts about elmey. They had been reposted to the mfu_canteen from mfuwss by spikesgirl58. akane42me had posted that the lovely and talented elmey was desperately ill. Worried, I searched for more news only to have my worst fears confirmed. frau_flora had posted that elmey had left us in November last year. elmey was as her husband describes her: a smart, thoughtful and caring person. She was also a talented author. I rec'd one of elmey's stories in my December 2015 series of posts '31 Days of Fanwork': 31st December 2015 - Fear of Flying and I still recommend it. elmey's comment on my post is typical of her warm and self-effacing humour.
Please do also check out Elmey's other works on AO3 and FF.net. elmey's work amply demonstrates that the common prejudice about the quality of writing on The Pit of Voles is proved by many an exquisite exception. I say nothing astounding when I say elmey's presence amongst us will be deeply missed, it's a truth that needs no speaking.
Fic:
Reading and Other Fanwork:
Picking up from the folk who are doing 'reading year on year' projects, I thought that might be a fun thing to try when I have some time - I had hoped that would be in the New Year, which seems as good a place as any to start a new project, I've missed that, but hopefully soon. tinturtle kindly explained to me the etymology of the turtley Lifetime Fic Bingo. I think that's a bit ambitious for me, and anyway tinturtle is already doing that. But I did think, what if I went backwards? Read a fic from the current year and then from each preceding one? It has the twin advantages of not having to pick a starting point from any fandom, and I can stop any time I run into the buffers establishing original posting dates.
And I have starting places: if I can establish dates, there's AO3 and FF.net. But more obviously, there's also the The Circuit Archive and things like ci5_boxoftricks and muncle's Down the Chimney Affair and mfuwss' Easter Eggs, heralded for many a year by frau_flora's amazing spangly bunny. Please allow me to add a belated thank you for your years of sterling service frau_flora, and to akane42me for taking up the baton!
I don't think I will include zines that are not online. Firstly and foremostly, it's not generally considered ethical to post off-line stories online without the author's permission, so it's not a goer on that front alone. Plus, on a lesser and more practical front, not everyone will have the same off-line zines I do, and I only have limited number of zines anyway.
Man From U.N.C.L.E.:
I haven't had time to read very much, but I read A Late Night Conversation by alynwa, who I discover also writes in NCIS. I normally read alynwa's Sugar and Spies series because, as the series title suggests, they're short(ish) and sweet tales wherein alynwa builds a cosy but believable world for our two favourite spies, full of the down-to-earth but very real challenges of post-U.N.C.L.E. friendship and domesticity. However, this was an 'in memoriam' piece based on real life. I liked the conceit by which alynwa wove together the threads of Illya's life.
As many of you will know, in September 2023, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. lost its legendary Illya Kuryakin. Many lovely and heartfelt tributes from across the generations were posted, because after Soviet Russia's enigmatic answer to James Bond, David McCallum went on to carve a distinguished career playing other fan-favourite characters, not least as NCIS' Dr 'Ducky' Mallard.
dancingpony posted this vid to the mfu_canteen from Yummy's YouTube channel, which looks as sparse as mine, to mark Mr McC's passing. I must confess it wasn't a vid I knew - but somehow, it seems just right for the moment.
The Professionals:
I haven't had any time to read much Pros fic, although recently I read both Code: Bravo Alpha Tango Hotel by Spac3hopp3r79 and it's somewhat longer sequel Unmasked by Actofgracie, which led to the rather awesome revelation that there's apparently a Professionals Discord (who knew?).
But I did read a post by tinturtle ( Lifetime Fic Bingo: 1995) which linked to tinturtle leading a discussion of the rape trope in CI5hq. Now I have my own ideas on this. Like some of the other contributors, I think that the ever-present, but often undiscussed, fear of rape (when did you last discuss your fears of rape in real life?) may well have led a majority-female authorship to exorcise their daemons by putting their protagonists through their unspoken nightmares (and possibly lived realities). And, given that rape is deemed the woman's fault, with even eight year old victims literally judged to be 'no angels', this may well include fantasies of a partner who saw coercion for what it was, and did not see their partner's outraged body as culpable sloppy seconds fit only for a life on the game (no unseemly smirking about the not entirely unrelated Pros trope, please). It should be remembered that the police investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper, very much active while Pros was airing, was still making distinctions between 'innocent' victims and 'prostitutes'. Distinctions which hampered the investigation and led to more deaths. The botched investigation and subsequent trial galvanised the reclaim the night movement and was the start of a public reappraisal of sex workers as being human beings, even if their trade is still seen as disreputable. However, particularly in earlier fic, I think another reason for the prevalence of this trope lay in an authorship fascinated by, but still uncomfortable with, gay sex. This era of the rape trope, especially where it ends in a romantic pairing, often shares a timeframe with the sort of story that expends endless amounts of exposition explaining that: a) men have sex with each other; b) that not all these men present as effeminate; and c) that writing and reading about these types of relationships does not make either the author or the reader a disgusting deviant.
For a long time there persisted a belief that women fantasise about rape. And I mean a long time - look at Rudolph Valentino's Sheik. Valentino's sex appeal was built on his brooding sexual menace, which in turn was already an established trope. Women had no permission to have sex. Bad girls do, good girls don't. Even in marriage it was the man's conjugal right, the woman was not seen as having a sexual identity beyond servicing her husband. Her body was his. In fact, until just a few decades ago, a man was unable to rape his wife in the eyes of the law since she had no right to refuse her consent.
This horror of a female sexual identity, of feminine desire, hasn't always been the case. The eighteenth century had no place for the unmarried mother, it had very little place for unmarried women full stop, but it recognised female sexuality. Indeed certain respectable scientific opinion held that women needed to orgasm in order to conceive, and therefore the wise man endeavoured to please his lady. But this thinking evolved, or devolved, during Victoria's reign, informed by societal horror at Georgian sexual excesses.
This is the era that saw harvest festivals stripped of their drunken and bawdy shenanigans and transmuted into quaint bucolic frolics (until the industrial revolution did for them entirely). It was this thinking which ensured that the marriage licence was accessible to just about anyone with a desire to co-habit with a member of the opposite sex, irrespective of class or creed, but it also saw a sweeping extension to the criminalisation of same sex male relationships. And the essential female orgasm became an expression of hysteria - the root association still in common currency in the term 'hysterectomy'. I still have a post-WWII dictionary which defines 'hysteria' as a disease afflicting women.
Therefore, in order to fantasise about sex, women dressed it up in a fantasy of rape. It bypassed the need for good girls to admit to themselves that they wanted sex, desired sex. That they were, in fact, sexual beings. This destructive zeitgeist led to women being quizzed, not only on their sex lives in rape trials (because any woman who wasn't an unmarried virgin, or worse, who had had more than one sexual partner, was obviously asking for it), but also their fantasies. Clearly, women who read bonk-busters were also obviously asking for it. It was in this climate that one feminist thinker was moved to comment that a rape fantasy was when Robert Redford refused to take no for an answer. No woman fantasises about being left battered, torn and bleeding (and possibly diseased and/or pregnant) by some misogynistic greebo. And I would argue that as women's right to reclaim their sexuality has advanced, so the Robert Redford fantasy has retreated. I watched a Joan Collins autobiographical documentary towards the end of last year in which she says she married her first husband because he forced himself on her when she was a teenage virgin - it was the only remedy that occurred to her. This is the woman who later had the confidence to play the predatory Fontaine Khaled in the Stud, a character created by her sister Jackie. The law has improved in its treatment of rape victims, but still only about 1% (and no, that's not a typo) of reported rapes result in a conviction. Recent controversy has centred on the 'rough sex' defence. It basically plays on the growing mainstream representation of BDSM by perverting it (and justice) to justify inflicting any amount of sexual violence on your chosen victim, to the cusp of death and beyond, by claiming as a defence consensual BDSM gone wrong; even when your victim survives to deny the lie absolutely. In court, good girls still don't (and gay blokes get what they deserve). And prominent female figures are still regularly trolled with rape threats. So while 'no' may now mean 'no' in theory, in practice I would argue that not much has changed.
In this climate, it is easy to see why the rape trope has not died. I would argue, however, that it has evolved. Rape in current fic is almost always a vehicle for hurt/comfort, rather than a romantic trope (and for me, that it could ever have been thus described is deeply disturbing - it's extremely doubtful that any of the women writing this type of fic would have accepted rape as a segue to romance in their own lives, even Joan Collins divorced husband number one). The gay-squeamish authors of yesteryear seemed to have needed rape to justify their otherwise 'perfect' heroes freely indulging in 'deviant' sex. I would argue that having one partner being driven mad with lust, and the other a victim of that lust, both alibied such paragons of male virtue engaging in such 'perverted' sexual practices and shielded the author from her own sexual nature. Good girls don't fantasise about sex, let alone gay sex. So portraying sex as an extension of male brutality both distanced the author from her own desires and avoided the need to confront any discomfort about consensual gay sex. Rape as a road to romance tends to run parallel to an equally persistent trope of the era (which I find equally offensive), which holds that neither partner was gay until they met the other, and it is only the sheer physical attractiveness of the other which has triggered a tsunami of sexual desire, overloading an otherwise resolutely heterosexual libido. So, queer, but only for each other (no one was bi back in the day). A nice comforting delusion which does not require the author to examine her own innate homophobia. I have some sympathy with the innate homophobia, we none of us shape the society into which we are born - but I do criticise the lack of engagement with that homophobia amongst authors ostensibly writing queer stories. It smacks of another era's voyeuristic tours of Bedlam, and there is no excuse for being that type of voyeuristic tourist in Oz.
Possibly, then, as a result of women reclaiming their own sexuality, and consequently becoming more comfortable with their desires and fantasies, current hurt/comfort fic doesn't always feel the need to depict the rape. It's not unusual for a hurt/comfort fic to concentrate on the traumatic emotional memory - or for one partner to get to the other too late, and for the story to concentrate on picking up the pieces and dealing with the guilt - the actual rape happening 'off stage' so to speak. I would argue that few authors these days would romantically pair Bodie and Doyle (or as mentioned in the CI5hq discussion, Starsky and Hutch) by having one rape the other. Where such stories do occur, they tend to portray the rapist partner as mentally disordered for some reason (other than being overwhelmed by lust) - and the story likely revolves around the 'sinning' partner seeking absolution for their crime and the attendant emotional fall-out. To that extent, I think things have moved on - rape is now always wrong, even in fic (although what constitutes rape is less robustly defined). It's no longer presented as an expression of the overwhelming strength of desire (much less an alibi for that desire existing in the first place). Slash writers these days don't question their interest in slash - any more than the grubby blokes of yore questioned their fantasies of nubile young women getting it together. I think what is less discussed is whether we are writing gay fiction, or female-fantasy fiction. I would argue that both have a valid place in the world, but that the one is not the other - although that doesn't preclude fic being written by, and for, one audience being enjoyed by another. And, of course, female on female action written by women may qualify as both - as well as being enjoyed by men: gay, straight or bi (and all ports in between). A good erotic yarn, is a good erotic yarn.
One of the things you don't see much is female on female rape. The only mainstream example of this I can remember centred on the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Violet Trefusis: Portrait of a Marriage (even the mini-series was pre equal marriage - so very much not a portrait of their marriage). I haven't read the book, tbh that kind of thing leaves me cold, but the TV mini-series included the (heavily implied) forced vaginal penetration of Violet by Vita (Vita uses her fingers with deliberate venom) in punishment for Violet sleeping with a man. Corrective rape of this type struck me as quite a male-view trope - but I'm no expert on sapphic love or tropes, and internalised misogyny is a thing (see all of the above!). Which I'm guessing also accounts for some of the alleged rape humour the discussion in CI5hq mentions - famously, one of James Coburn's characters (the unabashed hero of the piece) describes rape as 'assault with a friendly weapon'. In a world where that kind of joke is A-list mainstream, you can understand how some writers felt this type of humour was actually funny, or worse, appealing.
I don't read much F/F fic (or M/F fic, come to that), so I'm not sure whether rape as a trope is as prevalent in those pairings. I suppose you could try filtering for it, but the problem there is that the pairing may not include the rapist. Uhura comforting Janice Rand after Kirk's assault comes to mind. You could envision a fic where Kirk goes further than canon - but the pairing would be Uhura/Rand. So filtering for 'F/F, warnings for rape/non-con' wouldn't give you an F/F rape. It would be a labour of love beyond my inclination (not to mention my available time) to go through the stories and pick the statistical wheat from the chaff. But my instinct, given the general lack of fannish discussion, is that F/F rape is a less prevalent trope than M/M rape. And I would speculate the under-representation of penises in F/F fic accounts for that. As for M/F pairings, I'm not sure women would write M/F rape with the same enthusiasm - bit too close to home. Although, Valentino-esque, I could see dubious consent being given an airing as 'romantic' in earlier years - or even currently, if you like your grey in 50 shades. The CI5hq discussion talked about seduction as a euphemism for rape, and it was certainly used in that vein in previous centuries, but I would argue it had become more of a euphemism for dubious consent by the mid-twentieth century - although 'dubious consent' as a term was not itself in use.
However, we are talking about the rape trope in fan-fic, so that means we are talking about shows where the aspirational characters presented for adoration were commonly men (strong and/or aspirational female characters tended to be confined to soaps and films, not fertile ground for fan-fic back in the day). Not many Cinnamon Carters or Contessa di Continis to go round, although The Avengers is a notable exception. So that means an equal dearth of the sorts of female 'buddy' relationships which in male on-screen relationships led to K/S, the oft-cited start of it all. Slash, angsty discussions, et al!
Scribbling:
Initially because of work, and then because of IT, or rather the lack thereof, I didn't participate in the 2022 and 2023 Pros BBs. And, in the end, I wasn't convinced about the 2024 Pros BB either. I think I will just content myself with the hope of reading other folks contributions, although that's still probably more than I can expect to have time for this year.
I did - and do - have a couple or three unaired, and therefore BB compliant, fairly vanilla WIP - 'fairly vanilla' being by far the safest bet for the BB. There's nothing more lonely or disheartening than soldiering on with a BB fic the mods have let it be known they'd prefer to disavow. Due to the secrecy surrounding it, which is lovely for readers but hard going on writers and artists, which is why it's always worthwhile signing up as a BB cheerleader, you can find yourself quite alone with your BB story, which makes it tough going if you've been made aware it's a malformed and unloved thing. Safer by far to paddle in the vanillary shallows. One of my languishing WIP could possibly have been finished in time for posting October 2024, but I can't guarantee any of them being finished, and I don't fancy writing up to the wire this year as I have some personal commitments which I can't really justify allowing to be adversely affected. I have neglected my kith and kin quite a lot these last few years, and although they know and understand why, I really need to start putting them first.
I don't know anyone who's come out of the BB wringer not feeling it was worthwhile, but I remember posting, before I ever ventured into the BB, that I might give it a go if I had a fully completed story before the writers' sign up. Even in a good BB year I've never managed that, but maybe this is the year to try. Possibly I could finish a suitable WIP by Feb 2025. There are a couple which are very near finished, and you never know...
But mostly, I just think I need to be kind to myself and write what I can, when I can, without any other considerations.
As for the rest, on the assumption I have, as hoped, rescued them from my downed hard drive:
On the upside, picowrimo is still alive and kicking, so that's a hopeful thing. I haven't posted there for a few days because I'm making such slow progress with my chosen project, but I hope to do a bit more soon - and then I can post about it.
Obvs having no IT made my ambition to respond to any hanging comments, no matter how old, a trifle harder than anticipated - but I'm not giving up! When I trawl through my Lj for other reasons, I try and pick up any 'hanging' comments as I go. (Which has caused some mild consternation, given the antiquity of some of the answerless comments.) I've checked FF.net and I appear to have nothing unanswered there (fortunately, FF.net is not a hotbed of comment and discussion). So that leaves AO3, which happily, I discover, allows you to filter for comments you haven't replied to whether they have defaulted to 'read' or not. So it might take a while, but I have a fighting chance of getting there!
Admin:
Read the ones you have! - haven't read much of anything, even though this is the one thing I could do without IT. But I have had zero time. Still on the look out for Gentle on my Mind 4 & 5. You never know, hope springs eternal...
Zinedom Volunteers zine per weekend - I really hope to get back to this, even if it turns out to be a zine a quarter...but again, maybe not this year.
Lj, debates and other stuff:
I'm not planning to rejoin the Lj Pros communities I left. I'm quite content to remain a ghost in the machine. I've no wish to go back to second-guessing every post in case my free-wheeling opinions fall foul of the self-appointed storm troopers of fanon, canon and lived experience, which is where I felt I was. I have an anxiety disorder and worrying about being jumped on every time I posted, to the point where I was consciously self-censoring in anticipation of a belligerent reception, was doing my health absolutely no good. It's a shame, but there it is. I've been a lot happier just posting away in my journal and having extra-curricular chats with less, if you'll excuse the excruciating pun, fanatical souls. Not sure if I might not host some discussions on pros_wip, not sure how that will evolve yet.
Find more time for Lj and try to comment on everyone's posts. Obviously this will have to wait in great part until I have more time, but I'm trying to be more involved. To name a few areas of interest, there's uncle_du_jour, mfuwss and the mfu_canteen, and of course all sorts of lovely stuff posted by other folk in their journals, some of which turns up in the ever fabulous pros_newsletter - not to mention cheerleading for the plucky souls embarking on ventures in the ci5_boxoftricks and picowrimo.
Post more questions to Lj - not being part of the Lj Pros communities anymore, there's not much of an outlet for my love of friendly debate - but I have a journal and I have ideas and therein lies some hope...
I think I would still like to write a proper, and now very much belated, Letter of Comment for A Balcony and a View of the Sea by Helen Raven (helenraven) - and I definitely still intend to read it again, as well as The Cook and the Warehouseman.
Post another 30/31 days of fanwork (and update Lj tags accordingly) - this might be fun once things calm down a bit. Especially with folk like tinturtle posting all sorts of Bingo-y recs, not-recs and other musings.
EIIR: the late Queen:
Lastly, and although it's not strictly speaking a fandom, we were all fans in a way. Even those of us harbouring republican sentiments quietly conceded that the revolution would wait upon the Queen. So in this most fandomy of posts, let me mark that during the epic gap while I was away we lost our belovèd Queen. We had our ups and downs, but even when folk were at their most disapproving, we were really only waiting for an excuse to forgive.
We were all expecting the dreaded news. I don't think anyone believed that mysterious 'mobility problems' were keeping our Queen from doing the duty she had stalwartly discharged for decade after decade, until she seemed as constant a fixture in our lives as the elusive sun that seemed to disappear at the most inconvenient of Royal moments. Our Queen was a contemporary of Roosevelt, served like her husband and countless millions of her father's subjects in the war Roosevelt joined and fought with us. And like Roosevelt, we knew it would take more than 'mobility problems' to stop her. But we were all content in our denial of the truth hidden in plain sight, because the alternative was just too awful to contemplate.
But now we have moved to another place, and must face the brave new world of Kings and burgeoning republican sentiment, because time and tide wait for no one, not even constant and belovèd Queens.
Life:
So, long story short, since April 2021 I've got through three hard drives and a back-up system - which somewhat stymied my migration plans to get all my stuff onto my then new(ish) computer. I still had my work kit - but, unfortunately, work take a surprisingly dim view of the sorts of things I habitually use my IT for - who'd've thunk it? Happily, the silver lining in this incredible saga of IT woe is that I never got a chance to migrate much of anything onto each bit of kit before it failed. Meaning that, fingers crossed, and with more than a little help from my friends, I think I have managed to salvage almost everything.
Following my various kit failures, I then had issues with my anti-virus thingamy, and then I misplaced a charger, so currently have no juice on the kit that matters for all things fandom. So, all round, not doing brilliantly on the IT front.
Work, on the other hand, has definitely taken an uptick. I changed roles shortly after my last Kapusta post, and then again a year or so later, and although for various reasons I am stupidly busy at the mo, my team-mates are jolly decent folk and consequently, day-to-day, work is actually not that bad. Which is nice.
With very great sadness, having found my way back onto Lj (admittedly, intermittently, between IT disasters), I stumbled across a couple of posts about elmey. They had been reposted to the mfu_canteen from mfuwss by spikesgirl58. akane42me had posted that the lovely and talented elmey was desperately ill. Worried, I searched for more news only to have my worst fears confirmed. frau_flora had posted that elmey had left us in November last year. elmey was as her husband describes her: a smart, thoughtful and caring person. She was also a talented author. I rec'd one of elmey's stories in my December 2015 series of posts '31 Days of Fanwork': 31st December 2015 - Fear of Flying and I still recommend it. elmey's comment on my post is typical of her warm and self-effacing humour.
Please do also check out Elmey's other works on AO3 and FF.net. elmey's work amply demonstrates that the common prejudice about the quality of writing on The Pit of Voles is proved by many an exquisite exception. I say nothing astounding when I say elmey's presence amongst us will be deeply missed, it's a truth that needs no speaking.
Fic:
Reading and Other Fanwork:
Picking up from the folk who are doing 'reading year on year' projects, I thought that might be a fun thing to try when I have some time - I had hoped that would be in the New Year, which seems as good a place as any to start a new project, I've missed that, but hopefully soon. tinturtle kindly explained to me the etymology of the turtley Lifetime Fic Bingo. I think that's a bit ambitious for me, and anyway tinturtle is already doing that. But I did think, what if I went backwards? Read a fic from the current year and then from each preceding one? It has the twin advantages of not having to pick a starting point from any fandom, and I can stop any time I run into the buffers establishing original posting dates.
And I have starting places: if I can establish dates, there's AO3 and FF.net. But more obviously, there's also the The Circuit Archive and things like ci5_boxoftricks and muncle's Down the Chimney Affair and mfuwss' Easter Eggs, heralded for many a year by frau_flora's amazing spangly bunny. Please allow me to add a belated thank you for your years of sterling service frau_flora, and to akane42me for taking up the baton!
I don't think I will include zines that are not online. Firstly and foremostly, it's not generally considered ethical to post off-line stories online without the author's permission, so it's not a goer on that front alone. Plus, on a lesser and more practical front, not everyone will have the same off-line zines I do, and I only have limited number of zines anyway.
Man From U.N.C.L.E.:
I haven't had time to read very much, but I read A Late Night Conversation by alynwa, who I discover also writes in NCIS. I normally read alynwa's Sugar and Spies series because, as the series title suggests, they're short(ish) and sweet tales wherein alynwa builds a cosy but believable world for our two favourite spies, full of the down-to-earth but very real challenges of post-U.N.C.L.E. friendship and domesticity. However, this was an 'in memoriam' piece based on real life. I liked the conceit by which alynwa wove together the threads of Illya's life.
As many of you will know, in September 2023, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. lost its legendary Illya Kuryakin. Many lovely and heartfelt tributes from across the generations were posted, because after Soviet Russia's enigmatic answer to James Bond, David McCallum went on to carve a distinguished career playing other fan-favourite characters, not least as NCIS' Dr 'Ducky' Mallard.
dancingpony posted this vid to the mfu_canteen from Yummy's YouTube channel, which looks as sparse as mine, to mark Mr McC's passing. I must confess it wasn't a vid I knew - but somehow, it seems just right for the moment.
Click to viewThe Professionals:
I haven't had any time to read much Pros fic, although recently I read both Code: Bravo Alpha Tango Hotel by Spac3hopp3r79 and it's somewhat longer sequel Unmasked by Actofgracie, which led to the rather awesome revelation that there's apparently a Professionals Discord (who knew?).
But I did read a post by tinturtle ( Lifetime Fic Bingo: 1995) which linked to tinturtle leading a discussion of the rape trope in CI5hq. Now I have my own ideas on this. Like some of the other contributors, I think that the ever-present, but often undiscussed, fear of rape (when did you last discuss your fears of rape in real life?) may well have led a majority-female authorship to exorcise their daemons by putting their protagonists through their unspoken nightmares (and possibly lived realities). And, given that rape is deemed the woman's fault, with even eight year old victims literally judged to be 'no angels', this may well include fantasies of a partner who saw coercion for what it was, and did not see their partner's outraged body as culpable sloppy seconds fit only for a life on the game (no unseemly smirking about the not entirely unrelated Pros trope, please). It should be remembered that the police investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper, very much active while Pros was airing, was still making distinctions between 'innocent' victims and 'prostitutes'. Distinctions which hampered the investigation and led to more deaths. The botched investigation and subsequent trial galvanised the reclaim the night movement and was the start of a public reappraisal of sex workers as being human beings, even if their trade is still seen as disreputable. However, particularly in earlier fic, I think another reason for the prevalence of this trope lay in an authorship fascinated by, but still uncomfortable with, gay sex. This era of the rape trope, especially where it ends in a romantic pairing, often shares a timeframe with the sort of story that expends endless amounts of exposition explaining that: a) men have sex with each other; b) that not all these men present as effeminate; and c) that writing and reading about these types of relationships does not make either the author or the reader a disgusting deviant.
For a long time there persisted a belief that women fantasise about rape. And I mean a long time - look at Rudolph Valentino's Sheik. Valentino's sex appeal was built on his brooding sexual menace, which in turn was already an established trope. Women had no permission to have sex. Bad girls do, good girls don't. Even in marriage it was the man's conjugal right, the woman was not seen as having a sexual identity beyond servicing her husband. Her body was his. In fact, until just a few decades ago, a man was unable to rape his wife in the eyes of the law since she had no right to refuse her consent.
This horror of a female sexual identity, of feminine desire, hasn't always been the case. The eighteenth century had no place for the unmarried mother, it had very little place for unmarried women full stop, but it recognised female sexuality. Indeed certain respectable scientific opinion held that women needed to orgasm in order to conceive, and therefore the wise man endeavoured to please his lady. But this thinking evolved, or devolved, during Victoria's reign, informed by societal horror at Georgian sexual excesses.
This is the era that saw harvest festivals stripped of their drunken and bawdy shenanigans and transmuted into quaint bucolic frolics (until the industrial revolution did for them entirely). It was this thinking which ensured that the marriage licence was accessible to just about anyone with a desire to co-habit with a member of the opposite sex, irrespective of class or creed, but it also saw a sweeping extension to the criminalisation of same sex male relationships. And the essential female orgasm became an expression of hysteria - the root association still in common currency in the term 'hysterectomy'. I still have a post-WWII dictionary which defines 'hysteria' as a disease afflicting women.
Therefore, in order to fantasise about sex, women dressed it up in a fantasy of rape. It bypassed the need for good girls to admit to themselves that they wanted sex, desired sex. That they were, in fact, sexual beings. This destructive zeitgeist led to women being quizzed, not only on their sex lives in rape trials (because any woman who wasn't an unmarried virgin, or worse, who had had more than one sexual partner, was obviously asking for it), but also their fantasies. Clearly, women who read bonk-busters were also obviously asking for it. It was in this climate that one feminist thinker was moved to comment that a rape fantasy was when Robert Redford refused to take no for an answer. No woman fantasises about being left battered, torn and bleeding (and possibly diseased and/or pregnant) by some misogynistic greebo. And I would argue that as women's right to reclaim their sexuality has advanced, so the Robert Redford fantasy has retreated. I watched a Joan Collins autobiographical documentary towards the end of last year in which she says she married her first husband because he forced himself on her when she was a teenage virgin - it was the only remedy that occurred to her. This is the woman who later had the confidence to play the predatory Fontaine Khaled in the Stud, a character created by her sister Jackie. The law has improved in its treatment of rape victims, but still only about 1% (and no, that's not a typo) of reported rapes result in a conviction. Recent controversy has centred on the 'rough sex' defence. It basically plays on the growing mainstream representation of BDSM by perverting it (and justice) to justify inflicting any amount of sexual violence on your chosen victim, to the cusp of death and beyond, by claiming as a defence consensual BDSM gone wrong; even when your victim survives to deny the lie absolutely. In court, good girls still don't (and gay blokes get what they deserve). And prominent female figures are still regularly trolled with rape threats. So while 'no' may now mean 'no' in theory, in practice I would argue that not much has changed.
In this climate, it is easy to see why the rape trope has not died. I would argue, however, that it has evolved. Rape in current fic is almost always a vehicle for hurt/comfort, rather than a romantic trope (and for me, that it could ever have been thus described is deeply disturbing - it's extremely doubtful that any of the women writing this type of fic would have accepted rape as a segue to romance in their own lives, even Joan Collins divorced husband number one). The gay-squeamish authors of yesteryear seemed to have needed rape to justify their otherwise 'perfect' heroes freely indulging in 'deviant' sex. I would argue that having one partner being driven mad with lust, and the other a victim of that lust, both alibied such paragons of male virtue engaging in such 'perverted' sexual practices and shielded the author from her own sexual nature. Good girls don't fantasise about sex, let alone gay sex. So portraying sex as an extension of male brutality both distanced the author from her own desires and avoided the need to confront any discomfort about consensual gay sex. Rape as a road to romance tends to run parallel to an equally persistent trope of the era (which I find equally offensive), which holds that neither partner was gay until they met the other, and it is only the sheer physical attractiveness of the other which has triggered a tsunami of sexual desire, overloading an otherwise resolutely heterosexual libido. So, queer, but only for each other (no one was bi back in the day). A nice comforting delusion which does not require the author to examine her own innate homophobia. I have some sympathy with the innate homophobia, we none of us shape the society into which we are born - but I do criticise the lack of engagement with that homophobia amongst authors ostensibly writing queer stories. It smacks of another era's voyeuristic tours of Bedlam, and there is no excuse for being that type of voyeuristic tourist in Oz.
Possibly, then, as a result of women reclaiming their own sexuality, and consequently becoming more comfortable with their desires and fantasies, current hurt/comfort fic doesn't always feel the need to depict the rape. It's not unusual for a hurt/comfort fic to concentrate on the traumatic emotional memory - or for one partner to get to the other too late, and for the story to concentrate on picking up the pieces and dealing with the guilt - the actual rape happening 'off stage' so to speak. I would argue that few authors these days would romantically pair Bodie and Doyle (or as mentioned in the CI5hq discussion, Starsky and Hutch) by having one rape the other. Where such stories do occur, they tend to portray the rapist partner as mentally disordered for some reason (other than being overwhelmed by lust) - and the story likely revolves around the 'sinning' partner seeking absolution for their crime and the attendant emotional fall-out. To that extent, I think things have moved on - rape is now always wrong, even in fic (although what constitutes rape is less robustly defined). It's no longer presented as an expression of the overwhelming strength of desire (much less an alibi for that desire existing in the first place). Slash writers these days don't question their interest in slash - any more than the grubby blokes of yore questioned their fantasies of nubile young women getting it together. I think what is less discussed is whether we are writing gay fiction, or female-fantasy fiction. I would argue that both have a valid place in the world, but that the one is not the other - although that doesn't preclude fic being written by, and for, one audience being enjoyed by another. And, of course, female on female action written by women may qualify as both - as well as being enjoyed by men: gay, straight or bi (and all ports in between). A good erotic yarn, is a good erotic yarn.
One of the things you don't see much is female on female rape. The only mainstream example of this I can remember centred on the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Violet Trefusis: Portrait of a Marriage (even the mini-series was pre equal marriage - so very much not a portrait of their marriage). I haven't read the book, tbh that kind of thing leaves me cold, but the TV mini-series included the (heavily implied) forced vaginal penetration of Violet by Vita (Vita uses her fingers with deliberate venom) in punishment for Violet sleeping with a man. Corrective rape of this type struck me as quite a male-view trope - but I'm no expert on sapphic love or tropes, and internalised misogyny is a thing (see all of the above!). Which I'm guessing also accounts for some of the alleged rape humour the discussion in CI5hq mentions - famously, one of James Coburn's characters (the unabashed hero of the piece) describes rape as 'assault with a friendly weapon'. In a world where that kind of joke is A-list mainstream, you can understand how some writers felt this type of humour was actually funny, or worse, appealing.
I don't read much F/F fic (or M/F fic, come to that), so I'm not sure whether rape as a trope is as prevalent in those pairings. I suppose you could try filtering for it, but the problem there is that the pairing may not include the rapist. Uhura comforting Janice Rand after Kirk's assault comes to mind. You could envision a fic where Kirk goes further than canon - but the pairing would be Uhura/Rand. So filtering for 'F/F, warnings for rape/non-con' wouldn't give you an F/F rape. It would be a labour of love beyond my inclination (not to mention my available time) to go through the stories and pick the statistical wheat from the chaff. But my instinct, given the general lack of fannish discussion, is that F/F rape is a less prevalent trope than M/M rape. And I would speculate the under-representation of penises in F/F fic accounts for that. As for M/F pairings, I'm not sure women would write M/F rape with the same enthusiasm - bit too close to home. Although, Valentino-esque, I could see dubious consent being given an airing as 'romantic' in earlier years - or even currently, if you like your grey in 50 shades. The CI5hq discussion talked about seduction as a euphemism for rape, and it was certainly used in that vein in previous centuries, but I would argue it had become more of a euphemism for dubious consent by the mid-twentieth century - although 'dubious consent' as a term was not itself in use.
However, we are talking about the rape trope in fan-fic, so that means we are talking about shows where the aspirational characters presented for adoration were commonly men (strong and/or aspirational female characters tended to be confined to soaps and films, not fertile ground for fan-fic back in the day). Not many Cinnamon Carters or Contessa di Continis to go round, although The Avengers is a notable exception. So that means an equal dearth of the sorts of female 'buddy' relationships which in male on-screen relationships led to K/S, the oft-cited start of it all. Slash, angsty discussions, et al!
Scribbling:
Initially because of work, and then because of IT, or rather the lack thereof, I didn't participate in the 2022 and 2023 Pros BBs. And, in the end, I wasn't convinced about the 2024 Pros BB either. I think I will just content myself with the hope of reading other folks contributions, although that's still probably more than I can expect to have time for this year.
I did - and do - have a couple or three unaired, and therefore BB compliant, fairly vanilla WIP - 'fairly vanilla' being by far the safest bet for the BB. There's nothing more lonely or disheartening than soldiering on with a BB fic the mods have let it be known they'd prefer to disavow. Due to the secrecy surrounding it, which is lovely for readers but hard going on writers and artists, which is why it's always worthwhile signing up as a BB cheerleader, you can find yourself quite alone with your BB story, which makes it tough going if you've been made aware it's a malformed and unloved thing. Safer by far to paddle in the vanillary shallows. One of my languishing WIP could possibly have been finished in time for posting October 2024, but I can't guarantee any of them being finished, and I don't fancy writing up to the wire this year as I have some personal commitments which I can't really justify allowing to be adversely affected. I have neglected my kith and kin quite a lot these last few years, and although they know and understand why, I really need to start putting them first.
I don't know anyone who's come out of the BB wringer not feeling it was worthwhile, but I remember posting, before I ever ventured into the BB, that I might give it a go if I had a fully completed story before the writers' sign up. Even in a good BB year I've never managed that, but maybe this is the year to try. Possibly I could finish a suitable WIP by Feb 2025. There are a couple which are very near finished, and you never know...
But mostly, I just think I need to be kind to myself and write what I can, when I can, without any other considerations.
As for the rest, on the assumption I have, as hoped, rescued them from my downed hard drive:
- Complete 'Stonehenge' (MFU) - stalled.
- Complete 'Park/Hotel' (MFU) - nope.
- Complete 'MIA' (MFU) - this was very nearly finished before my IT went down, really hopeful I can get this one away in 2024.
- Complete 'Once Upon a Time Affair' serial (MFU) - nope.
- Complete 'Old Corpses' (Pros) - this is the particular near-finished Pros WIP I would like to get away in 2024.
- Complete 'Action Squad' (Pros) - nope (again, really annoying because I was nearly there - and it fills a bingo square - and no, I *hadn't forgotten about that!
- Complete 'WNGWJLEO' (Pros) - nope
- Optional - A sequel for 'The Long Trick' (Pros) - nope, but I thought it might be nice to see the story from Bodie's perspective, so that's at least a plan
- Complete 'Virtue' (Pros) - hopeful
- Optional - Complete 'On A High and Windy Hill' (Pros) - no progress.
- Optional - Complete 'Crosshairs' (Pros) - nope
- Optional - Complete one Star Trek WIP (ST:TOS) - nope (but I had started reading other people's fic!)
- Optional - Complete Bingo squares (MFU & Pros) - nope (*see)
On the upside, picowrimo is still alive and kicking, so that's a hopeful thing. I haven't posted there for a few days because I'm making such slow progress with my chosen project, but I hope to do a bit more soon - and then I can post about it.
Obvs having no IT made my ambition to respond to any hanging comments, no matter how old, a trifle harder than anticipated - but I'm not giving up! When I trawl through my Lj for other reasons, I try and pick up any 'hanging' comments as I go. (Which has caused some mild consternation, given the antiquity of some of the answerless comments.) I've checked FF.net and I appear to have nothing unanswered there (fortunately, FF.net is not a hotbed of comment and discussion). So that leaves AO3, which happily, I discover, allows you to filter for comments you haven't replied to whether they have defaulted to 'read' or not. So it might take a while, but I have a fighting chance of getting there!
Admin:
- Sort out fic folders and other transfers from old computer - clearly this requires a complete revisit!
- Sort out back up - need a new way of doing this.
- Sort out spreadsheets (don't ask) - absolutely no hope of progress.
- Archive non-archived stories - again, no IT has been a bit of a fly in this ointment, but I am now making some progress.
- Sort out a place to store piccies on-line - still need to do this. In a comment on my Lj post I Know What You Did Last Year...Another Random Meme moth2fic said she used cubeupload, which does look like the sort of thing I'm looking for - but I don't know if AO3 would accept it as a hosting site. That's mostly why I am looking for a place to store piccies online, so I have more scope to post things to AO3...
- Optional - finish indexing WTF - still think reading it, reviewing it as I go, and thus creating an index by default is the way to go. Dunno if I will get to it this year. Still thinking about turning the whole thing into a readily downloadable pdf.
- Optional - Proslib CD - obvs I got no where with this without IT, but now I am thinking about it again.
Read the ones you have! - haven't read much of anything, even though this is the one thing I could do without IT. But I have had zero time. Still on the look out for Gentle on my Mind 4 & 5. You never know, hope springs eternal...
Zinedom Volunteers zine per weekend - I really hope to get back to this, even if it turns out to be a zine a quarter...but again, maybe not this year.
Lj, debates and other stuff:
I'm not planning to rejoin the Lj Pros communities I left. I'm quite content to remain a ghost in the machine. I've no wish to go back to second-guessing every post in case my free-wheeling opinions fall foul of the self-appointed storm troopers of fanon, canon and lived experience, which is where I felt I was. I have an anxiety disorder and worrying about being jumped on every time I posted, to the point where I was consciously self-censoring in anticipation of a belligerent reception, was doing my health absolutely no good. It's a shame, but there it is. I've been a lot happier just posting away in my journal and having extra-curricular chats with less, if you'll excuse the excruciating pun, fanatical souls. Not sure if I might not host some discussions on pros_wip, not sure how that will evolve yet.
Find more time for Lj and try to comment on everyone's posts. Obviously this will have to wait in great part until I have more time, but I'm trying to be more involved. To name a few areas of interest, there's uncle_du_jour, mfuwss and the mfu_canteen, and of course all sorts of lovely stuff posted by other folk in their journals, some of which turns up in the ever fabulous pros_newsletter - not to mention cheerleading for the plucky souls embarking on ventures in the ci5_boxoftricks and picowrimo.
Post more questions to Lj - not being part of the Lj Pros communities anymore, there's not much of an outlet for my love of friendly debate - but I have a journal and I have ideas and therein lies some hope...
I think I would still like to write a proper, and now very much belated, Letter of Comment for A Balcony and a View of the Sea by Helen Raven (helenraven) - and I definitely still intend to read it again, as well as The Cook and the Warehouseman.
Post another 30/31 days of fanwork (and update Lj tags accordingly) - this might be fun once things calm down a bit. Especially with folk like tinturtle posting all sorts of Bingo-y recs, not-recs and other musings.
EIIR: the late Queen:
Lastly, and although it's not strictly speaking a fandom, we were all fans in a way. Even those of us harbouring republican sentiments quietly conceded that the revolution would wait upon the Queen. So in this most fandomy of posts, let me mark that during the epic gap while I was away we lost our belovèd Queen. We had our ups and downs, but even when folk were at their most disapproving, we were really only waiting for an excuse to forgive.
We were all expecting the dreaded news. I don't think anyone believed that mysterious 'mobility problems' were keeping our Queen from doing the duty she had stalwartly discharged for decade after decade, until she seemed as constant a fixture in our lives as the elusive sun that seemed to disappear at the most inconvenient of Royal moments. Our Queen was a contemporary of Roosevelt, served like her husband and countless millions of her father's subjects in the war Roosevelt joined and fought with us. And like Roosevelt, we knew it would take more than 'mobility problems' to stop her. But we were all content in our denial of the truth hidden in plain sight, because the alternative was just too awful to contemplate.
But now we have moved to another place, and must face the brave new world of Kings and burgeoning republican sentiment, because time and tide wait for no one, not even constant and belovèd Queens.