sageness

holy crap, torchwood. holy crap.

O.O

jeebus. I am so glad I don't watch Supernatural in real time. I watched from Folsom Prison Blues to All Hell Breaks Loose pt 1 last night, and omg. I remember how blown away the fandom was when it aired. I don't think I could watch this show unspoiled, even knowing the two main cast members have to survive every ep *somehow*. I'm not sure if I should catch up completely. I mean, I'm at the end of S2. What happens if I'm all caught up by the end of summer and I can't resist watching this fall? I might explode from sheer suspense.

I am nearly done reading my way through the ds_c6d_bigbang stories! I am slow, but late is better than never.

Yayness: talking Shakespeare and S&A with Petra & Nando. ♥ And now Nando is quoting Milton at me and reminding me that I never actually read Paradise Lost, though I own it. *adds it to list of things to do...eventually*

I like warnings. I used to need warnings more than I currently do, but I appreciate knowing I'll need to put myself into a more guarded frame of mind to read a story that will push my safety zones.

You may say profic doesn't come with warnings, but I disagree. If it says "horror" on the book jacket, and if the blurb on the back has words like "survivor", "graphic", "violent", "devastating", "ordeal", "brutal", or "harrowing", then we've been warned. Also, there's the genre issue: most fanfic tends to be romance. We don't expect violent deathfic in the midst of a dozen fluffy romance stories. (Conversely, we don't expect Stephen King to write a fluffy romance -- so if you brand yourself an author of one thing and then deliver the polar opposite, you can expect some surprise on the part of your readers.)

But back to my point, yes, I can always click the back button or close the book, but it's a human need to find out how a story ends, and a story that resolves with the hero or heroine working through their trauma and healing offers vicarious healing to the reader. The Lord of the Rings is a harrowing quest with an ultimately happy ending. No one's the same by the end, but the story is worth it because the process the characters go through -- growing and rising to the challenge -- outweighs the terrors of the journey.

I push my safety zones because exposure training is how you overcome terror of a thing. (If you fear cockroaches, you can overcome it by slowly reading about them, looking at photos, and eventually being in the same room as one and then killing it). Looking at abusive behavior in other contexts, like fanfic, is a tool for healing abuse trauma, especially if the survivor has a qualified therapist to work through her issues with. But it requires the survivor to emotionally prepare herself.

A good portion of my PTSD is the doing of someone whom I could but won't link to. Blame the attacker. If you blame me, then all you do is ally yourself with him, alienate me, and prove yourself a complete asshat. You're a better person than that, right? I want to believe you are because I'm in fandom for the awesome people, not just the stories.

And women are as awesome as we want to be, yes? Yes.

However, attacking women because they were attacked and now are in the process of healing supports misogyny. Telling a woman to "get over it" is ONLY the place of her most trusted advisors who know the depth of her grief and the extent of her healing process. From anyone else, it's unutterably rude and condescending, and there's enough misogyny in the world without women adding to it by degrading each other.

But.

I admit I don't always warn. I've grown tolerant of a lot of things that other readers find triggery, and it just doesn't occur to me. Also, I don't think offscreen trauma needs a warning, usually. At times I use a blanket warning of: "This fic includes some disturbing content." I like that because it preserves the mystery of the plot and allows sensitive readers to ask a friend to preread for them. (I have frequently asked friends to preread for me. It's the difference between a panic attack and enjoying a good story, so I find it worth the trouble of asking for the favor.)

Also, sometimes I don't realize I should warn because when I've been living inside a fic for however long it's taken me to write it, I'm not affected by the triggery issues -- at least not in the way the way a reader is. Failing to warn in that case is an error on my part. But, when someone points out to me that they wish I'd put in a warning for x, I apologize and go back and add it. That is the best I can do at that point, and I'll gladly do it. It's like putting in a stoplight at an intersection where there's been an accident. You don't realize there's a need until it's too late, but at that point the need is clear and putting in a light will save others from harm. That's common decency. Refusing to warn when it's clearly needed is sadistic; over-warning when it isn't necessary is patronizing.

In short: reasonable measures are reasonable.

Other issues:
People in the throes of a PTSD flashback or panic attack are freaking out. They aren't focused on being polite or nice. They're in distress and may lash out from a place of distress. (Been there, done that; there's a reason the first few years of my journal are locked private.) It's ugly, raw, and emotional, and logic doesn't hold a candle against that level of distress. Compassion, otoh, does.

Some people are drama-mongers. There are always a few. I choose to believe they don't know any better (and their need for therapy/enlightenment is their own responsibility), so I try to answer civilly before I step far, far away for my own mental health.

"It only takes an extra second to be courteous," says Fraser. I love Due South fandom in part because "courtesy" is the fandom's watchword. This is the peace we've achieved in the wake of some ugly, ugly ship wars: be nice, be civil about both Rays, have fun.

That's my response to practically every kerfuffle these days: be nice, be civil about x, have fun. Being civil about warnings is easy. Use a blanket (and vague) disturbing content warning like TV shows do. Or use the blackout code. Or state in the header that you don't believe in warnings. That's a warning in itself, and if I see that then I'll skip to the comments, find someone who's read the fic, and ask them if any of my squicks are in the fic. I will take the extra moment to take responsibility for my mental health. To do that, though, I need the notification at the top that I'm going to need to do so.

Note: I appreciate it when reccers offer warnings with their recs. "Disturbing content, but worth it!" goes a long way with me. *g*


Okay, I'm going to be out of pocket for a while today, so there might be a delay in answering comments but I'll get there. Peace, y'all. It's a gorgeous, sunny (if too hot) day here. I hope everyone finds something beautiful around them to enjoy. <3

I ♥ my cliche_bingo card SO MUCH!!

( Lookit! <3 )

Yay!!

Nell is graciously hosting the individual tracks on the soundtrack to my DS Big Bang, but I thought I'd also put them up in a single rar file for anyone who's interested. The songs range from punk to pop to altrock to "death country"; M4As are marked with asterisks.

1. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Drunk Teenagers
2. Sam Roberts - The Canadian Dream
3. Metric - The Police and the Private
4. Sean Macdonald - Obsolescence
5. Danny Michel - Feather, Fur & Fin
6. Elliott Brood - Wolfgang
7. Melanie Doane - There is No Beautiful ***
8. The Wet Secrets - Boat Gas Death Train
9. Girl Nobody - Balaclava Casino Heist
10. Sum 41 - Thanks for Nothing ***
11. Rock Plaza Central - anthem for the already defeated
12. Maybe Smith - The Dilemma of Burning Down the House
13. Wintersleep - Search Party
14. Metric - Help I'm Alive
15. Sam Roberts - Hard Road


LINK: megaupload.com/?d=KPDYYQZ7
If you like the music, please head over to itunes, maple music, amazon, etc. and support the artists.

ds_c6d_bigbang IS LIVE!! WOOHOO!! \o/

Title: Calm & the Black-Stained Sky
Author: Sage
Fandom: Due South
Pairing: Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser
Rating: NC-17
Length: 30,000 words

Two years post-COTW, RayK becomes a volunteer firefighter in a small town in Yukon Territory -- a small town with a spot of arson on its hands.



Follow the link to:

• the fic
• the story's official ALL-CANADIAN SOUNDTRACK
• the awesome SKETCH and SOUNDTRACK by nyn17!!
• the fantastic SERIES of POSTCARDS by omphale23!!

           ...and please let Nyn & Omphale know how wonderful they are!!

This evening at 8:22pm central time, Mercury goes Direct after 3 1/2 weeks of being retrograde. Communication and travel-related things will get back to normal over the coming week as Mercury picks up its (apparent) forward speed again.

Solstice is Soon! It is exact on June 21st at 12:46am CDT. This is the beginning of Summer (season of water)/Litha/Midsummer Night (where the middle of summer is counted as the midpoint between Beltane and Lammas/Lughnasa) -- or, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere: Winter Solstice/Yule/the beginning of Winter (season of earth).

All I want for midsummer2009 is...


( Dear writer )

After jumping through many, many hoops, Dreamwidth finally successfully imported my LJ. I've created posting filters on DW, so if you only want to read me on DW, feel free to pare me off your LJ reading list.

Note: not nearly everyone on my LJ posting filter is also on Dreamwidth, so I'll be cross-posting for at least a while yet. Also, not everyone with reading access on DW has access to the filter, as it's personal RL stuff. If I messed up access for anyone & the boring minutiae of my life is important to you, drop me a comment? Thanks.

Also, I have several DW free account invite codes if anyone wants one.

Look! It is meresy's porn tag game results! Fandoms included: Due South, Twitch City, DaVinci's Inquest, Hard Core Logo, Wilby Wonderful, Slings & Arrows, & RPS. Sixteen stories in nine days! Yay!! Please to go read & enjoy!

Out, having it
by Sage
1507 words, Rated NC-17, Due South Ray/Ray porn. Unbeta'd, written on the fly, please let me know if you catch any errors. :D

for meresy's porn tag game, from snoopypez's prompt, "Please put your pants back on."


( Out, having it )

Mercury is retrograde until May 30 (8:22pm CDT). That means it's time to go back and take care of things that fell through the cracks. Car maintenance, paying bills, forgotten commitments, etc. Double check assumptions, leave extra time & be extra patient.

The midpoint of spring/autumn (seasonal Beltane/Samhain) was exact May 5 (3:51am CDT). I've run a chart and I'll probably write a forecast, but to sum up: it's 6 weeks of male ego vs. women and change -- and a whole lot of talking. So, yeah, it could be much worse. Knock wood.

meresy's game of porn tag is up and running! So far there's HCL, Callum/Hugh RPS, and Wilby fic, but there are many days yet to come. (I haven't actually read any of the stories yet, but I'm on the list to write, so, uh, I should do that!)

china_shop was able to see Wilby Wonderful on the big screen and has thinky thoughts about it, esp in comments. Click here.

I signed up to have my stuff remixed at remixthedrabble -- but not to write because I suck have never participated in a remix before and it scares me. But if anyone ever wanted to remix my fic in 100 words, this is your chance. Sadly my own Wilby fic doesn't count because the mods are counting each C6D fandom separately -- which is sad for tiny fandoms where there just aren't all that many stories to tell, but oh well. It's a drabble challenge and I kind of fail at drabbles.

The C6D Midsummer Santa Challenge is going to happen again this year! mergatrude is in charge of the revamp and I'm looking forward to it very much!

I've managed to write a few more words in the ds_c6d_bigbang fic this week, despite being under the weather.

Have also been watching Life on Mars and Torchwood and listening to Tolkien on audiobook, so my head's all full of britspeak when I'm supposed to be writing North American accents. It's very confusing.

Happily, the girl wants to start a longdistance viewing of Chuck from the beginning, as she has never really watched it. That will be fun! :D

I remembered this morning that I haven't updated my website since before the new year. Oops? I guess coding is as good a way to spend a morning as any... *opens notepad*

Music request: does anyone have any Gabrielle Roth? I have her albums Totem & Initiation, and I actually paid money for them, but that's all I can afford right now. It's ambient and gorgeous (and note to malnpudl: her stuff would be ideal for massage work) and I love it. Anyway, I'd be enormously grateful if anyone had tracks to share. :)

meresy is running a DS & C6D version of stop_drop_porn, the 24-hour tag-you're-it porn challenge. 300 word minimum in Due South or ANY C6D fandom (which is damn near anything Canadian at this point).

Signups close TONIGHT at 9pm Eastern (New York) / 8pm Central (Chicago) time.

Go here to sign up! \o/

Title: The Shortest Distance Between Two Points
Author: Sage
Fandom: Chuck
Rating: PG-13
Length: 440
Pairing: Casey/Chuck
Notes: This is all Nando's fault. He said, let's do a writing challenge! I said, I can't write Chuck! He said, Let's try anyway!

( The Shortest Distance Between Two Points )

“Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?”
by Marilyn Hacker


Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?
Before a face suddenly numinous,
her eyes watered, knees melted. Did she lactate
again, milk brought down by a girl’s kiss?
It’s documented torrents are unloosed
by such events as recently produced
not the wish, but the need, to consume, in us,
one pint of Maalox, one of Kaopectate.
My eyes and groin are permanently swollen,
I’m alternatingly brilliant and witless
—and sleepless: bed is just a swamp to roll in.
Although I’d cream my jeans touching your breast,
sweetheart, it isn’t lust; it’s all the rest
of what I want with you that scares me shitless.


from Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons, 1986.

Spring
by Karla Kuskin


I’m shouting
I’m singing
I’m swinging through trees
I’m winging skyhigh
With the buzzing black bees.
I’m the sun
I’m the moon
I’m the dew on the rose.
I’m a rabbit
Whose habit
Is twitching his nose.
I’m lively
I’m lovely
I’m kicking my heels.
I’m crying “Come Dance”
To the fresh water eels.
I’m racing through meadows
Without any coat
I’m a gamboling lamb
I’m a light leaping goat
I’m a bud
I’m a bloom
I’m a dove on the wing.
I’m running on rooftops
And welcoming spring!


from In the Middle of the Trees, 1959.

Toys in a Field
by Yusef Komunyakaa


Using the gun mounts
for monkey bars,
children skin the cat,
pulling themselves through,
suspended in doorways
of abandoned helicopters
in graveyards. With arms
spread-eagled they imitate
vultures landing in fields.
Their play is silent
as distant rain,
the volume turned down
on the 6 o’clock news,
except for the boy
with American eyes
who keeps singing
rat-a-tat-tat, hugging
a broken machine gun.



from Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems, 2001

The Dragon
by Brigit Pegeen Kelly


The bees came out of the junipers, two small swarms
The size of melons; and golden, too like melons,
They hung next to each other, at the height of a deer’s breast
Above the wet black compost. And because
The light was very bright it was hard to see them,
And harder still to see what hung between them.
A snake hung between them. The bees held up a snake,
Lifting each side of his narrow neck, just below
The pointed head, and in this way, very slowly
They carried the snake through the garden,
The snake’s long body hanging down, its tail dragging
The ground, as if the creature were a criminal
Being escorted to execution or a child king
To the throne. I kept thinking the snake
Might be a hose, held by two ghostly hands,
But the snake was a snake, his body green as the grass
His tail divided, his skin oiled, the way the male member
Is oiled by the female’s juices, the greenness overbright,
The bees gold, the winged serpent moving silently
Through the air. There was something deadly in it,
Or already dead. Something beyond the report
Of beauty. I laid my face against my arm, and there
It stayed for the length of time it takes two swarms
Of bees to carry a snake through a wide garden,
Past a sleeping swan, past the dead roses nailed
To the wall, past the small pond. And when
I looked up the bees and the snake were gone,
But the garden smelled of broken fruit, and across
the grass a shadow lay for which there was no source,
A narrow plinth dividing the garden, and the air
Was like the air after a fire, or before a storm,
Ungodly still, but full of shapes turning.



from The Orchard, 2004

The Cinnamon Peeler
by Michael Ondaatje


If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you.  The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under the rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back.  This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
– your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

         this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume

                     and knew

           what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife.  Smell me.


first published in Running in the Family, 1982.

A Few Lines from Rehoboth Beach
by Fleda Brown


Dear friend, you were right: the smell of fish and foam
and algae makes one green smell together. It clears
my head. It empties me enough to fit down in my own

skin for a while, singleminded as a surfer. The first
day here, there was nobody, from one distance
to the other. Rain rose from the waves like steam,

dark lifted off the dark. All I could think of
were hymns, all I knew the words to: the oldest
motions tuning up in me. There was a horseshoe crab

shell, a translucent egg sack, a log of a tired jetty,
and another, and another. I walked miles, holding
my suffering deeply and courteously, as if I were holding

a package for somebody else who would come back
like sunlight. In the morning, the boardwalk opened
wide and white with sun, gulls on one leg in the slicks.

Cold waves, cold air, and people out in heavy coats,
arm in arm along the sheen of waves. A single boy
in shorts rode his skimboard out thigh-high, making

intricate moves across the March ice-water. I thought
he must be painfully cold, but, I hear you say, he had
all the world emptied, to practice his smooth stand.


From Do Not Peel the Birches, 1993.

Crash

by Elizabeth Alexander


I am the last woman off of the plane
that has crashed in a cornfield near Philly,

picking through hot metal
for my rucksack and diaper bag.

No black box, no fuselage,
just sistergirl pilot wiping soot from her eyes,

happy to be alive. Her dreadlocks
will hold the smoke for weeks.

All the white passengers bailed out
before impact, so certain a sister

couldn’t navigate the crash. O gender.
O race. O ye of little faith.

Here we are in the cornfield, bruised and dirty but alive.
I invite sistergirl pilot home for dinner

at my parents’, for my mother’s roast chicken
with gravy and rice, to celebrate.



from Antebellum Dream Book, 2001.

American Smooth
by Rita Dove


We were dancing - it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved
into the next song without
stopping, two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride - such perfect agony
one learns to smile through,
ecstatic mimicry
being the sine qua non
of American Smooth.
And because I was distracted
by the effort of
keeping my frame
(the leftward lean, head turned
just enough to gaze out
past your ear and always
smiling, smiling),
I didn't notice
how still you'd become until
we had done it
(for two measures?
four?) - achieved flight,
that swift and serene
magnificence,
before the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down.



from American Smooth, 2004.

I'm sage at dreamwidth, thanks to Isis. :) Nothing's there yet, but I want to put the thing to good use. I have yet to decide what to do re cross-posting, imports, etc., but I'm sure all that will resolve itself over the next month or three. :D

ION, Dell came and fixed my laptop. It's writing the new HD right now, so my afternoon will be spent installing programs and transferring backed up files. Yay!

Backside
by Chika Sagawa


Night eats color,
Flower bouquets lose their fake ornaments.
Day falls into teh leaves like sparkling fish
And struggles, like the lowly mud,
The shapeless dreams and trees
Nurtured outside this shriveled, deridable despair.
And the space that was chopped down
Tickles the weeds there by its feet.
Fingers stained with tar from cigarettes
Caress the writhing darkness.
And then the people move forward.


Translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu. From Poetry, April 2009.
 

Amazon Rank is so, so worthy of googlebombing. I am disgusted and disappointed, not least because they've gotten rather a lot of my money over the last several years. *considers feasibility of a boycott*


Special Orders
by Edward Hirsch


Give me back my father walking the halls
   of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company
      with sawdust clinging to his shoes.

Give me back his tape measure and his keys,
   his drafting pencil and his order forms;
      give me his daydreams on lined paper.

I don't understand this uncontainable grief.
   Whatever you had that never fit,
      whatever else you needed, believe me,

my father, who wanted your business,
   would squat down at your side
      and sketch you a container for it.



from American Poet, Spring 2009.

Excuse the unexpectedly long hiatus, please. April is zooming by faster than I'd imagined.

HALP! I'm having an identity crisis.

I don't yet have a Dreamwidth invite code, but I will. And when I get one, I'll need to set up a user name. And on this past March 28th, I had my 7th LJ anniversary.

Do I want to be "Sage"?

Or Socks? Or Boots? Or Green? Or Silken? Or Plaid? Or any random word out of the dictionary?

Unblinking? Mauve? Tertiary? Carpal_Tunnel_Sucks? Readsalot?

I'm ready for a change from Sageness, which was only a last resort due to variants of Sage being taken when I set it up, but it seems like there ought to be a word screaming "pick me, pick me!" HENCE, I totally need suggestions, so please comment with ideas!

Thanks! :D