feroxargentea

This one hurt, her work had such a profound effect on my life, thoughts, and politics.

May her memory be a blessing

Marjane Satrapi, cartoonist and film director, best known for Persepolis

God it's hard to phrase this question in a non-biasing way. Also I promise I've encountered all of these phrases irl

if something else please tell me what!

BODY

SOMETHING

*inhale* THAT I CAN’T EXPLAIN ᴵᴹ ᴳᴼᴺᴺᴬ ˢᵀᴬᴿᵀ ᶠᴿᴼᴹ ᵀᴴᴱ ᵀᴼᴾ

Agent Miles (ahuhuhuh)

Agent

MULDER

I AM STANDING HERE IN

The rain

AND

2. The mud

LOOKING AT TWO COFFINS THAT WE—AGENT MULDER I AM STANDING OUT HERE IN

The rain

AND

The mud

AND

The rain

ᵃⁿᵈ…ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵒʳᶜᵉ ˢᵘᵐᵐᵒⁿᵉᵈ ᵗᵉʳᵉˢᵃ… ⁿᵉᵇᵇᶦⁿ’ˢ ᵇᵒᵈʸ (nemmin’s body) ⁿᵉᵐᵐᶦⁿ’ˢ ᵇᵒᵈʸ

AND THE FORCE SUMMONED TERESA NEMMIN’S BODY………………INTO THE WOODS TONIGHT

⁽ⁿᵒ, ᵍᵒ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿ, ᵍᵒ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿ⁾

AND TERESA NEMMIN’S AND THE PUH-

AND THE FORCE…..IT

Summoned

TERESA NEMMINS,,,,

INTO,,,,,

the woods tonight

Happy 100th Birthday David Attenborough [b: 8th May 1926]

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.

So, I attended this event last Friday as part of York Literature Festival and what a privilege it was to listen to Susanna talk in the city that inspired so much of JSAMN. It's the second time I've seen her in person, but there was definitely something extra special about seeing her in York.

I'm sure I've forgotten loads of fascinating nuggets of details she shared, but here are just a few personal favourites:

She read snippets from both JSAMN (she aptly chose 'The Stones of York', given the venue was just down the road from the Minster) and Piranesi, which was a real treat.

Someone in the audience asked how Mr Norrell and Childermass met and whether there were any lost footnotes about their origin story and Susanna replied, "I think there's some fan fiction on that" 👀

She's currently working on two books: one about Bradford, as she grew up there. And the other is set in the JSAMN universe, but she wouldn't say anything else about it.

Surprisingly, she had only visited York once with an old boyfriend prior to writing JSAMN. She based the majority of her knowledge of the layout of the city etc. on paper maps.

Even as a hobbyist fic writer, I heavily related to a lot of her thoughts on the writing process, particularly about only being able to do a lot of writing or reading at any given time (i.e. if she's writing, she can't do much reading and vice versa). Someone also asked about how she goes about researching and she alluded to getting lost down rabbit holes and wondering why she'd need half of what she'd read. She joked that if she needed to include a fork in her writing, she'd end up reading up about the history of forks and I've never felt more seen 🤣

Although she said she doesn't do much reading nowadays, someone in the audience asked about contemporary books she'd enjoyed and she named The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.

She said Childermass was always very easy to write and that he would just ride in, say "I've got this" and take over (which sounds so very Childermass ❤️).

She loved the BBC TV adaptation and went to watch some of it being filmed. She said both Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan were the inverse of their characters: Bertie was very meticulous, well-researched and wanted to rehearse a lot, whereas Eddie was happy to just turn up and wing it lol.

She talked about some of the film deals that never panned out, including one studio who had just dealt with a situation in relation to another author/adaptation where they were accused of ripping off someone else's book and the whole project had to be scrapped. As a result, they wanted to know which books had inspired JSAMN. Susanna’s people sent back a list of over 200 books and the studio didn't believe her and expected her to name just one other title as inspiration?!

The footnotes in JSAMN were originally only meant for Susanna's enjoyment, but the publishers (thankfully) left them in.

due SOUTH HD

due SOUTH Season 1 - Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/due-south-hd-Season-1

due SOUTH Season 2 - Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/due-south-hd-Season-2

due SOUTH Season 3 - Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/due-south-hd-Season-3

due SOUTH Season 4 - Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/due-south-hd-Season-4

When I saw that they took down Due South HD Youtube channel I was upset, so I looked for the best site that would allow them and have the lowest chance of being taken down and I loaded them and I want to share them. Because I'm mad at Youtube LOL

If the Due South HD ever comes back I will take these down because I respect him and what he did for my favorite show but until then this is the best I can do to make myself feel better for their absence.

well this isn't exactly that story, but

thinking about the practices like beta'ing (please tell me, did it make sense, the way their bodies moved in space? how did it make you feel? did it touch your soul? were there any typos?); translations, illustrations, affectual comments: the ongoing reciprocity of affect and the labor that goes into that.

thinking about fanfics written to be gifted: combing through a friend's ao3/blog/etc to make sure you know exactly what kind of freak they are because you want to give them the ultimate pleasurable fantasy experience (happy birthday, here are some feels, i crafted them for you by hand). then posting it publicly as a tagged gift so everyone else can join in too. a present for all.

thinking about the history of slash fanfiction practices spanning the last 50+ years and the way female and queer fans clawed out spaces for that, not only within the heteronormative patriarchal culture at large but within fandom spaces:

het fanzines and later websites refusing to publish slash or, at best, doing stuff like publishing it with a whole page warning and on a differently colored paper

cishet women writing and drawing slash smut for each other and having to hide it from their husbands; their secret, erotically-charged lives shared only with other women

diy typing out and printing of slash zines, of a 100, 200 pages each, to avoid printer screening and tracking; having to start own printing shops or finding queer-run ones; the materiality of it all

mailing slash zines for free and in secret to avoid not only copyright but sodomy and obscenity laws, like the (still active) federal mail law that criminalized mailing pornography, whether images or text (and how, when the 1964 Supreme Court ruled it inapplicable to noncommercial letters between consensual adults, the precedent excluded homosexual letter exchange)

thinking about fanartist Virginia Lee Smith, who, in the 1980s, drew explicit af K/S smut for a dozen zines, and her interview in 2009 about donating her 200 zines collection, where she said, laughing, "The reason I handed this over is because I know that my poor kid, if I die, will be so embarrassed[...] I know he's gonna burn them. Lost forever. So, I have no idea how many k/s fanzines have been burned quietly for that reason." thinking about how she said she outgrew it when she stopped drawing; and yet she kept all 200 of them anyway.

thinking about the ephemerality of pleasure and the continuance of shame.