Watching Star Trek, I used to think Jem Hadar and Klingons being these fierce warrior races was something of an Informed Trait when they kept losing in face-to-face fights with mild-mannered Starfleet officers. It was only later that it struck me, Starfleet officers are just that tough.

Just how motivated and ambitious do you have to be, as someone coming from a post-scarcity society, to sign up for such arduous training and potential danger? I have to wonder what kind of people decide to go through years of rigorous education, constant work and travel, and the possibility of a nasty death when they are guaranteed lives without fear or want right on their home planets.

Could it be that Starfleet is, in fact, a place for malcontents? Not the kind of small-time malcontent that turns to destruction and exploitation, but the kind of malcontent that is stifled on some level by the cushy existence of their home planet (even while being willing to die to protect it) and wants something more. Something out there and anywhere but here.

( What do you do with world-shakers in paradise? )

(This meta was originally posted to Tumblr and is reposted after light editing)

I've been writing code to auto-post my local files DW, and while I've been adding stuff and debugging it's running more or less reliably these days. If all goes well this post should come from a queue, too. You may have noticed that my posts have increased in frequency, and that's due largely to having an actual draft folder and queue. Being able to work on some posts little by little while others go out to queue just suits my workflow a lot better when it comes to blogging, and it's a big plus to be able to work locally with posts on apps of my choosing and to have local copies on hand.

( SW EPIX trailer discussion, fan discourse, academia )

Sorry about the blank posts I've been making, I guess I know now what my queue script does when the folder is empty XD I'll write in some error handling for that so it doesn't happen again. N00b problems and all.

Now listening to: The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, the third book in her The Queen's Thief series. Eugenides is dealing with being the king of a court that hates him and the threat of the Mede Empire hangs in the background, while the royal guard Costas is swept into the middle of it all. So far I don't find this book as suspenseful as the previous ones and the pacing is somewhat lagging. Costas seems way more of a bystander than a protagonist thus far, diminishing my interest in him, though I do enjoy the look into the rigors of guard life and the complexities of court life. It's still an OK listen to cook or commute to.

Now reading: The King of the Light in the East as a Work of Epic Poetry by Hwang Sun-gu. (Kings are a theme of this week I guess?) I'm not much for literary studies unless you count fandom meta, but The King of the Light in the East is crucial research for my WIP in depicting the life of my heroine's second husband Jumong and the rise of his son (her stepson) Yuri. This poem also goes into more detail than any other source about the rivalry and eventual war between Jumong and Song-yang, a local lord that Jumong would eventually prevail over and make his vassal. In my story Song-yang is both my heroine's and Jumong's ex-boyfriend, so he's a pivotal figure in many ways. The poet, Lee Gyubo, also happens to be an ancestor and it feels sometimes like I'm just taking up a family obsession.

The volume by Hwang Sun-gu presents Lee Gyubo's text in the original Hanja (Chinese characters) and the Korean translation, together with a lot of background analysis. In fact, I'm a little past half done and the excerpts have only just started. The background analysis was... mildly helpful? A lot of it consists of frothy praise about how Lee Gyubo's poem is a literary and historical achievement. Which is correct, as far as it goes, but I like less the whiff of empire-worship from the discussions of how Goguryeoh (modern day North Korea + parts of Northeast China) had a vast continental territory etc. etc. It wasn't like super-heavy analysis or anything and I skimmed through a lot of it. Maybe the textual analysis will be more helpful, and if not it'll be a chance to re-read the text of the poem in more depth.

( Rape discussion and super creepy description, why are you talking about frogs that way D: )

In line with my continuing quest to count failure and rejection as success, here are some new rejections and possible rejections to report:

I got turned down for a corporate counsel position! I didn't expect to get it, and in fact would have been somewhat alarmed if I had received an offer, but it still counts.

I also sent a publication proposal for a tabletop roleplaying game I really like. Now this one would actually hurt if I were turned down, but asking gives me a way better chance than if I had never asked, right? That's the point of this exercise, to keep putting myself out there and asking and trying until something sticks.

Now with one rejection finalized and another possibly on the way, it's time to think about what other applications and submissions I can send out to rake up more rejections. There's an academic position a friend linked me to that I should try for, probably an easy rejection other than the fact that I have to get letters of recommendation--and I hate asking favors. I should send out some academic papers for submission, too. Oh, and I got a short story idea from the research I was doing for my WIP, I should write that up and send it somewhere.

I know the subject of asexuality and sex acceptance can be a fraught subject because aces are already stereotyped as inherently slut-shaming and homophobic for their orientation. This is, of course, textbook aphobia: Being slut-shaming or homophobic is a matter of choices and beliefs, not a sexual orientation.

With that in mind I think it's still important to discuss that some people on the asexual spectrum do go through or went through a slut-shaming phase, myself included. Some determined jerks never leave that phase, but again, I'll let you use the fact against all aces if you can show me ONE marginalized group that does not have its share of jerks. Just one. I'll wait.

Here's another reason slut-shaming is no ace in the hole (hah) for aphobes: Far from being slut-shaming being inherent to asexuality, slut-shaming for aces is often a reaction to aphobia, not to mention an example of the utterly messed up way a lot of us are taught to engage with sex.

( Discussions of aphobia, sex, slut-shaming, exclusionism )

I spent Monday afternoon last week researching clothing from the time period I'm writing in, that is 1st century B.C. mostly to the north of the Korean peninsula. The dudes' feathered hats came up again, but I went through more comprehensive treatments of fashion in that era that were not focused exclusively on noblemen's hats. One of the books I took copious notes on agrees with me that the feathers were definitely real bird feathers early on but that feather-shaped or deer ear-shaped decorations also came into use later on.

All the books that I took a look at on this subject seem to discuss the Xiongnu(1) clothing uncovered at the Noin-Ula burial site in Mongolia, pointing out the similarities to Korean clothing in the basic structure of articles like form-fitting pants, wraparound tunic bound with a belt, and outer coat. A red tunic found in Noin-Ula shows traces of being trimmed with fur, which is a great distinctive look I could use since the ancient connection between the Xiongnu and Koreans seems inescapable.

( More ancient Korean fashion, plus pictures! )

I've been spending the past couple of days trying to set up a DW queue from my local machine and it's been a lot of fun, though hard because I knew practically nothing about the Mac OS X shell going in. Now I think I know even less--like why is it so hard to set up a variable lol. I've been documenting the process as I went along and will post it when I get it working. If all goes well this post should be posted with that script. Update: It worked! It's showing unexpected behavior that I need to figure out, but so far it's not affecting anything visible.

Two days of this week were taken up in an INTENSIVE deadline that got me some much-needed dough but took a physical toll. I have the beginning of a head cold and a persistent lower-back ache that I am trying to relieve with rest and stretching. My tot has a runny nose, too, a recurring occurrence for him: Poor kid never stood a chance with both his parents' history of sinus infections.

I've been listening to The Queen's Thief audiobooks and am almost done with the second book The Queen of Attolia. The audiobooks are well-acted and enjoyable in their own right. I'll have more to say about the books later on, but for now here are my Mastodon threads from Book 1 The Thief and from Book 2, with rampant spoilers obviously.

Writing has fallen by the wayside while I was distracted, but I'm hoping to get back on that wagon this weekend. At this point I don't think I'll meet my goal of completing a first draft (well, third first draft) of the WIP by my birthday this June. :( Oh well, at least the goal will push me to keep writing.

marvelfemslashevents

Nominations: March 17th-31st (OPEN - Close 11:59pm PST)
Signups: April 2-April 13 (Open 9am PST - Close 11:59pm PST)
Assignments Sent Out: April 14
Fanworks Due: May 31 by 11:59PM PST
Collection Opens: Friday, June 7th at 6pm PST
Creator Reveals: Friday, June 14th at 6pm PST

AO3 Collection