A Fanfic Challenge

[fabrisse]

I want exotic -- location, act, pairing. I want PWP. I want Lush.

I was over at www.Lush.com and noticed that they had some products that sounded like fic titles. Now I want someone to write the fic to go with them. Any rating. If I get more than 10, I'll find someone to set up a web page for it.

Take me away from all this.

Please.

Comments

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

A Lush title challenge would be fabulous indeed.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Can't you just picture a Lex fic called "Sex Bomb" or an SG-1 set on planet "Phuket"?

My day's a little brighter already.

Bath product porn

[(Anonymous)]

Your day is brighter? So's my Midnight! So, do I want to do Jack/Daniel and entitle it Hot Java? Or perhaps some hot Clex called Mr. Butterball? Wesley/Lorne in some combination suggested by a completely different product?

So much porn, so little time in which to write it. Sigh.

Still... (goes to happy place) I'm sure I can come up with something.

Twistie

who is always happy to have an excuse to write about hot men having fun together

Re: Bath product porn

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

They all sound good. *sigh*

mmmm, Lush

[cicatrix-zero.livejournal.com]

What a loverly idea. I may just have to +friend you so that I don't miss any further developements.

Re: mmmm, Lush

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Works for me. Can we expect a magnum opus?

Re: mmmm, Lush

[cicatrix-zero.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. I'm not much of a writer [unless you count my current work: 'Following Disutopian Trends Through Satrical Political Fiction']. All I can offer for you is some graphics work. Do you need any title bars, etc.?

Re: mmmm, Lush

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Once I get contributions, title bars would be cool.

Re: mmmm, Lush

[siderea]

unless you count my current work: 'Following Disutopian Trends Through Satrical Political Fiction'

Er, I'm interested. :) One of my somewhat-back-burner projects is reading up on the history of utopian thought, precisely to get a better grip on the use of utopian, anti-utopian and distopian rhetoric.

Re: mmmm, Lush

[cicatrix-zero.livejournal.com]

*blinks* Wow . . . I never really expected anyone else to be interested in this. I'm focusing on the train of thought from The Republic -> The Prince -> Utopia -> 1984.

Re: mmmm, Lush

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

What about dystopias which are presented as utopias either to the reader (Lost Horizon) or to the participants (Brave New World)? Will Gulliver's Travels have a place?

Are we striving for utopias or are we as a species merely doing our darndest to avoid the dystopias out there?

Suffered through Erewhon

[cicatrix-zero.livejournal.com]

Basically, here's what I'm writing about: Plato writes TheRep. Fast forward, then the Prince is written. Then More writes 'Utopia' as a satire in response to the Prince, combining ideas from TheRep. and The Prince. This is then furthered by Orwell, [in 1984] by showing what it would be like to live in Utopia.

It's not a great paper, but it's not too bad.
- I'm not really mentioning G's Travels, but I am including Candide.
- I'll choose door #2: we as a species are merely doing our darndest to avoid the dystopias out there

Re: Suffered through Erewhon

[siderea]

Basically, here's what I'm writing about: Plato writes TheRep. Fast forward, then the Prince is written. Then More writes 'Utopia' as a satire in
response to the Prince, combining ideas from TheRep. and The Prince. This is then furthered by Orwell, [in 1984] by showing what it would be like to live in Utopia.

Yes, I am interested. My particular interest is how western dis/utopian writings (and movements!) have shaped the current state of political rhetoric. Or put another way, "Why has 'utopian' become an insult? For how long has that been the case?"

For what are you writing this paper? Is this an on-going interest, or a one-off for you?

Are you in the Boston area, by any chance? BTW, you can extrapolate my email address by taking my username and emailing to it at mixolydian.org.

I had not heard that More's Utopia was meant as a satire. That may be because I live under a rock. Or is this a theory of your own? (See, this is why I should get out more.)

Ù

Re: mmmm, Lush

[siderea]

What about dystopias which are presented as utopias either to the reader (Lost Horizon) or to the participants (Brave New World)? Will Gulliver's
Travels have a place?

One of the things I've discovered is that "utopias", as a topic, is something of a camel; once you've let the nose into the tent with you....

Personally, I classify something as a utopia or a dystopia based on whether the author thought it was one or the other. Personally, I'm more interested in utopias right now, because I feel it's quite different as a writing genre than dystopias. Utopian writing, by its very nature, has to be somewhat completist. In presenting a utopia, one is depicting an idealized society, and to do so one must show all of its parts. That is the difference between a utopian writing and a fantasy which merely fiats "this is an idealized society" as a setting for some other plot, e.g. Lothlorian is not a utopia.

But a dystopian writing needs only show us what is broken in society to criticize that society. 1984 is a great example of this; it has nothing to say about, say, childrearing in that society, or the production of food. It doesn't have to, to make its point.

Are we striving for utopias or are we as a species merely doing our darndest to avoid the dystopias out there?

That question is unanswerable on the species level, because it's a cultural question. It's theoretically answerable on the cultural level, but is largely unanswered. (That is why I am investigating it.)

The short answer is that various cultures -- and this has changed (remarkably so) in the mainstream US culture over the history of this country -- have various different attitudes towards the perfectability of man and the perfectability of human society. Within the US, there have been various cultural movements with utopian elements: think for a moment on the boom in communes in the 1970s. Also think on the various "war on poverty" efforts in the 1950s and 1960s (am hazy on precise timing) that built all those "projects" in big cities.

I highly recommend the book Cities on a Hill for a thought provoking look at four "intential communities" in the 1980s, and, in the final chapter, a great discussion of a previous period of utopian ferver in American history.

Which reminds me: if anyone can recommend any good books on the history of the Burnt-Over District, I'd be obliged for the pointer.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you should bring up the possibility of man's perfectability. The old saw that "an optimist believes that we live in the best possible world; the pessimist fears that this is true," seems appropriate.

When I was taking an American history course from my dad in 1980 (Just before the election), he noted that the Liberal movement of the 19th century was essentially optimistic. It said that humanity could be perfected and that legislation could help build that better world. This was the base on which the 20th century Civil Rights movement rested.

Conservatives believed that man was on a slow decline and that the best thing we could do is preserve the status quo or maybe recapture a better moment from the immediate past (the Golden Age was too far back to be aimed at). Reagan won the election by promising morning in America, where it looked like the 1930s without the Depression.

I think this may link to my moment of satori in WHSmith all those years ago. Science Fiction may be inherently liberal (after all no matter how dystopian there is a future); fantasy may lean toward conservatism, or, at the very least, a taste for it may reflect a more conservative wider society.