Rat Creature's Journal

I've been reading a slash story in which a heated argument between the couple (who are also friends) results in punch being thrown, and then the one punched actually finds the aggression a turn on and it goes on to sex. Somehow this combination of sex and violence doesn't work for me at all, not even in fiction, where I'm not averse to combinations of sex and violence.

Like, I can go along fine if the aggression is against some kind of third party, and one character is turned on by the other being violent, or they are turned on mutually, say if they are both in a barfight or even slaughter others. I can also go along with non-con that involves violence with the victim not being turned on, but I as a reader like it. But if the violence is between the couple (and they are supposed to like each other), uncontrolled violence segueing into sex (rather than say rough sex that is mutually agreed upon) is squicky for me, more so if the violence is not mutual (the latter would be more fighting leading to fucking in some kind of hate sex, which I also don't like, but it is not as bad as one sided violence).

Most often this is shown from the POV of the character the aggression is turned upon rather than the violent character being turned on by the escalation, i.e. A hits B, usually after some provocation, then B somehow finds that aggression/violence (or sometimes the loss of control) hot, and sex follows. I have to admit that I find this particular combination of sex and violence to be surprising as a kink, and it always startles me, but I see this every now and then, and I'm wondering whether it is something that many people like in sex scenes.

So, a poll:

So, I have been sucked into the the ST:AOS fandom, and I feel the need for having more Star Trek icons. I've had my Spock icon for a long time, and also have a Borg which, while not all that suitable for the TOS/AOS time period, aptly describes being assimilated into a new fandom. But now I'm considering to make an Uhura icon.

The snag I've run into is that I'm not sure which hairstyle I should choose. For rather obvious reason with my icon theme "resemblance" for a character depends a lot on things like associated symbols, tools, clothes and hairstyle. While I intend to use it for the new movie fandom, I somehow feel that TOS Uhura's hairstyle would be more recognizable to represent the character. So what do you think?

I'm wondering what other people do with their preliminary sketches and stuff. For each actually finished piece of fanart I end up with a pile of more or less awful and hideous half abandoned sketches, rough composition doodles, sketches to work out body parts, perspective, color, textures, sometimes just a couple, sometimes dozens and more. I have packrat tendencies in general, so it is hard for me to throw things out, but otoh, what do I need a pile with failed sketches of mishapen half-finished stuff for, once I have finished the work?

So I'm curious what other people do:

I did this before (that post is f-locked, though), but this is the slightly updated variant (this time with ticky boxes instead of radio buttons for those of us who can't even decide anymore what to be most anxious about):

[Poll at LJ] or [Poll at DW] (sorry, I can't post polls here)

With my last drawing committing to a fanart WIP in public to overcome my inertia seems to have worked, so I thought I'd try it again. Only I haven't started any of my other ideas yet, though I have some very preliminary, scattered scribbles for a couple, and have mulled over others for a while. Anyway, I thought I'd ask which of these ideas I should pick next (there is a poll below, but some of the descriptions for my ideas were too long for poll fields, so had to do that separately):

• the next portrait in my SGA/Avatar fusion series which was supposed to be a set but never got past Teyla as a Waterbender. Options would be Ronon as Firebender, John as Airbender, or Rodney as Earthbender
• Bug!John
• John as Athosian
• a sort of gothic/steampunkish SGA AU idea I have, in which the Wraith experiments are somehow more technological (like Frankenstein) and Rodney is sort of a mad scientist, or maybe Carson and Rodney working together. The problem with this is that I like the creepy steampunk science idea, but am not really clear what underlying scenario would work
• drawing a canon scene from the Dresden Files books, possibilities would be Dresden calling Erlking or riding the dinosaur (from Dead Beat), the ritual preparation, with Dresden kneeling (from Proven Guilty), Dresden and Ramirez preparing for battle, or the scene with Dresden and Michael fighting the baboon monsters at Union station (from Small Favor)
• a canon illustration Elemental Magic series, from early in Earth Magic, Zanja by fire light reading her cards
• an injured Daredevil, possibly in a Catholic church

You can comment or vote in this poll (though as usual with these things, there's no guarantee that I really stick to the poll results, or even produce anything):
(The poll is only at my LJ, because I can't do polls here, you can vote there or just comment here.)

Over time my AU recs page has grown somewhat large and unwieldy. Since an update is due soon, I've been wondering whether users would prefer to have my AU recs broken up in separate fandom pages, i.e. all fandoms with say more than twenty stories recced would get their own page, the rest would stay on a page for other fandoms in their own sections, as it is now. The main AU recs page would become an index linking to the fandom pages/sections, and have a "Recently Added" summary for the last update, like the update posts I do to my LJ, so that people wouldn't have to click further than the main page for the just latest recs. It would mean more clicking to see all recs, but smaller pages.

So which option would you prefer? After all, I'm not the one using the page.

(There's a poll over at my LJ, because I can't do polls here at IJ, so you can either vote over there, or just comment here.)

I want to expand the bowtruckle drawing I posted a couple of days ago into a series, because I like drawing creatures, and I think it would be fun to have something like multiple plates from this imaginary old encyclopedia from the HP universe, especially ones with slightly more obscure bests that you don't see that often featured in fanart. But I'm undecided which beast to tackle next, hence this poll over at my LJ to help me decide. (I can't do polls here at IJ, so you can either vote over there, or just comment here with your favorite creature.)

Back in ancient times (okay, three years ago or so) I used to have my website setup in a way so that images like sketches or fanart and such displayed in a new pop up browser window, because personally when navigating thumbnails that just open an image, not a real page, I like not to go away from the gallery page. However I then did a a poll on this topic, and the vast majority preferred thumbnails to open the image in the same window. So I changed my site to match that preference.

However now I just found a neat javascript thing, Lightbox JS, that displays images in an overlay on the same page. If you surf with javascript turned off it'll behave just like before, so it doesn't break the basic navigation or anything like that, it's just an extra. And I'm considering to switch my site's picture galleries to this. To show the effect I created a copy of my fanart page using the script, so that you can see the effect. Just click on a link to a piece of fanart, and if you have javascript enabled, it ought to show the image in an overlay with the page underneath darkened (and please tell me if it doesn't work for you for some reason, or if there are any display problems, like distortions or whatever).

So given this alternative to the images simply opening in the same window, and having to use the back button, which do you like better?

(I have a poll over at my LJ, so you can either vote there, or just comment here.)

ETA: Just to clarify, this script does not prevent you from opening the image in a tab with a different click (at least that still works for me, it was the first thing I tried), nor does it hinder saving images or any of the other annoying things some image display gadgets will do.

In the eternal struggle to procrastinate cleaning my kitchen, I've been thinking about redesigning my website. Because starting a complicated, complete overhaul is more like actual work, I decided to just make my very bare-bones crossover recs look a bit nicer. Currently it's all in one column, first the list of fandoms linking to the sections below, then come the actual recs. I thought it might look nicer in two column, with the fandom list to the left, the recs on the right, like this. However before I commit to this, I thought I might solicit opinions, on which you like better.

I have a poll over at my LJ, so you can either votethere, or just comment here.

I'm terribly uncreative. :( I'm not even decided whether I should go for a simply practical and descriptive name, say "drawingpractice" (luckily still barely within the 15 character limit) or something more whimsical like say "slothsdraw" (I feel a deep kinship towards sloths in my drawing habits...*g*)

Feel free to offer names even if you are not interested in joining.

poll @ my LJ

...which of course conveniently procrastinates any actual drawing practice. *g*

Anyway, after my last post I thought a bit more about getting back into the habit of drawing regularly, and I don't think just looking for a random list of prompts somewhere is going to work for me. When talking about this in the comments of my previous post I realized that I'm kind of looking for the online equivalent of an informal drawing group.

( cut for length, to spare the uninterested f-list )

So I thought I could do a poll to gauge the interest in such a community (btw, if I were to create such a comm it would be most likely on IJ because of 6A/LJ's recent polices wrt artwork, that make me uncomfortable with the idea of creating a drawing community on LJ).

Since I can't create polls here, and prefer the results in one place as well, the poll is in the LJ version of this entry. (if you don't have an LJ account to vote but are interested just comment somewhere, sorry!)

grumpy poll @ my LJ -- auto-post feature: threat or menace?

I try to tag every fanfic I read on del.icio.us so that I can find it again. Now I'm reading some post-DH stuff and naturally my regular tagging (which includes names for all characters in a story for example) as well as the summary blurbs (which I've tried to be better about including in my links), would contain spoilers for DH. I know some people subscribe to del.icio.us feeds or just browse there, and it's not like I can spoiler cut. I'd really like to keep with my bookmarking and tagging routine, but I wonder whether I'm going to get lynched for having tags with spoilery character names. I could make all my post-DH bookmarks private, and unlock them later, but that negates the point of using a social bookmarking site, and I may forget about the unlocking, because I tag a lot of stuff, and even if I have a post-DH tag to find them all again, there's afaik no mass action for making bookmarks not private, so this course of action is somewhat inconvenient. So how should I handle spoilers on a social bookmarking site? What are you doing about your spoilery bookmarks?

Since I can't post polls here, here's a link to it in my LJ. (or of course you can just comment here)