Saturday, August 31, 2013

Because I am lazy still

Another repost, from two months ago


Richard Matheson is dead

I had to step away and think about this for a bit to post something appropriate when I heard the news. Richard Matheson is seriously one of the people who showed me what horror could achieve.
A lot of people consider Bloch's Psycho to be the convergence of a psychological thriller and horror, but he never had the masterful touch that Matheson showed in so many of his short stories. You never get a true glimpse of what it's like to be Bates, he is an Other, an outside force that the protagonists struggle against. "Legion of Plotters" brings you inside the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic, and as the story unfolds you find yourself horrified to empathise with someone so clearly unhinged. It is not the only one do pull this off, but I think it is the best of the bunch.
He single-handedly turned the Vampire genre upside down and created what I honestly believe is the single most original piece of Vampire horror to date with I Am Legend. He merges a post-apocalyptic survival story with a moving portrait of a man losing his mind due to isolation and never lets up, and the reveal in the last part of the book is just brilliant.
He basically created Stephen Spielberg's career with Duel.
His contributions to The Twilight Zone are legendary already, without needing to go into details.
Outside of Stephen King, I think this is the author that has had the most adaptations of his works to the screen (big or small). Stir of Echoes, What Dreams May Come, his numerous Twilight Zone scripts, the four versions of I Am Legend, Reel Steel (which was also a Twilight Zone episode!). It's mind boggling.
But he wasn't just a horror writer. He had some amazingly clever sci-fi stories, some of them mixing the genres but others remaining "pure" works of speculative fiction. "F-" is a good example, the story of a time traveler who goes to the future and discovers that the single most obscene word (and concept) that has engendered a taboo unrivaled by anything else in human history is simply... Food.
He was a great mind, a great wit, and the literary (and film) world is lessened by his passing.

First post and repost all at once

My name is Tashi and this is my blog. Herein, I'll be putting up things of interest to me, variously about kink and BDSM community and events, gaming and other geek interests, my own political and social thoughts and commentary, random posts about food, and other musings, ravings, rantings and random regurgitations.

I am going to be lazy for my very first post, and just put up something I wrote for (and on) Fetlife a few months ago.


Fetlife TOU

or why we should keep a culture of silence because nazis


That is, essentially, what I've been able to piece together from those opposed to ammending Fet's TOU to allow naming people who have violated consent. There is a lot of hand-wringing, and pearl-clutching, and "oh my lords!" being thrown about talking about how they don't want false accusations to ruin lives, and how creating blacklists is terrible and facists and on and on and on and fuckig on.
Except none of them ever address this simple point;
Why is it okay to encourage people to keep silent about abuse?
The vast majority of those supporting changing the TOU want one very. simple. thing.
To be able to go "I was at a play party, getting all spanked and shit in a side room, when so-and-so came over and started to spank me. I said "Red" and told him to stop but he didn't. My Top had to kick him out of the room and then he left the party before my top could find a DM"
That, right there, if it had a name? Would be deleted and considered a bad post.
That's bullshit on every fucking level, and encourages silence and ignorance of how people have acted in the community. It prevents a simple, public self policing that is required for a healthy community like this. It prevents the accused of being able to go "oh fuck, someone said I did X!" and then giving his side of it. It encourages gossip and talking in the shadows.
It is abhorrent, and it should be changed. The only way to keep this community safe and healthy is to keep all of this in the open. Will there be false accusations? Yes, definately. But those false accusations will now be WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE THEM AND TRACK THEM, as opposed to behind closed doors, veiled behind annonymity and secrets. How anyone would consider the latter to be better is beyond me.