musicality

[xparrot]

Does anyone know a good song with lyrics about being tied up, or knotted up, or some other thinly veiled bondage allusion? Preferably a lighter, faster song, ideally from the '60s-'70s.

[I could say this was for some purpose other than a wild bid to convince gnine to make me a MUNCLE vid, but, well, that would be a blatant lie.]

It tickles me that there are vids for this fandom. Oh, Youtube, you are so kind! This one is a rather wonderfully fast-paced, violent Napoleon/Illya (with NCIS and Hustle clips, no less)...off to watch more!

ETA: There are not only vids for this fandom, but good vids! \o/
(these are all, how shall we say...pretty dang slashy. There might be some gen vids out there...though with this show? Yeah, maybe not. This, for example, is Illya's reaction to the prospect of girl smoochies...)

The Youtube Affair - By the same vidder as the above (you have to download the mediafire version, as the original song was pulled. It's worth the download. Also, adorable!)

The Russian Angel Affair - Just in case you've missed that Illya is in fact gorgeous. (4th season has given me a disturbing and unnatural fetish for the Beatles cut, at least on tiny attack-cat blonds. Oops?)

The Masochism Tango Affair - hee! (I still want Gnine to do her own take. But Tom Lehrer is always for the win!)

Comments

[naye]

OH, wow! Except for lacking a real ending, that was a FANTASTIC vid! Really awesome! I love the clips including NCIS and HUSTLE, and the story it tells feels entirely fitting to what I know of MUNCLE. It's sweet and hot and violent and heartbreaking, and - yes, it helps that I love the songs, but this makes me want to read this fic. Preferably an epic-length one. And I've only seen what? Three eps of MUNCLE? Oh, dear. It's Illya. He does things to me. XD

[gnine.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. It's Illya. He does things to me.

Oh hon, he does things to us ALL! His supreme adorable cute badass snarky whipping boy awesomeness is unstoppable. Resistance is futile! ^_-

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

As J says...that's just Illya. You can't resist, might as well not bother trying XP (I need more icons...)

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Hope this doesn't stoop too Lowe (http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=b0l3QWUXVho&feature=PlayList&p=C76C4CFA966CDF7A&index=74)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hee~! It's a definite possibility...

(...your iconic Monty Python monks are now whacking their heads in time with the music XD)

[pineapplechild.livejournal.com]

<3

thank you so much for pointing me at those vids. i need to go squee now.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Aren't they fun? ^_^

[sholio]

An amusing side note to the other discussion we're having right now: there is a story in Elizabeth Bear's short story anthology The Chains That You Refuse (which I read last fall) that is, I kid you not, Man From Uncle slash ... without the serial numbers filed off. At least, that's my take on it -- I twigged that it was fanfic within a page or two, but it took me longer to figure out which show, and I'm still just guessing about it being Man From Uncle since I haven't seen the show; that's the one that made the most sense to me based on the situation in the story and what I've picked up via fannish osmosis about Man From Uncle, though. (The two spies in the story were never named.) Although I guess it's not so much slash as, um, meta-slash? If that can be a word? It's very obviously a commentary on slash (and, to some degree, h/c); it actually made me uncomfortable in a weird way because it felt like it blurred my personal lines between fanfic and profic, but I'd be intrigued to know what you think, if a copy of the anthology ever finds its way into your hands. (I don't recommend buying it just to read the story; there was only one story in the whole book that I really, uncategorically liked, and the rest were kind of meh. I checked it out from the library.)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Heh, that kind of sounds fascinating (and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was MUNCLE - among other things it's credited by some fen to be the first show to elicit zine-published fanfic...) I've never actually read anything by Bear...will have to go looking for the book, either in the library, or I can always just read it in Borders once I get back Stateside (what's the story's name, do you remember?)

ETA: Ahh, it's "Botticelli", according to her website. (are they playing Botticelli in it? Because that's awful fannish of her if so; they never do that in the show, only in the tie-in novels, and hence in the fic...she actually is a fangirl?)
(I am wondering what the heck meta-slash is! could you gimme a hint? ^^;)

[sholio]

(Ha, *she* uses the word meta-slash for it?! I thought I made it up! I guess I was correct about the meaning of the story, then...)

It's a very non-linear story, a series of snippets. The basic thread that holds it together is that these two spies, inasmuch as I remember, are waiting in a hotel room for something to happen, and playing a game and verbally sparring while they wait. But there are a whole bunch of what-ifs -- AUs or just "what this could mean" -- it's sort of like shuffling a pack of cards displaying different variations on their relationship and exploring that. Being the fangirl that I am, I assumed within a couple of pages that she was talking about fanfic, though the story doesn't spell it out.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ah, it's online! and yeah, *very* thinly disguised fanfic...I'm kind of confused how it counts as meta, other than the reference to them being fictional at the end.* Really to me it reads like someone wanted to write a fanfic and get it published, so made it a bit abstract. And then non-fen who get the references would think it's an edgy, dark interpretation of a goofy canon, rather than a fairly standard, if quite well-written, angst slashfic (and an OTP slashfic, no less! XP)

*I wrote this as an ETA before you replied, so having read your take - ahhh, it's very interesting from a non-MUNCLE-fan perspective. It's not really AU, and the what-ifs aren't contradictory...also she knows her canon/fanon very well. (Actually I guess it could be a meta-effort to integrate all the fanon she could find, but then, doesn't a lot of fic do the same?)

...I get weirded out by fanfic profic because I sometimes get the feeling that people unfamiliar with fic think they're reading something strikingly original, rather than part of a long tradition. It's akin to how some martial arts movie fen were annoyed by the special attention The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon got, because they were using techniques new and amazing to unfamiliar audiences, but not actually innovative, and it's frustrating to see previous efforts go unacknowledged.

OTOH, pro-fanfic can be good for getting the mainstream to acknowledge fanfic's merits...

(in completely unrelated news, icon <3: Mitchell = SO PURTY~!)

[sholio]

(I love my purty Mitchell icon! *pets it*)

Well, you're getting my vague recollections of a story I read last year and didn't really like all that much, so ... XD

See, I agree; it really made me twitchy because it felt like fanfic dressed up and called profic, and I was not comfortable with that. Obviously I don't have a problem with fanfic, and I don't have a problem with tie-in novels; it's just that this one felt ... deceptive? A little bit? I could see what she was trying to do with it, I think -- I read it as a commentary on the maybe-AU, maybe-not-AU nature of slash. But it came out feeling like a fanfic with the names removed.

It's akin to how some martial arts movie fen were annoyed by the special attention The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon got, because they were using techniques new and amazing to unfamiliar audiences, but not actually innovative, and it's frustrating to see previous efforts go unacknowledged.

ahahaha, that's exactly how I felt about all the attention that was paid to The Matrix, and everyone who was falling all over themselves about the "original" twist in the middle. I kept wanting to say, "You people need to read some science fiction, STAT!" XD

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

It also sounds like the story you read is a bit different than the one online; she mentions changing the ending on her site's bib (hmm, I don't suppose you remember the ending of the one you read?)

Buy, yes...twitchy. And deceptive - that's it, exactly. This is one of those cases that I find myself questioning the author's intent. If she were a known fanfic writer, like say Astolat, I would be quite sure she was seeking to get fic into the mainstream, trying to sneak it in and prove to people that yes, we do good stuff. But Bear's not a fic'cer (or is she? I don't actually know much about her) and the fic wasn't published in a fan setting, wasn't presented to a fan audience. It's a commentary on slash but it's not being read by slashers...

ahahaha, that's exactly how I felt about all the attention that was paid to The Matrix, and everyone who was falling all over themselves about the "original" twist in the middle. I kept wanting to say, "You people need to read some science fiction, STAT!"

Heeeeh, the scifi of The Matrix was SO BAD I didn't want the comparison! But I did find the gunbattles & such awesome, and something I hadn't seen before and enjoyed the movie for it, while as fans of the martial arts genre were like, "wait, if you like that so much, why haven't you watched all the movies it was ripping off?"

--I guess that's what it is - whether something feels like a homage or a rip-off. And that's subjective, but if you don't know how the author actually feels about the original...I don't know if Bear respects fanfic, or thinks herself better than it (even though she clearly reads it!), and that's...uncomfortable.

[sholio]

She *is* a ficcer, and she does it quite openly on the same journal where she talks about her pro works (which was one of my big clues -- not being in the fandom -- that it was "Man from UNCLE" she was riffing on, in the anthology story). I suspect that she is actually making a statement along those lines -- or, rather, my guess at the time was that she was aiming to bring up the meta-commentary aspect of fanfic to the surface and make it really obvious, in order to make the statement that it is a legitimate literary form, worthy of being published. If that makes any sense.

I think it's interesting that it tweaked me as badly as it did, because I do believe strongly in fanfic as an art form; it's just that I've also (apparently) very heavily internalized the idea that it shouldn't cross paths with profic -- that it's something different, in which two of the big "rules" are that you don't charge for it, and you always cite your inspirations by name. Profic, of course, works the opposite: you do charge for it, and you conceal your inspirations as carefully as possible. A story that wears its inspirations openly but still bills itself as original fiction weirds me out, and this is despite my firmly held belief that nothing is truly original, that even so-called original fiction is still drawing from somewhere.

The thing is, I don't think my position is particularly defensible -- in fact, I don't want to defend it; I'd rather live in a world where stories can riff on other stories without running afoul of copyright law, and where I don't feel like I have to carefully scrub my original fiction of even the most veiled references to the stories that inspired it. But it still made me feel very twitchy and weird.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahhh - I'm not regularly on her lj, I didn't realize she was an active ficcer (and an active MUNCLE fan - her moodtheme is MUNCLE!) (Now I feel better about the story, but it makes me think much poorer of her RaceFail performance. She should be on "our side", dammit, WTF happened?)

A story that wears its inspirations openly but still bills itself as original fiction weirds me out, and this is despite my firmly held belief that nothing is truly original, that even so-called original fiction is still drawing from somewhere.

So is the dissonance in acknowledgment? In fandom, with no money on the line, ownership/acknowledgment is king; plagiarism is the ultimate offense. Most of us don't put the "not our chars" disclaimer on our fic these days, because it's not a help legally; but it's absolutely understood by everyone reading that the chars are someone else's. And also, when you're posting in part of a fan community, it's also understood that you may be calling on fanon; that not all your ideas are your own.

While as in pro-fic, originality is supposed to be king (even though that's largely a ridiculous illusion, as both genre fiction and mainstream literature draw immensely on everything that came before them.) So a fanfic masquerading as a pro-fic is betraying that originality mandate, and then it's also betraying the fanfic author's responsibility to admit they're using characters not their own.

I'd be more comfortable with the story if it had the standard one line disclaimer, "these characters are the property of the MUNCLE creators" (with the implicit, unstated disclaimer, "and certain elements been influenced by MUNCLE fandom"). But then it couldn't be published under current copyright law...

(I'm less weirded out by the question of profit - probably because I don't spend as much time in pro-fic communities as you. I want to go pro, but I don't draw as firm a line between pro- and fan-fic. Or maybe it's because my first fanfic experience was pro Star Trek novels? And I've posted original fic online? So, I see lines between pro-fic and free-fic, and then lines between original-fic and fanfic; and they correlate but they're not quite the same. But this story is at an awkward intersection, regardless...)

[sholio]

Yeah, I definitely don't have any problem giving away origfic for free, or posting it online; I think that my main objection to charging for fanfic is more legal than moral.

Like I said, I don't think my position is particularly defensible; it's more like a squick than a legitimate moral objection. Fanfic wearing the clothes of original fiction squicks me, but that doesn't make it wrong ... just something that takes some getting used to.

So a fanfic masquerading as a pro-fic is betraying that originality mandate, and then it's also betraying the fanfic author's responsibility to admit they're using characters not their own.

*nods* That's it, basically. It's a violation of the social conventions of both fanfic and profic. Which still doesn't make it wrong -- actually, it's very interesting to hold those ideas up to the light and examine them, because they're basically a response to the legal requirements of copyright. The concept that originality is king ... that's something very new; it would have been quite alien to writers and storytellers of previous centuries. But the legal requirement has become entrenched in the morality of both the profic and fanfic writing communities; fanfic writers are quick to call each other out for plagiarism or lack of proper attribution or acknowledgement, even though there's no chance that anyone would ever have actual legal action brought against them for plagiarizing a fanfic, or for sticking a minor Marvel character into an SGA fic without properly identifying him! So it feels very weird to see someone doing it. And I also agree with your point, below, that it's very difficult to engage with it as fanfic; I actually have the same problem with fanfic that reads like an original story, including some of the better SGA AUs -- it's hard to engage with it as fanfic, and as original fic, at the same time.

[sholio]

(Using Mitchell icon again, because I like looking at it!)

I guess that's what it is - whether something feels like a homage or a rip-off.

Right! It is subjective ... I read a book some years back that was blatantly, obviously ripping off Star Wars, but had reworked the world-building and internal mythos so that you couldn't quite hold it up and say "Look! It's Luke, Han, Leia and Darth Vader! Call the lawyers!" ... although, hmm, I just realized it was basically retelling the story of Star Wars with the same (renamed) characters, as opposed to doing what fanfic does, and filling in the gaps in canon. I wonder how much of a difference that makes. It still feels unethical to take the characters, rename them and call them your own, though. But the Botticelli story doesn't really do that -- as long as you have a passing familiarity with the concept of fanfic, it's obvious that's what it's riffing on (and I recognized it as such even without any knowledge of canon). Of course, if you don't know, then you'll think it's original, like the reviewers. The same is true of any in-joke, I guess ... although you could also argue that if the entire story depends for its impact on the reader getting the in-joke, then the writer needs to include the decoding key along with the coded message. Otherwise it kinda smacks of "more clever than thou".

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

The Botticelli story would work better if MUNCLE were better known. If you riff off Superman or Sherlock Holmes, you can be pretty sure that almost all your readers will get the in-joke. But MUNCLE these days is a pretty obscure reference (outside of fandom), so non-fen are probably going to totally miss it (though it is interesting that most fans probably will catch on...) Which means then it can feel more like the author is trying to pass it off as original...

Is that the difference between a rip-off and a homage? A homage is done with the expectation that everyone will get the reference, while a rip-off is hoping that no one will notice. Which is, of course, somewhat subjective, because the author might've genuinely thought they were being obvious, when actually they ended up being obscure...

(And the Botticelli story, from this definition, I think is more homage, because the story itself doesn't really make sense unless you get what it's riffing on, so Bear did intend it to be obvious...)

ETA: The irony is, if this story had been a fanfic, I would've quite liked it - it's actually pretty close to how I see the Napoleon/Illya dynamic, and it's got some nice h/c moments. But I'm having a hard time enjoying it because it's so...self-conscious about those moments? I feel like I'm supposed to be appreciating their thoughtful meta, rather than squeeing, when I'd rather be squeeing...

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

--I was looking to see if the altered short story was available anywhere online, and came across these - the other problem with pro-fanfic is things like this and this review of the story collection, in which the reviewers had no idea they were even reading a fanfic...I want to squawk at them, well, yes, it's not a bad story, but it's not especially original! (the twisted time-structure flashback/forward style is such a staple of a certain type of slash, and I've seen it done better...)

The funny thing is, if she'd posted it as a fanfic, I'm sure a lot of fans would've enjoyed it - but now I feel like she's getting credit for something not her invention. Even though she does admit right on her site that it's a fanfic...

[utopiantrunks.livejournal.com]

Hehe! I enjoyed those. The angel one compiles so many looks that I really am convinced Illya's in love with Solo...

You don't have caps, do you...? Some good face reference shots... I'm not saying it'd work out well, but I just got an idea for a picture.

...Dangit.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I will have to do some screencapping soon! ^^

[lemonflav-lopfe.livejournal.com]

Bondage songs? There's quite a few in Janet Jackson's Velvet Rope album, I believe. I had a friend talking about the content of that album just a few days ago. Not sure on the song names, though.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I'll check it out, thanks! ^^

[pineapplechild.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, i do actually have a bondage song. That's about the only requirement it fulfills, but "Evil Night Together" by Jill Tracy is quite a nice song. Lemme get on my own computer and I'll point you to it.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the lyrics are interesting - not really the right tone for this kind of vid, but some of my other pairings it'd work quote well for! ^^