quinara | Reading

thegorgon posting in

Because all the Icarus poems reminded me of one of my favorite poems --

Why A Man Cannot Have Wings

Because he will crash land on his head, assuming it to be
The strongest part of his body.

Because someone will put up a sign that reads:
Do Not Step on the Cirrus Clouds.

Because it does not even take a man hundreds of feet above
Sea-level to learn contempt.

Because there will be new categories of handicaps: bow-wings,
Ostrich disease, scaly feathers, carousel flight syndrome,
Or at a freak show: The Amazing Wingless Wonder.

Because he will have a new weapon, gravity,
And everything he releases becomes a missile,
Even glass marbles, books, the fatal music box.

Because he is lonely enough without being able to
Frame the house he lives in between his forefinger and thumb.

Because then the sky will shed its metaphors of freedom
And become another path for him to carry his burdens.

Because there will be a popular form of suicide:
Flying into foreign airspace and being gunned down;
All it takes is a nose-tip to press an invisible blue button.

Because each death in mid-air, each comic comet plunge,
Will be another enactment of the fall of Man.

Because in concentration camps people will break wings
And use the feathers for quills to write sonnets
And pillow stuffing for innocent dreams.

Because he will have less to fantasize about, less of miracles
And the word 'levitation' will not exist.

Because there will be children who will empty their bladders
Under cloud cover in an attempt to make yellow snow.

And because he might get the wrong notion that he is closer
To heaven, when he has not even come to a mile
Within the presence of angels, despite the resemblance.

snickfic

Nimona continues to be EVERYTHING I WANT. And there's a hard copy coming from Harper Collins in 2015, which I will be buying so fast. Several copies of it, in fact. A number of RL people are going to receive one from me.

(Right now it's a webcomic published twice a week. Reeeeeeead it.)

Crossposts: http://snickfic.livejournal.com/459603.html

saunteringfiend posting in

poetry

Only the feathers floating around the hat
Showed that anything more spectacular had occurred
Than the usual drowning. The police preferred to ignore
The confusing aspects of the case,
And the witnesses ran off to a gang war.
So the report filed and forgotten in the archives read simply
“Drowned,” but it was wrong: Icarus
Had swum away, coming at last to the city
Where he rented a house and tended the garden.

“That nice Mr. Hicks” the neighbors called,
Never dreaming that the gray, respectable suit
Concealed arms that had controlled huge wings
Nor that those sad, defeated eyes had once
Compelled the sun. And had he told them
They would have answered with a shocked,
uncomprehending stare.
No, he could not disturb their neat front yards;
Yet all his books insisted that this was a horrible mistake:
What was he doing aging in a suburb?
Can the genius of the hero fall
To the middling stature of the merely talented?

And nightly Icarus probes his wound
And daily in his workshop, curtains carefully drawn,
Constructs small wings and tries to fly
To the lighting fixture on the ceiling:
Fails every time and hates himself for trying.

He had thought himself a hero, had acted heroically,
And dreamt of his fall, the tragic fall of the hero;
But now rides commuter trains,
Serves on various committees,
And wishes he had drowned.

(My last Icarus poem for the week, I promise - though I do have more...Normal service will be resumed shortly.)

shapinglight

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Crossposts: http://shapinglight.livejournal.com/1289490.html

petzipellepingo

Conflagration , NC-17 Spike/Angel/Buffy by

vampmissedith.

"School Hard" screencaps , courtesy of

effulgent_girl.

evilawyer

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snickfic

Comixology is running a 12 Days of Christmas free comics special. Today the free comic is Gail Simone's Red Sonja. If you've been wanting to try that out, here's your chance.

Crossposts: http://snickfic.livejournal.com/459442.html

thefword_feed

Posted by Megan Stodel

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/NYfeC1vnm8s/new_review_good

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/new_review_good

IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play, l-r Natalie Casey and Flora Montgomery (c)Johan Persson (4).jpg A woman living in 2013 who is partial to a bit of vibe-assisted fun is in luck. Whether you cannot be parted from your rabbit, keep a bullet in your backpack or need the mains-powered might of a wand, there is certainly variety on offer. There are vibrators shaped like rubber ducks, bike seats that buzz and even a £10,000 toy made of gold.

So pity the pre-electric woman. Not just because vibrators weren't around but also because masturbation was taboo and their husbands probably weren't terribly clued up about or even that interested in pleasuring women. (Also, no votes, education or general human rights but I'm focusing on sex here because otherwise this would get incredibly long and slightly tangential.)

In The Next Room is a play that dramatises the enduring historical myth that vibrators came about as a cure for hysteria for Victorian women. After centuries of sexual repression, women suddenly had an outlet in the form of medically-sanctioned orgasms.

Shoshana Davidson, who reviews the play for The F-Word, writes:

Ruhl [the writer] doesn't seem overly concerned with preaching a moral message, leaving it to the audience to take what they will from the play. It would be great to see more of what Ruhl makes of the myriad contradictions and complexities of expectations around female sexuality today; her play feels tame when compared to the all-encompassing sexuality of modern society, though in both the 19th century and today, it can be the emotional connection that is missing most of all, as Ruhl nicely demonstrates.

Click here to read Shoshana's review.

The photo, taken by Johan Persson, is of two women in period dress facing each other in conversation, sitting on a sofa.

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isagel posting in

poetry

Here is an entirely different Icarus poem than the ones we've just had in previous posts (there are so many to choose from!). Written by leading Swedish modernist Erik Lindegren in 1954.

Icarus

Now subside his memories of the labyrinth.
the only memory: how the shouts and the confusion rose
until at last they swung themselves up from the earth.

And how all the canyons that always clamoured
for their bridges in his chest
slowly closed, like eyelids,
how birds streaked by, like shuttles or shooting arrows,
and at last the final lark, brushing his hand,
hurtling like song.

Then followed the labyrinth of winds, with its blind bulls,
light-calls and precipices,
with its staggering breath, which he long
and arduously learnt to parry,
until it rose again, his gaze and his flight.

Now he climbs alone, in a heaven without clouds,
in a birdless space among the jet planes' roar...
climbs towards an ever clearer sun,
becoming ever cooler, ever colder,
Upwards towards his own surging blood and the souls' vanishing waterfall,
a shut-in in a howling lift,
an air bubble's journey in the ocean towards the magnetic mirage of the surface:
the amnion's bursting, transparently near,
the whirlwind of signs, spring tide borne, plummeting azure,
tumbling walls, and drunkenly the cry from the other side:
Reality crashed
but reality born!

( Swedish original behind the cut )

omens posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing/Subject: Sam, Dean & Castiel
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: sewing
Artist on DW/LJ: unknown
Artist Website/Gallery:

pepeluiv / instagram (I rec this option, if you want to see more.)
Why this piece is awesome: Pepeluiv makes amazing dolls with perfect little details.

Link: Supernatural dolls(tumblr)
Link: Supernatural dolls(instagram)

petzipellepingo

Some Pain Is Worth It , Spike/Buffy by

slaymesoftly.

Telling Porkies , Dawn/Mr.Gordo by

beer_good_foamy.

A Minor Skirmish , Giles/Anya/Xander by

gilescandy.

Syzygy, Spike/Xander by

forsaken2003.

Fistfuls of Sand , Willow/Angel by

velvetwhip.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving , Spike/Xander by

joidianne4eva

Chapter Thirty Six of Think Of Me As Your Family by

velvetwhip.

comlodge talks about her love for Spike .

Buffy icons by

debris4spike.

Buffyverse icons by

sietepecados.

Buffyverse icons by

wickdshy.

mrmonkeybottoms recaps "Nightmares" .

"Some Assembly Required" screencaps , courtesy of

effulgent_girl.

lnhammer posting in

poetry

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

(Talking, yes, about the same painting as William Carlos Williams.)

likeadeuce

• What are you currently reading?

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. This is her book about the Masssachussetts Bay Colony of the seventeenth century. You sort of need to know what you're getting into with Vowell -- I saw an indignant goodreads review stating that she's just using history as 'an excuse' to talk about her current day political views. Which, well -- yes, partly. Vowell's a personal essayist first and foremost, and a useful counter point to all the right-wing pundits who have been staking their claim on various Founding Fathers. A big chunk of the first part of the book is explicitly about an argument between Ronald Reagan and Mario Cuomo regarding a sermon preached by Mass Bay governor John Winthrop (who is Vowell's particular point of obsession.) At times when Vowell covers a topic that I actually have some knowledge about -- such as the English Reformation, or Calvin's Geneva -- I get annoyed by some of her oversimplifying glibness, so I imagine someone who has a solid foundation in Colonial America or 1630s Britain might be equally annoyed A LOT. But enough of this is new to me that I can go with it and appreciate Vowell's ideas and be amused by her prose.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I already mentioned this one so I'll just say, surprisingly engaging for a novel about the Black Death, and I'm apparently not as squicked by reading about disease and medical gore than I used to be. (Nonetheless, not plague facts in the comments please, thanks!)

Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch. This is a historical novel based on Britain's Edward III and his extended family, except it's set in the early twentieth century, and I've been dipping into it on and off since summer. I just finished the Ginevra/Joan of Kent section (as well as World War I) and it looks like John of Gaunt is up next.

• What did you recently finish reading?

I finished Allegiant, and ended up liking the (controversial) ending quite a bit. I've still got a lot of issues with the thematic unity of this trilogy (ie, lack thereof) but the family relationships form a strong thread throughout, and the parallel stories of the book are ultimately about making mature choices. It's got one of those moody epilogues we've come to expect, but very beautifully done in this case.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Finish the stuff I'm on, I suppose, then maybe dig into some manga? Also, I don't have an audiobook lined up for after the Vowell, so I need to find something for when I'm in the car. More Stephen King, possibly?

selenak has convinced me to try Misery.

Now December meme, Day Eleven:

samskeyti asks: You're a theatre director and get to stage a Shakespeare play, set in 2013. Tell us all about it! (And your unlimited casting budget, if you wish.)

Hmm, I enjoy watching different Shakespeare productions, but I don't have many feelings about concepts for them, especially modern ones. I used to assign college students to rewrite a scene in a modern idiom and they always came up with much better stuff than I would have imagined. (I mention this mostly as an excuse to shout out the kids who set Midsummer Night's Dream at an adult entertainment club, with Titania and Oberon as feuding owners of a porn empire called "Titty-Ron Productions," and Bottom as a porn star who -- until enchanted -- couldn't get it up. I'm almost certain I've mentioned that on this blog before but how could one not bring that up at EVERY OPPORTUNITY?)

That said, I enjoyed Joss Whedon's modern dress Much Ado quite a bit and would dig a similar approach to one of the other comedies. I'll say Twelfth Night, because it's a play I've always liked in concept more than execution, but it's a lot of people's favorite, so spending some time with it would hopefully help me find some more ways into it. Then I'd farm out the heavy lifting to people who actually knew what they were doing, but as a general concept (and I'm sure this has been done in production, I just haven't seen it) it would be nice to do something with it that played with gender performance in costuming and casting (beyond what's already in the text), so there's less emphasis on 'That boy Olivia loves is really a girl' and more characters all over the continuum, and answer eternal questions like, "Would the 'add more lesbians' formula make Orsino more bearable?'

I hope that answers something!

Crossposts: http://likeadeuce.livejournal.com/1342204.html

elrhiarhodan posting in

fandomcalendar

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rydra_wong

I seem to be in a mood to ramble happily on this topic, so if anyone would like to throw me a prompt -- give me note or type of perfume to riff on, ask me a question about perfumes or perfume geekery, or solicit recommendations to suit your tastes -- go for it.

I reserve the right to not answer things I can't ("favourite ylang-ylang scents" is liable to draw a blank ...).

**********

A few other bits and pieces:

An indispensible phrase that I've only mentioned briefly: "niche perfumery". Google this term and the name of your (nearest) city.

Niche perfumeries tend to be small and independent; they specialize in stocking the niche and cult scents. They don't produce the sensory barrage of department stores, and generally people won't jump at you and try to squirt you with things.

In my experience, they can seem snobbish initially (e.g. the kind of shops where you have to ring a bell to get in) but tend to be friendly to perfume geeks; they won't glare at you if you spend hours sniffing everything in the shop, and they often either sell sample vials or are generous in giving them.

Useful tip if you're smelling things on scent strips: carry a pen with you and write the name of the perfume on the strip, before you end up with a handful of blotter strips and no clue which one that wonderful smell is suddenly coming from.

Also, an excellent link I just found:

Kafkaesque: A Beginner’s Guide To Perfume: How to Train Your Nose, Learn Your Perfume Profile, & More

This has wonderful stuff on learning how to distinguish and recognize different notes in perfumes, and generally start to analyse and put words to the inchoate wordless that-ness of smells.

saunteringfiend posting in

poetry

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was a splash

quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

shapinglight

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Crossposts: http://shapinglight.livejournal.com/1288778.html

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1302/

All in all, I give this year a C-. There were no aurora visible from my house and that comet evaporated. They'd better not cancel the 2017 eclipse.

http://xkcd.com/1302/

next_to_normal

* Jeremy Jordan talks about Smash and The Last Five Years. I mentioned this in the lost linkspam, but I kind of can't believe that Hit List is actually getting a live concert performance. And yet, I kind of wish I could go, considering it's Jeremy, Krysta Rodriguez, and Andy Mientus, without all the Kat McPhee bringing them down. At least maybe I'd finally find out what the plot of that show was supposed to be.

* Pippin is getting a movie adaptation? Did I know that? I am too lazy to go back and look at previous linkspams to see if I knew that. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is also apparently a go.

* Jennifer Lawrence talks about not wearing a bra in American Hustle.

* Community season 5 trailer! And a Sherlock series 3 trailer.

* Jeffrey Bell talks about Agents of SHIELD in two new interviews.

* With The Sound of Music being a ratings success, NBC is obviously going to try it again with another musical (which one is still TBD). Despite finding parts of the live performance somewhat cringe-inducing (Carrie Underwood's acting; Stephen Moyer's everything), I can only think it's a good thing to give people outside of New York more and easier access to Broadway shows. I hope they have learned a valuable lesson about casting people who can handle all aspects of the role - singing AND acting - rather than simply going for the big-name stars, but 18.5 million viewers (even if many of them were tuning in to watch Carrie fall on her face) says probably not, so I look forward to next year's show starring a Kardashian.

(Without repeating the entire review that is now lost to the ether, I will say this: Carrie's singing was fine. God bless her for being brave enough to YODEL on live television. But Audra McDonald is a goddess and Laura Benanti is my queen, and putting them next to someone with no acting experience is just setting Carrie up to fail.)

* It is fantastic how the 10th anniversary of Love Actually is inspiring so many articles about it. Such a good movie. If you don't like it, there is a 99.9% chance your heart is made of STONE.

* I am still trying to get my head around Matt Smith in an American Psycho musical. I'm still trying to get my head around an American Psycho musical, period.

* This season of Scandal will on be 18 episodes due to Kerry Washington's pregnancy.

* The Friday Night Lights movie is definitely not happening, you guys.

* Sutton Foster is getting a new show on TV Land. I didn't even realize TV Land had original programming. I thought it was all reruns of old sitcoms?

* Hahaha, "Dos and Don'ts" for when your favorite TV show is canceled.

Current Mood: tired

turlough posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Bandom
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Gerard & Mikey Way
Content Notes/Warnings: n/a
Medium: ink & watercolours?
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery:

xelasaurus

Why this piece is awesome: This is such a wonderful and heartbreaking work. It's such a fantastic rendering of the characters and their relationship during this period. Their body language is so expressive and the dark and messy colouring fits the subject perfectly.

Link: It'll be alright

Current Mood: achey

likeadeuce

Day Ten:

netgirl_y2k asked about my favorite books.

I'm not generally big on 'favorites' -- I don't reread all that often, because I'm usually focused on the thing I have to read next, and if I'm going to squee it tends to be about a cool thing I just read. (I usually enjoy rereading when I do it, and should do it more but -- attention span! Pressing to-read-next lists!)

That's all a way of saying that, while there are a great many books I've loved, I have trouble classifying something I've only read once as a "favorite," which leaves out things like Mrs. Dalloway (probably a perfect novel!) and Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, the nonfiction book I recommend to basically everyone.

I'm also not going to include plays in this because, while I love Shakespeare a lot and have read many plays more than once, a big part of that is captured in the elements of production and performance. It's not just about the reading.

So having narrowed my criteria down a little bit, I give you an almost embarrassingly main stream list of favorites, in the order they came into my life:

1. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a book I first experienced when I was 8 or 9 (some combination of my mother reading it to me or reading it for myself), and have reread with wonder and enjoyment many times since. Bilbo Baggins is the great questing hero of my heart, largely because he never wanted to be on a quest, but solved every challenge that was put in front of him, anyway, in a way no one else would have solved it. There is a definite connection in my head between Bilbo and yesterday's subject, Buffy "I don't want to be The One" Summers, and if I had to pair up with a team of fictional characters to solve a problem, I'd take these two.

2. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which I read on a particularly grey and gloomy spring break when I was a cranky pre-menstrual eighth grader. There are lots of analyses out there about why this is a book that so many people connect to on such a deep level, but to me at 13, it was the realization that a writer who lived that long ago could have insights that made so much sense to me. As I've gotten older and learned more, I've started to realize that Austen makes a lot of assumptions and conclusions I don't necessarily share. But there's still so much to love and appreciate about her characters, and the marvelous machinery of her storytelling, I find something new to care for every time.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. High school! And yes, this is kind of an embarrassingly cliche book for a high schooler to be impressed by (though, I have to say, an even more cliche one for a high schooler to hate; same goes for Catcher in the Rye incidentally, though I went the other way on that one.) But I just reread Gatsby recently, I probably can't talk about it rationally, but it is still perfect to me. Not flawless perfect but everything I want a novel to be perfect. This time around it's not a particular character or particular insight but the seductive intimacy of a first-person narrative voice. Seriously, this is probably why I can't have a rational conversation about Nick Carraway. "Shut up! YOU'RE an unreliable narrator." Bonus fact: If I'd remembered to get my senior yearbook quote in on time, it would have been, "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired." Probably a good thing I didn't get my yearbook quote in on time. Though now I'm wondering if that's too long for a tattoo.

Crossposts: http://likeadeuce.livejournal.com/1341919.html

thefword_feed

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http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/20131210_guest

Today, 10 December, is Human Rights Day 2013. Guest blogger Angelique Mulholland has written this powerful post about FGM and gender inequality. Angelique is a writer for The Pixel Project and a women's human rights activist. She can be found on Twitter at @LeakyM.

CONTENT NOTE for descriptions of FGM and gender based violence.

------------

"No one wants to marry a girl who's like an open supermarket." - Young man from a practising FGM community, The Cruel Cut, Channel 4

"Rape has become normal and inevitable." - Report "If only someone had listened" by The Office for the Children's Commissioner

The image shows a blue pictogram which may be seen as representing either the hand of friendship or the dove of peace Today is Human Rights Day and Michael Gove, I want you to know that boys are not born misogynistic monsters. Men who rape do not enter the world with a mission to annihilate the rights and bodies of women. Female Genital Mutilation perpetrators are not pre-destined to torture and mutilate little girls.

Those who commit and perpetuate gender based violence are influenced by the culture in which they live, and a society which deems women worth less than men. To end violence against women and girls, we need to start educating our children about gender equality and gender based violence.

Watching Channel 4's "The Cruel Cut" was an experience. An inspirational yet heartbreaking experience. Leyla Hussain, FGM survivor and activist, take us on a journey and educates us about Female Genital Mutilation. FGM is one of the most extreme forms of gender based violence prevalent in many countries today, including the UK. There are four different types of FGM; but the practice mostly involves the outer parts of the vagina being removed, without medical purpose, and without anesthetic.

At one terrible, memorable point in the documentary, we hear the excruciating sobs and screams of a little girl having the most delicate, sensitive part of her body - her clitoris - hacked away from her. Nothing prepares you for the screams of this innocent little girl. We know Leyla, our bubbly presenter, was once that little girl. The injustice of what is done to her body is overwhelming. You not only want to sign Leyla's petition to end this - you want to jump into the TV and scream at the adults around her. And it's clear I wasn't the only person in Britain who was moved by her pain. Leyla's petition has sky rocketed with signatures and it is just a few thousand shy of the 100,000 needed for FGM to be debated in parliament.

The little girl's cries of pain are deeply moving; yet for me, they are not the most powerful part of the documentary. Leyla conducts a lesson on FGM with a group of young men from practising communities - and their reaction - tells us everything we need to know on ending gender based violence and securing the rights of women and girls. The most powerful part of the documentary demonstrates the power of education.

Before the lesson, the young men are interviewed on their perception of FGM. In their communities, FGM is a ritual which is supposed to ensure the purity, virginity and cleanliness of a girl. It proves she is not promiscuous. (Indeed, sex is likely to become too painful for the young victim and it's highly probable she will not enjoy sex with one person, let alone many). The boys start off confident, cocky and perpetuate the same old, tired sexist attitudes that exist in all patriarchal societies. "I don't want to marry a girl who has been around the block." Virginity and 'purity' surmises a girl's worth. Their words are cutting and derogatory. "No one wants to marry a girl who's like an open supermarket". Their future wives are not to be judged on their intellect, work ethic, personality or humanity. No - it's whether she has or hasn't had sex. Like with the staggering unfairness in all patriarchal societies, it is clear that men and women are not judged by the same standards.

Cue Leyla, a pair of garden shears and 3 giant plasticine vaginas. She tells the boys that they are going to learn exactly what happens when a young girl, a potential future wife, is made 'clean' and 'pure'. How is a girl moulded into good old fashioned wife material? Leyla starts to stab, cut and hack away at the vaginas as she explains the different types of FGM. The boys wince and look away. Leyla wills them to watch the re-enactment of what happens every time a little girl from their community is so cruelly violated to prove her worth. Two of them walk out distressed. One of them feels "dizzy." The ones who remain are shocked and upset. Leyla asks, "Will you join my campaign to end FGM?" "Yes, yes, yes" they stammer. One of the boys then asks, "Why aren't our elders doing something about this?"

Leyla's lesson shows the transformative power of education. The young men had no idea what FGM really entailed. They placed the value of a girl from their community with whether her hymen (the highly prized yet useless piece of skin) was still intact. After this lesson, the young girls in their communities, their future wives, become human beings; not vessels of chastity and honour. "What are we doing to our babies? What are we doing?" exclaims one of the boys.

Leyla's lesson shows the power of education to end violence. The frustratingly unused, untapped power of education.

Why aren't our elders doing something about this?

FGM is not the only form of gender based violence that is being ignored by those who have the power to create systemic change.

The Office of the Children's Commissioner published a report on 25th November, International Day for Elimination of Violence against women, that states that 'rape has become the norm' in many communities throughout the UK. It also states that young girls and boys have no idea what consent means. Many young men get their education from porn sites where women are routinely beaten, violated and humiliated during sex. Sexual violence against women in porn has become the norm. Sexual violence against women and girls, in many communities, has become the norm.

All patriarchal societies have a role to play in developing the misogynistic monsters that annihilate the rights of women and girls. Gender based violence feeds on a society where women and girls are less. It thrives in a world where a girl's worth is determined by how many men she has slept with. It positively flourishes in a society where the most well-read newspaper publishes pictures of a woman's tits, rather than her opinion on subjects that matter. It succeeds in a country where girls are trafficked to fill a demand for "commercial sex" and the men who pay to rape the young victims are not prosecuted.

It's Human Rights Day and Michael Gove, I want you to know that boys who grow up to rape and commit gender based violence are not born misogynistic monsters. Until we start educating our children on gender equality, healthy sexual relationships and basic human rights - gender based violence will continue to thrive.

Agree? Tweet this article to @commonsED (hashtags are #AskGove and #care). The @commonsED committee will be taking questions between now and Thursday at 5pm; details can be found at the UK Parliament website.

------------

Image attribution and description: The public domain image at the head of this post is called menschenrechte, which means 'human rights' in English. It shows a blue pictogram which may be seen as representing either the hand of friendship or the dove of peace and was found at the website of the German Embassy in Lusaka.

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next_to_normal

ARGH. So, I had a whole linkspam post typed up, which included a review of The Sound of Music live broadcast and a random digression into American Girl dolls, and then my computer decided to spontaneously shut down and when I rebooted it, IT WAS ALL GONE. *sob*

Rather than try to recreate that brilliance, I'm just gonna move on...

Keep telling me what to talk about! Today's topic comes from

pocochina.

( Lost spoilers )

Current Mood: confused

likeadeuce

Day Nine:

fearlessfan asked about Buffy Summers.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an all-time favorite show of mine. I started watching it when I was in graduate school for creative writing, mostly because of cable reruns, which means I started off watching a lot of random episodes, so that character arcs -- to say nothing of season long plots -- were not a big factor in my enjoyment. I watched for whatever monster the gang was going to vanquish in that particular episode, and the characters I got most attached to right away were the funny/snarky ones (Spike and Anya and sometimes Xander and Giles). I never didn't like Buffy, but the stuff she was doing in any given episode wasn't necessarily the most interesting thing to me.

Eventually, I wanted to figure out what was actually happening, so I started borrowing the DVD sets from a local friend. Meanwhile, when I was watching through in order, an across-the-country Internet friend,

crazydiamondsue sent me a DVD of the Season 6 musical episode, "Once More with Feeling." I hadn't even gotten to season 6 in my watch-through at that point, and I think I'd only seen part of the episode in a TV rerun (even if I had seen the whole episode when it ran on FX, some of you may recall that it was an extra-long ep and so the rerun version was cut down to a version that made absolutely no sense -- or, even less sense than the full-length episode makes, which is not an enormous amount.)

However, I stuck that CD into the player in my car and I played it SO MANY TIMES. I was, as I mentioned earlier, in graduate school, and all the things that go with that -- stress, uncertainty, underemployment, shitty pay, having no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And so I would listen to Buffy, over and over again, singing, "I've been going through the motions/ Walking through the part", driving around alone in my car I would burst into ,"Oh my God, whaaaaa, Buffy GETS me, I LOVE her!!!!"

That was the point where Buffy became my character.

Also, probably, a topic I can't actually be rational about.

TL;DR, Buffy is great, I love her, I have probably been in too many Internet fights over her awesomeness.

Crossposts: http://likeadeuce.livejournal.com/1341614.html

snickfic

(That's through issue ~~#18~~ #19, FYI.) I plan to reread them all later, but for now I have one really big thought.

( REALLY BIG THOUGHT )

Crossposts: http://snickfic.livejournal.com/458171.html

omens posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing/Subject: the Prophet, Kevin Tran
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: traditional art (gouache)
Artist on DW/LJ: unknown
Artist Website/Gallery:

13mirror |

unbefreakinlivable
Why this piece is awesome: I love how expressive her paintings are! And the colour. <3

Link: Kevin (DA)
Link: Kevin (tumblr)

rydra_wong

stewardess mentioned being desperate to smell Chanel's legendary Cuir de Russie, and I asked if she was interested in leather scents, as I seem to be in the middle of my own private leather-scent-fest (an amazing number of my favourite scents are leathers) and might be liable to bombard her with recs, and she said:

BOMBARD ME.

And then this happened, and I started rambling about leather scents I know, and it started turning into its own post, and I had to garnish it with links (I've linked from the names of the perfumes to particular reviews I find insightful, accurate or amusing, just to give a taste of the perfume writing that's out there, and trying not to use the same reviewer twice, but recommend Basenotes, LuckyScent and Googling "[name] perfume review" to get a wide sampling), and so it goes.

For those of you just getting into this: the "leather" note in perfumes smells like, well, leather.

(This is less obvious than it sounds: "fougere" scents don't smell of ferns, which don't smell of anything, and the "amber" note in perfumes smells neither of amber nor or ambergris; instead, it's a blend based on labdanum and vanilla, or synthetics aimed at the same effect.)

Stick your nose inside a leather coat and sniff; that's basically it.

The association of leather and perfume goes back to the 16th century at least, when perfumers would scent leather gloves in order to cover up the odour of the chemicals (at that point, urine and tannin among other things) used to tan the leather. From there, the distinct traditions of "Russian leather" and "Spanish leather" evolved, until perfumers went from trying to conceal the smell of leather to trying to recreate the smell of scented leather.

Unlike some perfume ingredients, leather notes are not extracted or distilled from nature; instead, perfumers draw on ingredients used to cure leather, such as birch tar combined with other natural and chemical ingredients to construct the smell of leather. The result can range from grungy biker leather through sweaty saddles to the most delicate beige suede.

(A side note for people who, like me, worry about these things: "animalic" notes in perfume are now almost invariably synthetic too, for reasons of cost as much as ethics. You don't have to worry about the civet cats and the beavers. )

For an overview of the field, check out Now Smell This: Leather fragrances 101, the Perfume Posse's Leather Perfume: A Comprehensive Guide, or the rest of Perfume Shrine's Leather Series.

Okay. So.

***********

Cuir de Russie (Chanel) -- I have a bottle of this which I've owned for so long the top notes have gone off, and I'm still not grown-up enough to wear it. But I have come to accept that I'm not a Chanel person, pretty much. I can admire them as art, but they don't fit me in any mood or persona; I don't have whatever it takes to wear them sincerely. But it is really beautiful, in a grand classical perfumery way: rich florals over expensive leather. The leather here makes me think of the upholstery of a beautiful vintage car. This scent will never not be dressed up.

***********

Bandit (Piguet) -- apparently at some point in the last few years I have become grown-up enough to wear Bandit, which thrills me (currently debating a full bottle, especially since IFRA regulations are likely to gut it of the oakmoss shortly). I stand by my "bitter green, black leather, soap and cigarettes description." The chypre-ness of it means that it's going to come across as old-fashioned or "perfume-y" to some noses, but damn, it's still edgy as hell. Bandit will cut you.

Created by the great (queer, woman) "nose" of the 1940s, Germaine Cellier, it opens with a whipcrack of galbanum (like her Vent Vert), venomous green that lasts all the way through. The (faint, soapy, acrid) florals don't make it soft or pretty, they just heighten its cheekbones. The leather here is definitely a leather jacket.

In Scent and Subversion, Barbara Herman talks about Cellier's work in relation to the conflicts over the roles of women in the 1940s -- women doing war work and in the Resistance, versus Dior's hyperfeminine post-war New Look -- and suggests that her work plays with gender as construct, deliberately subverting perfumery's gender tropes.

Where Fracas hypes up femininity into drag, high femme, Bandit is that startling thing, a perfume which reads not as a "masculine", but as butch.

***********

( Cut for length )

syderia

( You're about to view content which the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Crossposts: http://syderia.livejournal.com/298518.html

xkcd_feed

http://xkcd.com/1301/

I have never been lied to by data in a .txt file which has been hand-aligned.

http://xkcd.com/1301/

thefword_feed

Posted by Lynne Miles

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/YZzHbuqb3Mg/last_call_for_m

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/last_call_for_m

I posted a call for volunteers to take on a monthly guest blogging slot during 2014 last week. We've had loads of great responses already, so thank you. If you haven't applied yet, but would like to do so, please email me by Friday.

Image, courtesy of Stephan Rebernik, depicts an (assumed) older white woman partially visible behind a laptop. It is shared under a creative commons license.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/YZzHbuqb3Mg/last_call_for_m

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/last_call_for_m

thefword_feed

Posted by Shiha Kaur

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/r0CGm7vRTks/weekly_round-up_124

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/weekly_round-up_124

Welcome to this week's round-up and open thread. The following are links that we have found that might interest you. If you have found anything that you think other readers will enjoy, please add links in the comments section below. As usual, please note that a link here doesn't imply endorsement or agreement, and some links might be triggering.

Domestic violence services 'at breaking point' (BBC)

The hardwired difference between male and female brains could explain why men are 'better at map reading' (Independent)Also see this article (The Conversation)

No girls allowed: Unraveling the story behind the stereotype of video games being for boys(Polygon)

If physical diseases were treated like mental illness (Imgur)

"Child Taken from Womb by Social Services" - What is going on? (Scriptonite Daily)

It's not the caesarean but the adoption that is an act of violence(Guardian)

How mothers with mental health issues are forced to give up their children(Guardian)

French lower house backs new prostitution law(Reuters)

The radical ideological background of slave women suspects (with comment from a leading cult and mind control expert)(Telegraph)

Lambeth's political cult: the lessons (Open Democracy)

Trigger warning: includes discussion of rape and child abuse What Jezebel Gets Wrong About R Kelly (Colorlines)

Police officer accused of assaulting student at University of London protest (Guardian)

Young people 'angry at sexist peer culture in Wales' researchers say
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25225254

On the brothel raids in Soho (girlonthenet)

South Africa's Nelson Mandela dies (BBC )

How Nelson Mandela helped free the women of South Africa (Telegraph)

Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel(OKWONGA)

Don't Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He's Honored Now, But Was Hated Then(The Daily Beast)

Lulu: Fake feminism for the 'hashtag generation'.A new app, wrought with vulgarity and lack of empathy, showcases the worst of female empowerment. (AlJazeera)

This is not intersectionality (Glosswatch)

Multiple arrests as hundreds of student protesters clash with police in central London(Telegraph)

Content note: includes transphobic language andhate speech Hey, she was just a ho: Sick bid by killer's lawyer (New York Post)

Content Note: includes transphobia and violence Attorney: Transgender murder victim's life not as valuable as higher class victims (LGBTQ Nation)

Women MPs 'face sexist gestures' in the Commons (BBC)

Down Under Feminists' Carnival LXVII (Kiwiana (inked))

Content Note: fat Hatred, diet Talk, doctor indifference Thoughts of Self-HarmSeven Scenes with Doctors (Shakesville)

24 Years On: Never Forgetting the Montreal Massacre(Ms Magazine)

Policewoman jailed after falsely claiming prosecutors had dropped rape case (Independent)

WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison: 'How can you take Pierre Omidyar seriously?'(Guardian)

About queer women, families and holidays (Black Girl Dangerous)

Content note: brief reference to child smacking Gendered toys - a transgendered perspective (Let Toys Be Toys)

Childlessness is a political, as well as deeply personal, issue(Guardian)

Grace Hopper, 'mother' of Cobol, lands a Google doodle(Guardian)

Second woman faces deportation after sex claim against Yarl's Wood staff (Guardian)

Image shows a ponsettia plant with red leaves. Picture taken by Flikr user geradov. Used under a Creative commons License.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/r0CGm7vRTks/weekly_round-up_124

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/weekly_round-up_124

thefword_feed

Posted by Carrie Dunn

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/gcoquu5kSQ8/new_review_the_26

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/new_review_the_26

Katherine Williams is intrigued by The Tattooist by Louise Black, a sinister insight into a controlling, cruel obsessive

the tattooist.jpg

I mostly avoided all the furore surrounding 50 Shades of Grey (I was going to read it for 'educational purposes' once, but after a quick skim in HMV I saw enough to make me change my mind...), so when the call-out came to review The Tattooist by Louise Black, I thought I would push the proverbial boat out and dip my toe into the murky waters of erotica -- if The Tattooist can be accurately labelled as such, or 50 Shades for that matter...

It tells the tale of Fabrice, a tattooist working in Paris, and the lives of the three women he seduces (or abuses); Xanthe, an alcoholic abuse survivor; Yoshiko, a naive Japanese student and Zairah, who suffers from an eating disorder.

Fabrice is obsessed with the notion of transcendence and believes he is some kind of modern alchemist; he lives a sparse, holistic life that he thinks makes him the perfect man and, with the right elements, hopes his 'alchemy' can 'create' a perfect woman.

Click through to read the rest of the review and to comment!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thefword/~3/gcoquu5kSQ8/new_review_the_26

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/12/new_review_the_26

saunteringfiend posting in

poetry

Of many reasons I love you here is one

the way you write me from the gate at the airport
so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal all the people
ignoring it because they do not know
what do with it except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to death

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the bird

All you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly useless

but you are wrong

You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them song

These are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurt

you have offered them
to me I am only
giving them back

if only I could show you
how very useless
they are not

nanila

qian asked: What do you miss about Hawai'i?

So many things. I think this is going to have to be in list form. Most of the things on it involve food. As you will see from the list, modern Hawai’ian food is derived from the many Asian cultures that comprise the population.

Stinky pickle sushi. This is pickled radish, usually dyed fluorescent yellow, wrapped in rice and seaweed makizushi style. It is so delicous. Sweet and salty at the same time. I will also happily eat a large quantity of stinky pickle on its own. Nearly impossible to find on the mainland (US) in sushi restaurants. Stinky pickle (or “daikon radish”) can sometimes be found in jars in Asian supermarkets.
Malasadas. Incredibly light and fluffy doughnuts with no hole in the middle. Preferably from Leonard’s.
Manapua. Steamed stuffed dumplings. As it says on Wikipedia, “[i]ts name is a shortening of the Hawaiian mea ʻono puaʻa, meaning, "delicious thing with pork inside." OH YES.
Guava, Coconut, Sweet Sop. All fruits that could be had straight off the tree in Hawai’i. I often had them for breakfast. I also miss good, properly ripened mango and papaya.
Saimin. Ramen noodles in broth with a variety of things on top, including fishcake and Spam. Spam is not weird in Hawai’i. It was a staple for a long time. I don’t know if it still is any more, but I grew up with it (and condensed milk) because both were much cheaper than the fresh versions. I think a lot of people often forget that Hawai’i is a set of tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from large tracts of arable land. The fresh versions of things that many people on the mainland take for granted are expensive to import.
Lumpia. Fried egg roll with pork inside. Made by my many aunties. SO GOOD.
Chicken malunggay. Basically, chicken soup, made with cheap bits of chicken and malunggay leaves. We had a malunggay tree in our garden. Its pungent flavour is indescribable. The soup served the same purpose as the blander mainland chicken noodle version: you always got given it when you were sick.
Hanauma Bay. We used to go there most weekends, very early in the morning when it was still cool and the fish were quite close to the shore. We brought a bag of frozen peas to feed the fish, and the colourful parrotfish, wrasse and smaller specimens would form rings around us as we threw them in the water. As I got bigger, I would body-board by myself out to the edge of the reef and see larger, shyer fish like the squirrelfish and huge tube fish. Since then, the spiraling visitor numbers and the damage they were doing to the coral reefs prompted changes to the site access (including an entrance fee) that would certainly have knocked it off our regular destination list when I was a child. No one is allowed to feed the fish - let alone frozen peas! - any more. I’m sad that I would no longer be able to reenact the experience I had there as a child, but I understand the necessity for preserving the habitat.
Fresh shellfish. Fresh, as in going down to the beach with members of my (rather large) extended Filipino family, harvesting mussels and barbecuing them right there. Also probably not allowed any more in Honolulu, although I can’t imagine such restrictions being enforceable in the less densely populated areas.
Holidays on the outer islands. Even paradise has its gradations of idyllatry. My parents had a timeshare condo on Kauai when I was small, and the beaches there were just incredible. Miles of fine blonde sand, crystal clear water and not another soul in sight.
Muumuus. A muumuu is a loose-fitting, patterned, brightly-coloured dress made of light fabric. They’re so comfortable in hot, humid climates and they look really pretty on just about everyone.
Pidgin English. I’ve forgotten most of it, but I occasionally find myself calling something I can’t remember the name of “da kine”, or describing a hole in a sock as a “pooka”, or asking someone to pass the “shoyu” (soy sauce). It crops up more frequently when I’m tired.

There are more, but it’s nearly midnight where I am and almost 8 am in the UK, so I need to go to bed before my brain properly processes these conflicting signals and decides to torture my body by keeping it awake.

Request a topic here or in comments. There are still more days left!

Crossposts: http://nanila.livejournal.com/932767.html

likeadeuce

Day Seven:

snickfic asked for "Favorite comics you're reading right now and why"

I'm late with this answer partly because I went out of town yesterday, then drove home and fell straight to sleep (well that's the main reason I guess), but also I was a couple weeks behind in reading the comics I had bought so I wanted to catch up and remind myself what some of my favorites were. It turned out I couldn't come up with any particular titles that are head-and-shoulders above the others, but this is pretty much a good thing because it means there are a lot of good comics coming out. I'm not particularly fannish about comics the way I was five or six years ago, but I still read a fair number of them, and I like what comics add to my reading life -- the way they make me use my visual/spatial decoding skills and not just words all the time. (I think words are great, obviously! But comics as a medium mean a lot to me and when they're well done, I like the way they stretch my brain muscles.

That doesn't really answer the question of which comics I'm fondest of right now, and I think I should answer this with categories more than specific titles. I am basically reading two different types of comics right now:

1. What I think of as 'fringe' Marvel titles. That is, I dropped off major Marvel 'events' two or three events ago, which essentially means I don't have much idea what's going on at the 'center' of the Marvel universe. However, I think Marvel is doing a pretty nice job with putting out books that don't require that much engagement with other books. The most obvious examples are Daredevil and Hawkeye (which win all the awards, for good reasons); but I'm also thinking of titles like FF -- the most recent issue is amazing; Mike Allred's art looks like nothing else out there, and Lee Allred has taking over scripting duties from Matt Fraction but frankly you can't tell; X-Men Legacy, written by Si Spurrier and just full of crazy ideas and (notice a patern here) completely unique art by Tang Eng Huat); Avengers Arena, an impressively self-contained story that does great things with a bunch of different characters (this is known as the Hunger Games in the Marvel Universe book, but that doesn't do it justice except to the extent that you think that premise sounds awesome) -- this title has actually ended but it's coming back with a new title I can't think of (Avengers Undercover?) based on the status quo at the end of the book. And then there's the Kieron Gillen/Jamie McKelvie Young Avengers title which has two issues to go but which I'm already mourning. . .

2. The second category is basically 'creator-owned books by people who I first learned about through their Marvel or DC work.' Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples is the most obvious/popular example (almost too obvious to mention; who doesn't like Saga? WRONG PEOPLE!) I'm also digging Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's series Lazarus, which has an awesome female lead (obviously) a great sci-fi premise, and terrific layouts and execution by Lark. Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals is well worth checking out, (despite the title, which has not only gotten them in marketing trouble -- but does the book a bit of an injustice, IMO, by making it sound more jokey and glib than it actually is) I mean, it's funny, it's essentially a comedy book, but it's not just a bunch of gags; I mean, it's about a couple people with orgasm-based superpowers, yes, but it's much more of a tender slice-of-life book than you'd think from that description. A couple other new titles might work their way into the must read category -- Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's Velvet is a period piece about a female spy; Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios's Pretty Deadly is -- well frankly I'm not sure what's going on in this book yet but it is beautiful, and I'm trusting the story to come together.

It's possible that I have basically just listed all of the books that I'm buying (though if I forgot to list something it doesn't mean I don't like it, probably? And there could be a 3. on this list as I'm feeling like I'm going to get back into reading manga -- some piles of stuff I've checked out or bought but not read yet -- but I'm not quite there yet.

I hope that was somewhat useful for answering your question!

Day Eight:

rosaxxx50 asked, "I get the impression that you quite hated Phoenix: Endsong and I'm curious about why"

You know, this is an X-Men comics mini that I read, six or seven years ago, and I know it really bugged me at the time, but I can't say that I retain really strong feelings about it. I suspect I had an issue with the portrayal of Scott and Emma's relationship and the way that they talked about Jean. That was at a time where I was pretty resentful about Scott and Emma being together and Jean being dead and since, in current canon, Scott and Emma are (I think? I'm not even sure?) broken up, and Jean is (sort of) back, it's hard for me to keep being indignant about how something was written almost a decade ago. I wish Grant Morrison hadn't screwed up Scott and Jean; I thought Joss Whedon did a better job of addressing the aftermath of that than Greg Pak did in Endsong, but at this point I'm basically past it.

Crossposts: http://likeadeuce.livejournal.com/1341271.html

deird1

I was reading

selenak's meta on fictional rapists and redemption arcs (which is interesting, so go read it too), and thinking about ...well, about redemption arcs. I particularly liked what she said in this bit:

One of the reasons why I think Faith wins at redemption arcs in the Jossverse is that what she did is never excused or forgotten, she eventually accepted responsibility and turned herself in (without mystical intervention causing her to do so), and she then kept (successfully) at trying to be a better person. Which is why I find it frustrating when her dark side days are then declared to have been all someone else's (preferably Buffy's) fault to begin with - that sells the redemption arc short.

Totally. I love redemption arcs where people accept responsibility for what they did and deal with it. It's awesome. I can like a fictional character who does pretty much anything – up to, and including genocide – if they have a good redemption arc thrown in. Which must be why I'm okay with fictional murderers and rapists, like Spike and Faith.

Except that doesn't quite cover it. Because I also love Scorpius, Lilah, and Azula, who are all quite happily evil, and never get redemption arcs at all.

I think I've figured it out, though. It's the up-front thing.

A character who does awful things, then says "Wow. I did all this awful stuff. That sucks. I need to be all repenty, now." will pretty much be my favourite person ever. On the other hand, a character who does awful things, then says "Wow. I did all this awful stuff. That rocks! I need to laugh manically, for a minute." will just about tie for my favourite person ever with the repenty one.

Whereas, a character who thinks their evil deeds aren't so bad, or are someone else's fault, will get much less leeway from me.

Holtz, for instance, can do very few evil things apart from trying to get revenge on Angel, and I will end up yelling nasty things at my television and wishing he'd come back to life so I could kill him again, nastily. Likewise, Xander lying to Buffy gets very little sympathy from me, because he is doing something bad that he never takes responsibility for. And Lindsey's association with Wolfram and Hart is something I tend to scowl at.

But Willow, Faith, Andrew, Spike, Lilah, Scorpius, Tempus, the Master, Azula, and Callisto? I will forgive the 'good' ones, and grin happily at the 'evil' ones, and not really mind them doing the evil things they do. Because every single one of them is, eventually, happy to point out that those things are, in fact, evil.

I think this is why writers of Xander irritate me so much when they excuse The Lie on the grounds that Xander was trying to keep Buffy focused. Because... it's an excuse. And, even though they're trying to put me more on Xander's side, giving The Lie an excuse rather than just calling it a lie is guaranteed to take me off Xander's side and want to pelt him with tomatoes instead. Whereas, if they'd just have him accept that he did it, and that it was selfish and bad, I'd like those stories a heck of a lot more.

deird1

The local radio station currently has this thing they do called "...said NO-ONE EVER."

Like "Isn't it wonderful being stuck in traffic! ...said NO-ONE EVER." Or "I hate having the day off work! ...said NO-ONE EVER."

They put these in between songs, with the idea clearly being to say "Look at how relatable we are! We know what you think! You hate being stuck in traffic? We hate being stuck in traffic! We're like you! Listen to our radio station!"

I don't know how effective it is, but it's a strategy that is failing horribly on me, simply because of the first one of these that I heard. It said: "I just love hearing my eTag beep when I'm on Citylink! ...said NO-ONE EVER."

The problem with this? I do kinda love it. I get what they're going for – the fact that tolls cost money, and every time it beeps I'm losing a few cents. But... the eTags do it all automatically, and every time it beeps I get a little jump of "Ooh! Technology! How fun!" which makes me feel really cool and modern and like we're going to have flying cars any day now.

...which makes me all grumpy and annoyed at the radio station calling me "no-one ever". Because, stuff you, radio station! I like my automatic payment beeping thingy!

saunteringfiend posting in

poetry

I bought plum blossoms
more for the name
than for the color;
I buy lipstick that way, too.
In other words,
if it sounds like a poem,
I’ll take it.

snickfic

Last night I read the second trade of Humphries Uncanny X-Force, which has the Psylocke/Fantomexes backstory (also all the revenant stuff). More thoughts later, but for now I will say, wow, that could have been so much more awesome. :(

Anyway, point being that I had Psylocke/Fantomex on the brain when I went to bed, which resulted in me dreaming a fairly epic Buffy/Fantomex dream this morning. It was post-Chosen, Spike was still presumed dead, Buffy has a brief grievy fling with the French dude with the swirly coat (she has a thing for them now), but when like six months later Fantomex waltzes into her life again, she is not pleased to see him.

I am not going to write this, because there are approximately two people on the entire planet that would read it. But drat, it could be so good.

Crossposts: http://snickfic.livejournal.com/457647.html

ruuger

I thought I'd posted this already last week but apparently I didn't. Whoops.

I just read an interview of Robin Tunney where she said that Bruno Heller is very interested in what fans think of the show, and reads "everything" that's written about it. Errrr, I really hope that he doesn't really read everything... Bruno, if you read this, I only mock because I love, honest.

( spoilery spoilers )

Haven't yet seen the next episode, so no spoilers for that one, please. My social life has been so busy lately that it's been interfering with my tv-watching. Also, my Blueray player likes only one specific type of a file, and of course that's the one that sometimes takes a couple of days to turn up on the torrents.

(Bruno, if you read this, I only torrent because I love, honest)

Crossposts: http://ruuger.livejournal.com/411542.html

The Farmstead

Where sheep chew cud. Or something.

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