metafandom

spacelogic @ 4:37pm: meta: squicks and siblings
Claudia Christian mentioned in a blog post the other day that a B5 director ("who had clearly never watched the show") had told her to play her scenes with Sheridan more "sexy and coquettish" and I had such a strong "EWNOGROSS" reaction that I had to step back and analyze why. I can handle all kinds of fic/pairings, even if I prefer to avoid them. But Sheridan/Ivanova disgusts me, and thinking about it I've come to the conclusion that it's because they're too much like siblings.

It's kind of funny, I suppose. I can handle all kinds of screwed-up pairings if I understand the kink, even if I don't share it. I can deal with non-con, power imbalance including parent/child incest, aliens... lots of stuff. And I'm on IJ substantially because I used to have a good friend who wrote and read Weasleycest, and while I wasn't into it I didn't like the idea of her ability to do so being restricted. But despite this, sibling incest remains one of my biggest squicks.

Maybe it's because I have siblings I'm close to, and the idea of people perverting that kind of relationship feels too close to home. But I have parents I'm close to, too, and I can handle parent/child type stuff. I suppose in the Sheridan/Ivanova case, there's the added factor that they're not related by blood or by legal definition, and I've got those siblings too and know how upsetting I'd find it if people ignored that and assumed that we were sexually involved. Ties in to the whole "a man and a woman can't be just friends ever" cultural assumption, which I hate because I used to be the girl who had all guy friends and wasn't into any of them, no, really, stop teasing me, Mum! *coughs* Tangent there. Anyway, I think there's another factor.

Actors are often treated as people whose job is to convey emotions, deliver lines, and embody personalities. They are, of course. But another job they do is play relationships, and they're often not as good at that. We've all seen a big romantic storyline completely fizzle because the main romance lacked chemistry. Then, too, parent-child dynamics on screen and stage often fall flat. But the most commonly disappointing relationships I'm used to seeing are sibling ones. Screen siblings, whether bickering or affectionate, tend to fail to convince. And so I guess when I see a sibling relationship I like, I really don't like seeing it taken through the "a man and a woman can't be just friends ever" cliché. So Sheridan and Ivanova, whose sibling vibe seems so clear to me, I can't bear to think of in a sexual situation.

(Claudia Christian, I may have mentioned, is brilliant at playing relationships. Yet another reason I love B5.)

yonmei @ 11:24pm: Dull week...
Monday: still at work till 10pm, till TSH#1 and I finally packed up and left.
Tuesday: Took Bob to vet: she weighs the same as she did last time, so the vet hopes she's plateau'd out. Stayed at work till 10pm, till TSH#1 and I finally packed up and left.
Wednesday: Worked at home till 3pm, went into work, stayed at work till 10pm. (TSH#1 was through in Glasgow at a work-related event.)
Thursday: Twerp and FreshStart had meeting, which - towards the end - I overheard enough (door opened) to make clear they had been talking about me. Huh. Left work at 5:30 to attend work-related event. Left at 8pm and went to non-work wine-tasting. (White Rioja is great stuff, by the way.)
Friday: Left work at 5:10 to attend work-related event. Left at 7:30pm, did shopping, got home at just after 9pm.

Am attempting to figure out where I want to go for Christmas. For the last sixteen years, with only a couple of exceptions, I've been meeting up with two friends for mince pies, wine, and midnight mass. This Christmas, one of them is dead, and the other plans - rightly, I think - to go on holiday somewhere else. (I would go with him if he were going, but I have been going to that church specifically for midnight mass on Chriatmas Eve since 1987, first with one friend, then with another, and now both of them are dead. It feels too weird to be going there on my own. I'd like to be somewhere else instead.)

yonmei @ 1:19pm: To do list (dull)
( cut for dullness )

yonmei @ 12:55pm: Nanowrimo
"Group Three: The Go On Without Me's. For you, November turned out to be a very bad month to try and write a novel. Life went completely crazycakes, and you faced a never-ending series of demanding work or school projects, health emergencies, social obligations, and/or tech meltdowns. You managed to get a few good ideas down on paper, but never quite found your novel's rhythm. You're thinking of bowing out, and planning on giving it a try next year."

That was me.

But I still want to write...

*is sadface*

lavendertook @ 10:57pm: Honey, honey . . .

Ah, sugar . . . Sugar maple, brightest of them all! It's what makes New England and Ontario especially so grand in the fall. I'm not sure how far up north in Canada they do a good display--please chime in, Canadian flistmates. We don't have so many here, and there are fewer south of here. They kept a long display here this year, though many of them got rained off by their peak, and I guess most of us humans got rained in from seeing them. I love them pre-peak best, though, when they still have a lot of green to contrast with the flames.
( You got me wanting you . . .  )

gwionfawyr @ 10:59am: Nano'd! Now on to the real work.


That is the final word count before my fingers fall the hell off. I hit the 50k, my original 75k and almost made it to 100k.

Now I just have my last homework assignments to do, an essay to write for English, and some programs to finish coding. Icy/Hot, you are my friend today!

Jenn

yonmei @ 12:25pm: If I ever use the word "cerulean" to describe House's eyes
Please take away my writer's licence.

Cerulean is not just a fancy word for "blue", though I'd guess from some writers' use they think it is. There is a specific pigment of which the primary chemical constituent is cobalt, which has been used by painters to get a stable blue colour without greenish undertones since it was invented in the early 19th century.

It's also got a specific colour-name use to describe two hues of blue: very light blue (synonyms sapphire, lazulin); or a dark almost purplish blue which is also known as "bright blue", oddly enough. Both can be called "sky blue".

But really. Like most people with pure blue eyes, Greg House's eyes sometimes look colourless (absence of pigment) sometimes you can see the blue colour more strongly. They do not ever look like sapphire, or like potassium, or like cerulean blue paint.

What POV character in House MD would be likely ever to look at blue eyes and think "cerulean!" anyway? None of them are painters. Or photographers. Or even graphics designers.

anotherslashfan @ 5:01pm: Leverage Recs
So, I'm trying to follow through on my intentions of shortening my "to rec" list.
( 6 Leverage recs for you )

lavendertook @ 10:49pm: Bradford Pear Tree Love

These are more pics across Greenbelt Lake and down the southwest branch I took a month ago. See those dark green trees with a touch of burgundy in the center here? Those are Bradford pear trees. And they still had some pretty leaves hanging on this weekend--I took some pics I'll show you later.

Let me just write a little encomium to Bradford pears, because I've come to love this tree a lot. In the spring it's one of the first trees to flower with clouds of white blooms. It's used as a total utility tree around here and planted all along the highways, so there are stretches along the Beltway that are just gorgeous in the spring. One of my spring observances is to make it a point to drive through the Ivy Lane Office Park and the Greenway Shopping Center parking lot--names that ring full of the romance of spring, right?--they are so full of these trees. Last year, while I was in the parking lot, some flurries fell while their blooms were already out, and it was wonderful to see white petals and snowflakes falling together.
( More nattering about trees and more pics . . . )

zulu @ 2:47pm: House 6.09
( spoilers )

This entry was originally posted at http://zulu.dreamwidth.org/440769.html. have spoken there. Comment there with OpenID.

yonmei @ 12:57pm: It is a truth not sufficiently acknowledged...
...that no one ever sees themselves as the villain: no one ever thinks of themselves as the bully.

Healthcheck warning: this leads to Kathryn Cramer's website via HideMyURL

In other, more pleasant thoughts, it has occurred to me that there is a lovely meme to be had comparing fandoms to cake.

The manly moustachio'd fandoms of the 1970s and 1980s are chocolate cake, solid and multilayered with thick chocolate frosting and sandwiched with more chocolate.

(The Professionals has an unexpected chocolate-ginger layer that involves Gordon Jackson/Cowley. Bodie and Doyle are chocolate cake even though neither of them have moustaches.)

House is a series of green tea vegan cupcakes with rosewater icing and little silver balls, though attempts keep being made to stir it in a more normal direction.

What is your fandom? What is its representative cake?




(This post wants you to know *bouncing up and down a little* that it was inspired by jekesta's RiptideIsLove multifandom vid, which is all about being in love with a fandom so much you can't really think about any of the rest. Or anything else. Really. It is (the fanvid, not this post) deep and meaningful and clever and funny and cute and full of Avons, or at least one Avon.)

loqia @ 11:15pm: Meanwhile, on the Internet…

• Hokay, so.
  … I don’t think I will ever think of Hannah Montana the same way ever again…
  lulz
• Giant Chupacabras Snail
  Click at your own risk…
  wtf
• But what are your thoughts on homosex?
  Homosex. It’s almost kind of catchy!
  wank
• Blaster anniversary recalls network worm heyday
  Still the only virus I’ve ever caught wild. Damn you, university network!
  security:viruses
• Steampunk Madam at Ohayocon 09
  You know what’s hot? This. This is what’s hot.
  art:photos photography otaku:cosplay
• khr–abandoned storyboard
  This is so unbelievably cute.
  art
• Fluffy Art #2
  Rain + Sun = ???
  art
• Idealizing Fantasy Bodies
  You know, I have to say I completely disagree with just about everything written here. One of the things the author fails (er, I think) to mention is that the changes in female avatar body-shapes between alpha and release were actually done in response to feedback from female players. Interrogating the text from the wrong perspective, indeed.
  gaming:mmos:wow feminism health:bodyimage
• Katy Lied
  You know, honestly? If that really were the choice, I know which one I’d choose…
  health:healthcare
• Sailor Moon Transformation
  For the record, my superhero costume is my Professor Snape coat and my Lex Luthor black leather gloves. I think that says pretty much all you need to know about me, really.
  video otaku:cosplay
• Gender Identity Disorder Reform
  So apparently according to the DSM-IV I had Gender Identity Disorder. Gee, thanks for mansplainin’ that to me, DSM-IV.
  health:psychology sexuality:gender

Comment?

This post has been mirrored from void-star.net. You may comment there using your LiveJournal/Dreamwidth/OpenID URL instead of an email address. Randoms and lurkers are more than welcome.

spacelogic @ 11:19am: this is the long goodbye
Inexplicable 10-hour power outage last night. The weather's not even bad at all.

I appear to have lost my computer permanently -- I set up Age of Empires II and now everybody wants to play. Matisse took an 8-hour turn yesterday, and when Mum starts....

lavendertook @ 2:02pm: Wolftrap, Virginia: RotK Symphony, Fri & Sat 9/10- 9/11/2010
OK, my dear Hobbit Posse, the tickets for RotK in September went on sale this past Saturday, and the center front orchestra seats are already sold out for Saturday night 9/11. We can still get side front orchestra seats, but I wouldn't wait past tomorrow to try to get those.

We can get much better seats for Friday night 9/10--they've only sold through the first 2 rows of center front orchestra, and row CC is still open, which may actually be a little too close, so we have a little more time to get tickets if choosing Friday--I'm keeping my eye on it.

So I'm emailing with some folks right now about who can't make Friday or Saturday. Let me know your preferences here, so we can make plans for getting tickets together or near each other on the same night. Info on the performance is here. There will probably be tickets available close to the concert date, as I got tickets the last 2 years much closer to the date, but you just wouldn't be sitting with us and as close.

The guest apartment in my building is available for rent that weekend if a few folks are coming from out of town and we need it.

yonmei @ 8:01am: On the sea where there is no Monday
Gdansk at dawn! (Which is at 8:26, this time of year.)

spacelogic @ 2:49pm: snapshot

spacelogic @ 4:13pm: computers, laws thereof
Phoenix's Universal Laws of Computing:

1) Your computer is stupid, but completely obedient. It will do exactly what you tell it to do, whether or not that's what you actually want or, indeed, what you thought you were doing.

2) Your computer is out to get you. It hates your guts and wants you dead. You cannot let down your guard even for a moment. Save early, save often, and back up everything regularly.

3) Your computer can tell if you're afraid. It will do everything in its power to keep you that way. You have to show it who's boss, and that had better be you.

yonmei @ 9:22am: Nibling in utero?
I had a will. (And my previous will included the possibility that my brother might have children, or that my sister might have more children, so technically my newest nibling was covered.)

But, named bequests are better, and this month is Will Aid month, so I looked up the nearest solicitor to me who was participating and this time, helped by the fact that the solicitor was doing it for free and so had no investment in making it more complicated, I had him write me a classically simple will with a small handful of cash bequests, an explicit instruction to my executor to honour any handwritten bequests that had been dated and signed (legal in Scottish law: I don't even have to get a witness), and the main division of residual legacy* to residual heirs, this time including both nephews by name.

But, as the solicitor pointed out (as the last one did) there is the possibility that either my brother or my sister might have more children, and so there's an additional clause adding any other offspring of my brother and my sister as equal heirs with the two named nephews. When the will arrived, these potential niblings were identified as "born or in utero at the time of my death" - and this actually left me wondering - in the kind of way one does speculate about wild improbabilities - what happens if my brother's girlfriend is pregnant at the time of my death, then has a miscarriage afterwards? Would the dead fetus get a share, which would by default be inherited by my brother's girlfriend? The whole thing has a massive improbability score which I am not seriously worried about - not least, because it's not as if I'm actually going to be around to worry about it if it happens - but it's a curious thing to will money to a fetus.

Anyway. I need to get the will witnessed and a copy in store, but once done that should do me for another ten years**. Unless Flow is planning to give newest nephew a sibling. (My sister has already, many times, said emphatically that there are not going to be any more from her.)

Anyway. Making a will is important! Even if you have nothing to leave except twelve books and three sex toys and a kitten, the only reason for not making a will is to cause guaranteed amounts of trouble for whoever is required to deal with your crap after you die.



*My house. When sold.
**Unless I buy another house in the meantime. Or register a civil partnership. Or the world as we know it comes to an end in 2012. Or have a baby. I mention these things in increasing order of wild improbability, but any one of them could invalidate*** my will.
***Not legally. In Scotland nothing invalidates a previous will but a new will, though you and your heirs and executors ought to be identified by name/address, and a spouse can claim a share. And Scottish courts can process Scots law anywhere, so technically it wouldn't matter if the UK was completely drowned by giant tsunamis. Actually having a child would make a will effectively invalid since a child is legally entitled to a specific share in a Scottish will and can contest the will if they don't get it.

lavendertook @ 10:42pm: Colors and Turtles Across the Lake

The focus isn't very sharp in these pics, but the colors are so vivid I figured I'd show them to you anyway. We started on the east end of the lake, and we're going along the northern shore and are nearing the west end now. Across the lake from this picnic shelter you can sort of make out the opening of the south branch or fork of the lake.
( Following the kaleidoscope on the southern shore . . . )

gwionfawyr @ 10:16pm: Bone Tired and DW
So after how many months, I finally got a Dreamwidth account. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but here's the link. gwionfawyr.

Deathly tired and just ready to fall on my face and sleep, but I'm not down with NaNo, even though I did hit the 50k mark. Still have Finals and two separate tests to study for, an essay to do, and about 20 Cengage assignments to turn in for my English prof. Sleep is going to take a back burner and soon.

Oh well. Here's my first cross post to all three.

Jenn


x-posted: ij, lj, dw

lavendertook @ 11:12pm: Geese Floating on Glass


Happy Birthday to mererid who loves birds and the sea. We're about half way down to the far end of the lake. The park around the lake is called Buddy Attick Park--kind of a hobbity name, don't you think? This has been a stressful week, so I'm just going to float along with these Canada geese here. And I'm having a mug of almond milk, with a shot of amaretto and rose water as a thunder storm passes over outside, and Saki is lounging on the ottoman in front of me keeping guard. The rain's picked up, falling louder on the windows, so Tuxie has just dashed into his bunker behind the futon for safety, and Moo just wandered by wondering if she should be worried.
( A time to reflect . . . )

yonmei @ 12:08am: Wolf and his little friend

moar funny pictures

yonmei @ 6:40am: Emotional shocks, sleepless nights, and travelling to Glasgow
Yesterday at work I had a big emotional rock thrown through my window (metaphorically speaking). So I slept badly last night. Also, while sleeping badly, I didn't notice that Bob was outside until I woke up this morning and it occurred to me that she wasn't there.

Also I have to go to Glasgow this morning for a 10:30 meeting, which is not unfortunately in the dead centre of Glasgow where I could reach it within 10 minutes walk, or I would plan on getting the 9:15 train that gets me at 10:06 and costs my project £11.50. No: it's just over a mile away, which is doable in 20 minutes if I walk briskly, but a route I don't know and an address I haven't been to before, and I had rather plan on getting there early than late. :-( I'm an Edinbugger: we're good at getting lost in Glasgow. Anyway, so, I figured I should probably plan instead on getting the 8:30 train (makes no difference: any train before the 9:15 one will cost my project £18.80) and get there at 9:21 and have loads of time to wander over.

This doesn't interest you, I know: it's boring. I promised myself I would make it to a transgender day of remembrance ceremony this weekend (since the MCC is doing one of their determinedly-not-too-religious ones on Saturday) but Jo Clifford is running two, lunchtime and early evening, at GOMA, today: so I thought I'd go there at lunchtime. I like Jo.

(I've never been into dresses. But this is definitely a Dude, where's my jetpack? dress. It's a shame that apparently no one's ever worn it. "A woman can never be too fine when she is all in white." Then she lights up the room.... H/t: Avedon.)



I hope Bob shows up before I have to leave. *frets* (The front door downstairs is open: the glass inner door is closed: I let Wolf out. This is usually a good way of getting Bob in, assuming she's not curled up in a neighbour's house right now.) [Update, 7:45 - Bob trots back in, complaining that she's been OUT ALL NIGHT. Yes, lovecat, that tends to happen if you insist on going out in the late evening when I'm TIRED.]

lavendertook @ 11:28pm: Tree and Sky and Water

Looking up to the tree tops and seeing blue sky between brightly colored leaves is one of the joys of life.
( Bright stuff by the water. . . )

spacelogic @ 8:14pm: ah, initiative process
Just got word that this is now in circulation to be put on the ballot next year:

CREATES SPECIAL CONSTITUTIONAL RULE FOR SPEECH BASED ON THE BIBLE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Exempts speech based on biblical authority from existing constitutional and statutory restrictions applicable to all other speech, including restrictions against discrimination and hate crimes. Repeals constitutional provision denying protection to acts of religious expression inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State. -Snip fiscal impact.-

Oh, state of California. WHY? This beats out the mandatory Christmas music in schools for the coveted position of "#1 thing Phoenix is most disgusted at the idea of being obligated to vote on in 2010." Driving parents across the state batty is a much less evil thing to try to violate the establishment clause with than promoting violence against queers (and, soon enough, Jews.)