[Tehran, June 15. Image via Getty] (i got it from here)

So, when you see this woman with red fingernails, she's not just risking arrest for holding that sign, she's risking it for the shade of her nail polish.

I don't feel that I have anything helpful to say on this matter except for: this is important. This is happening now. Do not ignore it. The previously linked page has a collection of links at the end to other articles relevant for this issue.

Conn. teens mishear, beat man

A 16-year-old girl thought she heard her mother being assaulted by her boyfriend and rounded up some friends who beat him up, only to learn later that the couple actually were having sex, the woman and police said. The girl misinterpreted the woman's amorous screams, and she and four other teens went to the woman's bedroom in the Torrington home on June 6, police Lt. Bruce Whiteley said Thursday.

Oh dear. I'm laughing, but in a horrified sort of way. I mean, on one hand if she'd been right, yay, but as it is....how embarrassing. And, of course, poor guy. Jeez.

Porn Battle Seven has begun!

And I might actually have time for it this round! In other news, a wasp just landed on my keyboard. I like to think I am level headed concerning most insects, but. Um.

Well, I'm typing with my fingers maybe four inches away from it, so maybe I'm more level headed than even I thought. STILL. SLIGHTLY WORRISOME.

Title: Surrender
Author/Artist: shiegra
Fandom: Hellboy
Pairing/characters: Nuada/Nuala
Rating: NC17
Warnings: incest. iffy consent.
Prompt/challenge you're answering: Handcuffs/prison scenario

( Read more... )

When the term 'Mary Sue' loses its meaning...

Plea to fandom - please stop. Give up with your double standards. It's okay to think a girl is a Sue, but you have to say why she is a Sue. The only valid way a girl can be a Sue is if she is badly written. Anything else is a rather stupid reason, and you're better off saying that you 'just don't like her', because that's probably the truth and no-one will argue. She's not a Sue if she can chop people in half with her sword and catch fire at will unless she's been written badly. She's not a Sue if she's gentle, kind, loving, and strong, and has a history of sexual abuse, if she's been written well. Even if she's been written uninspiringly and inconsistently it doesn't make her a Sue, just a weak character. Weak writing makes a weak character. Only bad writing makes a Sue.

It's stupid, because more often than not they're not actually accusing a character of being a Sue, they're just using the most insulting term they can speak of. Like calling a woman a 'slut' or 'whore' not because you truly think she's sexually promiscuous, but because it's a term with hurtful, hateful social connotations.

IT PISSES ME OFF.

Canon:1a body of literature; 2 Material considered as genuine within a body of work. 3 Music in which a melody is imitated later in the song...
Cannon: A big metal thing that goes boom.

Thus, what X character said on Y TV show is the usually non-explosive CANON. (We also never had Pachabel's Cannon in D or any other letter, though that might make the song less boring.) As a mnemonic, remember that cannon has the extra N because it has the extra BOOM. Canon just has the extra wank.

YES. YES, thank you. STOP CALLING IT CANNON. IT DRIVES ME NUTS.

Source.

I realize that lately I've been, well, whiny. I've griped. I've stamped my internet feet. I've generally been cranky and sour. I have been low and sleep and full of unhappiness and stress--lacking REM is actually a fairly decent excuse, my Psychology 101 (and Biopsych) class assures me.

And before my insomnia problem, there was the stressful school quarter problem. And before that was....let us abandon this line of inquiry.

Either way. It's beautiful here, and I'm determined not to be such a downer. Mostly because, you know, it's not fun.

I'm hoping when I'm not so tired I'll get back into writing again.

The ice cream truck is going by. I'm amused that I still have the instinctive reaction of OMG ICE CREAM even though I probably got something from it like, once in my entire life. Children at hard wired to the sound, I swear.

Title: once a dreamer
Author: shiegra
Rating: R for implications
Warnings: Jaenelle's childhood, which included Briarwood.
Summary: She does not fit right in her girlskin.

( Read more... )

I thought I'd built up a callus against the stupid, nasty things people write about female characters and other women.

But condemning a character--who has been sexually abused--for being badly triggered by sexual assault, implications or threat, and in malicious, cruelly critical language (I can't bear to go back and read it for specifics) goes so far over the line I'm nauseous.

And, of course, they didn't criticize the male characters who had suffered similar treatment and reacted just as badly. Just the girl.

I...I can't even describe my hatred. I was almost shaking with anger. Saying vicious things about someone, verbally abusing and treating her with contempt because she was raped is just....

Yes, I know it's a fictional character. I'm aware. But fiction is a reflection, no matter how fantastical. We read it for the people. People who treat a female character like this are willing treat a female person like this. They are people, just on paper. Representations.

I feel like all the good cereta and coffeeandink's post did for me are gone. I just...can't even describe how sick I feel.

May you rot in hell, whoever the fuck you are. And at the moment, I mean that most sincerely.

I saw Anne Bishop last night.

I have waited this long so I didn't post a bunch of keyboard mashing and incoherent internet shouting. I am remaining very tightly in control of my giddiness. alagdsghaf!!

I tried to remain rational and calm, but I may have leaked fangirl all over her table when I got to speak to her. Triumphant air punching occurred. **shakes head** Such is the tragedy of my inability to remain level-headed.

OMGOMGOMGOMGANNEBISHOP

Race issues in Transformers.

"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."

"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."

If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."

But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"

'It's for the kids?' Really, Michael Bay? Really? Never have children.

You know that appalling Hollywood trend of being unable to write female villains without fetishizing and overemphasizing their sexuality, generally channelled through an absurd desire for the hero, no matter how it contradicts previous or probable characterization?

Yeah. Apparently if Michael Bay is making the movie, you don't even get to escape that if you're an EVIL GIANT ROBOT FROM SPACE. There were also pretty skeezy racial undertones in both of his Transformers movies, though, (I've only heard about the second movie, but given the first I'm not surprised) so go figure. **shoots him in kneecaps** Michael Bay, just...pass beyond my plane of existence. Please.

Not to mention what I hear he's done to Mikaela.

O-oh wow the_idiotgirl made a trailer based on Buried Queens.

This is--I dunno--crazy flattering and kind of awesome, it is a lovely trailer, I am ready to make out with it. So awesome!

( video embedded below cut, Chronicles of Narnia )

I can't sleep

I'm going to go insane within a week

Dark Angel related: someone tried to come on my LJ and explain to me that Max is obviously weaker than Alec.

I...god, how misaimed can you be? Unlike meganbmoore, who tolerates intrusions along these lines with dignity and grace, I tried to keep my cool but in the end lost it. Anyone who has read my LJ--and this was an old post--knows that I have long since discarded the fanon opinion that Alec is god because he's hot and Max is a bitch and inferior because she doesn't worship him.

Possibly I was less neutral than I could have been. This is a bad button to push with me, guys. Baaaaaad. I DON'T RESPOND WELL TO IT.

Someone ever so tactfully points out how shitty, inconsistent and vile the premise of the Supernatural finale is.

Also: klmorgan has reemerged for one fic; Certain Powers

There is also this, the account of one woman bravely spreading the Bowie and Connelly awesomeness to the little 'uns, and it is hilarious, and I plan to do this to all my children. You know. Should I ever have them.

Haha. Hahaha. Seriously: most awesome thing ever, or most awesome thing that ever awesomed? A bit of meta on it here, at it's origin.

Porn Battle answers. I'm probably going to continue working on them--this post already has two written after the end of the official porn battle. (I want to snicker incredulously every time I wrote porn battle out. Hm. Possibly my general maturity approaches 'three years old'.)

Well! Here we are.

( Chronicles of Riddick (Pitch Black), Riddick/Carolyn, scared of the dark )

( D.Gray-Man, Allen/Renalee, real, dream )

( Forbidden Game, Jenny/Julian, touch )

( Inuyasha, Sessomaru/(older)Rin, seduction )

( Sky High, Warren/Layla, water )

( The Dante Valentine Series, Dante/Japh, protect )

( True Blood, Eric/Sookie, blood-lust )

I feel bitchy and achy and well fed. The day could be going worse.

True Blood took an awesome, unique series of books with strong mystery plots and very little sex and turned it into a 60-minute ode to porn-level sex, gratuitous drug use, tons of totally unnecessary foul language, severe Character Derailment and some of the worst stereotypes of Southern life. The parts that focused on Sookie, Bill, Sam, and Gran were good (mainly because of the quality of the actors).

How could I have put it better? I couldn't have. Thank you, anonymous at TVTropes.

I like this one because it's interesting.

Robin Hood has somehow become a "champion of the poor" who "stole from the rich to give to the poor" during the 18-19th century... except that in the original tales what Robin Hood "stole" rightfully belonged the citizens of Nottinghamshire in the first place — his primary claim to fame was that he did it with style (not unlike many other highwaymen and brigands who entered popular folklore).

Pride and Prejudice is on the Adaption Decay list, of course. And Mulan. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I didn't know it was originally a dark indie comic. Cool.) And The Jungle Book, naturally. (Don't get me started on Pocahontas. I could go on about Pocahontas.)

It's interesting what you learn.