| I want to preface this entry by stating clearly two things as a disclaimer:
1. This entry is not meant to criticize, belittle, attack, chastise, or judge anyone reading this journal.
2. This entry is not a manifesto meant to imply or state that I somehow have White Person Cultural Diversity Cred™ because of my geographic or cultural origin.
I decided to write this entry as a result of a discussion that was touched off by Willow and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) glockgal's statements that I mentioned here. The discussion to which I refer, which arguably is a tangent given that it doesn't directly address the Avatar castfail discussion over on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) racebending, happened in an entry on my flist.
The question was brought up, in light of discussion of a blog entry by Ami Angelwings about her experience at a Chinese New Year parade in Toronto, as to whether or not St. Patrick's Day and Chinese New Year can be seen as Canadian celebrations or if both retain a distinct cultural marker that is distinguishable from a theoretical construct of Canadian identity, e.g., St. Patrick's Day in Canada is still seen as Irish and therefore separate from mainstream Canadian identity, a discrete cultural celebration the way that Chinese New Year's is a discrete cultural marker that is not part and parcel of a larger Canadian identity. The argument was put forth that both St. Patrick's Day and Chinese New Year suffer from stereotypes that make them "not Canadian."
I don't live in Toronto, but I have some issues with that supposition. I suspect that part of my disagreement stems from the fact I am from San Francisco, I grew up in San Francisco and Berkeley, and the City still remains my home.
I suspect that this concept of whether or not a cultural day of significance/festival/religious observation/holiday is considered as deviating from a value-neutral white identity differs throughout North America, be it Canada or the United States, precisely because we are talking about a huge-ass piece of real estate comprised of huge cities, small towns, and vast tracts of wilderness.
( So, let's talk St. Patrick's Day, Chinese New Years, San Francisco, and Toronto - and no, St. Patrick's Day and Chinese New Year's *are not the same thing.* )
But perhaps San Francisco is singular in its embracing and integration of things like Chinese New Year into the mainstream culture of the city, something that happens every year and in which HUGE numbers of people get involved. The San Francisco Police Department has their own dragon troupe, our mayor participates in the parade, and our Chinese New Year celebration is the largest Chinese New Year celebration outside of Asia.
This wasn't easily achieved, of course - Chinese people have been living in San Francisco since 1848 and suffered vicious racism in every possible form in the 19th and 20th centuries (and still do, albeit perhaps in subtler form). But the inexorable cultural mix of San Francisco means that even with the bigotry, the racism, and the periodic attempts to disenfranchise, it was inescapable that the Chinese (and numerous other groups of Asians) became woven into the fabric of what makes San Francisco San Francisco. Other cities outside of Asia, of course, have totally awesome Chinese New Year celebrations, but ours is a grand spectacle, and I will stand by that assertion until I die. (And, of course, the giant illuminated dragon is one of my favorite parts.)
It makes me wonder how different San Francisco is from other large cities in North America and Canada.
And thus, a poll was born.
Poll #1432028 Litmus test #1: Cultural diversity where you live
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllDoes your city/town officially mark or celebrate any of the following? How many of the above do you know and understand? Have you ever seen/attended celebrations of any of the above firsthand? Have you participated in any of the above celebrations?
Edit of Poll Fail: Argh. I meant to make the first polls check boxes instead of radio buttons, because that leaves no room for cities/towns that celebrate more than one of the things listed above. So, if your city/municipality does celebrate more than one, let me know in the comments.
As if that weren't enough, I have pictures and videos to poll you about!!
Poll #1432029 Litmust test #2
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllI know what is pictured above and I don't have to right-click-cheat
This is how we roll in San Francisco during Chinese New Year - we get White Crane's lion dancing:
(If you think lion dancing is easy, you need to get off my flist right now.)
As you can see, the streets are packed, people are shrieking and applauding in joy, and sheer amount of firecrackers set off during your average San Francisco Chinese New Year's Parade is enough to deafen any deity that happens to be listening in.
I love this lion dancing troupe that started attacking passerbys. LULZ. I've seen these guys, and they are awesome.
Here, since we're on the subject of My City is Cooler Than Yours, is how we start our Gay Pride Parade:
Nine minutes of dykes on tricked out bikes:
Every time I'm at Pride, I'm always surprised at how many bar hoppers there are in the Dykes on Bikes contingent. But there are a few Ducatis in there, and I think I even spy a Cagiva!
Since I'm already litmus testing you like nobody's business, and since we're talking about North America and I've seen some SERIOUS racefail lately on the subject of Native Americans, the First Nations, etc. - yes, both inside and outside SFF fandom - let me ask you this, flist:
Can you identify any of the below without cheating and reading the titles of the video clips? Can you?
Poll #1432030 Litmust test #3
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllI know what the above is and did before I saw the video's title
Poll #1432031 Litmust test #4
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllI know what the above is
Poll #1432032 Litmust test #5
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllI know what kind of dancing this is
Poll #1432033 Litmust test #6
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllI know what kind of dancing this is
(LISA ODJIG, BITCHES. THAT'S RIGHT.)
See, I often labor under the misapprehension that everyone in North America just automatically knows who all of those people are and what kinds of dancing they're doing.
So ask yourself the next time you want to engage on the topic of racism and cultural diversity in an American or Canadian context: do you even know who these people are and what the below represents?
( Cut for more beauty. Including some serious Cinco de Mayo - Inca, Aztec, and Olmec, oh my! )
These are the people that Patricia Wrede erased from the North American continent in The Thirteenth Child. (Well, except for the Cinco de Mayo revelers.) These people have faces, voices, and living, breathing identities. They live here. And you found them inconvenient.
Fuck you, Patricia Wrede.
(This reminds me to dig up schmevil's epic racefail when she tried to wholeheartedly defend Jason Aaron's Scalped and denied that any problematic tropes exist in Aaron's treatment of Native American characters. I felt dirty for days after being exposed to her lily-white fail on that subject.)
Edit of Cultural Appropriation: It occurs to me that Dia de los Muertos is another cultural marker that San Francisco has COMPLETELY co-opted, but to the point of dilution. | comments: 49 comments or Leave a comment   |
| Okay, without giving away spoilers Harry Potter 6 was okay, but spent way too much damn time on the B Plot. You had this huge exploding opening but, no damn follow up on it at all.
The majority of the movie was pure fluff, which was okay, but long. I was yawning and going, "Okay, so when are we going to get back to the main part of the story? Where is the action that we know is coming?"
It didn't come until the last 20 minutes of the movie and we're talking 2 hours into the movie here.
The funniest part of it all had to come when Harry & Dumblebdore are off on their quest and it's the scene you've seen in all the trailers where they are on a lake & you see the creatures coming out of the water and not from the movie, but from the people I was seeing the movie with.
I had Aimless on my left going, "If they ask for the Ring, don't give it to them!" Then, The Evil One on my right going, "Precious. My precious."
I bust out laughing and I'm sure the other folks in the theater were going, "Why is this chick laughing?"
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| As poked by Karcy.
Friendship
I’ve trusted friends more than I’ve ever had with my blood family. They’re the ones who’ve stood by me when I needed a shoulder to cry on, they’re the ones who’ve lent a listening ear, and not a few have been the ones who’ve told me it’s alright to stand tall and fight back. Not a few of them were acquaintances who stopped by to see how I was doing. Most have turned into invaluable friends and some, adopted siblings and parents. Because of them, I’ve learnt to accept myself for who I am.
And if it weren’t for the few, I might not be here.
Cosplaying
Hah. This is just a fun activity for me, a chance to dress up and be someone else. It’s lost its sheen for me in the past few events though. I skim over interests very fast, and cosplay is one of them that doesn’t quite hold the same appeal to me now as it did then. Back when I got into it, I suppose I really wanted the attention; no, I needed it then. I wanted something to break away from the humdrumness of my life then- none of the work I was doing was really what I wanted to do.
Writing as a Professional Career
Is very much a hit-and-run thing, at least here in Malaysia. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in a place where your employers allow you great creative freedom and interpretation of what the client wants. If you’re not, you’ll end up working yourself half to death with cheap bosses who want you to stick to the script and make you a glorified copy editor.
I’ve been lucky that most of my assignments and articles I’ve written have made it to the former group. But I notice that for self-assurance, I tend to copy other people’s styles for now; my own voice has been lost due to fear of rejection. I tend to prefer tstarting off on what someone else has already done rather than to start a new document all on my own, if I haven’t already. This ties in back to writing insecurities.
Writing, especially in the way it’s consumed me, can lead to burnout, professionally and personally. In Malaysia, if you’re lucky to be in a company that values you, taking a month off to pursue other interests and to regain the spark is a luxury. I’m quite happy to be a professional writer, but I’d caution anyone else who’s thinking of making a living off writing in Malaysia; it’s your grammar skills that will get you hired, but you need a flair to keep you employed. Bear in mind that having a creative flair may not be the same as writing something engaging.
Oh, and learn to be short. Writing short, interesting copy is worth double its weight in gold for advertising companies.
Malaysian Anime Fandom
Is surprisingly large if you’re talking to many different people, tend to be small-minded at times, and are very literal at times (I should know, I tend to be one of those people). In many ways, the Malaysian fandom mirrors the American fandom; you have cosplayers, fanfiction writers, fan artists, etc. What was surprising to me was discovering that other Malaysians role-played too!
And some do it oh so well. 
Silly Office Sexual Innuendoes
Generally silly and harmless. Despite the laughs and all, there is no real putting down of the female body I think, or of the others. By an unspoken rule, we don’t make remarks about each other’s bodies. I mean, yes, we run into the gutter, but I think of it as stress relief, of finding the sillier things of life. It also keeps the brain active; I don’t talk about the random word plays we have in the office because upon writing it down, they lose their subtlety.
That said, I still think Chris does more to run into the gutter whether intentionally or not than anyone else in the office.
Original entry as appearing at Broken Shield and Sword. | | |
| I started to watch Torchwood: Children of Earth last night.
Um, when did this show actually get weighty, toothy, and actually watchable? I admit to making it a sport of mocking Torchwood due to the fact that I think John Barrowman's acting on the show generally veers between wooden and campy (and sometimes both) and because I think Ianto has about as much charisma as truckful of diamictite.
But last night? I couldn't stop watching. Yes, it was flawed and heavy-handed at times, and it stole shamelessly from Childhood's End and Village of the Damned, but it was downright chilling.
SPOILERS:
( Jack: apparently gunning for Prick of the Century award. )
It was also nice to see Gwen laying down the law and come at the Evil Government Agents with both barrels firing.
In other news:
ARTESIA IS COMING BACK FUCK YES FUCK YES. That takes you to an interview with Mark Smylie where the glorious news that the mini Artesia Besieged is coming off hiatus and will be completed.
If you've never read the fantasy epic of warrior queen Artesia and her lethal levels of pwnage, trust me, it's the kind of storytelling that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It's indescribably good, and it's one of the few fantasy epics to feature a woman of color as the lead character.
And, like Tars Tarkas, she comes with her own Army of Awesome™. Artesia will sex you up, cut you down, and make you have to redraw your maps.
The beautiful art in the series only helps:
ARTESIA FUCK YEAH!
So I assume that most of you in fandom have seen p_a_sabrina's post over in racebending with some great visuals demonstrating why Aaang ain't white. By any stretch of the imagination. It's a thoughtful essay backed up with facts and examples, and it's a must read for anyone still of the opinion that Avatar is full of honkies.
This nicely segues into what I next want to post: Willow has written (or rather, provided extended commentary) one of the absolute comments that I've yet seen about WHY so many people don't get that Avatar is set in a world constructed of a melange of tribes and cultures that AREN'T WHITE.
This in particular I wanted to quote:
Glockgal's statement made me think about Racefail and how much general white people just don't know. It reminds me of something my father said, which was, that I was expecting Americans to know something about post colonial theory, when post colonial to them likely meant after 1775-1783 and the end of the American Revolutionary War. Granted the hubris isn't just held by White Americans. Though I've admitted in this blog before my surprise at how quickly Britain has forgotten basic geography of places that were once their colonies. Still they, in general, can be said to know of these places. Whereas in towns in the middle of this large land of America, People of Colour were purposefully run out; chased out of town and off their land so white people could move in and collect/acquire assets (yes, the history as happened to the First Nation tribes was made to repeat itself). There's a reason that there are towns in the US without any black folk, where people grow up only seeing People of Colour on television.
Avatar: The Last Airbender (the animated show), has Inuit and Japanese and Chinese and Korean and South Asian (East Indian) culture, big and bold in dress, food, language, martial arts and architecture. But if you're ignorant of those cultures, of that food, of that language of that architecture, if you've only ever seen it depicted as a fantasy land (ghetto) where white characters run around and save the day - then how would you ever know it was REAL?
How would you, theoretical white person, know that armor design, that sword move, that parka (that atiqik) is real How would you know that hairstyle, that blade, those shoes, are real? How would you know the artwork reflected something real? The art style of the show itself, reflected something real?
If you're the theoretical white person who lives in a town filled with other white people and you've only ever seen People of Colour on tv - how could you begin to understand that Aang doesn't need to be yellow toned, with slanted eyes in order to be read as Asian? How do you know your own ignorance? Your utter and absolute ignorance?
Yes, I stood up and cheered when I read glockgal's brilliant comments along the same lines:
Over the course of this protest, I really have underestimated how insular a LOT of Americans are, especially when you get into towns that don't have a lot of multiculturalism, like. It's just plain ignorance.
For people who've never learned/seen/been exposed to anything Asian beyond fortune cookies and sweet-and-sour chicken balls, I suddenly understand that when they watched the cartoon, all they see is 'fantasy'. All the architecture, clothing, food, writing, names, movements - EVERYTHING that is so plainly and clearly Asian to us? Is just to them....a fantasy. It's all made-up. They don't know that so much of the world is based on real cultures, they don't get how much attention to detail and research the creators put into the cartoon, because they've NEVER SEEN THESE CULTURES, IRL.
They simply don't know. And they've never HAD to learn. Gyah, it's so crazy and sad to realize that people have lived such insular lives.
Well said.
I guess now it's timely to mention that the imminent war against the human species by the Crabs of Terror has a sinister new development? Carnivorous squid have joined the alliance. The Humboldt squid ain't playin', apparently, because one attacked a diver and pulled her tank off. HOLY SHIT. It's ON now, my children.
I realize that it's a bad sign that I've subsumed my Tuesday and Wednesday nights into watching America's Got Talent, but godammit, it's restoring my faith in the American people:
A 9-year-old shreds on guitar:
Destined 2 Be poppin', lockin', and putting everyone else to shame:
I love their eighties-style skinny jeans and bright colors - it gives them almost an old school punk aesthetic. AWESOME. I want these guys to appear in my bedroom every morning and roust me out of bed.
In other news that's amusing: there's an anonymous Marvel kink meme over here. I only mention this because some of the writing is appallingly and hilariously bad, and though I'm not usually given to mocking kink memes, I recognize the styles of a few of the anons posting their drabbles, and I've been LOLing to the point of choking all morning whilst reading it. But hey, if Daken/Wolverine father/son incest or Carol/Jessica Drew dubcon is your thing, go for it, although this prompt KILLED me: "Lorna/Wanda and a large packet of ball-bearings." EXCELLENT! Oh, fandom. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| My day involved my bank telling me that the IRS had frozen my bank account due to claiming that I owe them $10K in back taxes (which I do not, but that is another serpentine tale of Kafkaesque terror).
That left me with approximately $8.00 to live on. As in, forever.
I spent two and a half hours on the phone with the IRS trying to get this straightened out. They released the freeze (and, miraculously, my bank acknowledges this) - and I hope to god that it takes so that I can, you know, BUY FOOD.
On top of everything else this week...I think I've reached my breaking point. I've got nothing left. Nothing.
On the other hand:
Best motivator ever or BEST motivator ever?
Maybe I need a little more Rich Rider in my life for tough situations like this.
You know, a little of THIS attitude:
TAKE THAT, IRS! TAKE THAT, $BANK!
(Daniel Acuna's art is so verrah, verrah pretty.) | | comments: 35 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | cosmic marvel, fashion, galactus, grief, hercules, icons of brilliance, icons of excellence, kieron gillen, marvel, music, previews, rl, the dark knight, things i must have, you tube | | Subject: | Every woman beareth the whole stamp of the human condition. | | Time: | 08:21 am |
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| July, it appears, has not been kind to my flist. Apparently it's not just me. I feel less alone now (although am feeling alarmingly isolated). At least I got up and am going to attempt to force down food.
Firstly, big bear hugs all day long to redstapler.
Another big hug to melanierain.
So I thought I'd post some things that may brighten your day or, at the very least, get you up and shaking your glutes around.
HEY, the_croupier! Check out Carl Cox tearing it up at Timewarp 2008!
LOOK AT CARL DANCING. I did my kung fu physical therapy moves and my seven dozen crunches to this clip this morning.
(box_in_the_box), you may also enjoy this - it's another example of someone riding a BEAST of a sound array.)
We also have Richie Hawtin from Timewarp 2008! (I'm still startled every time I see Richie with long hair and sexy stubble. Good lord, he's SMILING and enduring people RUFFLING HIS HAIR.)
He's a total sweetheart and in my book still one of the best purveyors of beats around.
In which the audience invades the sound booth:
Anyone reading Greg Pak's fabulous run on the Hercules book knows that the sound effects are unto a whole other narrative that accompanies the actual story.
Like this bottom panel from Incredible Hercules #131:
...Wow.
For the motorcycle AND cosplay enthusiasts on the flist, UD Replicas has released a replica of Bale!Bat's motorcycle gear from The Dark Knight:
No price yet, but here it is:
Finally, a page from Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #2 that had me sputtering:
It's just another day at the office for Stardust, Herald of the Ravager of Worlds:
It's been said that Stardust is the most fanatic of the Heralds in his/her desire to serve Galactus, and I can't help but notice that Stardust seems to have a high level of job satisfaction (although I wonder what Stardust's bennies package is as a Herald).
It's also been made clear before that Stardust's gender is a mystery - in fact, Stardust may not even have a gender, given how profoundly alien an entity Stardust is compared to our binary and arbitrary way of looking at gender.
Unfortunately the rest of the issue seems to be Beta Ray Bill fighting the Silver Surfer, and frankly Gillen doesn't write a good Surfer at all, so I'm Byrne Stealing this mini instead of paying for it.
Finally, the Icon of the Month award goes to yarol_2075:
DR. DINOSAUR. I DECLARE NIGH INFINITE QUANTITIES OF WIN. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| I'm not sure if this is a further harbinger of doom (hello, abyss! So nice to be cohabitating with you!) or so bad that it's come around to being bitterly funny - in a 1) laugh or 2) open my wrists kind of way.
New promo pics for the Avatar film.
Naturally, fandom reacts.
( New cast pics - look, ma, NO BLUE! OR BROWN! )
I think it's the total LACK of anything BLUE and Water Tribey about Rathbone!Sokka and What'sHerFace!Katara. Or the fact that Noah's pose there as Aang looks like a mug shot from Gawker or SmokingGun.
Let's look at the comparison cam!
Ultimately, however, it's sergeantquakers who wins the day over on ohnotheydidnt (wait, people still hang out there?) by posting this:
The characters:
The cast:
Any apologists for the film's producers, director, and crew are kindly invited over here. | | comments: 58 comments or Leave a comment |
| Okay,
As many of you know, one of my jobs is that of an office manager for a landscaping company. This gives me a steady income as I try to build my massage practice up. (Hint hint! I need more vict... er, clients! :p)
Now, most of the time it's not such a nightmare in trying to get building plans on a project. I can usually order just the landscaping pages from the printing company, or get them online and send them to a local print shop which only charges me $3 for a 30x42" page and at most, like $4 a page. It's only a few minutes from the office and I get to drive along Wildhorse Creek which is still pretty, despite all the McMansions that are now built up along it now. (My office is literally on the corner of BA & 109, just down the hill from Wildhorse Creek & 109. the print shop I use - Long Rd & Hwy 40 aka I-64, so it's really close compared to other commercial print shops.)
However, that's proving not to be the case w/ this Missouri Dept of Transportation project I got a bid invite on.
I go to the website to look at the plans - they're NOT there. I try to print out just what I need from the Bid Book, which is 8.5x11" and I can't do that either - they have the damn thing locked so you can't print it off yourself!
I call the printing company to get the plans and get told that unless I have a vendor # from MODOT.
Okay, step 3 I guess by this point - I call MODOT and leave a message for the woman in charge of the vendor #s. In about a half hour, she calls me back, I give her some info and then I get a spiffy, shiny vendor #.
Step 4 - I then go back to the MODOT indox site and fill out the silly form there to get access to the vendor plans.
Yesterday morning, I got an email w/ my long on id for the Vendor plan room and I go there to try and see if I can download or look at the plans for this project. I saw that they want 50 Austrian pine trees, but beyond that? I don't know what else they want or where they want it at.
Step 5 - I log into the Vendor Plan Room and try to access the plans. They're not there. Seriously. They're not up on the website for you to review. I went through the process of trying to download the copies and when I get to check out, it tells me I have to go pick the plans (mind you, this is the electronic copy I'm trying to get here, from Indox.... which is all the way downtown STL off Vandeventer Ave. Now, I work on the edge of STL County - I go like 5 miles north & west, I cross the MO River which is now St. Charles Co. & I go south & west by about 15 minutes, I'm now in Franklin Co., where I live! The commercial shop is like 50 miles away and no direct route to get there right now, since Hwy 40 is closed at I-170 to Kingshighway and that's my direct route into downtown from Job 1. )
Step 6 - I call Indox & try to get just the landscaping pages again, and get told, that unless I know the exact page numbers that they won't help me. I explain that the plans are not up on the website and the guy doesn't believe me. I thank him for his time and try to go back to fighting with this.
Step 7 - I go back and check my email today and see if there's a link in my email or something to get these plans. No. It's not there.
Step 8 - i am at home this morning and I fire off an email to Indox asking for help, explaining my frustration with this ordeal. I can't call them from here because it's "long distance" and I don't have anything but local phone service set up on my landline, nor am I going to waste my cell minutes on this idiocy when I can call them from the office tomorrow morning & try to get an answer out of them.
Step 9 - Now onto email Weber Construction to see if they know what pages specifically I would need, or do they want me to drive up to their office to get the plans?
Now I know why people don't want to work with the government - a) they make you jump through hoops to even bid on something and b) when you do win a contract from them, they take forever and a day to pay!
So, for all these minority companies that are complaining about favoritism in getting contracts from MODOT - it's not that! It's perseverance! It's being willing to jump through the hoops that they bloody well put you through and being able to do the work yourself. (My company is owned by a "white" guy - fullblooded Italian, my foreman is white, but my crew - Mexican. They are the only ones that come knocking on my door, looking for work and will stick with working in the heat for 10 to 12 hours a day. I've yet to have a white guy stick out a year with us. The last one quit w/o notice and then filed unemployment against us!)
| | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Fuck July. July needs to die in a conflagration and stop being July.
Warning: this entry was written in a state best described as "in the midst of a meltdown."
There is also potentially triggery mention of animal abuse, cancer, and death. Proceed with caution.
My cousin Peter passed away from a rare form of cancer. (Neck cancer. I was utterly floored when I stopped being horrified - who gets neck cancer? Us, apparently.) I haven't written about it in public LJ entries because I just don't have the energy - I'm just numb, cold, and have this sinking feeling of teetering on the edge of a very deep abyss. Peter was the aikido master of the family, the wisecracking pillar of sarcasm, the adventurer, the one who really got out there and lived with every ounce of his being. He surfed, he made extreeeeeme gardening a sport, he mountain climbed, he did it all. It's really hard knowing that he's not there.
But I'll need to write a whole separate entry about him.
There's been so much bizarre cancer in my family over the last few years that every time I think about it, I'm quite sure that I'll be the next to be hit. My lifestyle factors tend to put me on the low risk list - vegan diet, lots of fruits and veggies, I'm not stuffing my face with dead animal flesh fatty meat thrice daily (er...apologies, did not mean my original wording to be a massive condemnation of the omnis on my flist), and I barely eat any saturated fat (to the point that my PCP has ordered me to eat a little more saturated fat to balance out the fatty acids in my diet - so coconut, coconut, coconut).
The imminent job loss isn't helping my frame of mind. Normally I cope with job loss well - I've been through the meat grinder of the dot com bubble burst, and I can usually get it together to be proactive in my job search, not feel trapped and frightened, and just get on with the task list of job hunting. See, I don't have the cushion, privilege, and luxury of family supporting me through this - I'd have to live on unemployment alone, and I cannot survive on that given my monthly expenses.
I was surfing YouTube the other night and by GOD, someone had uploaded The Saints "Stranded."
Because this is EXACTLY how I feel right now:
...And that remains one of the greatest songs of the 20th century - there's a reason why Nick Cave cites them as a seminal influence on his own work. (I love how Nick Cave once famously commented that The Saints had the best "fuck you" attitude of any band ever, and that every other Australian musician around at the time learned from their epic displays of totally not giving a shit about their audience.) The Saints are why I roll my eyes at so much third, fourth, and fifth wave diluted pop punk because please. NOTHING they do can compare to the first wave.
While I'm on the Desolation Train: Remember the fine gentlemen of Rescue Ink? The group of intimidatingly huge and heavily tattooed bikers who also happen to be dedicated warriors in the fight against animal abuse (not a few of them vegetarian, too!)? The guys that will bring their game to any incident of horrific animal abuse that they hear about, walk around the neighborhood, and help law enforcement find the perpetrators?
I'm on their mailing list. I donate to them.
Being on their mailing list is emotionally grueling because I know that every time I get an e-mail from them, I dread opening it due to the fact that I'm going to hear about the kind of animal abuse that makes me want to wipe entire neighborhoods off the map.
I warn you, this is not pretty.
There was a recent incident in North Philly where a pregnant female pit bull was hung from a chain, stoned to death, and her dead body left outside:
"A couple of weeks after our trip to Baltimore, we rode our motorcycles down to North Philly to find Justice for Justice. She was a pregnant pit bull who was hung by a chain and stoned, her body was left out for all to see.
It was an important mission for us because whoever did this is a sick individual and needs to be taken off the streets. A person like that probably doesn't just abuse animals, but children and other people, too.
So, we rode into Philly, met with SPCA officials there and started going door to door, canvassing the neighborhood. Even in a tough neighborhood like that, when people see Rescue Ink coming, they don't ignore us. And, since we're not cops, they're sometimes more likely to give us information than the police.
So, we got a suspect's first name and descriptions of some of his tattoos. We know it's only a matter of time until Justice's murderer is caught.
In the meantime, we were able to help some other animals in the area. While we were going around the neighborhood, Joe Panz looked over and saw a dog's ear sticking out of some debris. He dug through it and found a dog, chained to a tree with only 16 inches of room -- no food and no water.
We got that dog out of there and the SPCA got a search warrant and saved some other animals from the same house. The person inside said they fed the animals a couple of days earlier.
So, even as we wait for Justice in one case - we know we helped other animals and spread the message in a tough neighborhood that abusers are losers."
As if that wasn't enough to break my heart, they made Justice a little memorial plaque. I spent forty-five minutes in tears after seeing the picture of her body and the plaque that they made her in her memory.
In June they rode to Baltimore to help find the assholes responsible for setting a female pit bull named Mercy on FIRE:
"Rescue Ink rode our motorcycles down to Baltimore in June to help find who doused Mercy with gasoline and set her on fire. We worked with local media and rescue groups to increase the reward for information and urged local law enforcement to take the case seriously. Due to all the attention surrounding the case, someone turned in the people responsible into the Baltimore police for the reward that you helped raise.
RESCUE INK rode through Baltimore where Mercy was attacked. We and let everyone know who we are and why we were there, and that this type of abuse will not be tolerated anymore. we are here to put an end to it once and for all.
It's too late to save Mercy, but not to late for others.
RESCUE INK would like to thank everyone who donated to make this mission possible."
You - you people on the flist who live in your little comfortable worlds and ignore atrocities like this because oh noes, it makes you uncomfortable. Don't be a coward and look away from these horrors - it happens all around you.
Since existing American laws on animal absue are woefully inadequate, it takes people like Rescue Ink to actually do something, and frankly? I'm fine with their methodology of direct confrontation, investigation, and intimidation.
Because people who do this to dogs and cats and all the other creatures of the Earth no longer deserve my compassion. They are sociopaths. They do not deserve to be allowed to live in the already catastrophically twisted thing that passes for human society - they do nothing but perpetuate that psychology of abuse, of othering animals into things rather than as living, breathing creatures that deserve compassion, good care, and a life free of abuse.
You know what you can do? The next time you see a lost dog or cat, STOP THE DAMN CAR and try to help. The next time you see someone screaming at an animal or abusing them? Don't walk or drive on by - stop and intervene. Stop relying on everyone else to do what you should be doing.
This extends to media, too. I'm so tired of seeing depictions of violence against animals in television and comics used for comic effect or to reinforce the supposed bad-assery of a given fictional character (I'm not talking about the comedic tropes of punching sharks or Gorilla Grodd or Frank Castle punching a polar bear - and even FRANK exhibited remorse, which is yet another reason that I love me some Frank Castle).
Yeah, that page of Renee Montoya punching out a Doberman in Batwoman #1 and following it up with a flippant comment is exactly the kind of egregious depiction that I'm talking about. But I have a whole separate entry planned on how we, as a society, continually tolerate, reinforce, and inure ourselves to an acceptable level of violence against animals purely for our enjoyment - and this happens in the media we consume. It's rampant, constant, and sickening to me. (The fact that I've fostered, rehabilitated, and trained numerous dogs with aggression problems over the past ten years means that every time I see an aggressive dog getting beaten in a comic, I can't help but say "Wow. Way to go, asshole - you just punched out a frightened dog.")
So, if you can, donate to Rescue Ink. They're one of many worthy groups of people who decided to stop living in a safe "lalalalalala I can't hear you" bubble. They get out there and do what all of us should be doing.
Every little bit helps.
I actually wrote Rescue Ink after I first donated to them in 2008. About a week later I received an e-mail back from Mary Fayet of Rescue Ink, and that too made me cry in appreciation that there ARE still some good people on the planet.
Here's what she wrote:
Dear _______,
Thank you for contacting Rescue Ink and sending us your support. All of us at Rescue Ink have been blessed with all the attention and support. It has definitely been an amazing time for Rescue Ink, our goals, programs and most of all the animals. I do appreciate your patience with waiting for our reply. The animals being our number one priority, we always focus first on the severe abuse/neglect cases we are receiving daily.
Your letter has really taken me back and has touched my heart. To do what we do, I sometimes have to work with my head and not run with my heart. Well, your letter has touched me and has actually brought tears to my eyes. Good tears, tears of understanding. Though we cannot save all the animals, we truly work very hard for the ones we can. On those difficult days, I am fortunate enough to have a few fosters in the house who will know that we are working together for the same goals. You are definitely correct when you state the laws have to change. I truly believe with hard work and dedication the laws will work for the animals.
If you ever make it to New York, please contact us. It would be great to meet you. Thank you so much for your email, support, and donation. Though this is not a Rescue Ink term, you are definitely an Angel with a furry tail. Thank you.
Wishing you all the very best,
Mary
Believe me, the next time I go to New York City, I am DEFINITELY taking Rescue Ink up on their offer - yeah, I'll happily jump on a Harley and help them go ahunting for a day or two.
As for the people who did what they did to Mercy and Justice?
I wish I could find compassion for them - some of them are undoubtedly recapitulating abuse that they themselves must have suffered.
But I can't. So, even though I tried to retire this phrase from my lexicon, I'm feeling quite emotional today. Thus, I hope they die in a fire.
Edit: Please do NOT post any comments here with examples of animal abuse that you've witnessed or come across or read about. I am not in an emotional place where I can deal with reading it. Not today. Indulge me in this display of entitlement for the next twenty-four hours - I'm sure I'll have my skin thickened back up by tomorrow. | | comments: 34 comments or Leave a comment |
| In response to Wei Min bringing this monster into the office and shooting at the glass partition:
Manager: He’s shooting blanks.
Original entry as appearing at Broken Shield and Sword. | | |
| Must have been the stress of work.
I dreamt that I was out with my family, exploring a village, when this snake that had slithered through a pipesaw me and instantly lashed itself around me. I remember fighting it, and there were people trying to get it off me. The snake constricted me but not too hard; it was a race against time as it was squeezing me softly. I could walk (the snake was around my upper body with my hands free) and I tried to find a way to get it off me.
Things I recall feeling in the dream:
- Ain’t no way I’m letting a snake kill me; I wanted to message that I had a snake around me and that it was now gone to certain people. You know, one of those life-changing SMS.
- The snake was squeezing me softly, but surely. I can feel the gently deceptive pressure still.
- It was a light green. Hugeone, with a head longer than my two fists side by side.
- This snake did not attempt to bite me till my last escape attempt, which was taking place in someone’s house.
- The snake had bitten itself and was in the midst of uncurling when I woke up. I remember it looking angrily at me as I’d gotten it to bite itself. But weird la… was it a one-headed or two-headed snake?
Ok back to bed.
Original entry as appearing at Broken Shield and Sword. | | |
| | Tags: | awesome, casting news, celebrity crushes, fanboy dickery, fangirls vs. the world, film, green lantern, i spit on your genre, jack kirby, kilogwog, music, out of context theater, politics, thor, video clips, vive la france, warren ellis | | Subject: | THE OANS WOULD YOU LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT BASTILLE DAY IS NO EXCUSE FOR SLACKING | | Time: | 09:26 am |
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| I've been glued to NPR for the past two days listening to the Sotomayor hearings. Thus far they mostly consist of "YOU DARED TO BE ETHNIC. HOW DARE YOU ACKNOWLEDGE RACE AND ETHNICITY?", then a rebuttal from a more liberal Senator, lather, rinse, excoriate, essay another rebuttal, repeat.
Hey, flist, have any of you used Fancast with any degree of success? Due to a conversation with the_croupier about things scary I wanted to show him some clips from the sadly departed Night Gallery, but it never seems to work for me! What's wrooooooong?
HAPPY BASTILLE DAY, FRANCE!! Er...I mean Happy Fête Nationale!
July 4th is cool and all (even if most of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence didn't actually sign it until early August), but on July 14th? The French dressed up in style, decked themselves out in a spontaneous subversive appropriation of colors, and went and beat up on a symbol of oppression*. The Fourth of July, while impressive in a "Fuck you and the ships you sailed in on, this joint is now a republic" kind of way, cannot compare to a mob of French people dressed to the nines and artfully soiled.
Remember the Professional Witness guy from MAD TV? I totally want his take on the Storming of the Bastille.
One of the cool things about San Francisco is that we have French people (and Gallophiles and people who just want an excuse to drink and be merry) here who celebrate Bastille Day with street parties and French restaurants pulling out all the stops in an orgy of Escoffierian five-story terrines and mille-feuilles and braised endive in muscat sauce. There used to be the fun celebrations at the French cafés on Belden Place featuring lots of cute French guys running around being simultaneously snide and exhibiting an astonishingly suave degree of breviloquence when trying to game all female revelers in the vicinity.
I admit. I once fell for it. His name was Philip, he had dark curly hair, blue eyes, a smexalicious Parisian accent, and he was persistent. That's right: a Bastille Day party in San Francisco got me a hot Frenchman as a FWB. (It didn't work out, though. Philip was the gentleman who was with me the night I casually ate a giant spoonful of Scotch Bonnet salsa at Café de la Paz in Berkeley and promptly cried off all of my mascara in agony. Within twenty seconds I looked like Alice Cooper and Philip then asked me if my tears were due to an emotional outburst. Since my throat was currently trying to cope with the gustatory equivalent of being assaulted with a white phosphorus grenade followed by a lava chaser, I couldn't reply.)
Moving right along. Ahem.
This is the best response to Michael Jackson's death - and, as some wag over on ontd_political note, a fascinating circular commentary on the Participatory Panopticon:
Jay Smooth brings it:
There's also this aptly frustrated verbal beatdown on This Week in Blackness: Elon James White take on BET - warning for deliriously foul language and righteous rants:
There is no way this could be more awesome:
Including this choice quotage: "Debra Lee's dress is made of baby tears and the nightmares of our ancestors" and "I RAPE THE WATERMELON."
...BAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
This next is for jencendiary: apparently there are some of you who are unaware of the Mexican Institute for Sound?
Let me remedy that.
El Microfono:
That's an older track. Their new release, I assure you, is equally delectable.
I'm really enjoying Warren Ellis' pieces over at Rich Johnston's new site Bleeding Cool. They're not exactly coherent - they seem to be mostly synaptic ephemera tenuously connected by virtue of inhabiting the same pixelated field of internet aether - aka, paragraph juxtaposition - but it's the most entertaining things I've seen him produce about the medium in a long time.
Since he's writing about Jack Kirby today, this is by far my favorite quote:
"There should have been a name for what Jack Kirby did, a term for the style beyond “Kirby Style.” I mean, having a style named after you is great, but it implies to me that there was nothing to the man beyond his associated visual codes like Kirby Krackle or Kirby Dots (Hugo Pratt’s still wandering around a gallery of comics art in Switzerland — did Hugo Pratt ever “wander,” or did he stride purposefully? — and asking Paul Gravett how Eddie Campbell does the thing with the little dots, having apparently never before encountered zipatone/Letratone). Which is obviously not true.
I would have liked to see it get a name like Atom Style."
ATOM STYLE. That is perfect for Kirby - even if Atom Style already exists as a genre/classification of design.
SPEAKING of Jack Kirby:
One panel from Mighty Avengers #27:
*flail*
Even though I don't give a crap about Dan Slott's writing and plotting in this book, that panel made me do the I See What You Did There and Approve of It Mightily nod.
Now I want KRRRRKLLL to be the sound effect for every single thing I do in my life henceforth - and I want an explosion of Kirby Krackle to accompany every dramatic moment. By "dramatic moment" I mean "every pedestrian and everyday activity that I engage in within a twenty-four hour period." I can see it now: I pick up the mug of tea, add a little hazelnut milk to it, poise myself to sip it, and a halo of KIRBY DOTS explodes around me. Brushing my teeth? A psychedelic spiral of Kirby Krackle as soon as brush meets dentition! Finish editing those Power Point slides at work? Victorious KIRBY Krackle artistically engulfs my cube as I ascend from my chair in a nimbus of glowing light and walk purposefully off to the office kitchen in a hopeless quest for gluten-free vegan donuts.
Casting news: Natalie Portman cast to play Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh's Thor film.
Uh...okay!
But speaking of casting, now that Ryan Reynolds has been given the role of Hal Jordan, fandom of course goes on a fantasy casting spree for the rest of the Green Lantern film.
Particularly interesting suggestions:
- John Malkovich as Sinestro - other suggestions were Sean Bean (whut?), Hugh Laurie (WHUT?), Christopher Eccleston (intriguing!) and Gary Oldman (WHUT WHUT? NO.)
- Liam Neeson as Abin Sur - YES, AND I WILL ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE.
- Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench as the Guardians.
-Alan Rickman's voice as Salaak - I disagree here. As someone pointed out, Salaak's more the precise Rules Lawyer type who brooks no bullshit, and Rickman may be too sardonic.
- Wes Bentley as Black Hand - that's rather...inspired.
- Vin Diesel as Kilowog - I'm weighing in as a "NO" on this, but it's an interesting thought.
Diesel certainly has a deep enough voice, but honestly, I don't know if he has the range to play Kilowog.
Kevin Grevoux as Kilowog - hmmm.
Peter Jacobson as Tomar Re - also hmmm. I do see the point that he has the warmth of voice and personality to be Hal's Bestest Pal In Space while Hal learns the ropes, but I'm not totally sold on this choice. (Fair warning: I consider Tomar Re to be one of the GREATEST Green Lanterns to ever serve in the Corps, and I will crack ribs and gouge the eyeballs of anyone who says different. Don't push me.)
Jensen Eckles as Guy Gardner - NO, SOMEONE ACTUALLY SUGGESTED IT - GO READ THE THREAD.
President Obama as John Stewart - YES. If he'd only give up that stupid day job running the free world.
Ron Perlman as Kilowog - oh, TOTALLY!
Mads Mickelsen as Sinestro - yep, I can see this working very well.
Michael Clark Duncan for Kilowog - also a great choice.
Maggie Siff for Carol Ferris - YES PLZ.
Thoughts?
As the comics blog-o-sphere-o-rama continues to talk about Marvel Divas, I'd like to point something out: these are the kinds of fanboys who scare me the most:
At first glance? They seem well-spoken, reasonably groomed, clean (very important if you've had to endure unwashed fanboy gaping at you in shock because you're standing in line waiting to purchase Punisher: Circle of Blood in HARDBACK), and fairly rational. Then they open their mouths and start talking about Marvel Divas, and whatever credibility points they got from me for hating on Emma Frost is promptly lost. They actually don't seem to know any female comic readers, either, which makes me wonder what freakishly isolated subterranean bunker they've been living in for the past two decades. How do I know this? Their feed on YouTube wants to hear from female readers about Marvel Divas - and that's usually a chilling indice pointing to "You don't actually know any women in comics fandom, do you? Do you even READ what's on the comics internet if it's not written by Brian Cronin?"
(At least two of them seem to like Daniel Way's work on the Deadpool titles - and that's enough to make my eyes glaze over and feel like someone just sporked my liver. Although props for bothering to mention Joe Kelly!)
Wow. It must be soooo nice to be a straight white male in comics fandom. You can post videos on YouTube complaining about how Marvel Divas isn't cheesecakey enough or boast on your blog about a flame war you into with someone over Paul Dini and dismiss out of hand any mentions of Dini's occasional mistreatment of female characters (by, you know, having their hearts cut out.)
* How vigorous the defense was is, of course, debated - some would have it that the citizenry went and curb stomped a bunch of dudes who were fumblingly incompetent. | | comments: 24 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | casting news, film, green lantern, hal jordan, hawt, hawtness, martial arts, music, trailers, video clips, wtf, you tube | | Subject: | We have just enough dust mites to make us hate, but not enough to make us love dusting | | Time: | 11:25 am |
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| I'm tired of waking up with headaches. They seem to come and go. I was just diagnosed with a severe allergy to dust mites, which might be the explanation for how miserable I feel when I'm in my bedroom and how even though I eat the kind of diet that might as well be a perma-cleanse 24/7 (I HAVE NOT HAD ANY SUGAR IN OVER SEVEN WEEKS. OTHER THAN THE AGAVE NECTAR IN HAZELNUT MILK. NOTHING. NO VEGAN CUPCAKES, NOTHING, NADA, NIL, NULL), I still find myself short of breath when I bother to lay around on my bed and watch TV.
So I now have to research and find a HEPA vacuum for home use (one that actually WORKS), get a new mattress, get mite-proof bedding, and do a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't have the energy to do. Including dusting. I hate dusting more than I hate doing laundry, and I hate laundry more than I hate the assholes that make children mine for blood diamonds and those Russians that club baby seals. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE MIGHTY CONFLAGRATION OF MY HATRED, FLIST?
However, today I'm going to do a first here: recommend a product.
I've been icing my ankle and knee a lot due to the previously mentioned truly Byzantine machinations of the MARQUIS DE DOLEUR. ("Balance on your right foot with your eyes closed and extend your left leg up behind your left hip while keeping your pelvis level; hold that pose for five minutes AND do a set of ten squats to pass the time. No, hold your hands down at your sides to make it more difficult. I SAID AT YOUR SIDES. Now, while doing all of that, explain clearly the Higgs mechanism and how it relates to unified field theory while doing a set of one hundred Kegels. Did you hear me the first time when I said to keep your right knee behind your second toe? No? BEHIND YOUR SECOND TOE.")
Anyway, due the Closed System of Pain Distribution (cue Hank Pym after Decimation asking "WHERE DID ALL THAT ENERGY PAIN GO? IT HAD TO GO SOMEWHERE") that apparently governs my physical self, if my ankle and knee are getting better, that means that of course while I'm bending over in a yoga pose (straight out of Cosmo's Sex Position of the Day - I lacked only a partner to make this move something that 4chan would probably post endlessly on /b/) to get my ice wrap around my right ankle, I pull a muscle in my back. Normally I conquer such minor injuries with ice, Advil, and some serious face-to-face time with Traumeel cream (this also may or may not require a Cosmo Sex Pose of the Day).
Since I had a doctor's appointment the next day anyway, my wise physician promptly told me to start swallowing this stuff thrice daily. I've known about the strongly anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric due to an interest in herbalism and Ayurvedic medicine and the quite excellent research that's been done testing standardized turmeric extract's efficacy in treating sports injury.
By Hippocrates' left quad, it WORKS. I'm not totally better yet, but the pain level is down by at least sixty percent.
Um. Now I have to link to something that kind of caused a conniption fit:
Ryan Reynolds lands the starring role of Green Lantern.
Uh.
Well.
At least it wasn't Jared Leto or Justin Timberlake? Who were also both being considered?
There's 231 comments to that announcement of people variously pissed off and nodding in satisfaction.
Let me put it this way:
Ryan Reynolds as a scarred-up cancer-having fubared-beyond-all-recognition anti-hero in the upcoming Deadpool film? Yes, please!
Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan? Perhaps it's because I can't see Ryan Reynolds recite the oath of the Green Lantern Corps, or that I can't see him taking the job seriously, or that I can't see Ryan Reynolds being anything but a snidely cocky version of Hal without the giant cojones that it takes to embody the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. I can't see Reynolds mustering up the imagination and intellect to think his way through the universe with his ring - dude just cannot play that kind of raw will.
Can you see Abin Sur picking Ryan Reynolds to be a Green Lantern?
No. Sorry. I can't see Reynolds doing this:
Or this:
Can you conceptualize the amount of intellectual acumen and sheer force of presence it takes to manifest your own army of avatars?
That's right, motherfuckers.
No, Mr. Reynolds. You lack everything that constitutes the core traits of Hal Jordan. You just aren't awesome enough. No go back to thinking in little yellow text boxes and stay away from Hal.
(Hal haters need not bring the asperity to this post. Because I'm cranky enough today to reach through your monitor and punch you in the face. Hard.)
So, to cheer myself up, I bring you this.
I'm not normally one for men in suit drag, but I will admit that some men wear a tux exceptionally well.
Matthew Goode is one of those men:
...Words fail. Wow. Cheekbones, eyes, attitude. If they ever decide to remake the Thin Man films, I would like to propose that Matthew Goode would be perfect for the part - and I say this as a person who 1) is normally indifferent to Matthew Goode and 2) that thinks that William Powell and Myrna Loy's Thin Man films are sacrosanct and that anyone who thinks differently should be removed from the gene pool via flamethrower.
( Unf. Two more examples. )
Yeah. I'll be in my bunk.
I keep forgetting that Warp Records has a YouTube channel. Yesterday I was sifting through Warp's official clips, and I found THIS video of Leila performing Sush at the Sonar 2008 festival in Barcelona - and you know why this made my jaw drap? I never noticed this before, but Leila looks a lot like my mother when my mother was young.
Also, triptastic visuals - here's an avatar of my Mom making people dance:
She really gets going at about 0:54 in.
It's pretty freaky when you're dancing around to music, look up, and see YOUR MOM running the sound array. Also, man, does she have a lot of equipment or what?
In news that makes me gleeful:
The trailer to Banlieue 13: Ultimatum, aka David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli continue their Bromance of Righteous Evasions and Beatdowns in a Dystopian Future Paris:
...Which looks to be more of David Belle running around people and Cyril Raffaelli running through them. (I still put forth that Cyrill Raffaelli taking down THREE FLOORS worth of thuggery in Banlieue 13 while exhibiting an astonishing amount of French savoir-faire while so doing AND while wearing a purple silk dress shirt remains a critical apogee of world cinema, an unassailable benchmark.)
Oh, you don't believe me? 2:58: resign thyself to being pwned:
Gun fu, casino table fu, shotokan bad-assery, wushu, parkour, stairway fu, OUCH:
TRACE THAT.
I would like to remind you all that Banlieue 13 is a film where Cyril Raffaelli took out six people with a steering wheel.
FLIST! What does it say about me that I do my yoga stretches while watching films like Banlieue 13 or episodes of Dexter? | | comments: 33 comments or Leave a comment |
| Grayfox is standing while eating his lunch. I was trying to convince him to sit instead.
Me: Your (hardboiled) egg is going to drop from your plate.
Him: *looks down PAST his plate to his pants*
My bro: Oi, why are you looking at your balls?
Rest of us: *facepalms*
Edited based on Grayfox’s explanation:
*speechless*
i happen to come to realise that other food might’ve jumped off the plate and stain my clothes when your brother said that, but i guess it doesn’t do any good to explain now, does it? -_-;
Original entry as appearing at Broken Shield and Sword. | | |
| I hesitated about posting this due to Recent Events With He Who Shall Not Be Named, but after seeing the conflagrations all over the damn internet about it, linkage must be posted.
This is what's responsible for breaking the internet over the last...two weeks:
That's from X-Factor #45.
Standard disclaimer: image will be immediately removed at the request of the copyright holder, blah blah blah I think this qualifies as fair use and so does PAD's sister-in-law.
(I do find it hilarious that some people at F_W are worried about being TOSed for posting that image and simultaneously trumpeting on about how if PAD arrives they'll rip him to shreds better than anyone else - and since He Who Shall Not Be Named's sister-in-law did show up in that F_W post, I wonder how long it'll be before PAD shows up to fight the good fight.)
I had such a mixed reaction to that kiss. One the one hand, YAY, RIC AND STAR ARE FINALLY EXPLICIT MARVEL CANON (well, at least they are on Star's side). On the other, it's He Who Shall Not Be Named and although I'm still guilty of, er, misbehaving with him, I really wonder if this is an attempt to generate sales via controversy (particularly since I seem to recall He Who Shall Not Be Named posting a couple of years back about how he disliked Shatterstar, which made me wonder what Star is doing in X-Factor, but I could be wrong).
But really the reason I'm posting about this?
Rob Liefeld and Peter David got into a MAJOR slap fight over said smooch.
(Rob, for those of you that don't know, created the character of Shatterstar. Peter David now writes Shatterstar in X-Factor. Rob isn't happy about all that ghey subtext now being explicit.)
Half my flist has already linked to it, but here is what Liefeld said:
"I have nothing against gays, I have gay family, nuthin’ but love here. Ditto gay characters if that’s what their true origins are.
As the guy that created, designed and wrote his first dozen appearances, Shatterstar is not gay. Sorry. Can’t wait to someday undo this. Seems totally contrived.”
Yes. He really said that.
As well as:
"Shatterstar is akin to Maximus in Gladiator. He’s a warrior, a Spartan, and not a gay one.”
Yes. He really said that too.
Cue EXPLOSION over on Robot 6 as Rob AND PAD show up to duke it out. A zillion comments!
My head hurts. There's Godwining, accusations of homophobia, fanboys screaming about how PAD is threatening their manhood (or something) with teh ghey, fanboys and fangirls that are joyously enthused about Ric/Star, invisibilifying bi people, wanking about Greek history, people who formerly lambasted PAD for co-nuking S_D now gushing over him, things of course inevitably get racial, there's a mini slapfight over whether Siryn liked Star or Star liked Siryn, and both PAD and Liefeld acting like Class Five Trolls. Somehow, Jack Bauer gets dragged into all of this.
WOW.
Suddenly I don't feel so alone.
SPEAKING OF SLAPFIGHTS: Here, have Rao and Krypton in a grudge match: THINK I BLEW UP? WRONG, BITCHES.
All I can say is: AHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! canadabear is an RPing genius.
(Fave comment: "OH, STFU. I RUN THIS GALAXY WITH NUCLEAR REACTIVE FISTS, DAMMIT.") | | comments: 52 comments or Leave a comment |
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