So, let us assume thus:

Furyans, as a people (whether that means species or whatever), are extraordinarily aggressive and violence-prone, particularly the men. Their wiring is such, in fact, that it is the job of the women (who hold power) to plan and make decisions and, you know, run the community, where it's the job of men to kill everything that threatens the community. Women think and direct and deal with strategy; men work tactics and the immediate and keep everyone alive.

Or, more crudely, the males are for killing things, and the females are for telling them what they may or may not kill.

"Which is all perfectly understandable, but meanwhile, I am sitting here with all ten fingers stuffed in my mouth squeaking MOLLY MOLLY MOLLY MOLLY MOLLY."

What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He is fat and jolly and smiles all the time. He is friendly and gregarious and always ready to help travellers in distress.

Except that none of that can possibly be true.

OKAY PEOPLE HERE WE GO, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT *THOR* TO ENJOY

Given how few her appearances on the page are, Lobelia shines through as a genuine three-dimensional personality and one deserving of considerably more fandom love than she ever gets.

Anyway, it premiered last week, obviously, and I have some thoughts. I'll tell you the biggest, broadest ones right up front, but the single thing I reacted to most intensely goes under the spoiler cut.

I have been trying to think what I can say or do in memoriam, in tribute. The best thing I can think of is that in 2007 I started to write an essay to explain the end of Fire and Hemlock, because a lot of people find it confusing; the essay was meant to have two parts, and I never managed to write the second... And here, now, now-here, is the second part.

In the Beginning, there was Season One, and it had no Spike in it, so who cares?

Lo, did Season Two brake upon the TV horizon, and it had Spike, and it was good. And everyone was a Spike/Drusilla shipper, and peace did reigneth upon the land. Well, except for those troublemaking UC Spike/Angel and Spike/Buffy shippers, but they were usually up for a threesome and everyone knew they would never be canon anyway.

Okay, I think I may have a rationalization for Card Captor Sakura that does not make Clow Reed an utter bastard.

Because when you think about what he did to Yue, in particular, well... utter bastard, yes.

I’ve been going back to read the Yuugi-ou manga, now it’s all out domestically and I can see it in one go. And I find myself instantly caught up in the Problem of Ryou.

3 - Genjyo Sanzo ('San' is 3 in Japanese.)
5 - Sha Gojyo ('Go' is 5 in Japanese.)
8 - Cho Hakkai ('Hachi' is 8 in Japanese)
9 - Son Goku ('Ku' is 9 in Japanese.)

I kept watching SG-1 and Atlantis despite all these flaws because their modest ambitions suited the level of talent driving them--they were never great TV, but they were occasionally entertaining and that, coupled with inertia, was enough to keep me coming back. Universe aims higher, but the same talent is at the helm and it's not up to the task, and I find myself with no reason to keep watching--after all, for all its aping of Battlestar Galactica, Universe isn't as culturally important, and now that it's moved to the fall there's plenty of other stuff to watch instead

In comments, a comparison was drawn between Bone Claw Mother's statement and the death of Jesus. I think that's a pretty interesting comparison, and I think it can help draw out some interesting thoughts about the nature of sacrifice. I also think it's far from being a simplistic or straightforward comparison.

When it comes to comics, one cannot do much better than outer space lesbians and their bisexual dragon lovers:
Phyla-Vell and Heather/Moondragon.

Family tree of the Emperors of Barayarr

Now, I have real problems accepting Enemy at the Gate as canon, and am perfectly happy to go along with stories where it never happened. I mean, *Carson* flies Atlantis?!? Back to *Earth*?!? nah, it was all just a dream.

But if you're going to put it in your canon, you really need to spackle Atlantis' location.

1. Atlantis landing in SF Bay is dumb. Atlantis staying in SF Bay is *impossible*.

In lieu of doing laundry today (machines tend to be busy on Sunday anyway) I decided to write up my treatise on why Neal (White Collar) can be read as some variation on asexual. Mostly because he spends a lot of time looking vaguely weirded out at women and it amuses me.

This has its most dramatic effect in terms of Mary Morstan and her backstory, or complete and utter lack thereof. The movie has very obviously thrown out book!canon: Watson meets her separately from Holmes, both her parents are alive (Watson talks about having tea with them), etc. As such, she's even more "just what's on the screen" than the other two. But the same will apply to Watson and to Holmes.

So, with THAT SAID, let's talk about my OT3. Because it's shiny.

Nyota Uhura is a black girl and there is no angle from which her actually being allowed to have consensual sexuality, being desired, and being loved (in addition to having her job and intellect, no less) is a fundamental downgrade from what she had before.

There are way more than two varieties of fantastical literature, but there are two types of fantasy readers, and the difference lies in the way they suspend their disbelief. One type of reader (you might call them conditional believers) will accept wildly fantastic and other worldly premises, but will then say, "OK given that whatever you've built into your world-building is true (vampires are real, wizards secretly exist in modern England and educate their children at a hidden boarding school, there's a magical world at the back of the wardrobe), everything else has to make sense."

Not pirates, PRIVATEERS
Jun. 6th, 2009 06:25 pm
Enterprise: I like this ship, it's exciting
[info] - personalzvi
So, people think Vulcan space pirates are an awesome idea, but lawlessness and stealing just because you can is really fucking weird, post-Surak, yeah?

[info] - personaljmtorres and I actually theorise that that was probably residual connection from the whole choking attack thing. Cos yeah, Vulcans, touch telepaths. And the choking was skin to skin, and particularly Spock's hand on some of Kirk's major pulse points. And it's funny how quickly after that Spock is, like, not hating Kirk but totally okay with him.

about how the Vulcans will likely proceed, based on their culture.

Seriously, I've seen a lot of people going on either about how Uhura is only in the movie to be Spock's girlfriend and/or that all she does is answer the phone, and it's kind of annoying me. This was originally planned as an answer to [info] - personalzvi's post about Uhura and her awesome job, but it turned into more of a job description than anything else.

Goa'uld Evolution Evilution

So, I said on Fanficrants that I tended to think of Happy Potter Houses by 'what they want and how they prefer to get it', and was asked for details... so, here goes.

"It'll never come up in the show because it's Y-7 but as far as I'm concerned, Richie is gay."

So here's the thing. I was going to be all whipping out the smart essay, pointing out all the subconscious LDS meta that SMeyers jammed in these books,...

Here's the first set of my translations of the position descriptions from that Sui Dynasty sex manual (helpfully Latinized, as you may recall, by the author of the work on sex in ancient China that [info]telophase has been reading).

interesting meta, color coding for themes, order vs chaos