green_dreams | Entries tagged with how do i not have a fail tag yet?

Thoughts on starting A Boy and His Dog: wait, Joanna Russ thought the ending was the particularly misogynistic part of this movie?

Thoughts on finishing it: ...I think she was right.

Anyway. I'm, uhm, going to chalk that up as useful to have seen for context of the genre, be vaguely depressed over how unremarkable most of it was and mildly glad that it prompted Russ to write something on the topic, and go have a very hot shower.

Current Mood: dirty

You know how when a character's described in a book and something about them isn't specified, there's a default assumption about them? If gender isn't specified, they're assumed to be cis male[1]; if orientation isn't specified, they're assumed to be straight; if ethnicity isn't specified, they're assumed to be white.

Is there a word for this other than "cultural default assumption"? And is there a source that confirms this kind of thing happens that you can point to?
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[1] I still remember being bitten in the ass by this one. The story was written in the first-person perspective, and I was two-thirds of the way through before I realized the narrator wasn't a man. I don't think the author was trying for a clever dodge or anything, it just... gah. *embarrassment*

Was thinking of movie commentary in the car this morning, and of Return of the Living Dead, and something that's been in my head on and off came to mind: Why isn't there a word that defines what gender you're attracted to, but doesn't do so in relation to you?

I mean, the movie has a striptease scene in a graveyard, and part of the commentary (or possibly an interview I read once; regardless) is along the lines of "Yeah, we did this for the guys... If we'd known there would have been so many girls in the audience, we'd have put in eye candy for them too."

Which is actually kind of nice to hear, but that's a tangent--what I'm trying to address right now is that the group meeting the definition of "finds women attractive" is not the same as the group that meets the definition of "guys". (And yes, I get that the movie is nearly thirty years old, I am perfectly aware of colloquial assumptions, I know there is a long habit of going with the "everyone is straight until proven otherwise" assumption, and I think it's at best a bit of a lazy and horribly erasing habit but that is neither here nor there. So.)

So what is the word or term for people who are attracted to men or women? As humans we tend to label and categorize and articulate; I can't believe that there hasn't been a term a little less unwieldy than "straight women and gay men and bisexuals of either any or all genders" created yet. I doubt it's a perfect term, because one of the other things we tend to do is simplify and generalize, but there has to be something.

And am I completely missing something? Christ knows it's possible--this knapsack is invisible, but it does one hell of a job as a pair of blinders.

Thoughts?

Current Mood: thoughtful

Dear human-exterminating overmind Archos?

I am actually fairly sure that not all babies are pink, and that not all of the brilliant tool-using scientific progress that went into your creation stemmed from the ones that were. Maybe "flushed". You could have gone with flushed as an adjective. I would be rather less annoyed.

Current Mood: irritated

So,

commodorified kindly tossed me a link to this post on comic book stores[1], and it prompted the following exchange:

green_dreams --there are maps of girl-friendly comic book stores?
I didn't know. And I'm so glad.
commodorified Apparently
green_dreams ANd I shouldn't have to be.
What the fuck, people.
commodorified possibly pink maps, with purple street names in glitter
green_dreams Oh yeah, we are into that kind of girly shit. Also, they only show the ones that stock manga.

I'm embarrassed sometimes about liking horror movies, which tend to be racist, sexist, homophobic, neophobic, and often contain such characteristics that if they were a person they would be a person it was probably not worth my time to educate enough to talk to without wincing--but at least I can go into a video store and not wonder if I'm about to have a Someone Else's Problem field dropped on me.

There is a local comics-and-gaming store. I haven't been by in... more than three years, for reasons actually not related to this effect.[2] I will have to give it another try.

(Seriously, people. The comic book industry as something we'd recognize started in 1938[3] at the latest; I'm excluding joke-and-cartoon books, here, which predate that. And in seventy-three years this attitude has come into being and not died?)
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[1] Yes, the title of the post is a reference. Much love for Tiptree.
[2] I went by one Sunday; was rather ignored, yes, but it was more the seriously noticeable funk that kept me away.
[3] Tangentially, because I love my tangents, two years before women were allowed to vote in Quebec provincial elections.

Current Mood: annoyed

(I know, I *absolutely* need to catch up on everything. Will try tomorrow; today, this remains a place to jot a quick note before I forget.)

Thinking, lately, about RPGs again. Picked up an Orpheus supplement, and... good grief. Here. Have examples of some of a dozen antagonists for a story.

Czerner was born in East Germany and worked as a hacker and spy for the Communists until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. He went freelance shortly thereafter and has worked with NextWorld since immediately following its founding.

White is a con man and a self-described adrenaline junkie who loves extreme sports. That passion lead him to three near-death experiences and his preparation for employment at NextWorld.

Shenk has a Masters in electrical engineering and telecommunications. For years he was a well-paid member of the Silicon Valley elite, but when the "Digital Revolution" tanked, he had to do something else. His brief training with Terrel & Squib and subsequent defection to NextWorld gave him an interesting alternative.

Frost is a slick, people person and a quick study. He masters mental tasks quickly and easily.

Okay. That last one's a little thin, but as character sketches go, these are generally pretty uniform. Enough to let you get an idea of who you will be playing, right? (Because you will be running these guys as possessing spirits that are operating in opposition to the PCs. Possessing spirits, I will note, that cannot be seen.)

Oh, hey, here's another one of the dozen...

Timborn grew up with three mean brothers, and she dominated all three of them. She is a ball-busting bitch and proud of it. She knows she's beautiful, and she uses her assets to manipulate men like marionettes. The only man she hasn't been able to wrap around her finger is Marcus N'Kejeda, who is gay and immune to her wiles.

Is it just me, or...

I mean, they make a *point* of how normally you might be able to tell her victim's being possessed, because the victim is "a short, slightly plump Hispanic woman" and Timborn is "essentially, a svelte Nordic goddess". But Timborn is such a brilliant actress that she can imitate her victim to near-perfection, so it's not even a case of unconscious learnt mannerisms mattering.

(ETA: that not-mattering? No, that's not my read on the stats. That's their explicit statement.)

And don't even get me started on the class snobbery. It's not quite as bad as Dogs of War, where one scenario dealt entirely with "trailer park trash" who didn't give a damn about what's going on as long as the benefit checks keep coming, "trailer park tramps" who will point you in the direction of "something" affecting the children for fifty bucks, and children. Apparently being poor eradicates your parental instincts, who knew? (Oh. And there was also the crazed guy with the gun who'd been cooking up drugs in his meth lab. Unless he was extra-nasty, at which point he was an OMG!!deserter!! who'd been avoiding the MPs for ten years.)

Dammit, I liked Orpheus. I still do. I'm just not sure how much of the metaplot information is going to make me want to give up and go pick up Deadlands or something.

Current Mood: annoyed

I don't actually expect anyone reading this to not be familiar with Stanley Milgram's study on obedience to authority. ( Nonetheless, I'm putting a quick summary under the cut in case I'm mistaken. )

Milgram asked around before the experiment--psychiatrists, college sophomores, middle-class adults, graduate students and faculty in the behavioral sciences--and generally got the response that most subjects would not administer a shock higher than 150 volts; that only 4% would go up to 300 volts; that only one in a thousand would administer a 450 volt shock. He expected most people would hit a point where they just weren't comfortable with the experiment anymore and would calmly and politely refuse to keep shocking the learner.

...oh, Milgram, you optimist. (Twenty-five out of forty people administered the 450 volt shock three times, after which the session was finished. Some subsequent experiments actually resulted in a higher percentage of subjects who did that.)

Anyway.

I was thinking of Gretchen Brandt again today. The names were changed, so it's not her real one, but it's the only designation I have. At the administration of 210 volts (that's the phrasing from Obedience to authority; I don't know if it means she administered that shock or not), she refused.

And she kept refusing, calmly and politely, in the face of "the experiment requires" and "it is absolutely essential" and "You have no other choice."

I think about her, sometimes. And I'm glad she stopped. It's something that gives me hope, in an odd way, a concrete example of people refusing to do harm despite really quite heavy pressure.

Current Mood: hopeful

Joanna Russ,
22/02/1937 - 29/04/2011

--/02/1975 - ??/??/????

( Active bigotry is probably fairly rare. It is also hardly ever necessary. )

Current Mood: sad

Alright, first off, how do I not have an icon for A Song of Ice and Fire?

That said, quick thoughts on the last episode, and by thoughts I mean rant. Spoilers for the episodes to date, spoilers for events in the first book that have been televised to date, and mention of rape follow. Fun times.

( Across the poison water. )

Current Mood: annoyed

Just got back from seeing it. Trying to sort out impressions... bit hard to break down.

It's not about mental illness, only about institutionalization for same as a mechanism of social control. (I would rather not get into some of the things people were institutionalized for because I have been thinking sort of gloomily about Pennhurst for a couple of days and I have moments when I am holding my mood up by the skin of my teeth.)

Apparently some critics hold that it is hard to follow. I have absolutely no idea how it could be hard to follow. Maybe if you left the theatre to take a phone call every twenty minutes. Maybe. It is not always clear what a dispassionate third-party real-world observer would see happening if they were there, but it's not hard to follow at all.

It is an absolutely beautiful movie. Seriously. They had me at the shot of the asylum in the rain. There's a lot of T&A, although for what it's worth (which I think is something) there's relatively little oh-noes-I-am-helpless-T&A. (Plus an in-character rant fairly early on about how on earth anyone could find brainless meat sexy.) Mind, the power of the protagonist is that she can make men want her, and I trust that can be unpacked.

Also, it's not like most of the movie isn't covered in the trailer, but ( there may be spoilers. )

I will probably pick it up, I think.
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[1] ETA: removed for the weight of the word.

(Yes, I know there is cryingly minimal image variation, and I know I should probably really do some kink-friendly icons after this. I just sort of had to get them out there. May revise in the a.m.-- oh, wait, it is the a.m. After dawn, then.)

( Cut for allusions to abusive relationships. )

Seriously. Kink-friendly stuff later. (And hey, at least I learnt how to animate text...)

Current Mood: blank

So, it's November, and the knitting project I am working on is at the point where there's just the finishing left. (You know what that's like, right? When you need to sit down with needle and yarn and weave all the loose stuff in and it takes forever and it's not knitting anyway, dammit, it's...)

(You know.)

I was trying to figure out if I was up for knitting something (with minimal finishing) for savesnowssanity. 'cause lately with my free time I've been doing things I like doing, but I've been doing so many of them that I start to get bitter about not having time off, any time off, and that shit I do not need right now TYVM. Really.

( Wow, that turned into a ramble. )

Uhm. Anyway. Yeah. There's a bunch of auctions of BPAL and art and jewelry and perfume and knitting and stuff over here, maybe worth taking a look.

Current Mood: confused

Recent announcement.

Thank you. That is all.

Current Mood: chipper

Cautions apply. Useful efforts here.

From loose memory...

It took the three of them in different ways. Jill felt sorry for the poor stag, and thought it was rotten of the giants to have killed him. Eustace was shocked, as you might be if you'd heard of the murder of a dear friend. But Puddleglum, who was Narnian born and bred, felt ill and faint and sick as you would if you'd discovered you were eating a baby.

They put people like me in Pennhurst.

( They put people like me in there... )

They put people like me in there. And they're selling tickets.

(ETA much later: snakey also gets it.)

Current Mood: nauseated

For the record?

"Politically correct" is a patient way of saying "call people who aren't like you what they'd like to be called." Because it's basically decent, because you do not have All The Clues, because you appreciate it when it's done to you and have the barest smidgen of empathy.

What does that make being politically incorrect, again?
And what do you think you're saying when you say "I know I'm not being politically correct, but..."?

(And why, then, are you surprised when you get the reaction you do? Did you expect that blithely acknowledging that you were being insulting to somehow erase the fact that yes, you were being insulting?)

For consideration: calling a spade a spade. Justifying yourself if people point out the term you are using is "g*dd*mn useless m*th*rf*cking shovel".

Current Mood: angry

So, I picked up the latest Realms of Fantasy issue, started reading the first story--news article, not fiction--and three paragraphs in was sitting there with that look on my face you get when you are thinking Oh you did not just say that.

I hit their website to see if they'd commented on it at all. No dice, although the first words that caught my eye were "For the August issue, we are privileged once again..."

That word, it means so much more than you think it means.

Ahem. Yes. Anyway, the writing in question:

( Cut for those who are just not up to dealing with whitewashing apologists right now. )

I can't even begin to play bingo with this.

So yeah. I cancelled my subscription to RoF, and am working on a letter to them. And... Jesus, does the fail ever begin to end?

(How's Clarkesworld doing these days? I am sure that not picking up a year's worth of RoF makes buying their print anthologies a lot more workable.)

Current Mood: angry

I've noticed a pattern; when I get stressed, I cast on a new project. Work announces they might stop existing? I knit John a facecloth. I get told it will take me six weeks[1] for work to get a copy of Dreamweaver? I start knitting a shrug.

I suppose it's productive, at least. (Also, knitting projects have the niftiest names. And I love this yarn. I keep thinking of it as 'stonespun', some weird combination of 'homespun' for it's not-glossy slightly-uneven feel and 'stone' for the colours.)

John sent me a couple of links, too. One is an excellent piece on the pristine purity of language, and why all that nonsense about objecting to "man" to cover both sexes is ridiculous--

For years, Niss Moses, authoroon of the well-known negrist tracts A Handbook of Nonracist Writing and Words and Blacks, has had nothing better to do than go around the country making speeches advocating the downfall of "racist language" that ble objects to. But when you analyze bler objections, you find they all fall apart at the seams. Niss Moses says that words like "chairwhite" suggest to people-most especially impressionable young whiteys and blackeys-that all chairwhites belong to the white race. How absurd! It's quite obvious, for instance, that the chairwhite of the League of Black Voters is going to be a black, not a white. Nobody need think twice about it. As a matter of fact, the suffix "white" is usually not pronounced with a long "i" as in the noun "white," but like "wit," as in the terms saleswhite, freshwhite, penwhiteship, first basewhite, and so on. It's just a simple and useful component in building race-neutral words.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's about why all that nonsense about objecting to "white" to cover all races is ridiculous. My mistake.

(Have I mentioned how acceptable "they" is as a gender-neutral term to refer to the individual? 'm just saying.)

Also,

kaigou has something on the differences between mental illnesses, disabilities, and people talking out of their ass.
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[1] And this is after it first came up three weeks ago. Do not even get me started.

Current Mood: optimistic

A ~~kind~~ ~~well-meaning~~ friend who understands that shared pain is lessened tossed me a link to this book cover today. (Thanks,

snakey! OW.)

For fun, see if you can guess what the book is, based on the following reaction!

20:24 Torrain: --the fuck.
20:25 snakey: again I say: that.
20:25 Torrain: I've *read* that book.
20:25 Torrain: That cover. Is not. Gah. NO.
20:25 snakey: yes
20:25 snakey: I do not recall that scene
20:25 Torrain: Where's the mountain!
20:26 Torrain: I demand at least some reference to the mountain, if they're getting stylistic.
20:26 Torrain: Or a goat. Or the fake vets. Or...
20:26 Torrain: What. The. Fuck.
20:26 Torrain: @_o

I am going to try and find a way to express my reaction to this in a way that is slightly less charged than "That's like putting Cortona's The Rape of the Sabine Women on the cover of Slaughterhouse Five" and just... just...

Current Mood: shocked

Relayed from the light of my life; Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed To Work.

Seriously. If only everyone follows these, the problem would be--well, I am sure that if I say "would be solved" there would be a counterexample, but it would be vastly reduced.

You know, I have a new respect for bloggers. 'cause I imagine some of them are actually going to be managing to report on WorldCon. And I have *no freakin' clue* how they're going to be coherent enough to do that.

A rundown of my day, then, in point form;

* breakfast with James
* hit a signing
* went to "Weird Tales" panel
- listened to people and was very happy
- also got to see a One-Minute Weird Tale from the site which still has me giggling
o go watch it I will wait
* went for lunch
* and briefly
* had discussion of upcoming panel and schtuff
- which led to explaining terms like "male gaze" and "invisible knapsack"
- which led to the discussion of sexism in open source and the guys who say they do not see it
o at which point I was told that they mean they don't see it against successful women, because it doesn't happen to women who are successful in open source, and once they clear that first hurdle of achieving professional credentials there is no sexism in the environment
# (we love you Skud) (put down the cricket bat, Marna says she's on it)
- also it was explained that the war on sexism is over, and there is no point in making further effort
o because really this is why third-wave feminism failed they were all being shrill
o and you have to choose your point of attack
o no not "education" it should be referred to "attack"
- also it was said that men are objectified in comics exactly the same way women are
o and that any attempt to differentiate between "objectifying" and "idealizing" is really subjective and splitting hairs
# at which point I offered a text portrait of the first picture here
o and anyway it's a natural part of psychological development
# and I kept an emphatic but conversational tone when explaining that while children might go through a stage when they are unable to understand that other people were not objects I did not see this as excusing the practice of perpetuating it
o also there was an attempt to divert by discussing manga which objectifies men in exactly the same way
o also a mention that perhaps it was unreasonable to expect comics to depict a world without racism or sexism, which I pointed out had nothing to do with my suggestion that perhaps they should quit *indulging* in it forget about depicting it
o because anyway all comics are made for white adolescent males
o and the few that aren't are just thinly disguised variations
# and I did not brandish anything like Maus or do anything more than pointedly ask who the hell he thought the GoH was *anyway*
# and I do wish I had made more of an effort to point out that I think Sandman is not made for not-white-adolescent-males it is made for *people*
o and that people don't learn attitudes from mass media or characters and personas portrayed therein
o and that the options were screaming at the corporations or preaching to the choir or else getting people who hadn't already picked a side
# so I pointed out that this requires the assumption that accepting sexism is a deliberate and conscious choice
- and the conversation ended with the observation that the war on homophobia had also been won and people could just sit back
- which would be a good plan because he had seen so many people shoot themselves in the foot
- and I thanked him for his opinion on what I should do with my time and how he felt I should handle things that I saw as a problem
o yes, politely.
* then Angela and I went to check my e-mail and get her her registration
- and I geeked *madly* in the Dealer's Room and Art show and squeed kind of shamelessly over
o the

creaturesfromel sculptures
o the Weird Tales table where they have free issues
o the woman who does the really smashing shadowboxes and jewelry whose link I will put up once I get back to my room
* went to "Writing the Other and Other Assumptions"
- got clue-by-foured, again. Ah, preconceptions, how we whittle you down.
- decided really need to place that order with Aqueduct Press dammit
* then I caught up with Us F5 Folk at the Future of Horror panel
* dashed out and caught the last of the Asimov panel
- and Connie Willis was talking about one time when all the stories she had out came back rejected all at once and I swear to god I wanted to hug her and make it all better
o and I cannot imagine how much it must hurt to be a writer at times
- but I caught her after the panel and she very kindly signed *both* my books
- and if you haven't read her you totally should. Now. Because she is that good. And *funny*.
* and then I came back to the hotel and hit the Con Suite for food
* and got online for a bit
* and I *missed* the VanderMeer signing because I thought it ran for an hour but it only ran for half of one, but I will find her tomorrow
* and I wandered into Tim Hortons' and talked to Marna and

karnythia for a bit
- also I have made

karnythia's List, by subjecting her to "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
o I am really kind of proud of this
o she promised to make it quick, too
* and then I headed back to the Delta for an internet connection
* and so I am here
* also got recommendations for *so many* books, including A Bolt of White Cloth

Current Mood: accomplished

A quick note on nWoD sourcebooks: liking Innocents fairly well.

========

Okay, what follows turned into a much longer commentary than I expected. The short version: so far, I think you could pay me to own this book.

========

Think the writer (or at least some of the writers) of Dogs of War may need to go get their class issues, defensiveness, and rah-rahing out of the way before writing again. Also, am finding many of the scenarios and info boxes poorly written. Not in terms of line-editing so much as in terms of not being fleshed out at all.

I mean, I'm reading this book, and I'm trying to keep an open mind. But... in the World of Darkness, recruiters are ensuring that only people who meet high psychological and moral standards are being selected? Good Christ, this isn't happening in the real world, and it's supposed to be better in the WoD?

Also:

* Having a magical object that lets you erase one disaster per scene is not a scenario, dammit. It's a neat magical object, and the details of it do catch my imagination, but it's not a scenario. Saying "You get this while on a mission to find X" does not make it a scenario, either.

* On what planet do you get compassionate leave because your brother died, go home for the funeral (staying in your family's home while there), notice that your fifteen-year-old sister Mary isn't around or at the funeral and your mother's upset, and end up having to have your cousin tell you that Mary ran away? Did you not ask your mother what was wrong or where your sister is?

There's not even anything to suggest your mother brushing the question off. The scenario goes right from "Your mother's upset" to "a success on a roll will have your cousin tell you Mary's run away". Interestingly, I note that the scenario also completely fails to discuss why an upset mother would fail to mention to her son that his fifteen-year-old sister is missing in the World of Darkness (although it does have an aside explaining that missing persons reports aren't looked into because people generally have reasons to want to leave, which had me wanting to slap the writer with a copy of Precinct 13) or what planet the character is from that has them finding this acceptable.

* On the topic of bad characterization: oh, look, the characters have to find a strange object that landed near a trailer park. World of darkness, rough life, I'd expect a fair variety of people to be living in trailer parks (either as a stopgap or because they can't afford better).

Nope. There's trailer park trash, who doesn't give a damn about what's going on as long as the benefit checks keep coming; trailer park tramps, who will point you in the direction of "something" affecting the children for fifty bucks; and the crazed guy with the gun who's been cooking up drugs in his meth lab. Unless he's a deserter who's been avoiding the MPs for ten years.

Oh, and there are kids. God knows where they came from. Either they sprang from the loins of trash and tramps who are all so throughly indifferent to the concept of caring for their children that they need a trivial bribe to bring up anything odd affecting them, or else the parents who might give a shit and either mention something or try to hide it from the people investigating are not worth mentioning. At all. Perhaps it's a Little Orphan Annie-like trailer park, and the trailer trash and tramps are collectively Miss Hannigan. I suppose that makes the PCs Daddy Warbucks.

(You can take a minute to contemplate the exact proportion of atrocious characterization to class (and other) prejudice, here. I'll wait.)

* Moving on to writing and clarity: Saying that all a character needs to be hired is having completed two tours of duty, and then going on to say that having been posted in a location the hiring company is interested in results in an extra two dice to your roll does not make sense. What roll? You don't need to roll. Who edited this thing? (Yes, okay, Scribendi again, but seriously.)

* And finally, noting that contrary to popular belief Special Forces members don't have an initiation that involves shooting their dog or murdering their family is just over-the-top. Whose popular belief? It's not even funny. I don't mean "It's too serious to joke about", I mean I read it and thought "Oh for god's sake, quit whining."

It may yet improve. I will finish reading the damn thing. But so far? Really not impressed.

Current Mood: annoyed

Comics are embarrassing me again.

You may've heard of Victor von Doom, a.k.a. Doctor Doom. He's been around a while. Like many good villains, he's frequently more interesting than his antagonists.

He is one of your honourable villains (a murderous tyrant, yes, but a classy one). He is undeniably brilliant and driven. He is arrogant--as Lewis Lovaugh observes here, he's prejudiced in that he's superior to everyone because they're all not Doom. He is eloquent and poised, and given his history--gone to hell to fight the devil for his mother's soul, wrenched the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer, built time machines, can at the *very* least hold an intelligent discussion with Dr. Stephen Strange on matters mystical, and found a way to steal the powers of the Beyonder (an entire intelligent universe)--can be taken as fairly unflappable.

This is a not-bad example of Doom's dialogue[1], except that Doom would not be confused about someone showing him flying commercial; Doom would simply comment in a cutting fashion on the ignorant misapprehension or petty mudslinging of the foolish peasant responsible for the erroneous depiction.

Ranting like some adolescent Nice Guy(TM) revenge fantasy, scribbled out in a notebook after That Bitch turned you down for That Date?

Not so much Doom.
---
[1] Apparently he uses an iMac. I am amused.

John's quick summary pretty much hits every nerve in the book for me: It's a Nice Guy fantasy movie, fundamentally all about what the Nice Guys would like to do to those horrible castrating bitches who don't appreciate how wonderful they are.

He's linked to reviews. I won't.

I knew it was bad. Hearing it put that way specifically, on the other hand, is evoking that "my skin wants to crawl off my body now" feeling, and I hate getting that in real life.

I'm going to finish rereading "The Screwfly Solution". That, at least, doesn't invite you to cheer along with rape and torture.

And god help us when that quality is something that needs to be specified, anyway.

Current Mood:

I don't mind being female. I just hate how other people see it.

I picked up Gary A. Braunbeck's In Silent Graves at the library's used book store, and started reading it the other day.

First, I was actually disturbed. (That doesn't happen often. Pleasantly creeped out, grossed out, annoyed, disappointed (all too often), mildly sad or happy, those I get a lot. Disturbed, not so much.) It was a brief scene and a relatively mild effect--nothing as intense as reading "The Screwfly Solution" or watching the end of Hannibal--but damn. I am not used to novels that can do that. I am impressed.

Second, it comes across as *intelligent*, which is different from simply smart in some way I cannot put my finger on. Very information-rich, and I am not seeing any of the talking-down-to-the-audience or playing up of shared assumptions that I usually spot in horror.

Worth picking up.

========

If cropped shots of underwear models are NSFW, then so's the link. But as Leigh Walton says:

Jeez, Chris, if we wanted REALISM in our comics we’d go to Alex Ross or something.

What? Oh.

========

So apparently the Governor of Oregon is trying to live on $21 of groceries for a week. This has stuck in my brain as a rather neat factoid (yes I know that he's got help not typically available; I still like the idea), and I am moved to go home for lunch. The weather's nice outside[1], and the walk would be not bad, and all such small practicalities.

========

Is it just me, or are there a lot more facial piercings out there this year?
---
[1] Cloudy, cool, chance of rain, filthy daystar not immediately visible.

Audience of Strangers

Entries tagged with how do i not have a fail tag yet?

Ack.

There's a word for this:

Lightning and lightning bugs.

A quicknote, reading /Robopocalypse/

This is the Century of the Fruitbat calling..

Quicknotes

Milgram and Brandt

Hardly ever necessary.

Quick notes on /A Game of Thrones/, s01e02.

Sucker Punch

Icons

Evening.

All shall be well...

I have no words.

Oh, right.

Oh no you didn't.

And another week over.

Oh no you didn't.

Finally.

Saturday!

grumble

Oh, Jesus.

Just. Getting. Angry.

Disturbing moments, and cover art.