tingirl

So far, the reviews I've seen of Les Miserable seem to fall into one of three categories:

A) Hurrah, better than we expected! A pretty good take on the musical! Even if Javert's kinda weak!

B) AAAGH, a musical! No one told me and I am ignorant of popular culture! My ears have cooties!

C) (my personal favorite) SPOILER WARNING: I am going to explain the plot of a book written before your great great grandparents were born! I think this happened during the French Revolution? Guillotine jokes LOL!

...I still haven't seen the darn thing, because it wasn't showing on Christmas night in Austin. Austin! I am irate. Also, seething with unrequited movie-lust. When I DO see it, you will know, oh LJ.

Tingirl has learned to change shape into a monkey. Also, she wages war using an accurate proboscis that also grants an unusual attractiveness and she is able to transform her body into silver, but she must speak words of power to do so. Tingirl conquers opponents with a dangerous rifle and she has been known to leap faster than the speed of thought. Tragically, Tingirl has a weakness of being clumsy..

SO TRUE.

Go see if it knows your powerset:
http://www.rps.net/cgi-bin/stone/randpower.pl

..And I am feeling sorry for poor forgotten Livejournal. Here, Livejournal! Have some headcanon!

Gaston (likely along with the other town leaders) is a revolutionary. He's been trying FOR YEARS, basically his whole adult life, to build a town where people don't need to depend on royalty; handling the usual royal duties like defense and land maintenance so the province/town (boundaries of the unprinced lands are unclear) that pays fealty to no ruler, and keeps the rewards of work for the working class.

Thanks to the caprice of the witch (or was she in league with them?) this has all been achieved without the bloodshed of most revolutions. It must have been a stunning moment for the town- waking up one day to find their world- recognized official governor disposed of, their army gone. But they went with it! Gaston took on the military and border patrol leadership, the merchants organized themselves, and the farmers managed their lands according to their own experience. And they kept their royalty-free status secret from the rest of the world while they got their feet under them.

And it was working, dammit! The town in BatB is prosperous, peaceful, and friendly. They eat meat while most people in their class struggle to find bread; they have a library, even if they haven't got universal literacy yet. All they had to do was keep things moving smoothly, and not have anyone fall in love with their heartless, hidden former-dictator, which, geez, who would?

The town's doing so well they even make room for an inventor and his frankly rude daughter, accepting their arrogance and aloofness as simple "oddness", even while she outright sneers at them in their work. (This Belle is perhaps more believable as the daughter of a prosperous man fallen on hard times than the usual fairy tale version, but she's a problem in a community held together by common cause in an age of kings.) Everyone in town tries to include the inventor family in their community; Gaston straight up asks Belle to marry him, which would put her in good association indeed.

And Belle's reaction to everyone is : Ewwww, PEASANTS.

Gaston does not deal with this well- but he does leave Belle to her own devices, instead of rolling out the tumbrels and such. And on the romantic end,how bad a reaction is "a night of drinking with my pals"? He's well on his way to getting over it altogether, when in barges Maurice, full of news about "the Beast"- the Beast every adult in town knows is their former prince.

The Beast who now how has a daughter of the bourgeoisie locked in the palace,where he can seduce her and break the spell that's kept the town free for ten years.

And suddenly Gaston's got to make some bloody choices. The Broadway soundtrack highlights this as the moment when Gaston knowingly chooses damnation in the service of freedom. He acknowledges his scheme is dirty, even his closest advisor warns that it's dangerously immoral--but he 'won't even be mildly remorseful, just as long as (he) gets what (he) wants in the end'. And what does he want, after all? The continued freedom of his town and people. So jailing one old man, to lure his daughter back out and away from the Beast, seems a small sacrifice.

But when Belle does come back to the town, it's clear it's too late for such a strategy; she's 'in love' with the Beast (others have written plenty about the problematic nature of love between a hostage and her prisonkeeper, so I'm letting this go mostly uncommented)- at least enough to satisfy the spell's requirements. Desperate to find some way to keep the revolution peaceful, Gaston again tries to get Belle to swear allegiance to him and the village, through marriage- but she won't.

With imminent re-installment of the monarchy looming, the villagers turn to the grim solution of a thousand revolutions before: Kill The Beast (though they STILL don't turn to killing the collaborators, Belle and her dad, a move that will cost them). Read the lyrics to that song as a political protest. It paints a bloody picture of the former Prince's reign (perhaps never known by Belle- would you tell a woman who dreams of magic and princes that you have magic cursed prince when your life depends on keeping him cursed?), along with a grim resolve: We're not safe until he's dead. The spell isn't enough. And note Gaston's still setting himself up to take on the group's dirty work."Remember, the Beast is mine!"-- the others are free to reclaim property, but he'll be the only one to take on regicide, the figurehead to blame if things go wrong.

Which of course they do. "Love" and privilege carry the day; the story ends with townsfolk back in their proper place, dancing attendance on Queen Belle and King Beast...but there's been no obvious wave of repercussions. Gaston, in death, has all the blame for the attempted uprising.

Beauty and the Beast is a villain-protagonist story, dammit, and the villains win.

No, really. This is all about me.

Running around the house like a can with fleas tonight, trying to get about a month's worth of work done in an evening since said month was really awful and nonproductive, and I am wishing really hard that I had someone around to serve as a sounding board and general cheering section while I am trying to manage this too-much-crap. Like, I would pay money for that, right now. Just to have somebody do the basic support tasks like make dinner and gather up trash and remind me to pack socks.

And of course I am not going to get that, because in my house/family at least, that's MY job.

It had never occurred to me before that it was a particularly important job. But holy crap, I'd kill to have a Me around right now.

...I actually feel a lot better now.

(back to crazed taskmastering!)

Still apparently near the verge, though. Excitement!

Went and saw my new doc. Can't say I bonded with her the way I did the last one, but she listened, asked a LOT of questions, and didn't dismiss any of concerns. Actually she seemed a lot more concerned about me than I've been, which...uh. Is probably not a Good Thing. But she may have a point. She thinks my continuing fatigue/blackouts/everything may be caused by, in no order, seizures (my current neuro diagnosis is abnormal migraine with aura. Neither of us thinks that's WRONG, just that it might be more) cardio problems, nerve damage caused by the EDS, and/or hypoglycemia. The hypoglycemia is the easiest to test for, so we're a'testin'. Gots me a little finger-jabby thing and medical strips and everything. I'm fascinated.

I'm also, apparently, neither a bleeder nor thin-skinned, since getting enough blood for the dang thing is a comedy of errors. But hey, new dangerous toy!

Anyway. Spending the day recovering from the awesome thrills of seeing the doctor. What's new with you, world?

Today I get to go see a whole new doctor! And then spend an entire day generally being social and doing things! This makes it double plus awesome that I'm awake right now, after a day of total crushing breathless leadlimbed uselessness. I am so thrilled, yeah.

Ok, so I'd rather spend the next three lifetimes never leaving the house. Which is exactly why I've got to get out. I know from experience that when I really, really don't want to interface with the outside world is when I need to get out and be exposed to (ugh) people. Since I've spent the last two weekends not only at home but bachloretting, it's no wonder my Social Muscle has atrophied. But first comes the paranoid lack of desire to interface (because if the world outside were my friend, it wouldn't be outside, would it? WOULD IT? That's logic! You can't argue with crazy woman logic!) and then comes the oven and the gingerbread and the cackling.

And then comes the wallpaper,except I live in a trailer from the seventies and so, oh sweet monkeys in a hat, it's really fake wood panelling. The Yellow Wood Veneer. Terror!

So, yeah. It's gonna suck, 'cause I'll be sleepless and starving and all, but I'm goin' to the doctor tomorrow. FOR ALL OUR SAKES.

(also posted on the Geek Blog, for those who prefer Blogger Flavor)
Righty-o, I THOUGHT I was gonna do a post about the Thor movie (synopsis: It is awesome and Thor's chest makes me wanna get [Norse] religion) but then Science in My Fiction started talking about Spirited Away. And that reminded me of a question I have, not about SA, but about the way people discuss it.

The rest of the post assumes you have seen Spirited Away at least once. If you haven't, you need to go do that RIGHT NOW. It's got fairyland riddles and dragons and witches and soot sprites and mystery and some of the most gorgeous art direction this side of the mortal divide. It's be Miyazaki, and if that's not enough to get you watchign a thing I weep for your deprivation. Go watch it, I'll wait.

Ok.

Here's the thing. Every official writeup of the film I've seen describes Chihiro as sullen, spoiled, and/or whiny. And this baffles me, because Chihiro is constantly one of the best kids I've seen. In the first scene-after a long car trip with nothing to do, over country roads, in the company of her really awful parents, moving away from her friends and life and into the unknown- she's...tired and quiet. I know, she doesn't jump for joy when her mother dimisses her entire life to that point as something she'll soon forget; good grief, who would? And yes, when her parents decide to invade the supernatural realm through the tunnel with the psychic alarm signals, she tries to stop them. And when her parents- who at this point are well beyond insensitive and arcing into criminal-- decide to just EAT SOMEONE ELSE'S MEAL, she tries again to make them act like kerning human beings instead of wallowing porcine greed spirits. And when they in fact morph into wallowing porcine monstrosities, and alien beings manifest around her, looking for a scapegoat, she scarpers...

and then starts Dealing With It. And not, say, by leaving and finding good parents to live with, as a more cold bloodedly sensible person might, but by trying to save her own pig-family (who really, I cannot stress enough, have done nothing to deserve this effort) At this point, the reviews and descriptors generally agree Chihiro starts behaving well, so I won't ennumerate her many many acts of awesome from this point on. But I can't see anything up to this point that makes her seem less than sensible. Are kids supposed to be so inhumanely detached from their own wants that they cheer their parents' every awful choice? Or so detached from their own bodies that they maintain a set energy level regardless of their physical circumstances?

Seriously, I know part of the movie's arc is Chihiro becoming more than she was, but from what I see she goes from well meaning but overwhelmed to Total Badass. I've never seen anything in her behavior that invited any of the negative descriptors often used on her (and the standard synopses never mention the fact that she's being raised by the kind of parents who invite throttling in every restaurant around the world). But ragging on a kid as awesome as Chihiro kind of creeps me out. Someone fill me in, what I am missing here?

I saw the Thor movie! In the local theater! And I did not flop around nor seize nor blackout during or after the movie! I attribute this to the power of Pecs. Good movie, I'll have to write up a nice analysis of it for the geek blog, but over here I'm just going to cheerfully objectify the hottie in the tight pants. The movie went out of its way to encourage this and I should hate to disappoint Kenneth Branagh, who I have also been known to squee over at all the times (hey, I'm a Rennie. He's the kingman of Shakespeare. Plus, Frankenstein!). Sometimes it is fun to be a straight wench with no special kinks.*

Also Asgard was amazing. I'm not generally a landscape and scenery fan- I think the late occurrence of glasses in my life left my brain permanently nearsighted- but WOW, that was some swanking scenery, the kind of over-the-top landscaping I like and can notice.

And I'm very happy I saw all that, and have this fantastic imagery in my head, because the other thing that happened this weekend was that I noticed buzzards using our roof as a landing pad. Being the sort of idiot who really would run towards calamity (well, hobble towards. Wheel, if there was decent paving) I went around the edge of the house to look for whatever had drawn the buzzards. And gods bless the blowflies, because without them I would have stepped RIGHT IN the remains of the possum that decided it wanted to be dead in our yard, and then none of you would have ever heard from me again, because my sanity would be over the hills and far away and I'd be gibbering my life away in a nice padded cell with my hands restrained so I couldn't pull off all my flesh.

Seriously, possums make my skin crawl anyway. Dead defleshed possum? With the eyes and soft bits gone, so it's basically just that grotesque hide over its terrifying primordial skeleton and its apparently immortal slithying prehensile tail...

>deep breath deep breath think of Asgard and that awesome bridge<

Oh. Kay. Better now.

But that's my weekend! You?

*Ok, monogamy is arguably a kink. Though I tend to think of the mono/poly thing as another axes on the spectrum, but that's very much a post for another day.

Got a message from one of my very many activist groups telling me that my senators voted to keep giving money to big oil coporations. Which: Yeah, that's disgusting, but hey, I LIVE IN TEXAS. The odds of any elected official crossing big oil are only slightly better than the odds of an elected official endorsing stringent gun control, which: hahahahah.* I wish I could get special Texas-only versions of political news that only tell me when my representatives do something that doesn't make me want to booze up and riot. Granted that would mean I'd never hear about anyone but Lloyd Doggett, but that's ok! I'll just go ahead and assume the rest of the state leadership is attempting to put kittens into blenders on a daily basis. I don't need to know the details, I got stuffs to do.

One fairly pressing thing I need to do: figure out how to spend any time at all writing and/or reading without prompting one of my blackout spells. Yes, apparently my triggers now include the written English language. Or, given this is especially notable online, maybe my brain just hates Verdana** all of a sudden? That would be maybe the geekiest kerning*** trigger I've ever heard of.

I'm hoping it's all just a contrast issue- my new computer screen has waaay more light backing it than my old lappy, and there is apparently no way to tone it down (the Cintiq has a far more subdued, world- accurate palette, and I can spend a lot longer staring into its beautiful face than my screen) so I'm going to spend my attempted writing time wearing The Goggles. If you want to see more work and/or correspondence from me, hope that goggles Do Something, eh?


*I actually do not favor gun control. Once we've given away the economy to finance Monsanto's production of Zombie Corn Armies, how I am going to defend my awful little house without guns? These are the vital points of debate news pundits never address.

**Which would be wholly unreasonable. Granted I prefer serif fonts in general, but it ain't like poor V is Comic Sans, here.

*** Kerning should be an expletive. It sounds so right! "That kerning idiot cut me off in traffic!" "Kerning Photoshop crashed again!" Also, unlike f924ing, which is a highly enjoyable activity when done right, kerning is nothing but aggravation regardless of its importance and setting, and would probably be a very grim physical process to enact on a physical being. I'd far rather an enemy Get Kerned than have sexy fun times.

Warning: Some Language.

Saw a documentary today that focused on the blatant screaming racism of the fashion industry via the painful accounts of struggling not-white (or white ENOUGH) models. And well, no argument that it's racist like a Mississippi textbook in 1955. For whatever reason, in this era of booming Asian economies and increased immigration, showbiz and fashion continue to be convinced that Americans will only see/be attracted to/buy things from/believe in the existence of the whitiest horse faced Gattaca clone babies they can find*.

Thing is, the fashion industry is, well, horrific. Exploitative like a crack pimp, corrupt like a hoghouse cesspit. It exists by preying on the weakest social impulses of society **, it enforces dangerous labor conditions on its participants, and it has an idea of aesthetics that would make the Erlking sit back and go "Whoah, dude. A bit much."

Listening to people lament that they aren't included enough in this rotting stinking soulkiller industry? Is like hearing someone weep that darn it, no one ever starts a coal fracking operation in THEIR backyard. I know, yes, it's damaging that no one except very specific kinds of white people are ever presented as glossy acquistive possession-dependent wannabe royalty***, leaving everyone else to feel invisible in the Eye of Sau- er, the dominant consumer culture that we are after all constantly bathed in. But...honestly, you want IN that sharkpit, O Aspiring Teenager With More Wrinkles Than Me Because You're Actually Starving Yourself For It? Is that image going to empower people? Because. Um.

For lack of a better reaction, I wish the models of the show all good fortune in going to hell their own way- certainly I don't think it would make the fashion world worse to add a little tiny bit of diversity to their clone army. Rock on, starving women of many lands! May you all find whatever passes for success in your own wacky industry!

...Or not. You know. Whatever's helpful.


* I may still be a TEENSY bit touchy about the Avatar thing. And the upcoming Akira thing. And the whole ARGH HOLLYWOOD WHY DO YOU ASSUME I CAN RELATE TO TALKING VERMIN BUT NOT HUMANS ROCKING ECRU INSTEAD OF EGGSHELL ARGH.

**Apparently? I mean I'm always hearing people talk about the social pressure to conform to fashion? I am insulated from these things to a huge extent by the power of not caring and then also living in the sticks.

***I am a bad, bad capitalist.