Not Anonymous

Telekinesis & Teleportation, Please!

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 08:37:31 GMT

I'm at the Library and we just came back from a pretty useless anti-missile exercise.

Let me tell you, if we are bombed at some point, I'm running outside and making sure that if I die, at least it's in the fresh air.

The Library is going to be undergoing renovations starting next month or so. Thus, what I had hoped would be a relaxing time at my third job (seeing as working at the Pharmacy and being a Nanny allow me no time in which I can do nothing), is pretty much shot.

Hauling crumbling dissertations in over flowing carts is not a relaxing time. Especially not considering my cart actually fell over due to the weight of all those books. Lucky for me, they all fell in a straight line and kept their order. That would have been a nightmare.

In what little spare time that I have, seeing as most of the time if I'm not working, I'm studying, I am world building an "X-Men: First Class" fix it. I loved that movie. A lot. But there was so much wrong in it, in so many ways.

Darwin Lives! And Angel isn't a Sociopath (seriously, wtf?).

Fandom has, and quite correctly, exploded. I like that I'm seeing a huge overlap between "Inception" authors and "X-Men: First Class" authors. That really is lovely.

Fandom has, incorrectly, decided that the Holocaust is the be all and end all of Erik Lehnsherr. Fandom, please stop. Fandom has also, incorrectly, decided that Charles is super-sensitive, fuzzy and empathetic. Fandom, what movie were you watching.
Fandom is also using Raven is a sex doll. Please stop, Mystique would kick your asses for this and not bother to learn your name while she steals your identity. I know this is BB!Mystique - but she's nobody's sex toy!

All of the above is a gross generalisation of course, but these are trends that I'm seeing.

Hopefully, I will have something to show for my fix-it soon. Would there be anyone willing to beta me? And kick my ass for encouragement?
Thanks in advance!

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This is me, Fangrrling!

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:22:43 GMT

OMG!

My excitement for Torchwood has renewed!

Mekhi Phifer is in the cast!

YAYZ! I love him, he's such an amazing actor and I can't wait for the "I don't like you" glares to happen between him and Jack/JB because he does them so well!

I took a step back from Torchwood since the summer, mainly because other fandoms took my fancy and also because, well, I needed a break. I'd been into reading and commenting quite a bit (for me) in that fandom more than any other and frankly, it was exsausting, especially since the Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun shcism that followed 2009 - I'm actually impressed that I kept on full speef for nearly a year.

Then came Inceptiom and honestly, Eames and Arthur and Ariadne are totally my "replacements" for Jack and Ianto and Gwen. There's an interesting parallel between the Torchwood five man band and the Inception.

Huh?

I may talk about that later.

Speaking of which... guess who is hugging her Inception DVD as she writes this.

Hells yes!

So Happy!

I didn't get the new-fangled, special super duper Blue-Ray edition. I just wanted the movie dude.

Now I have it and I will be watching it.

Laters!

*Is devoured by the fangrrl monster!*

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Mister Charles, I presume?

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:42:10 GMT

Pre-Ordered Inception.

Huzzah!!!!!!!!

Now I need... a DVD player.

You guys! I have five seasons on New-Who, six (not seven, I know) seasons of Buffy, five seasons of Angel, movies containing Robert Downey Jr., Fawlty Towers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and ALL OF TORCHWOOD... and no actual DVD player to go with our smacking new 37" HD LCD television screen.

This is just not on.

Not on.

I know, First World... I can't even call them problems can I? It's just too shallow for words. I'm too shallow for words.

I'm a horrible, terrible consumer of television and movies, aren't I. I should also get a portable hard drive. I'm really tempted to splurge on the 1TB, because damn! I could back up my entire computer onto that with room to spare. Room for more hours of movies and teevee! Hells yes!

Terrible. Have I mentioned?

( Meta about my thoughts regarding Inception Fandom and the issues of fetishisation, issues of consent and sexual violence )

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This May Become an Unpopular Opinion Thing

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 10:06:52 GMT

I am still not a huge participant in Inception fandom, I comment little and read much, but I read practically everything there in my preferred characters (which honestly it's almost all of them, so I end up reading a lot).
But I lurk, it's easy to lurk and avoid the fail. Of which there is lots let me tell you, of the sexist kind, the hetero-normative kind, the constant use of Magical Healing Cock, dear god and... the racist kind.

However, there is a lot to chose from and as per usual I tend to skip stories I perceive as to be written when the characters are OOC - Out of Character - as in, do things I don' think they'd do or do things I'm particularly uncomfortable with.

Such a story exists and it is currently the topic of debate in this monster of a baby fandom.
The fic is Metaphores as mixed as you can make them by halflinen, which is about, according to the Author's Note summery: Eames tries to incept Arthur. A story of forgiveness, family, fancy suits, and ~feelings.
I didn't read it, because I don't think or I am uncomfortable with the idea, that Eames would ever do something like that to Arthur.
My perception of Eames doesn't fit with his characterisation in this fic and so I didn't read it.

Another thing that apparently happened in this fic is that Eames is casually racist towards Yusuf - one of the only two non-white characters in the movie - and well, readers have said so to the author.
And have expanded upon what they said to the author
There's another example of a different fic (that I liked) that has begun to be discussed, but it's somewhat different as it isn't a character being racist towards Yusuf, but more a use of the stereotype in the narrative to make a joke about something else entirely, but because it is tied to Yusuf and his Desi heritage it can be construed as an unfortunate combination in the material of the text.

Sorry, I went literature student there, be thankful I did say an "unfortunate metonymy".
( There is Meta and a Point! )

And so my unpopular opinion is thus: exchanges, characterisations and textual proximities may be written in a casually racist way, but they too can be interpreted in a manner in which it actually suits the characters, narrative and don't necessarily mean that the author's ass is showing.
Critique of fic is necessary, good and should be a bigger part of fandom. The writing of issues race, gender relations, gender identity, sexuality, physical, mental and cognitive abilities is also necessary, good and should be done with more thought, rather than regurgitate the old stereotypes, however, things tend to be interpreted differently depending on one's standpoint and that also needs to be taken into account.

Now, after all that, I'm going to read some fic.

Edited to Add: I just found an older post of mine that discusses this topic (during the terrible incident of the Haiti SPN story) and I have found that I've contradicted myself in this manner.
So I'll add that I think there's a difference between writing a story framed in a manner that serves as nothing more than a convenient background for the written fandom at hand and thus appropriates and disenfranchises other characters (and the people reading) which are marginalised (holocaut fail comes to mind) and an incident of characterisation and narrative in a particular story.

Again, the line is fine and this isn't a pass/fail thing, none of the criticisms I linked above do that, but is can easily turn into one and that's my fear when critiques begin to deconstruct fics in this manner - not because the critics are being over sensitive or because I'm "all about the art", but because I sometimes feel there is no space left for ambiguity.

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Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BATMAN!

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:18:49 GMT

Holy Stock Actors Batman!

In case you haven't heard Tom Hardy is going to be in third Nolan Batman film.

Hells yes!

I'm currently watching the mini-series Tom Hardy was in 2009 The Take and once again, his range is amazing! Despite being type cast as a heavy and a gangster, the characters are different people! He doesn't look the same. He managed to change his body shape in every film that I've seen him in.

I get the feeling that he hasn't really given up on the whole self-destructive thing he had going on earlier this decade and has decided that in order to get the immortality rush he just puts his body through hell and Yo-Yo's his weight like... a Yo-Yo.

For batman though, it would actually be interesting to see him as NOT a villain. We all know he can do deranged (and we love him for it), but doing something a bit more demure, but not as morally ambiguous as Eames (ambiguous is simply my code word for Eames, his picture is there in the dictionary, yeah).

Unlikely, as there are far more morally ambiguous characters than not in Gotham, whether they're goodies or baddies.

Still, hells yes Tom Hardy in BATMAN!

Nolan, you keep doing that thing you do. Two women talking to each other about Batman would be okay, btw. Just sayin'.

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Actors! Movies! A Bunch of Film Reviews and thoughts about slash (duh)

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:39:33 GMT

Will wonders never cease.

No, this isn't the Eames of Inception meta I've been threatening, alas, that will probably be on hold until I have my own copy of the movie so that I can analyse every scene he's in - because dude, it's all about the clothes, mannerisms and his turn of phrase and... yeah.

Any way, ever since I saw Inception I've been going over other movies I've missed due to having awful Hollywood taste and skipping a bunch of indie flicks that had Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page in them.

The films I'll be mentioning are: "500 Days of Summer", "Mysterious Skin", "Shadowboxer", "Smart People", "Whip It", "RockNRolla" and "Bronson".
This post may contain spoilers regarding some characters, but I'll be doing my best to keep plot out of it.

Don't say I didn't tell you!

( In which I go on about Joseph Gordon-Levitt )

By the way, Joseph Gordon-Levitt covers songs by women and listening to him singing "Express Yourself", "Bad Romance" and "Natural Woman" is just fucking grand.
The man is scarily talented.

Watching all those movies made me appreciate him a whole lot more - There's barely an audience here for Indie Cinema and the Cinemateques are not very close by to me and I generally miss screenings and had no idea these movies even existed until I see a mainstream movie, go to IMDB and find out that whoa! These people are prolific!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awesome y'all!

Ellen Page is lovely. She really is. Obviously I'd seen Juno, because everyone had seen Juno and I saw her as Kitty Pride in the third X-Men movie and she was very sweet there as well.
I've yet to see Hard Candy and yes, I know, it's a huge cavern in my film viewing arsenal, but I saw other movies instead!
( Now Ellen Page! )

Tom Hardy is a curious case. As it happens, except Bronson (which I will get to), I'd actually seen most of the feature films he'd been in! (he's acted in a few British mini-series and drama shows, which I've yet to see). Like Layer Cake - I've seen that a few times, because of Daniel Craig and Burn Gorman! And there he is on IMDB, Mr. Eames!
Not to mention Star Trek: Nemesis, which really, let's not mention it.

And Rock N Rolla the underrated (and also not as good as previous) Ritchie film. The first Guy Ritchie film (correct me if I'm wrong) with a canon gay character! ( Tom Hardy, I knew thee before I knew of thee! )

Getting back to Rock N Rolla for a mo'.
When I saw it all those many moons ago I expected to go online and find a whole slew of fanfiction! A canon gay character! A canon gay character with a crush! A canon gay character in the same 'verse as Jason Statham! (*wink-wink nudge-nudge*)
And 'lo, there was none. Or more to the point, barely any.
What with Tom Hardy's sudden popularity, the movie is getting rewatched and there were at least ten new fics I've found since I'd seen Inception back in August.

I find that interesting. I'm not really all that sure what to make of it. Especially considering that Eames, as a character, most definitely put ambiguous vibes sexuality and gender wise, there's nothing in the actual text to suggest that he's queer in any way - he's just got excellent chemistry with everyone.

Handsome Bob (Ritchie, you love your Statham^*, don't you?) played by Tom Hardy is very much not ambiguous, seeing as he comes out to the audience and protagonist early on and would appear to have been out to everyone else since before the events of the movie!

I'm wondering if it's because of this lack of ambiguity and the very real reaction that came from the character to whom Handsome Bob came out that there were barely any takers. I have a few fic ideas, but it takes me forever to write and I'm not very prolific, so don't expect anything from any time soon.
The more I think about, it really could be the fact that there was a reaction to the fact that here's a masculine bloke who likes the romantic and erotic company of other blokes, and the other blokes in the movie make it clear that being gay isn't as good as being straight in various and sundry ways - most of them are ambiguous in their malice, as in, clearly the actions were homophobic but it's unclear how much of it came from actual hatred of gay men and how much of it a part of macho gangster life.

That kind of ambiguity is rare. So often, you see a polarised split in reaction, not to mention the gay characters themselves are usually so stereotyped it's hard to watch... but in this film, the performances felt... friendly... a dangerously awkward moment in which I feared there would be yet-another-dead-queer-on-screen... but ended up being sweet and touching, throughout the film.

I think the fact that there was this reaction existed on screen, jostled the slash goggles a bit.

Your own thoughts on this?

Footnotes
* In case you weren't aware, Jason Statham played a character named "Handsome Rob" in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, where he plays a fast driving British lady's man. Handsome Bob, is also the driver for the East End gang he's a member of - he's also referred to as a "lady killer" at a certain point... only, he's a gay man. Yeah.
Back to Text

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Loyal Citizens...

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 09:01:18 GMT

I wrote this yesterday, in fact. But the first rain deluge caught the country off guard, add a faulty high voltage wire to the mix and what you have is a five hour power outage. The power outage lasted until I was picked up for a family evening and got back just in time for bed.

So, here's what I was going to write, a day later.

( Brief whine about wanting to write about Inception )

So instead of writing about sneaky, ambiguously queer, white men, I'm going to write, briefly, about the fact that fascism sneaks up on you, in a perfectly respectable democratic system.

The Loyalty Oath law has been a sword of Damocles hanging over the state ever since the election campaign that used the slogan "No Loyalty, No Citizenship". The right wing party "Yisrael Beitenu" (Our Home, Israel) has been pushing a bill for years now that will require those becoming Israeli citizens to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state - two ideas that are fast becoming mutually exclusive.

"Attempts to enforce recognition of Israel as uniquely Jewish have been deeply controversial, particularly among Israel's Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the country's population."
The thing is, loyalty oaths to the state when it comes to naturalising citizens are nothing new. However, the draconian nature of the new draft to the citizenship law is particularly galling.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday submitted his own draft amendment to the Citizenship Law, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a snap decision to back a controversial proposal that would require any non-Jew taking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state."

Angered by Netanyahu's move to bring the amendment to cabinet for a vote, Labor party ministers said late Wednesday that they expected a new freeze in settlement building as a payoff.

Emphasis mine and Yes, really. Draconian and racist loyalty oaths ("new liberal" draft notwithstanding), Labour wants political leverage regarding the Settlement construction freeze, which officially thawed last week and never really ceased unofficially:

[...]the prime minister must perform a balancing act. Allies at both ends of the political spectrum and the Labor party hope that his latest concession is a sop to right-wingers ahead of a decision to renew a ban on settlement building in the West Bank – a key demand of the left.

"I hope that Netanyahu's support is a payoff to Lieberman, so that the prime minister will be able to extend the freeze without breaking apart his coalition," said one Labor minister, who declined to be named.

It's all rather disgusting. But, honestly, my surprise at this sort of garbage coming out of my government is not something that surprises me. After all, we asked for it. That's what's lovely about democracy and the majority vote and all that, the most "successful" fascist regimes were voted for by the Vox Populi.
The "populi" as a collective, are idiots.

It is somewhat telling that all this is coming to a head on the tenth anniversary of the October Events one of the incidents that triggered the Second Intifada ten years ago.

I think whole idea of loyalty oaths are ridiculous, but that's not the issue. The issue is the targeting of non-Jewish would be citizens to declare the Jewish ideal as supreme, because that's what is happening here. The conflation of the Jewish nation and the Israeli state is very problematic, not only for those who aren't Jewish at all, but also for those who are not Halachically Jewish (i.e. according to the Rabbanut, the Jewish religious court in Israel).
One of the platforms of "Yisrael Beitenu" went with during the elections is purporting to be the voice of that segment of the population who are Jewish enough to be citizens under the Law of Return, but not Jewish enough to be considered worthy of marriage rights, yes this is a big enough to deal to be an election platform.

To conclude, this is yet another step in a direction I'm quite sure no one in their right mind would want to take. This may, however, be indicative of the fact that the heat drives us all crazy and perhaps the October showers will help cool us off.
Just a thought.

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The "Inception" Gender and Chromatic Switch Post!

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 13:20:45 GMT

My choice are crazily fannish.
I'd like to hear what you think about my choices!

( Cut for Image Heavy Content and Spoilers for the Film )

Well, I hope y'all enjoyed that little foray into insanity!

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A quick one before bed

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:19:34 GMT

If I read one more Inception fic in which the author gives Eames the first name "Jack" I may be forced to say something. And a vein in my head may burst.
Depends.

Dudes! If your first name is "Jack", you do not go by your last name.

Seriously, it's that simple!

Petty reader is petty.

And there really is hardly any love for Ariadne... *sigh*

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Inception Crossover

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:52:32 GMT

It's too early in the fandom to expect a crossover with Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" isn't it?

On the other hand, I'm finding it odd that I haven't found any fic of that kind. The two fandoms are begging to meet each other!

At least... in my mind.

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Seen "Inception"

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:51:38 GMT

( Spoilers? )

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