| | Subject: | Everything I know, I've learned from Laurell K. Hamilton | | Time: | 02:10 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/thoughtful.gif) thoughtful |
|
| There are a lot of communities on LJ that exist for the sole purpose making fun of authors. I’ve visited a few of them fairly extensively and found them – in my opinion – extremely disappointing compared to Lashouts. The thing that keeps me coming back here is the fact that with very few exceptions, the people here are extremely intelligent and the conversations that spring up around our dislike of LKH’s work are thought-provoking and insightful. Being on this community has made me think hard about feminism, consent, alternate lifestyles, the effects of fame, mental illness – honestly, I think I’ve learned more from this community than I have from every English class I’ve ever taken put together. Paradisegirl22’s post would be better directed at a lot of the other anti-[whatever author] communities that I’ve seen. As far as I can tell, we aren’t here because we’re jealous of her success and want to feel better about our own writing [/shameless plug], although that may be one reason. We’re not here because we’re sadistic bullies who only get pleasure from feeling better than others, although it’s always nice to feel superior. We’re not here to insult other people for their taste in books – if we ‘have a go’ at the readers, it’s only because they blindly accept LKH’s every word. We only mind the fans when they swallow, hook, line and sinker the horrifically bad portrayal of alternate lifestyles like BDSM and GLBT, the idea of ‘feminism’ put forth by LKH, the constant portrayal of nonconsensual sex as true love, the idea that you can only be a good person if you live the life that LKH seems to think is best, etcetera. That ridiculously long preamble was to lead up to a very simple question: am I alone in this? And if not, what does everyone else get out of this community? I feel like I’ve learned a lot here and it’s made me think about a lot of things that really matter, and I can’t help wondering if other people feel the same. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| | Subject: | The GERMANS ARE COMING D: | | Time: | 01:51 pm |
|
| | My KINGDOM for a book on London during the blitz. PLEASE >o<. *kicks library* | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | books | | Subject: | Couple of book recs... | | Time: | 01:38 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/mellow.gif) content |
|
| I don't normally post about books too much on my LJ because I have enough people to discuss them with in real life (as opposed to dramas, anime or BSG).
But I do want to recommend Lao She's Cat Country, which is considered one of the first Chinese scifi novels.
For some reason, I was remembering it today.
I first read the novel when I was about 12, in Russian translation, and fell madly in love with it. And you know what? I've reread it a number of times since, and it has always stuck with me, just as well.
Cat Country (also translated as 'City of Cats') belongs to one of my favorite genres: dystopia. It is a very thinly veiled and very harsh and hopeless critique of the then-contemporary (1930s) Chinese society. The narrator (but you can't really call him anything as active as a protagonist, he is largely a passive observer) is a Chinese astronaut whose ship crashes on Mars. Mars (or at least the country he has landed in) is populated by cats, and the cat society is brutal, stagnating, corrupt. There are people who fight against it (Little Scorpion, a rebellious intellectual son of an aristocrat whom the narrator ends up being friends with, is one such) but it's ultimately futile.
It's an awesome book. It's been translated into English.
Another book to check out, very very different, it Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. It's about the hunt for Pablo Escobar, a violent and powerful Columbian druglord of the Medellin cartel, but the thing I found most interesting wasn't the description of the hunt, but the description of Columbia at the time, as a completely lawless, falling-apart society. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| "If I sing in front of people, I'll be less than a man."
A-ha-ha-ha-ha.
I have started Utahime. One ep in and it's mad love. LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I haven't fallen for a drama this hard and this fast in a very long time.
Also, I aways find Nagase Tomoya hot, even when he has floppy hair and/or plays a dork or a simpleton, but with a short haircut, dark clothes and presence of a quantity of brains?
I THINK HE IS THE HOTTEST THING I'VE SEEN IN JDRAMAS IN...I'd say since when, but my brain has melted.
Also, Aibu Saki=adorableness. She is like a human kitten. I want to smoosh the two of them together into a shippy sandwich SO HARD. Which, seeing that I have been promised AAANGST by everyone and their cousin, does not bode well for my sanity in later episodes.
Oh, and the scene where she accidentally falls on top of him and they both totally still and then spring apart super awkwardly and a bit dazed? Marry me, jdrama. Marry me.
I need to cap this, I need icons, I need to marathon this thing.
ETA: Whaaaa? I knew he was a Japanese WW2 soldier but he was a kamikaze? Oh. Em. Gee.
ETA2: Aibu Saki (child version) was the one who found him, wounded and unconscious and amnesiac? And wanted him to stay with her family? OMG. This is as good as the quasi-siblings stuff kdramas love so much.
ETA3: All the staring. I approve. But my fave is the way he grins proudly when she defies the mobster.
ETA4: I love the fashion in this. I love Aibu Saki's yellow performance dress. And hair. And necklace. And the sunglasses thing was adorable.
ETA5: He overheard her telling Merry that she wanted to win to get him that three-wheel car and OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. I know I offered you marriage earlier drama, but forget that. If you want me, we can even live in sin, TPTB!
ETA6: Singing Mobster, don't they teach you things in mobster school? Don't you know who sings the show's credits? Hint: not you. Also, the way you stare at the guy indicates not a desire to engage in singling contest but engage in something else. Not that I blame you. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | life, wtf | | Subject: | Uppdatering på BBB-fronten | | Time: | 03:55 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/cheerful.gif) amused |
|
| Mitt mail till Telia fick följande svar:
( Read more... )
Haha det fattade väl också, det skiter väl de i XD Och skulle jag maila till tele2 som jag har fast telefon hos, så skiter väl de också i det. Dumma jävla BBB, ta ert ansvar nu. Iof bryr jag mig inte eftersom jag bytt, men.. haaaalllåååå. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Saturday, September 6th | | Time: | 12:02 am |
|
| you can publish your photos as a comment to this post, if your photo was shot on:
Saturday, September 6th
to publish your photo (please choose one and resize it to 700 px!) just copy this text:<img src="### url of your image ###">
comment and click here: http://community.livejournal.com/day_on_earth/175342.html?mode=reply
don't forget to write the location and country in the subject of your comment.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | "One Day More" Les Miserables | | Current Location: | 85225 | | Subject: | Bill Craig | | Time: | 01:58 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/sleepy.gif) sleepy |
|
| Okay... doing this again...
Tomorrow night (Friday) an amazingly talented friend of mine, Bill Craig is playing up at the Dubliner at 40th St and Thunderbird. Anyone interested should come. As long as you are 21 (or you have a parent with you ) because it is a bar. We should be there around 830 with music starting at 9. And, yes, I've checked. He will be there. :P I meant to mention this at the meeting but I was all "AHHH SCRIBBLING!"
Here's his site: www.billcraig.com
Minutes should be up tomorrow. Bit delayed since we just ran people off.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| So, for my next jdrama, shall it be Utahime (finally! But I didn't feel like angst earlier. I might now, what with period setting, amnesia and Nagase Tomoya hotness and angst) or Love Story (I know that one has happy ending plus Toyokawa Etsushi as high-maintenance writer who falls for his editor)?
Help. | | comments: 18 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | doramas, yamapi | | Subject: | Is it possible to unlearn learning something? | | Time: | 10:34 pm |
|
| Thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kitsune714 and vierran45, I have just learned of an existence of an old, old, old Yamapi drama where he is a store-clerk virgin who gets kidnapped by four women (two of whom are named Metallica and Sam Raimi) so they can date rape him and lose their own virginity.
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
See Kitsune's post.
WHAT | | comments: 26 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | I HATH A DRAGON FINALLY!! | | Time: | 09:30 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/happy.gif) happy |
|
| 
My baby, make him grow please! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Okay, greenity I didn't ignore your comment, I just wasn't ready to answer it yet.
My information about them is so profoundly limited that I have trouble imagining how my observations would be of much interest. So if, for example, I seem to condone what appears to be heinous, take it to mean that I simply do not want to condemn what I know nothing about and vice versa.
The experience in Colorado City (back from that trip to Northern Arizona last month) consisted of the following:
1) about 15 minutes of background info from a professor who has worked in the area for years (with the Kaibab Paiute, not FLDS)
2) going and buying snacks at a grocery store manned (actually womanned) by FLDS women with long hair french braided in the back and poofed up in the front and wearing long simple dresses. Just like the women whose kids got taken, if you want a popular image.
3) eating lunch at a little dive that sold FLDS tracts next to the register, one of which I picked up and read
4) more conversation afterward in the car with 7 other anthro people.
The time in the store was the most interesting to me. I immediately walked away from my companions and looked through the aisles alone. It was obvious that we were part of the same group, because of our clothes and hair and manners we stuck out like sore thumbs. Apart from the women at the registers, there were a number of women with small children doing their shopping. Despite sticking out, I was not apparently the object of their or their children's attention. But whereas my companions, who walked around speaking loudly (I thought), appeared to be pretty much ignored, when I smiled at someone or greeted them, they smiled back and talked to me as well.
The girl who rang me up struck me at the time as pretty young, but on reflection she was no younger than girls who ring me up at the Safeway in back home. What was different was my interpretation of her working and her youth. I saw her as "of a marriageable age" and working to support her family in a system that seems utterly foreign to me, as opposed to the youth I'm used to who are NOT of a marriageable age, although they are certainly old enough to have children of their own and are part of a system that I'm far more comfortable with.
In the restaurant, a young mother with two children allowed her little daughter - 2 years old? - to run to the front counter. The little girl slipped right in front of me and nailed her face in the counter. She ran back to her mother and who comforted her. What really surprised me though was that she barely made any sound as she sobbed. I glanced to my professor who tacitly confirmed my question about whether the relative silence of the girl was cultural. I can't IMAGINE a 2-year-old in my culture having that occur in that particular way and staying so quiet. It disturbed me more than anything else I saw. Certainly more than the huge vans for families with many mothers and tons of kids or than the half-built houses everywhere designed to evade taxes. I would like to think that the little girl was "naturally" like that, but her excitement, her energy in her run, suggest to me that was not the case.
Finally, the tract. It was, undoubtedly, screwed up. It begins with an explanation of the sexual evils of woman and appears to be aimed at men avoiding them, then the main part begins. The story is of a woman, dying of a disease in the most abject poverty possible with babies all around (also, apparently, starving and dying) who explains that all this has happened because she cheated on her husband (she was a second wife) with a bad (young) man. Yes indeed. It's almost comic. My only question is whether, by refusing to accompany the FLDS preacher back to civilization to avoid people's attention (scorn? pity?) she is considered to be atoning (even though it will mean the eventual death of her children by starvation when she dies) or she is considered to be beyond help. At any rate the preacher leaves her and the thing ends with another exhortation to women to stop being such big sluts. It is beyond doubt that this is related to community conceoptions of marriage, gender, and theology, but if my experience reading ancient Greek myths has taught me ANYTHING its that what the men write ain't necessarily what the women think or live. Another example is of the FLDS women going with their children to some of the reservation casinos in the area.
So, what do I think? It sure as hell isn't a life I'd want, and I strongly doubt that the situation allows for polygamy in a happy healthy way for anybody concerned. Furthermore, I am quite concerned by the idea that people need help from the FBI agents constantly stationed there to be able to escape. I sympathize with them because they are certainly persecuted, but living outside the law means that there is no protection for those powerless INSIDE the society, and that gives me the heebee-geebies.
Now I am very curious, greenity , why you asked.
| | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | modliness | | Subject: | Modly: you can stop feeding the troll now | | Time: | 05:13 pm |
|
| Yes, I saw the bait. The member has been removed.
I don't think this needs clarifying, but in case it does: I don't expect everyone here to have the same opinion. I've openly said that "happy fans" (for want of a better term) are welcome here, but they have to respect that this is a space in which LKH is criticised.
If people want to post a dissenting/unpopular (to here) opinion, that's fine, so long as it is done in a respectful manner. The above-linked post was not. If you legitimately want to know why Lashouts members still read LKH's books (for example), you're free to ask, but don't do it with flame-bait language.
Thanks to all the members who replied to the post in a civil tone. To those who didn't, remember that ALL members are to be treated with courtesy, whether you agree with what they say or not. If they start being abusive, that doesn't give you the right to be abusive in return: tell me what's going on, and I'll step in. Thanks. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| Yup, the anime set in fantasy version of medieval China, whose heroine wants to become a civil servant (click on tag for more summaries).
I stopped a while back because I liked the characters, but there was too much world-building. But I can't help it! I simply must see more of Ryuuki, the Emperor, and the heroine's one-time husband. He is probably one of my Top 10 anime males, what with awesome sword skills, vanity, childish unworldliness, bi-ness, childhood from hell, a huge torch for Shuurei, cheerful energy, and awesome outfits.
Did they ever hook up? Please say yes. I mean, is she blind????? He saved her from assassins and is hot and she will be the most powerful woman in the Empire. Hello, girl, wake up!
Here is a shippy vid:
I am totally amused by how appropriate the song choice is, as it's from The Curse of the Golden Flower, where the imperial family is equally dysfunctional.
Heeee, I was reading more on Ryuuki's background and SQUEE of amusingness. I mean, I knew he was systematically abused by his mother and brothers when he was a kid and his older half-brother Seien was the only one who cared for him (and apparently threatened Ryuuki's mother to get her to stop), but apparently his mother was a former courtesan and the person who eventually killed her was Seien's mother. SQUEE. Who herself got executed for treason. I love the frelled-up imperial family.
Actually, I don't want to watch about Shuurei learning governance. I want to watch about the messed-up imperial family, much more, please. Thanks! It would be awesome. They could make teenage Seien the hero and give him some lady in waiting as an OTP. I don't want administrative info, I want dysfunction! | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Wonders | | Time: | 08:28 pm | | Current Mood: | amused |
|
| Just to satisfy my boredom ......
You all sit here moaning about all thats wrong with LKH and her books....now here is the thing.....
1. If your that annoyed with it why ya all still reading?...cuz you all have to still be reading both series in order to be getting all the info on the books.....
2.If you think they are that bad lets see you do better......I will wager that none of you can....and if ya can i would read the books ya write.
3. Are you all that miserable in your own lives that you have to attack someone else just for the pleasure of it?
4. Why you all having a go at the people who still read the books?.....you obviously still read them so stop bemoaning the fact that others like them as much as you seem to hate them.
5. Not everyone is a sheep and whilst i understand that everyone is entitled to an opinion on the work doesn't mean you have to get personal either with the authors life or with people who read the books and enjoy them....doesn't mean they are less than you are....oh wait thats what you think...or so it would appear...but if thats the case then you are less to because you still read them. | | comments: 253 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | On Vox: Quick update | | Time: | 02:10 pm |
|
| I can sit up comfortably this afternoon, so I wanted to post a quick update...there are 4 tiny incisions and one larger one...the larger one is the one that hurts the most. I'm still sore and tired, but I'm feeling better every day. 14 pounds down since Friday! w00t!!!!!! It will decrease to about 2 pounds a week after a time, but right now I'll take what ever I get. I'm kind of sick of broth, but I get to have pureed foods tomorrow, so I'll manage. I have no hunger at all. What an interesting sensation to NOT have, coming from someone who felt it nearly constantly. I'll have a longer post about that in a few days, but right now I'm going back to sleep. Also, Pics from Sasha's first day of Kindergarten will be posted too. She's loving it! Much love to you all, Becca
Originally posted on gothictemptress.vox.com | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | A New Regime | | Time: | 02:58 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/determined.gif) determined |
|
| Tomorrow I am instituting a new regime that I shall try to maintain throughout the school year. I shall wake up at a reasonable time tomorrow, shower, gather coffee and my things and head out to the library where I shall take out a lap-top and proceed to work for the rest of the day on my homework as well as studying until I'm satisfied I'm finished with it. After which I shall break for a meal and walk down to the local movie theater and book store and put in an application in the hopes of getting a job.
I am now determined I shall not fail.
Wish me luck, though I'm hoping sheer determination will be enough to get me by.
Ta all. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
|
|
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/silly.gif){kind=small}
weird
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/nerdy.gif){kind=small}
geeky![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/curious.gif){kind=small}
curious![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/blank.gif){kind=small}
blank