On West Egg

So, my original plan was just to summarize the shocking and amazing discoveries that second_batgirl made while watching Dekaranger (and then Carranger) drunk, but the chatlogs are kind of a thing of glory so I might as well share the whole thing.

Just as a heads up: This is A LOT. Like, 60+ pages a lot. And it starts out clear enough but eventually devolves into ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME and less that perfect spelling. (I feel like that is part of its charm though.)

( Surely this will not make me look foolish in the least )

So! Who wants to join us next time?

(Also, TSB wanted me to include our tweets to Arrow, but there is already so much text and I have the Gokai raw waiting for me.)

So, Captain Jack Harkness. Will sleep with anything if it's gorgeous enough, omnisexual, &c, &c.

So, because of this, there's this whole kerfluffle in a larger part of the fandom than I would have expected about how he's doing Ianto wrong, dating/fucking him while totes pining for Gwen and hoping she'll leave Rhys for him/possibly trying to actively take her from Rhys.

This whole argument hinges on the fandom-accepted "truth" that, given Jack's 51st-century sexuality, he doesn't believe in monogamy.

Now, go find me the part of canon that states that not only will Jack shag something gorgeous enough, but he'll drop it immediately the moment something more gorgeous shows up. It's not there people. In fact, besides Jack (who was remarkably devoted to Estelle, mind you, to the point where it just no longer became feasible and he cut of the sexual relationship, waited a bit, and allowed an emotional relationship of a slightly different sort because he was that romantically connected to her), the only other remote example we have of 51st-century sexuality is Jack's parents. Who have remained together long enough to raise two children into what looks to be early adolescence on the younger's part at the latest.

Now, granted, there may be some extramarital whatevers on the side, but given that the only times Jack has spoken of being with more than one partner at once it's obviously consentual all-around, I can't imagine that anything extramarital (and granted, I'm assuming marriage, but obviously something similar is in place here) wouldn't be agreed upon by all parties.

In other words, THERE IS NO CANON EVIDENCE THAT JACK IS ANNOYED BY MONOGAMY. Frankly, there's a lot to the contrary - if both parties are satisfied, then he won't be looking for anything else, and he's clearly capable of being satisfied by one partner, and clearly capable of loving along with the sex.

So no, I'm not worried about him running off on Ianto for something prettier. He's in it to be in it, though what precisely that means is undoubtedly different than what it means now.

Of course, until it's outright stated onscreen, this whole thing may be jossed, and he may be a massive slut incapable of ever connecting deeper than short-term sexytiems, but unless that's stated, I'm not going to believe so.

As a sidenote, I find myself massively dissapointed that so many people who are praising that the show is being so awesome in presenting an omnisexual character as just present and non-notable as any other character of any other sexuality are so readily making the leap of logic from "will shag anything" to "must shag everything." Very different concepts people, and the latter just perpetuates long-standing, thoroughly incorrect stereotypes of bi- and pansexual people. Pls to be stopping, y/y?

Just got back from seeing Hairspray, and the short-short version of the review is that if I have friends who haven't seen and are going when I'm available I will actually go to see a movie for a second time in a theater.

That said: I have to say, all the reviewers who are being all "It's playing safe! Baltimore is sparkly! THIS IS HOLLYWOOD CHEESE" are, I think, forgetting that they're comparing this one to John Waters' original. It is very much subversive in little ways, and full of awesome little gags, and it isn't above randomly running a character into a doorframe for a cheap laugh that isn't funny so much for the cheap laugh itself (though it is), but because they just threw it in there. (It also has the air of maybe not being planned, but when the take ran as such everyone loved it and it didn't need editing out.)

It definitely takes a different slant than Waters did, and I think that's what trips a lot of reviwers up. Waters sold the plot in his as "Tracy and her battle for popularity and winning the guy and, oh, there's some integrationist stuff happening over here that we use to lightly mock those whose benevolence is prejudicially tinged." This one sells the plot as "Tracy and her battle for integration and, oh, she winds up with the guy." The light mocking is still there, though. It's just subtle, which I think maybe went over the heads of reviewers not expecting subtlety from a movie starring John Travolta in drag?

Oh, and there was a gaggle of gays at the back of the theater totally in on the subtext of Mrs. Pingleton's attitude towards Penny that I don't think I would have caught if they weren't there. (Basically, Penny stands in for the gay kid - since I was blessed with non-Pinglton parents it wasn't as resonating a view for me as, perhaps, for them, but once they started reacting to it... yeah. And by the way that? Fully a Watersian move that was, now that I think of it, in the original film what with the psychiatrist being called in and all... and Waters cast himself as the psychiatrist! Oh, the papers I'll never write...


And beside all this, it's just a damn fun movie with awesome music.





And to Tracy's stylists in the last scene: O I SEE WAT U DID THAR, putting her in before-its-time fashion, with the sleek-straight hair and go-go boots and... yeah. Nikki Blonsky also looks a hell of a lot like Ricki Lake in the equivalent scene there, too, which was almost distracting.

Excerpted from a much longer IM conversation:

evil_authoress: I don't feel particularly good about these American advantages when the most vocal people dance around and brag about it and don't do a damn thing to try to help other people, because Africans aren't my problem and AMERICA IS THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEST.

revieloutionne: Granted, but I'm not going to deny acknowledging some particularly nice accidents of birth just because some other people are stupid about them. That's like ahting food because some people get fat. (On second thought that is hating food because some people get fat...) What I hate more than the people who don't do anything are the ones who pretend they're doing something when they're not. Like Sasha FUCKING Cohen. Yes! Let's laugh at the racists and bigots and turn them into a bit JOKE when really they're a HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM that shouldn't be taken LIGHTLY you FUCKTARD. Oh, but you're showing people that racism still exists in America and that it's a really bad thing and that people should change that? NO. NO YOU'RE NOT. BECAUSE IF YOU REALLY WERE, YOU WOULD NOT BE EXPLOITING THE GENERAL PUBLIC'S IGNORANCE OF ANOTHER CULTURE IN ORDER TO CREATE A FUCKING RACIST IMAGE OF GENERIC EASTERN EUROPEAN CULTURE IN ORDER TO POINT OUT AND MOCK OTHER PEOPLE'S RACISM.

revieloutionne: (And that's why I didn't go see Borat)

Taiki Justice: Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?

fanficrants FTW!

Sorry for not saying anything recently, but I was forced on a family "vacation," a trip up to my grandmother's house where there's no computer, cable, or anything I use for amusement at home except for an organ which doesn't have the range neccisary to play all of the music I brought.

It wasn't very fun.

Then, at church Saturday, the preacher pissed me off. Horribly. He was talking about family. HE satrted by rattling off a list of "bad" kinds of families. Single-parent families, families where the parents divorced, etc. Then the big offense: "So-called "families" with same-sex partners."

I wanted to kick the crap out of him right then and there, but I have enough common sense not to. He went on, saying the only "good" family is a family modeled after the "holy" family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Despite the fact that not much is really known about them. Joseph doesn't even say anything in the Bible! There's even some bits of proof that Jesus had siblings!

Then, I was reminded of my main reason for not wantig to be a part of the Roman Catholic religion. "Consider not what we deserve, but forgive us our sins."

How fucking pretentious is that? That's Roman Catholisism in a nutshell. Yes, there are good parts, life morals and results of belief in a supreme deity, but teh religion is so fucking self-centered I want to puke!

/rant

I have an odd dream to tell you about tomorrow.