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Dec. 10th, 2015 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Donald Trump calls for 'complete shutdown' of Muslims entering US:"
* "America comes to grips with Trump's flirtation with fascism:"
* "Trump message plays into hands of ISIS recruitment: Engel:"
* "Amid war and political vitriol, Congress opts out of democracy:"
* "GOP timid in condemning Trump anti-Muslim plan:"
* "Jon Stewart Returns to Shame Congress:"
* "DOJ kicks off investigation of Chicago PD:"
* "When naked escapades and government jobs collide:"
* "MSNBC's Journalistic Abomination:"
* "Blacklash 2016: The Unblackening - Courting the Republican Jewish Coalition:"
* "Sansa Stark, Abuse, and the Treatment of Women in A Song of Ice and Fire:" http://www.fandomfollowing.com/sansa-stark-abuse-and-the-treatment-of-women-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/
* I really appreciate the way Season 2 of Masters of Sex is willing to confront various types of white privilege and different shades of covert and overt racism by showing the main characters being on brand of horrible or another. Most shows are not anywhere near that kind of brave. Most shows would make their white characters the enlightened exceptions, or lampshade the issues. Instead they depict everything from Virginia's clueless about the ways sexual stereotypes are repeatedly used as an excuse to harm or kill black people, to Bill Masters using that real threat of harm as a threat against an ally who went above and beyond for him because he was feeling cornered, to Libby's outrageously horrible and utterly believable behavior to Coral. I'm just generally in awe of them being willing to be so warts and all with pretty much all the main characters. I'm two discs in at this point, so there is a ways to go, but I keep thinking of the contrast with things like St. Tyrion and carol over on Game of Thrones, where they've deliberately chosen to ruin other character's personalities and arcs to make their handful of of favorites always in the right and clever, removing all the nuance and problematic things, such as Cersei's deep internalized mysogyny and Tyrian's deep internalized ableism. The books Martin wrote are so much more grown up than the Game of Thrones show in much the way Masters of Sex is more grown up in the handling of characters. I'm not referring to the depiction of sex (though that is way more adult on Masters of Sex than it is on the Game of Thrones TV Show), but in the willingness to show characters we genuinely like such as Virginia, Lillian, and Betty doing terrible, terrible things. I could write a thesis on the way Masters of Sex depicts women, the way it talks about LGB issues, dying, sexuality, ethics, race, the balance of idealism and practicality, different relationship models, on the choice to have their male lead be complexly, understandably, realistically horrible even though he knows better and and once and a while does better. This show is so brave.
* I had all these thoughts about the Moscow Grand Prix, but yesterday I had a marathon... I'm thinking 14 hour rp session during which I mostly forgot to eat and skipped at least two sets of meds, possibly three. (I had toaster waffles during the duel rather important pre-event scenes, and I vaguely remember a snack at some point during the bachelor party, after which I segued into a small but fascinating scene that took me to bed time.... no wonder I was struggling to walk today). Anyway, today I had massive obligations out in the world and am now way too tired to be coherent about the skating. I did want to say that Javier Fernandez has reached the point where he's an absolute delight to watch the way kurt Browning was, the Russian women have a really deep and impressive bench again this year, and I am deeply uncomfortable with people skating to "Gone with the Wind," what with the whole glamourizing slavery and terrorism propaganda tool for the KKK thing.
* "The Most Metal Deaths in Middle-earth, Ranked:" http://the-toast.net/2015/06/23/the-most-metal-deaths-in-middle-earth-ranked/
* "A game of Kingslayers and Wenches ...:" http://balladedutempsjadis.tumblr.com/post/85138965298/a-game-of-kingslayers-and-wenches
* I know Game of Bones is not remotely cannon. Still I like imagining it as if it was.
I picture Bran exploring in some disused tower in Winterfell, and finding a ceiling with a spiral of shells from the Storm Coast and the beaches near Oldtown in the Reach carefully plastered into the ceiling with chips of mica to add a bit of glitter by candle light, and wondering what hand placed them there.
I imagine Brienne of Tarth as a girl finding an old portrait of an ancestor most of a century dead who looks so like her if she really had been born male, smiling an approving dimpled smile out at her. Delwyn certainly would have approved of her, even if her father didn't much.
I think about how the Targaryens fared without Dhraegon quietly pruning branches and encouraging out breeding and grafting where necessary in the family garden, and how disappointed he’d be in an afterlife he certainly didn’t believe in in the next century’s worth of family history. This sort of thing. Little images of never was in a larger never was.
* EBAY:
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY 2010 (LE, Halloweenie): (Company says: Dewy green leaves colored by Moroccan amber, ginseng, and rooibos.) Just Below Label. http://www.ebay.com/itm/301814539367?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
* Donate to help refugees "UN Refugee Agency:" http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* A list of LGBTQA Charities: http://awkward0w1.tumblr.com/post/126399233673
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "America comes to grips with Trump's flirtation with fascism:"
* "Trump message plays into hands of ISIS recruitment: Engel:"
* "Amid war and political vitriol, Congress opts out of democracy:"
* "GOP timid in condemning Trump anti-Muslim plan:"
* "Jon Stewart Returns to Shame Congress:"
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
* "DOJ kicks off investigation of Chicago PD:"
* "When naked escapades and government jobs collide:"
* "MSNBC's Journalistic Abomination:"
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
* "Blacklash 2016: The Unblackening - Courting the Republican Jewish Coalition:"
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
* "Sansa Stark, Abuse, and the Treatment of Women in A Song of Ice and Fire:" http://www.fandomfollowing.com/sansa-stark-abuse-and-the-treatment-of-women-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/
* I really appreciate the way Season 2 of Masters of Sex is willing to confront various types of white privilege and different shades of covert and overt racism by showing the main characters being on brand of horrible or another. Most shows are not anywhere near that kind of brave. Most shows would make their white characters the enlightened exceptions, or lampshade the issues. Instead they depict everything from Virginia's clueless about the ways sexual stereotypes are repeatedly used as an excuse to harm or kill black people, to Bill Masters using that real threat of harm as a threat against an ally who went above and beyond for him because he was feeling cornered, to Libby's outrageously horrible and utterly believable behavior to Coral. I'm just generally in awe of them being willing to be so warts and all with pretty much all the main characters. I'm two discs in at this point, so there is a ways to go, but I keep thinking of the contrast with things like St. Tyrion and carol over on Game of Thrones, where they've deliberately chosen to ruin other character's personalities and arcs to make their handful of of favorites always in the right and clever, removing all the nuance and problematic things, such as Cersei's deep internalized mysogyny and Tyrian's deep internalized ableism. The books Martin wrote are so much more grown up than the Game of Thrones show in much the way Masters of Sex is more grown up in the handling of characters. I'm not referring to the depiction of sex (though that is way more adult on Masters of Sex than it is on the Game of Thrones TV Show), but in the willingness to show characters we genuinely like such as Virginia, Lillian, and Betty doing terrible, terrible things. I could write a thesis on the way Masters of Sex depicts women, the way it talks about LGB issues, dying, sexuality, ethics, race, the balance of idealism and practicality, different relationship models, on the choice to have their male lead be complexly, understandably, realistically horrible even though he knows better and and once and a while does better. This show is so brave.
* I had all these thoughts about the Moscow Grand Prix, but yesterday I had a marathon... I'm thinking 14 hour rp session during which I mostly forgot to eat and skipped at least two sets of meds, possibly three. (I had toaster waffles during the duel rather important pre-event scenes, and I vaguely remember a snack at some point during the bachelor party, after which I segued into a small but fascinating scene that took me to bed time.... no wonder I was struggling to walk today). Anyway, today I had massive obligations out in the world and am now way too tired to be coherent about the skating. I did want to say that Javier Fernandez has reached the point where he's an absolute delight to watch the way kurt Browning was, the Russian women have a really deep and impressive bench again this year, and I am deeply uncomfortable with people skating to "Gone with the Wind," what with the whole glamourizing slavery and terrorism propaganda tool for the KKK thing.
* "The Most Metal Deaths in Middle-earth, Ranked:" http://the-toast.net/2015/06/23/the-most-metal-deaths-in-middle-earth-ranked/
* "A game of Kingslayers and Wenches ...:" http://balladedutempsjadis.tumblr.com/post/85138965298/a-game-of-kingslayers-and-wenches
* I know Game of Bones is not remotely cannon. Still I like imagining it as if it was.
I picture Bran exploring in some disused tower in Winterfell, and finding a ceiling with a spiral of shells from the Storm Coast and the beaches near Oldtown in the Reach carefully plastered into the ceiling with chips of mica to add a bit of glitter by candle light, and wondering what hand placed them there.
I imagine Brienne of Tarth as a girl finding an old portrait of an ancestor most of a century dead who looks so like her if she really had been born male, smiling an approving dimpled smile out at her. Delwyn certainly would have approved of her, even if her father didn't much.
I think about how the Targaryens fared without Dhraegon quietly pruning branches and encouraging out breeding and grafting where necessary in the family garden, and how disappointed he’d be in an afterlife he certainly didn’t believe in in the next century’s worth of family history. This sort of thing. Little images of never was in a larger never was.
* EBAY:
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY 2010 (LE, Halloweenie): (Company says: Dewy green leaves colored by Moroccan amber, ginseng, and rooibos.) Just Below Label. http://www.ebay.com/itm/301814539367?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
* Donate to help refugees "UN Refugee Agency:" http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* A list of LGBTQA Charities: http://awkward0w1.tumblr.com/post/126399233673
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com