Lasair

Is it unbearably, despicably shallow that I'm tempted to start watching it again just because they did "I Kissed A Girl"?

“I’m only telling you for your own good.”
-Child!Azula to Child!Zuko, “Zuko Alone”
“Believe it or not, I’m looking out for you. Just be careful, dum-dum.”
-Azula to Zuko, “The Headband”

“Azula always lies... Azula always lies...”
-Zuko echoes his younger self, “Zuko Alone”

( 'What About Me And My Brother?' An examination of Azula’s feelings towards Zuko.Collapse )

Because it totally is. So perfectly realised I don't even want to have fanfic. I don't even ship. The love had to spill over somehow, though. Here, have 1600 words of meta I wrote.

(I LOVE SOKKA. THIS IS NOT IN THE ESSAY. HE RAPS HAIKU AND FACEPALMS SO HARD AT ILLOGICAL PEOPLE THAT IT LEAVES A MARK.)

Let’s be honest. Both Sokka and Katara spend most of the series getting smitten with the first teenagers they've ever met outside their immediate family. Could we really have been more than one cold winter's night away from Watercest?
- Comment on AV Club’s weekly review of Avatar

( Twelve Going on Fourteen or Fourteen Going on Sixteen? Shipping and Katara: the problem of her age.Collapse )

Book:

"Do you think me handsome, Miss Eyre?"
"No."

Trailer for new film:

"Do you think me handsome, Miss Eyre?"
"Beauty is of little consequence."

At 27, I've reached an interesting age: young enough for children to think I'm cool, but old enough that I may be a yummy mummy myself.

I went to a local swimming pool at Family Hour with a friend. She had disappeared to the sauna for a bit while I continued doing inefficient gaspy half-laps. A young lady of perhaps 12 or 13 approached me at the shallow end to ask 'Can you swim all the way there? I answered yes, and she hopefully asked, 'Do you think I could do it too?' I encouraged her, her little brother swam over to say hello, and then it happened -

Five children of the young brother's age churning up the water to splash their way towards the Magical Adult. Almost before I realised it, they were there, requesting swimming tips, piggybacks and above all peppering me with questions in the following order:

Do you have kids? Not yet.
WHEN exactly are you going to have kids?
(I point at my bikini-bare belly - Um, not THAT soon, and a boy assures me that he didn't mean to call me fat.)
Are you in a relationship? Yes.
Are you engaged?

For some reason*, rather than giving a straight No, I started rambling about how in my boyfriend's office, all his colleagues call me a fiancée because they don't understand what girlfriend means. Understandably they are confused, and say:

Are you with a boy or a girl? Hm?
Are you with a girl or a boy? A boy.

I like the enmeshed conservatism and modernism implicit in that. The conservatism in the assumption that the road to having children leads relationship -> engaged -> marriage -> legitimate spawn. The modernism in that they heard the word 'girlfriend' in my confused ramblings and lesbianism came to mind as an interpretation.

They were cute! I'm glad I live in a country where it's totally OK for children to talk to strangers.

*OK, honesty time, because we would be engaged if we weren't temporarily in different continents and I feel as if we aren't unengaged. Yes, I'm silly.

Edited for an unrelated note: I just ordered the complete Farscape (which for AGES was retailing at €300 or something ridiculous like that) and the final season of Veronica Mars! I think I can bear to watch it now that enough time has passed.

So, I started rewatching Veronica Mars S1 and got my flatmate to watch it too. She doesn't watch much TV but was completely enthralled (yay!) After lots of simultaneous laughs/groans, we developed a drinking game.

Veronica asks for a favour - 1 drink.
Someone else asks for one from Veronica - 2 drinks.
Someone calls Veronica out on asking too many favours - 2 drinks.
Veronica complains about people asking her for favours - 3 drinks.

Veronica changes her two-necklace combo - 2 drinks.
Logan takes off his necklace - 3 drinks. (I actually don't think it happens in S1.)
Flashback to Lilly Kane - 1 drink.
Flashback to long-haired Veronica - 1 drink.

Veronica drags a boy into the girls' bathroom/barricades the girls' bathroom - 1 drink.
Veronica pretends to be somebody's assistant - 1 drink.
Somebody gives Veronica their mobile phone - 1 drink.
If Veronica doesn't do something nefarious with their mobile phone - 3 drinks.
Keith asks Veronica not to do an investigation - 1 drink.
Veronica obeys him - 3 drinks. (This is like Logan's necklace.)

Somebody attacks a person - 1 drink.
Somebody attacks a car - 2 drinks.
A person under 21 drinks alcohol - 1 drink.
Veronica or Weevil say something downright dirty - 1 drink.
A teenager makes a pop culture reference dating several decades back - 1 drink.
Somebody calls Veronica by her full name - 1 drink.

An amusing thing about watching Veronica Mars was watching a lesbian fall slowly in lust with Weevil.

FLATMATE: "He's attractive."
FLATMATE: (an episode or two later) "Oh, he's so pretty."
ME: "Pretty? He's a shaven-headed leader of a biker gang, short and thickly muscled, with a massive moustache!"
FLATMATE: "Isn't he considered good-looking?"
ME: "Well, certainly some people find him attrac -"
FLATMATE: "He's NOT a major heartthrob??!!!!"
ME: "Eh, Logan tends to suck up the female viewers' lust like a vortex."
FLATMATE: "Right, but surely just because of personality."
ME: "No! He's got beautiful eyes, and he moves so wonderfully, he's lithe and fey, ooh, and I love how sharp his features are."
FLATMATE: "I will never understand straight girls. I'd be a terrible straight girl. I'd only want Weevil."

I wonder if RaceFail might be in operation here?

By which time I will no longer be working 8am-9:30 days with a half-hour lunch and a granola bar for dinner! (I never knew sedentary work could be conducive to so much weight loss. It's kind of creepy. And I can't afford new clothes.) I haven't even been able to read the new Iain M. Banks' Culture book that I got for Christmas, but by July I can read WHATEVER I WANT, SUCKERS!

Many of us probably had a private bet with ourselves that GRRM had started to hate his fans and would never release another book in the series. But here winter comes...

http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/03/a-dance-with-dragons-to-release-july-12th

Your ambassadors have a beautiful command of the English language. Sparse yet pictorial, with perfectly chosen adjectives. Honestly, this is what has struck me most about the leaks! Perhaps retired Ambassadors can teach English at schools in their former posts?

Special mention goes to Tatiana Gfoeller. In the midst of reporting Prince Andrew's erratic behaviour in Kyrgyzstan and his claim that Americans don't invest much in Kyrgyzstan because they don't know how to find the rest of the world on a map, she quotes him as mentioning:

the National [sic] Guardian

and moves on.

Skewered! He doesn't know the name of one of his country's major broadsheets and the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan does!

This show is so shameless at using fanfic clichés!

Bored with 'fuck or die' as a method of getting your favourite two guys together?

How about, "Hello, boys, you're locked into a modelling contract with a gay American fashion house called Male Function. Oh, you didn't read the small print about how you had to pretend to be a real couple desperately in love? And to frequently update your internet diary with videos of your romantic exploits? Fear not, for I, Simone Steinkamp your scary ex-boss will direct the videos! You will enjoy your gay picnic or you ARE IN BREACH OF CONTRACT AND OWE €50k EACH."

But the real riffling through the picnic basket of fanfic methods comes with the character of Jennifer Steinkamp, who the writers decided needed a Draco Malfoy-esque plot arc. The fanfic plot arc. The plot arc where the vaguely redeemable but generally evil character get pushed gently over the line into redemption and Love. I picture the planning going something like this:

WRITER X: So, we need to engineer a point where she's crying and saying that all she's ever tried to do is make people love her but it never works. And he realises he may be the first person to ever see Jennifer Steinkamp this vulnerable.
WRITER Y: Definitely. How about we lead up to that by having him tie her up with duct tape in a deserted cabin for days?
WRITER X: Works for me! There can be spiders in her hair. Spiders always lead to love.

some weeks later

WRITER X: The spiders didn't lead straight to love the way I thought they would. Writing is hard!
WRITER Y: Never mind! The 'hurt/comfort' basket is absolutely overflowing.

X: Right, she's homeless. Reduced to nothing. He's taken her in.
Y: Hmm. Still doesn't trust her. We need hypothermia.
X: Hypothermia? Are you sure?
Y: Never fails.
X: Dammit, he used soup instead of naked body heat!
Y: Here's what we'll do. Her ex-boyfriend will try to drown her! She's shaken, she's soaking wet, mascara tears, he's now the only person in the world who can feel sympathy for her... it's going to happen, IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!

Then it happened. :)

Film critic Antonia Quirke once wrote about the rarity of moments that show when characters actually fall in love. Most times, she said, the director bottles it, and a declaration of sorts is made and then we cut to the morning after. It's a shame, a cheat and a waste.

I don't know if this episode of Alles Was Zählt was written to show the moment when two characters fell in love or not. It may be. Regardless, it shows, as no previous scene had, an unfolding of love between them. It was wordless and perfect. I wish more scenes were like it.

A young woman and an older man, a bit shorter than she is, are having secret sex meetups. He has a rather gruff personality and has helped her through many inelegant moments. She can dazzle others with her professional athlete's body and Hollywood teeth, but not him.

They're in the early days of their liaison and still at the point where to meet in private is to kiss without abandon. We see him carry her into his apartment, lips fastened together. She breaks free, moves to the opposite side of the room. There's a brief exchange about phantom jealousy.

She smiles, pushes him gently towards the couch upon which he sprawls. 'Okay' he breathes, amused, the last word of the scene. He is sprawling, unbothered, shoes up. He's waiting to see what sex trick she's going to pull for him.

She starts to pull off her blue macintosh. It should be a practised stripper's movement, but it isn't. She's caught up in his observation of her, and he knows before it passes her shoulders that either she'll be naked underneath or be in sexy underwear. It's the sexy underwear. He didn't need the surprise; the fact and the sight is enough. He moves in such a fluid motion off the couch onto his knees, from the insolent governor of the harem to the single-minded worshipper. His eyes don't leave her.

She walks to him and places a high-booted leg on the couch above him. She's clearly in control now; all the dominatrix signs are in place. His face is flush against her belly and he grasps her legs from behind and kisses it. He looks up; for a moment he wants to gaze upon the woman he's worshipping and not her body.

She meant to keep up this imbalance between them for a bit longer but she's caught by his gaze; she gives it up, she lowers her leg and her head and kisses him. He was supposed to respond to her body and he responded to her; she meant to revel in being above him but she wanted to be with him too much. They repair to the couch; she pulls his shirt off; the scene ends.

They may, or may not, have been supposed to fall in love with each other prior to this scene. But I'd wager this is when they first knew the other shared their feelings. It's wonderful. Thanks, fides.