quite a lot of trouble for such a pretty little girl

To all the lovely Americans on my friendslist, a very, very happy Thanksgiving! This is one of, if not my absolute favorite holidays. Parades, dog shows where I cuddle with Ella, coo at the other dogs, and then tell Ella she'll always be the best to me, food, Pumpkin Chunkin' specials, and of course, pumpkin pie, which is one of my favorite desserts but I will ONLY eat at Thanksgiving.

Since it's a day of saying what you're thankful for, I feel that for once, I'm going to devolve into sappiness. I'm extremely thankful for my family, and by my family, I mean my entire family; the ones who I'm genetically related to, the ones, like my best friend, that I'm not, the two legged, and the four legged. I'm thankful that I'm relatively healthy, mostly happy, have a roof over my head, etc, etc. I'm thankful for my job, which brings me endless joy (as much as I complain about it, which is only ever in love). I'm thankful for television, which never fails to make me feel better, no matter what's going wrong.

And finally, I'm thankful for all of you. It was about a year ago I first ventured out of my shell and into fandom, and it's been an amazing, fulfilling, whirlwind year. I've made so many new friends I can't even imagine my life without, friends who make me laugh every single day and make me excited to wake up in the morning, just so I can check my e-mail. I am so, so thankful for all of you. You mean more to me than you'll ever know or I'll ever be able to tell you.

...aaaand that's about as sappy as I will ever get, ever again. Treasure that. From now on, all emotions will be communicated by arm punches and awkwardness. I'm very bad at emotions.

Man, Saturdays without Merlin are weird. I watched the Arthur/Merlin scenes put up online and I'm so glad I didn't put myself through the entirety of that episode, but I still feel weird for having missed it. (Though props to Monsieur Colin Morgan for making such a hilarious old man. Oh, Colincakes, when I think I can't go and love you more, you make it so I do.)

I feel so frustrated with this show, which is a really uncomfortable feeling for me. Like, spoiler alert, Arthur acts like a COMPLETE DOUCHE for the hundredth week in a row. Now, I would be fine with Arthur acting like a douche and being so fail when it comes to who he falls in love with and how he acts when he's in love if I knew that this was all feeding into some grand revelation he was going to have that he was acting like a total asshat. That wold be GREAT. If that were true, I would be cheering Arthur on to act like as much of a jerk as possible. But I know that's not going to happen. Hell, I'm pretty sure the writers think that Arthur is making progress as a human being/future king, which I honestly find a little worrying. And so when I have no faith, I feel like I'm watching them do a giant disservice to everyone to the point where it's almost disrespectful. It's disrespectful the fans, the character, Bradley, who's proven himself so capable, and frankly, the show itself, which is squandering its potential. Isn't Arthur supposed to not be a jackass? Isn't that his JOURNEY? And if they don't want to have Merlin do the job because that's too homoerotic, wasn't that supposed to be Gwen's job? That was the premise I was sold in S2, and all she seems to be doing is making him brattier and brattier. I don't care who the fuck does that job, at this point, but I need someone to. And if they won't let Gwen do it as a love interest and they certainly won't let MERLIN do it as a love interest, can they please allow Merlin to do it as a friend? Something? Anything?

This on top of the missing quest (which I choose to believe is not going up because there was no way they could edit around Colin and Bradley making out) on top of the deleted scenes that just came out, all of which explain SO MUCH about the episode and SHOULD have been part of it, is making me extremely irritated at the entirety of the Merlin production staff. Get your heads out of your asses, Beeb/Shine/The J's. I'm tired of having to watch all your failures and then fix them with fanfiction, which I can't even START until the season ends because you still have three whole episodes to fail at life. The episode commentaries for the first half of S3 are up, and I'm exceedingly disappointed that they only have two and that the Richard and Angel one is not only boring but for episode 3, the most boring filler episode of all filler episodes. Also, what a weird and awkward pairing, Angel and Richard. And what does Angel even have to say about that episode? Farting? Because that's, like, all Gwen does is fart and pet Arthur's donkey ears. How does ANYONE comment on that? How does anyone comment on that episode period? I'm pretty sure not even the most entertaining person in the universe could find a way t make that commentary awesome. At least the Bradley and Katie commentary is hilarious and delightful. I needed SOMETHING awesome and Merlin-related. So thank you, Bradley, for being adorably whiny about how all the knights have better hair and pecs than you. I needed that today. And thank god next few episodes look amazing, because I need this yucky feeling regarding Merlin to go away. It's deeply unnatural feeling.

ANYWAY, to distract myself from yucky Merlin feelings, I suggest we discuss one of the best subjects in the world to discuss, ever. Namely, hot mens. You know how there's this meme going around where it's a survival of the hottest thing, like, when you vote down the least attractive person out of ten someone's chosen until ONLY THE HOTTEST REMAIN? Like, the Battle Royale of sex? frantic_allonsy is doing it, and staraflur did it, and it looks like a lot of fun, and so honestly, I'd really like to do this meme. But there is a problem. I said this last entry and I'll say it again: when it comes to guys who I find attractive beyond "a very good-looking guy I'd say yes to if he asked me out on a date", I have narrow taste.

If we're just talking guys I find cute or attractive enough to make me do a double take or think "he's kinda cute!", there are many. Multitudes. HORDES. When it comes to guys I just find plain old good-looking (personality markers such as clothing choices or habits aside), all you really need is to be notably taller than me (at 4'11", this isn't exactly difficult), someone most people would consider vaguely attractive (like, I'm open-minded, but not enough for a third arm or a giant oozing boil), and are capable of general grooming standards. I'm easy. All sizes, shapes, and colors may apply. And honestly, that's what matters more when dating, just that you have a base attraction. And that base attraction exists for me in almost any dude who is relatively good-looking. You need something to work with, though, you know? I know from experience - my first and only boyfriend I thought was cute enough, but I wouldn't have looked twice at him were he not very, very interested in me. But I was at that age where I thought I was so wise and knowledgeable and above it all and what mattered was an attraction to someone's personality, blah blah blah. It didn't. It wasn't what ended breaking us up (that was more a factor of being fifteen), but it certainly made my end of the relationship less enjoyable.

But if we're talking guys I find just flat-out hot, or guys who make me want to fling my underwear at them, or guys who I would actually get up off my ass and proposition shamelessly instead of just giving them a once over and catching their eye for a smile, it is a narrow type. It is so, so narrow. So instead of forcing you guys to vote in a poll where you basically all have to choose from THE SAME PERSON (and because past these five hot guys, narrowing down the field of dudes I find cute is difficult - they're all cute, dammit), I'm just going to discuss the Five Hottest (According to Me) Dudes In The Universe. Because really, who objects to staring at/discussing pretty men and self deprecation? NOT I.

WARNING: BEYOND THIS POINT THIS POST IS NOT ONLY NEGLIGENT OF HOT MEN OF DIFFERENT RACES, COLORS, AND ETHNICITIES, BUT IT IS ALSO DEVOID OF MEN WHO HAVE DIFFERENT HAIR COLORS. ACTUALLY, IT'S JUST DEVOID OF ANY DIVERSITY IN THE SLIGHTEST. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

( HELLO THERE, SAILOR. )

SOME STUFF THAT IS AMAZING
(before I post about Merlin tomorrow)

One!
I watched the Women of SNL special and it was generally funny because they showed the best clips, but I think the thing that made me laugh the hardest was Amy Poehler's Sharon Osbourne impersonation. Not because it was the best impersonation ever (though it was pretty amazing), it's because of the dog. She has this little Pomeranian she's holding and waving all over the place like it's a stuffed animal and shaking it, and that dog is totally nonplussed. It's just looking calmly at the camera like "yes, and?" and she's SHAKING IT EVERYWHERE. I have no idea why I'm so entertained by this dog, but I watched the entire two hour special and that dog made me laugh harder than I've laughed in weeks. Even thinking about it makes me giggle. That dog! I can't. I can't even.

Is something wrong with me?

Two!
According to some dude on Twitter, Bradley James was gallivanting around LA this Halloween dressed up as a Ghostbuster. This guy could be totally full of it, I don't know. And you know what, I don't care. It makes me love Bradley more than I ALREADY DID, regardless of if it's true or not. If it's true, that's amazing. If it's not true, I love the fact that Bradley is exactly the type of person I would believe would dress up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween, and that just makes him a special snowflake.

Oh, the limbs I would sacrifice for pictures of this.

Three!
Some wrap-up from the Rally to Restore Sanity - if you haven't seen Jon Stewart's sincere closing remarks, GO WATCH THEM RIGHT NOW. They are great and true and insightful. I mean, it's a little unfair to the extreme left, I think, since the extreme right is where you get people who are theological extremists and want to wage war on everyone and damn your rights to hell, and the worst the extreme left ever wants to do is tax you a lot and make you go through red tape. Oooh, scary. Also, the 100 greatest signs from the rally. And seriously, they're GREAT.

Also, THIS IS YOUR REMINDER TO VOTE TOMORROW OR WE'RE NOT SPEAKING ANYMORE.

Four!
You know who else is great? BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH. I mean, his name is already the greatest name in the history of names, but he's been doing some great stuff lately. Like this live chat he did for PBS in which we learn he's amazing, adorable, hilarious, articulate, and oh, I love him. Also, there's these new pictures. I can't tell if I'm terrified of him or vaguely attracted to him. EITHER WAY I LOVE HIM.

Five!
I found a gerbil adoption agency in the next town over! They say they have new pups coming and should be ready by late November. I think I've decided on names, so it should be less than a month until you all are regaled with pictures and tales of Messrs. Gus and Baxter.

Six!
THIS DRESS IS SO FUCKING AMAZING I WANT TO DIE. If only I had $150 to, you know, spend on a dress I don't need and have nowhere to wear.

Edit, or Seven!
So sometimes while I'm winding down for bed I turn on the music video channel, which is doing a promo for Rock Band 3 that's a playlist full of featured songs. One of them is The Cure's Just Like Heaven, which in its original form I hate, but it reminded me of this cover, which once again proves that a song can be a truly terrible thing, but almost any song can be saved by a skillful cover. God, I love this cover:

ONE!
So I knew vaguely there was racefail stuff going on in Inception fandom but I was avoiding it because I hate racefail. HATE IT. Last year's hubbub turned me off of people trying to out politically correct each other. I'm trying to refrain from a race rant because hello, wank, no one needs more of it. A lot has been said and really, it's been over a week. No fuel needs to be added to the fire. I'm just going to say these few things, which are my reactions to most racefail and which I feel are still relevant/important:

One, authors are not their characters. I'm not taking sides when I say this on the actual wank being discussed, I'm just saying this as an author who has had this mistake made about their work, and it's always been a pet peeve. My characters are not me. They do not represent my point of view. They do not do what I would do. They don't have to be perfect people, because real people aren't perfect. Real people make racist comments, or sexist comments, or dumb comments. If I want to write a character who tells his wife to go back to the kitchen where she belongs, this doesn't mean I think women should all go back to the kitchen, or that he necessarily has to be a villain to say that. (Even though I like to be in the kitchen. Actually, is it my day to do dishes? Fuck.) I don't like the idea that I, as an author, should have to warn for that, or put a little asterisk/footnote saying "BY THE WAY THIS IS NOT MY POINT OF VIEW". Shouldn't that be self-evident? My neighbors, all of them, are extremely nice people. But most of them are hardcore, Fox News-watching, homophobic, and semi-racist as well. Life isn't that cut and dry, and fiction shouldn't have to be either.

I'm saying this regardless of what was said in the fic that got people in a hubbub because it was supposedly racist, appropriate or not. I didn't actually read the fic (though I did read the passage people complained about). I don't actually care what was said and who said what. That is not the point. The point is, from an author's point of view, can I just complain about this phenomenon in general? If I write a character who has a nervous tic, no one assumes I have that nervous tic. If I write a character who's alcoholic, people don't assume I'm alcoholic. (I hope.) Sometimes I need to write a character saying something despicable, and so I don't see why someone should then assume that nothing else relates to my actual point of view, but that comment does.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes people say offensive things in real life, no matter how good-intentioned they are. I know I have. I'm not saying it's GOOD it happens, but the feeling that you have to make your characters perfectly eloquent, PC, walking advertisements for The Right Way To Handle Situations, and sparkling bastions of humanity is, from an author's point of view, extremely hampering. And irritating. And generally, bad.

Two, The fandom corner of the internet is, in general, an extremely accepting place. When racefail does erupt, it's usually over something pretty small. I care about -isms. I care a lot about social justice. In an ideal world, perhaps these are things we should nitpick over but really? This is, no matter how you look at it, nitpicking. There are big freaking instances of -isms out in the world. Like, here is some racism I posted about yesterday. And here is some really heinous homophobia. (By the way, I don't believe in hell, but I absolutely believe that when this guy dies, he will be burning in it.)

Fandom is a large place that can make a lot of change and do a lot of good and raise a lot of awareness. If we're going to do that, why are we wasting time on internet fights over interrogating texts from the wrong perspective or getting into fights that boil down to "you're more internally racist and have more privilege!" "no, you're more internally racist and have more privilege!"?

I would love to live in a world where a throwaway potentially racist line in a piece of fanfiction is, in fact, the worst thing that happens in the big, wide world of -isms and intolerance. But we do not live in that world, and for that reason, this entire thing is fucking ridiculous.

If fandom would like to discuss the problems that are legitimately problematic in the world today, I will be there marching in the parade and cheering on the forces of progressiveness and acceptance and spreading the word loud and far. But if fandom is continue getting into silly slapfights, I'm going to continue to roll my eyes and ignore fandom when it comes to race and discussing and wanking about it, because seriously? Seriously? There are a limited number of hours in a day, and the number of hours I'm willing to budget out for being annoyed is even more limited. At some point, in order to remain relatively sane and healthy, you need to make a threshold of things that get you all foaming at the mouth, because the world is so full of irritating things that if you were actually irritated by everything that maybe deserved to get upset over, you would not have time to sleep. I like sleep. I like being sane. I like being happy. If I'm going to be asked to get upset, I'd prefer it was over something that was, you know, actually a big problem that effects a lot of the world at large as opposed to, say, a hundred people on the internet.

But that's just me.


( A lot of less heavy and unimportant stuff about Project Runway, Taylor Swift, Fox News, fic recs, otters, Merlin, Glee, dogs, pumpkin carving, rallies, and Bones DVDs. In that order. )

Man, I should... start looking into posting shorter entries more often. The problem is that I can go, like, a week and a half with nothing to say, and then all at once I have about TEN BILLION THINGS TO GET OUT. Like right now. I'm sorry. I just have so many ~thoughts and feelings~.

You know what's really tiring and irksome? When people complain about you on the internet/use something you said to start an internet fight/hatefest, only instead of actually saying "what you said/did bothered me", they just... go do it somewhere else instead of addressing the problem to you. It is doubly worse if you don't know the person or have never actually spoken to them in your life, and then wham! There they are! Complaining!

I'm used to this happening on the Mean Meme, because that is what the Mean Meme exists for. Mostly, when they do it, it amuses me more than anything else. But this week it happened on some articles I wrote, and on some people's livejournals, and it's really getting old. I could understand if I was some sort of big deal, people would go complain elsewhere instead of saying "yo, what you're doing is whack". Like, if someone wrote a nationally syndicated column or made a post on a Big Deal Blog like Gawker or something in which they said something douchey, I wouldn't leave a comment there because would never read it/care. But seriously, me? I now fall in the "it's not worth leaving a comment" category? People can't talk to me? I talk about gay dudes and write fake come-ons by Thomas Aquinas and blabber about my gerbil. I am an extremely un-influential, super-boring person. I am not a big deal at all. I'm a very little deal. I'm still not sure when I even entered into deal-dom.

Sigh. Instead of discussing this, let's discuss two people who aren't tiring/irksome and are actually a big deal. At least, to me:

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THEIR FACES. HOW DO THEY MANAGE TO BE MORE DELIGHTFUL EVERY WEEK? I love all the gratuitous Colin's Profile Porn we get (I have this thing for Colin's profile. Namely: it is the most freakishly beautiful profile to ever exist ever. I feel it should be exploited and used more often. Or perhaps put on a coin, since that's where the profile of awesome people goes.), I love how cute and giggly they are with each other (and that Colin's response to Bradley going "I'll give you a hint - RAAAAAAAR" was not "a dying crow?" because that would have been my guess), and I continue to be enamored with the fact that there is a very special smile Colin uses on Bradley that he doesn't use with anyone else. At one point, I should probably go around gathering actual proof so I sound less like a crazy person, but there's this smile, I swear, okay. He only smiles part-way, so just the tops of his top teeth are showing, and his eyes don't go into full-on crinkle mode, but do jusssst at the edges and it's so fond I can't stand it. I SWEAR I AM NOT CRAZY AND THIS EXISTS, OKAY. I have asked for confirmation from people who don't even ship these two and they've gone HOLY SHIT YOU ARE RIGHT. It's entirely possible they were humoring me, but it totally is there! I'm not kidding! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT OKAY.

But regardless, I LOVE THEIR FACES AND THEIR BFF-NESS (SLASH POSSIBLY MORE) AND EVERYTHING THEY CHOOSE TO BE. THE END.

( ALSO I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ON THIS WEEK'S MERLIN. )

Edit: This entry was supposed to go up late this afternoon, but my homework ended up taking way longer than it was supposed to, and on top of that, the gerbil had a stroke.

Gerbils are generally pretty healthy, hardy little creatures, but once they get older, they are prone to having strokes. As Tess is nearly three, she's quite elderly for a gerbil. She'd been oddly sleepy all day (especially considering that she was manic this weekend - jumping for eight hours straight and refusing to be calmed), but I figured she was just making up for being crazy for the last few days. I started to worry around eight-ish, and when I went to touch her to wake her, she was ice cold and shaking uncontrollably. And when she uncurled and tried to walk away, she could barely coordinate her paws, and ended up bumbling and swaying around the cage, knocking into the sides. (Actually, if she was perfectly fine otherwise, I would have assumed she was drunk, and it would have been kind of cute.) I immediately picked her up and started bawling, which made my dad, who was the only one home with me, feel very awkward and uncomfortable, since he's always been of the opinion that it's weird to keep a rodent in the house and feed it on purpose, and shouldn't he go release it at the park for the owls to eat like he does with the mice in our basement? After I collected myself, I immediately swaddled the gerbil up in an old flannel sheet and looked up the symptoms. And let's just say, it's a good thing I checked in on her when I did.

Just like when humans have strokes, not all gerbil strokes are created equal. When a gerbil has a stroke, one of four things can happen:

1. It kills the gerbil immediately.
2. The gerbil becomes paralyzed/incapacitated and has to be put down for humane reasons.
3. The gerbil suffers subsequent strokes and, after being already compromised, dies.
4. The gerbil has a rough patch and eventually is fine.

After calling around to the vet (yes, she has a vet, she had conjunctivitis when she was little, which got so bad mostly because I felt like an idiot getting a vet for a gerbil. I relented when I started having to open her eyes for her and wipe out the pink goop at least once a day), and then the veterinary hospital (the vet was closed), and then the breeder (because the hospital said I should bring her in for diagnostics and bloodwork, and all I could think was "she just had a stroke, you want me to give her a heart attack by stressing her out that much? Also, she's a gerbil"), a few things became clear. One, the gerbil, in all likelihood, was going to be okay. Normally the strokes come in rapid succession, and the more hours she went without one the better. Two, the hospital would be useless. They could tell me exactly what type of stroke she had, but there isn't any medicine they could give her to make her better. Because, even though I act like she's not, she's a gerbil, it's not like gerbil neurological conditions are a lucrative market. Three, she had warmed up considerably, was very vocal when she didn't like how I had wrapped her, and ate a banana slice like she was starving and then gulped down a ton of water, all of which were signs of a healthy, recovering little beastie, before napping under the blanket I keep over my lap, curled up like a doormouse. She'll have to be watched closely for the next couple of days, and at night I'll be moving the cage up to my room, because it's warmer and there's a lamp I can put on her to keep her warm. But she's up and about and running around like almost-normal (she still occasionally wobbles).

So it's looking like, in conclusion, Little Miss Thang will be back to her sassy-ass self in no time. (She has already sassed me at least twice tonight.) I am extremely grateful to everyone who saw my frantic OMGWTF MY GERBIL HAD A STROKE BRB HAVING AN EMOTIONAL MELTDOWN tweet and responded so kindly, and to everyone who e-mailed me, and to all the love sent my way. On behalf of both myself and Her Majesty The Most Over-Loved Rodent in the Universe, thank you. We might have been able to do this without you, but it sure would have sucked a whole lot more.

So, picspammy is currently running a "Favorite Characters" challenge and when I saw that, you know i can only mean one person. That's right. The lady in my life. The light of my existence. She who I aspire to be on a daily basis. Elizabeth Lemon.

( ...and I'm lying. I had five donuts today. )

( My election day in ridiculous, pictoral depth. )

Edit: So obviously, Not everything went well this election. I mean, I'm cool with everything, really, except the gay marriage bans (and gay adoption ban, what the fuck Arkansas? Incest is legal in your state but HEAVEN FORBID gay people adopt a child? Fuck you.) The only reasons I'm not totally livid is because a) I don't live in those states and can't do anything about it, b) I am trying to be understanding, here (and if you are having issues, I suggest you read this) and c) at least in California, it's legality is already being challenged. Plus, Ah-nuld was really against it and said if it came across his desk he'd veto it. So yeah, for once, I'm glad that the government is ignoring the people. When it comes to granting civil rights, I'd like them to please ignore the crazy people more often. Thanks.