horchata

First up, let me put this out there: The Ghost at the Back of Your Closet (Social Network, Mark/Eduardo) was written for me, this Yuletide. I fully intend to write me some hefty NYRs this year; I have got to pay it forward since I received such a lovely gift.

The thing I love most about this fic is how even though it's not Sorkinesque dialogue, it's real between Mark and Eduardo. I believed it, that they could be having these conversations, that they would want to talk to each other again in this way, with these speech patterns. I'm amused that in TSN fandom it's almost always Mark that starts it, and almost always with a text message. In this fic, it's Eduardo who sold it to me (but that's why we need Eduardo, for the emotional sell). Have an excerpt:

"You can't just do that," Eduardo says, in lieu of a greeting. It's the first time Mark has heard his voice since the depositions ended, and he sounds about the same as he did then: tired and agitated all at once, frustrated instead of angry. "You can't text people you haven't spoken to in five years in the middle of the night and ask them if they used to be in love with you."

Wha-BAM. Sold. Go read it, and enjoy.

In other related news, this has been the Christmas of Jesse Eisenberg. The movie on my flight home was Social Network (and if you haven't yet seen this movie on the big screen, I would recommend it, because the acting is so subtle, it just doesn't come across on the small screen with that kind of emotionally-invested impact you'll get from watching every twitch of every facial muscle when said actor's face is as big as a small car). Then, I proceeded to watch Zombieland. Over and over. I think I'm on my third run-through. Adventureland is in the queue. I will probably have ~thoughts and feelings~ about this experience, if I manage to articulate them. A lot of them will probably be related to Mr. Eisenberg's stupid, adorable face.

Just watched Never Let Me Go (thank you, stepliana) and I am all broken and sad inside. The story is full of aches of the heart, and Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield have stolen me. Carey Mulligan is amazing. Breathless. I really want to watch An Education, now, to watch her act again.

What's more is that in a weird way this movie has made me want to read books again. I was an English major in college, and after a while I lost my passion for reading. I suppose I might've lost is earlier, when I started becoming seriously clinically depressed in high school, but I noticed it palpably in college, when I was reading these books for class and not really keeping up any kind of private literary life. The last book I read for pleasure was not even really a book, it was Maus, and although I enjoyed myself, it didn't really speak to me. Before that was the first of the Hunger Games trilogy. In an aborted attempt to rekindle my reading passions I picked up a bunch of books from Baltimore's amazing free Book Thing, but haven't touched them. Now I really want to read Ishiguro's 2005 original.

It feels good, wanting to pick up and read books again. I haven't had that hunger in a long time.

The one thing I love about watching The Good Wife is how soft-spoken everyone is. Television can be very hard for me to watch, because everyone shouts at each other, which is very much what my job is like. This show has people who speak so calmly to each other. It is wonderful and relaxing.

These are so much fun:

Ask me my Top Five Whatevers. Fannish or not fannish or whatever. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them in a new post (or in comments). Possibly with pictures!

I mean it, you guys! I wanna do this one so bad. Top Five Anythings, please!


( Today was a really big day! )

I, personally, always wanted some Viola/Olivia, where Olivia is completely in on the game and loving every moment of play. Mmm, yes.

I sound like Fight Club?

yuletide List for 2010:

1) A Very Potter Musical because OH MY ROWLING THERE IS GOING TO BE A SEQUEL, AND IT IS GOING TO BE IN JULY OF THIS YEAR HOLY CRAP HOW AWESOME (TOTALLY AWESOME)

2) ...

Okay, that's all I've got. I suppose you can tell what I've just finished watching, though. :DDDDDDD I have been singing "Granger Danger" for the last five days and I feel no remorse. Nothing like a fan-made musical to really bring out the :D-face.

But, seriously. Where is the fanfiction? Someone must have written some, and my Google-fu is failing me.

Hey! Hey, you! There's a DW equivalent for Ladyfest 2010, now, so join in! Many thanks to parentheses. So far I've written a Britta ficlet (tell me how it is!), and I've got my grubby hands on a couple at the LJ post, and it's a lot a lot of fun. I definitely haven't written about women enough in my fannish career, and I am happy to stretch out my unused writing muscles while doing so now. GO, LADIES. \o/

And you! Go write!

C&P'ing this information from copperbadge, because he has words left to speak with and I am so disgusted that I do not. I know I've plastered this information everywhere but here, so here it is.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: FGM, intersex erasure

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4730&blogid=140

At CORNELL UNIVERSITY -- a doctor is performing female genital mutilation on five year old girls because their clitorises are "too big" and then, as a follow up, sexually stimulating those six year old girls to find out if they're still responsive after he cut a piece of their genitals off.

If you've read the above story, or seen rm's post on why this is not just about mutilating little children but also about homophobia and misogyny, and you're angry, here are some concrete actions you can take:

Write about your outrage and send it to Weill Cornell: http://weill.cornell.edu/visitors/contact-us.html
Or to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, ORIA at med.cornell.edu, (646) 962-8200
Or to the Dean of the hospital, Antony M. Gotto Jr, dean at med.cornell.edu
Or to the college's general address: Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065.

So I have spent the last couple days reading Harry Potter fic, and swimming around in the fandom and the mood that the fandom gives me. I still cannot believe that the fandom was buzzing around 2003, and that was, like, seven years ago, that just blows my mind. I was really only tangentially into the fandom at the time, hanging around places like The Sugar Qull before it was a huge repository of lots of fic, like when it was just a golden html background with really primitive gifs. And, anyway, the part of fandom I never really found was the Harry/Draco part of fandom. In the past couple days, thanks to a post that bookshop made about Draco, I've read a crapload of really good fic, and I think I'll make a recs post in a few days, but the one fic I really want to talk about while we're here is the Sacrifices Arc a.k.a., the Connor Potter stories.

( Spoilery! I mean, if you can count something written in 2007 not too old to be spoiled. DISCUSSION AND FLAILING AHEAD. )