Last month I said that I'd give anyone who correctly guessed the fic I wrote for H/D holidays a reward: they could pick between a drabble of any fandom of their choice, or ask me 5 questions about any of my fics.

Then the guessing started and everything got messy because all the people who guessed correctly were like "but i don't want to officially guess" and some of them I don't know so I couldn't be like "no it's okay!" and some of them guessed but already had hints so it didn't really count, and basically the whole thing was a wash and I am having trouble enforcing this reward system.

So let's just say, for my own personal edification, that this is a QUERY OR FIC post for all comers:

you can either ask me 5 questions about any of my fics, or prompt me for 100 words in the fandom/pairing of your choice.

(if i don't know the fandom i'll look at you funny, but feel free to try me anyway.)

I had this post, what, I don't even know what I was going to talk about five seconds ago because just right now at this second all I want to talk about is

( this picture of katy allen )


eta: Since Sophie says I have odd taste in girls, here is the brief run-down of my trio of faithful celeb girl crushes:

- Angelina Jolie, who turned me not-straight and who to this day compels me to see every one of her never-ending string of shitty action movies
- Chloe Sevigny, still queen of my pseudo-lesbian heart, and oh god maybe this is finally the year i will put aside my teeth-clenching and watch Big Love
- Halle Berry, the most beautiful person alive
- Emily Blunt. Just. Emily Blunt *_____*

Does Katy really count as a celebrity? omg Katy, Susan Downey, maybe my new fandom is actually hot celebrity wives. I can get behind this.

(apologies to anyone tracking this journal--this is the last attempt to post this, I promise!)

Sam asked me to record this song like a year ago, and then asked me again Friday, so yesterday I did. A couple of people requested that I share, so here you go.

This is the first time I've done one of these with music (\o/). I'm pretty happy about this, because I haven't really successfully been able to play anything by ear since I was about 6 years old. The moment I started learning to read music, I lost the ability, which is something I've regretted my entire life. But since I got my keyboard (her name is Maayha, an anagram of Yamaha, I'm so clever!) I have been trying to play by ear more so I can rediscover the knack (only, like, now i know basic music theory, haha, so it's blessedly easier than I expected). And even though this is just I-IV-vi-IV-V-I ad nauseum, the fact that I actually played it all the way through without falling apart or messing up too much is amazing to me, lol you guys don't even know.

Anyway. Agh my singing is so rusty, why am I not singing regularly, what is wrong with me, why am i throwing away my best talent? ALWAYS GONNA BE ANOTHER MOUNTAIN, SELF!!!!



(that white space is supposed to be an embedded object tag. looks like it's not showing up for everybody, so here is the download link if anyone wants it!)

So, I thought to myself: Self, you should post about LEA SALONGA, because she is your hero and she makes you happy, and she is the best singer in the entire world!


==> LEA SALONGA <==
(omg you guys, she wants us to know that we are ALWAYS WELCOME to come visit her website, she is the best best best.)



( I've known you all my life, you are a friend of mine. )

SO, TO RECAP:
- She had her own talk show before she was twelve.
- She is the only Filipino actor to win Tony, Drama Desk, Olivier, Theatre World and Outer Critics Circle Awards.
- She is the first Asian to play Eponine in the musical Les Misérables on broadway
- She's the winner of FIVE Filipino Music Awards, 4 Best Female Vocal Albums of the Year and 1 Best Vocal Performance of the Year.
- She is only the third Filipino artist in history to perform at Carnegie Hall
- Her first column for the Philippine Inquirer was devoted to her TOP TEN FAVORITE VIDEO GAMES OF ALL TIME.

SHE IS AMAZING.

I will leave you with this - my all-time favorite Lea performance:


♥ LEA SALONGA, EVERYONE. ♥

( ENCORE? )

*Best Picture 2010 nominations list*
- Avatar <-- racist, imperialist white liberal guilt fantasy (everyone, native peoples, mountains, animals, trees and tree-nerve-endings, get exploited by white people, awesome!!)

- The Blind Side <-- i haven't seen this, but true story notwithstanding the trailer just me cringe. It really, really seemed like a smug white liberal guilt fantasy to me. Would those who have seen it agree, or no? eta: really interesting thread about the complications of the blind side v/s the original book.

- District 9 <-- I LOATHE THIS MOVIE. I saw it, opening night, in a theatre literally surrounded by 20-something fanboys creaming themselves in glee, while I cringed, winced, gritted my teeth in rage at the, raise your hand if you saw this coming, white liberal guilt fantasy at work disguised as yet another racist smug pretentious violent white-guy "the enemy is us" "oh no, war is bad! violence is bad! let's impress this somber point upon you with lots of cool explosions and flying body parts!" piece of CRAP war movie you've seen 80000 times before. Or, as my friend's friend said, "People keep making District 9 out to be about apartheid and it's totally not. It's just a fucking cool sci-fi movie. Shit blows up, it's awesome." MY RAGE. eta: salient arguments about what this movie did/did not do successfully being raised in comments. eta: omg yeats made an awesome defense/critique of D9 and there are great points both for/against this movie both in post and comments! \o/

- An Education <-- ok i know nothing about this one.

- The Hurt Locker <-- or this one, although from everything i've heard, it seems like a smug pretentious violent white-guy "the enemy is us" war movie you've seen 80000 times before. (eta: Hurt Locker has a female director; in my (woefully uninformed) opinion, having a female director doesn't mean that it's not implicitly a male narrative.)

- Inglourious Basterds <-- thank goodness this film is.... another smug pretentious violent white-guy "the enemy is us" "oh no, war is bad! violence is bad! let's impress this somber point upon you with lots of cool explosions and flying body parts!" war movie you've seen 80000 times before. eta: some great defenses of this film (esp. its female protag) in comments, and discussion of it as Jewish revenge fantasy.

- Precious <-- ...wow. how did a film this gutsy and honest wind up in this trashcan full of garbage? (eta: a number of people have said they are wary of placing this film in the "totally non-problematic" arena and I am as well; however I still think this film's voice was one of the more important ones we heard this year.) (son of eta: article summing up Ishmael Reed's take on why Precious' portrayal of black men and whites is problematic.)

- A Serious Man <-- ok i know nothing about this one. (eta: and i *love* the Coens but... they pretty much stick to boy stories. Which is not a problem 100% of the time! but, again, this list is full of boy stories.)

- Up <-- ...i love this film. i love so, so much about it and saw it repeatedly in theatres. but it is completely, start to finish, a 100% non-diverse (eta: apparently Russell is Asian-American? I DID NOT KNOW THIS) boy's movie, about boy quests and boy dreams. or, though it pains me to admit it, Pixar, you have a gender problem.

- Up in the Air <-- i started to see this film tonight. half an hour in, the main character had insulted and smugly corrected a spunky young female corporate n00b, because we all know we love watching spunky girls get told. He also advises her to "stereotype, it saves time." And then just when I thought it might actually pass the Bechdel test, we not only had 2 girls talking about men, but the line, "I don't want to be anti-feminist, I mean, I appreciate what your generation did for us, but sometimes I wonder what's the point of it all if I don't have a man?" - at which point i walked out and just went to see sherlock holmes for the zillionth time again instead.^* GOOD JOB, MALE SCREENWRITERS.
eta: re Up in the Air, It looks like I apparently really stopped watching too soon to characterize this film; I reserve the right to walk out of a theatre if a film twigs my three-strikes-and-you're-out gut feeling; but I may give this one another try, if only because Starla is using her "god you are so uncool" icons at me.

And this is the result of teaching film students to ignore the bechdel test. A star-studded lineup reitering the SAME FALSE HOLLOW FEEL-GOOD CRAP about violence, war, power dynamics, and WHITE GUYS. I just want something different. As I said to Eddy six months ago, I'm just so sick of seeing the same rehashed themes for white guys, over and over and over again in film. blaaaah I just want something totally brand new!!!! And I think it's probably obvious which outsider longshot I want to win the Oscars this year.

What about those films up there I haven't seen? Or even better yet, what about the ones I have? LET'S TALK. OR RANT PLAYFULLY. OR DEBATE. I'm probably overlooking good, important points in the films above, so please, if you love one of these films, feel free to say so. These things are complicated and that's why they're worth talking about. ;)

(but my replies may be a while, it's rly late here, bedtime!)

____
* also, for the record, for all i love and adore the new sherlock holmes, it bears repeating that it is yet another white guy film. it is racist (minorities are either bad guy thugs fighting holmes and getting bested by watson's bullets, or else non-existent), ableist (dwarf jokes? really?), misogynist (oh, irene), and homophobic. i love it for what it does right despite all these things, and for the fact that it's never made me wince or cringe in rage as often as most of the films on this list have in the last year.
_____

tl;dr version of this post: NEEDS MOAR

(not that Whip It doesn't have its own share of problematic elements, but it does have girl power? meep?)

Whip It
I've been trying to organize stuff for a pimp post of this movie for 2 weeks, and I don't have the energy/time to compile it all into one smooth looking post. I want to to talk about a lot of different things because I think it's an important movie and I love everything about it.

But don't just take my word for it:

I never thought a simple sentence could change my life so drastically.

“I’m bored, lets go do something tonight.”

My husband said this to me the end of September 2009. “Ok what do you want to do?” I asked him. We decided to see a movie. “Oh hey there’s a sneak preview of that new movie Drew Barrymore directed, whatcha think?"

So we went. And I was AMAZED. I know now that a LOT of it is glossed over, and thats just Hollywood. But as I was sitting there in that theater, I fell in love with Roller Derby. When I got home from the theater I got right on my laptop to go check out the site for the movie.

Oh. My. God. There’s a roller derby team HERE!!!!

I couldn’t believe it. My parents met at Haygood Skating Rink, and my mom’s house is literally less than a mile from there. I used to skate there as a kid with my dad.

When the movie came out officially the next weekend, my husband and I went to see it again. I was dying to go to the “Boot Camp” that was that weekend, but I talked to my husband and I decided to wait a month. We would go to Open Skate and I would get back into skating-and shape. As a kid, I spent a year in a wheel chair because of some physical health problems and it was a big concern that my husband and I discussed til we were blue in the face. But he knew that when I decided something, that was it.

We actually cut our vacation short so that I could attend Boot Camp the first weekend of November. I ground my teeth every time I fell during time trials, told myself “pain is weakness leaving the body” and kept going. Bam Bam got up and skated with me the last 5 laps or so, and I was the last one to finish. By the end of that 3 hours, I felt like I was going to die. My husband picked me up and took me home, where I stayed on the couch the rest of the day.

But it felt good. I wasn’t anywhere near as good as some of the girls in my boot camp group, but I had done my best.

Now, about 2 1/2 months later, I look back and realize just how far I really have come. I still fall, even hard enough to break my wrist guard plate once, but I fall the right way (which Frank is quick to point out, if for no other reason than to make me feel better). I notice small things that I couldn’t even come close to doing even a few weeks ago! I struggled with crossovers, until a pair of friendly referees helped me out. I couldn’t T-Stop for the longest time, and then found myself randomly doing it (after many MANY faceplants). Like I said, I still fall *even when I’m standing still sometimes!* but I see women who have been doing this for years fall and yea, I feel just a little bit better.

the Dominion Derby Girls, October2009 Exhibition match

Yay! It's time for another round of what seems to be rapidly becoming a weekend tradition: sitting at home drinking wine, watching Sherlock Holmes, and playing around on the internet!

1. So it's like. Snowpocalypse all over the Southeast, apparently, and the gov. of VA has apparently already declared a state of emergency even though there is NO SNOW ON THE GROUND YET anywhere, lol, but supposedly it's coming zomg.

Thus, I have done the proper thing, and gone grocery shopping. Yes! I have gotten provisions. If I'm to be snowed in (and trust me, I'll believe it only when I see it) then I want to be well-stocked. So I have got things like chips and salsa, and lunchables, and ice cream!


2. I did one of my two Tarot readings last night for help_haiti and it was fun! I think I honestly enjoy doing readings for other people more than I enjoy doing them for myself. Sooo.... first 7 commenters to this post: ask me a question and I'll do a mini-reading, single card, for you!


3. Earlier this week I wrote syllic (I WON HER SHE IS MINE YAY :D) regarding the epic sherlock holmes fic i want her to write for me. I wound up babbling (she told me to!!!!) about holmes/watson, and it was fun. Specifically:
- It seems very evident to me, watching the two of them interact, that to both RDJ and his character, Sherlock Holmes, Holmes & Watson's love has an extremely sexualized component, while quite plainly to both Jude Law and his character, their relationship is platonic.  Idk, flisters, would you agree? I feel like their (many, many) interviews across the board are consistent, though there is one interview (when he's ALONE, which is, perhaps, significant?!) where Jude Law says something like "why do we have to call it a bromance, why can't we just call it a romance?" so maybe he is enthusiastically ambivalent on the subject??? 

- I also think it's really significant that, compared to the original canon, Jude Law's Watson is decidedly less the starstruck fanboy we traditionally see in him, and more the put-upon Oscar to Sherlock's Felix. But Downey's Sherlock basically wears his heart on his sleeve for Watson the WHOLE TIME, I mean come on. (I was telling Franzi this morning that I have great hopes that in all seriousness, they'll do a trilogy, in which the second film ends with Downey's Holmes passionately, desperately kissing Watson before he goes off to the falls to face Moriarty. Could you not totally see that? I could totally see that happening. And of course I want her to get her fake death reunion scene on screen, complete with snogging, in the third movie. TALK TO ME GUY RITCHIE I HAVE IT ALL PLANNED OUT.)

- but... re Sherlock's one-sided love..... Watson (Jude Law's Watson) has to know on some level that all that love is for him. So is Watson just stubbornly resisting this? Is he honestly that clueless/blind to what's there? Is he legitimately straight, closeted, or so repressed that he doesn't share Sherlock's feelings, or is he completely terrified of allowing himself to feel anything in response? OR maybe Watson is the all-too-aware one and Sherlock is completely clueless about his own heart, and Watson, with all the difficulty of someone who enjoys watching things be difficult for Sherlock Holmes, is determined not to make it any easier on him, and maybe all the frustration and aggravation that he bears in the film is a product of having waited so long for Sherlock to figure it out that he's finally said ENOUGH ALREADYand that's why he's trying to cut ties and move on?

(Again, that would be RDJ's OWN THEORY, oh my god, that "Watson's not pulling away, he's falling in love," jesus christ how is that a direct quote, how did they not make out in this movie, i think RDJ made a different movie than everyone else did and that's why his interviews are always like "LET ME TELL YOU HOW SHERLOCK AND WATSON ARE FUCKING! :D" and JLaw is always just like *facepalm*. No seriously it would explain so much.)

But what are your theories on all this, people? Is Watson just fronting or is he really just a straight fanboy destined to break Holmes's heart?