I have a lot of experience identifying and tearing down fiction tropes as applied to relationships. Basically the entire year I was 17 consisted of various aspects of figuring out how my own behavior was affected by fictional depictions of human interaction and then figuring out ways to address that. It was important psychological work and I'm very ( Read more... )

I want to talk about a mid-'90s sci-fi TV show called "Space: Above and Beyond." A few people on the internet seem to think it was amazing. I watched a couple of episodes, and I might just be spoiled by recent sci-fi shows, but I thought it was awful. The writing was terrible, the acting was horrific, the storylines were cliche, and the characters ( Read more... )

me: "Uuuugh, I can't come up with a good fancast for Shitty ( Read more... )

( TW: not about weight loss but tangentially related )

I used to like a certain amount of confusion in my pleasure reading. I think particularly in my early teens, I was very committed to the idea that understanding things is not necessary to appreciate them. This probably stemmed in part from my emerging philosophical stance on natural phenomena--I was very active in a Unitarian Universalist church at ( Read more... )

I brought this up at the feedback panel at Bitchin' Party, because it's something I'd been wondering about for a while, and the impromptu survey of panel attendees confirmed my suspicions.

"I normally dislike [category], but I really enjoyed [work being commented on, which belongs to said category]."The most enthusiastic and the most hostile ( Read more... )

No, actually, you know the most valuable life skill I've learned from fandom? I talk a lot about this, about how fandom has helped me in academia and taught me about sex and got me to figure out the right answer to a trivia question about set theory one time and a whole bunch of other stuff. But I just realized something else, and I think it might ( Read more... )

I love Welcome To Night Vale. Every time there's a new episode, after we turn off the lights to go to bed, the boything and I listen to it in the dark together. I heard there's a novel in the works, and I'm sure I'll like it, but I don't think it could possibly be as good as the podcast. The combination of Cecil's deep, hypnotizing voice and the ( Read more... )

My first tattoo, whenever I'm in a financial position to feel comfortable blowing money on one, will be the word "subjunctive" in Courier New on my inner wrist. There's a reason for the inner wrist, and there's a reason for the Courier New, but it's the reason for the word I want to talk about. (Well, part of the reason. There's also a girl I once ( Read more... )

I don't know who made this poll or why, but I filled it out and then looked through the results, and the question "Why do you follow the team(s) you follow?" has some great answers. Here are some of my favorites (some full, some just excerpts):

I have no explanation for the Oilers. The heart wants what it wants ( Read more... )