MAD Pride Toronto // some fannish things
If you're in Toronto and have some free time in the afternoons and evenings this week, may I recommend that you take a look at MAD Pride Toronto? According to their website, "Mad Pride is an arts, culture, and heritage festival created by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, folks the world has labelled 'mentally ill', and those in solidarity with us."
Today was Day 1 of MAD Pride and the first event, held at Ryerson University, was a four-person panel looking into the "schizophrenia" label. Two panelists were doctors in the field, one panelist was someone recovering from schizophrenia (who had a really interesting take on whether it's possible to "get better" from schizophrenia) and the last panelist had a brother who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I really wished the panel had gone more in depth regarding how schizophrenia is inadequate as a medical diagnosis, but they only had three hours (plus intermission) and there seemed to be a concerted effort to give as much time to the panelists with personal experiences as to the doctors with facts and figures. In any case, it was an interesting session and I'm glad I went.
The MAD Pride Parade is this Saturday! Which I don't plan to attend but, hey, if you're downtown, there's a parade. Also? The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is this weekend. There will be an estimated 15,000 people at the ACC. Yeaaah, I'm gonna stay home where there are no people...
Other things:
How is everyone else doing? Anyone melted from the heat yet? *g*
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Today was Day 1 of MAD Pride and the first event, held at Ryerson University, was a four-person panel looking into the "schizophrenia" label. Two panelists were doctors in the field, one panelist was someone recovering from schizophrenia (who had a really interesting take on whether it's possible to "get better" from schizophrenia) and the last panelist had a brother who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
I really wished the panel had gone more in depth regarding how schizophrenia is inadequate as a medical diagnosis, but they only had three hours (plus intermission) and there seemed to be a concerted effort to give as much time to the panelists with personal experiences as to the doctors with facts and figures. In any case, it was an interesting session and I'm glad I went.
The MAD Pride Parade is this Saturday! Which I don't plan to attend but, hey, if you're downtown, there's a parade. Also? The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is this weekend. There will be an estimated 15,000 people at the ACC. Yeaaah, I'm gonna stay home where there are no people...
Other things:
- Stargate fandom, I have abandoned youuuuu! It's so sad, Stargate has been my primary fandom for so many years. And yet. AND YET. Maybe one day I will! At the moment I'm all ficced out.
But gaffsie just posted that Sunday's character love post was Colonel Sumner, so I felt compelled to write a little comment. Oh, Sumner! I love you and Bates and all the stoic, lawful good, antagonistic, non-villain minor characters in all the fandoms! :D
- ALL AVENGERS, ALL THE TIME. I've been multi-shipping all over the place. My primary pairing is still Steve/Tony, but Bruce/Tony is a very, very close second. I'm even reading Bruce/Tony/Pepper because the adorable sexiness--or sexy adorableness?--is completely off the charts.
Natasha/Steve hasn't quite beat out Darcy/Steve as my favourite Steve het pairing, but it's a close second. I enjoy Steve/Thor for the novelty, but don't actually buy them as a pairing. Mostly because I actually like Thor/Jane. (Why, why, why isn't there more Thor/Jane fic?? I blame Loki.)
I've read some Natasha/Clint--and Natasha+Clint, because the gen/het divide for those two is ridiculously permeable. I'm not reading as much Darcy/Clint, possibly because I haven't seen any good ones lately. Clint/Coulson continues to not be my thing. I dunno, I can read post-movie reaction fics that are gen, but I just can't wrap my head around these two as a romantic pairing.
What I really want is more Fury: Fury+Tony (and Fury/Tony), Fury+Steve, Fury+Natasha+Clint, Fury+Hill+Coulson, Fury+military+politics. (Speaking of stoic, antagonistic non-villain minor characters... Fury's not really "lawful good", though. Or a "minor" character, necessarily.)
Bruce/Darcy seems to be a thing, an emerging thing. I approve on principle, but haven't read enough to comment.
Loki... is not relevant to my interests. I can't even read Thor/Loki for the porn, that's how not relevant he is.
- Movies: I still haven't seen Spider-Man yet, but I've now seen Snow White and the Huntsman. Gorgeous, gorgeous, and I don't just mean Charlize. But, hmm. This movie never quite came together. The ingredients were there to produce something spectacular, but if AO3 is any indicator, this movie is never going to be a cult hit or win awards for writing. There just wasn't enough face-time between the romantic leads, not enough face-time between hero and villain, and it meandered through some terrific ideas--LOVED the scarred women, btw--but never came together as a coherent whole.
The director needed a damn beta. At least I suspect it was the director's fault, because I saw an article in which the screen writer lamented the loss of the teacher/mentor relationship between the Huntsman and Snow White. When I read that, I figured there was more romance and less teacher/student interaction, but no! What he meant was that there was less interaction, period! There really, really needed to be more build-up between Snow White and the Huntsman, a training montage or something, and fewer attempts to mimic Lord of the Rings.
OTOH, Brave. ♥ Merida is so awesome! I love love love her relationship with her mom. THIS is the kind of hero's journey I can get behind. Rather than casting off family, leaving home to forge a new, independent, "rebel with a cause" path in which parents and traditions are cast off as irrelevant and millstones around necks1, Brave is about finding oneself through our relationships with the most important people in our lives, about seeing how we are similar rather than how we are different.
I apologise for dragging the male-dominated Avengers into a discussion of female-dominated Brave, but this is the reason I feel the relationship between MCU!Howard and Tony could have been--is--much healthier and more open to hopeful reconciliation (even if it's just in Tony's heart) than comics!Tony and Howard. Like with Merida and Elinor, even though there's miscommunication and misunderstanding, selfishness and stubbornness, there's also good intention and no maliciousness. I mean, it's not hard to see why parents and children get caught in these patterns of behaviour that only increase emotional distance. But that distance can be overcome. Even if it takes magic cakes, or maybe time travel! Or just, you know, for kids to grow up and recognise that their parents are regular people too, and for parents to recognise that their kids aren't kids any more.
1 Though sometimes parents ARE abusive and it's healthier to just get the hell out.
- I have been eating a lot of Yogen Früz lately. It's delicious, but quickly becoming an expensive habit!
How is everyone else doing? Anyone melted from the heat yet? *g*
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