sundries, nighttime linkspam edition

[rm]

How not to come out: announcing your bisexuality? Good. Saying the lyrics to your song could be about 'a boy, girl, tranny, whatever'? Tacky. At best.

Best C&D ever: The National Pork Board is concerned with the marketing practices of unicorn meat.

London has pterosaurs!

Need another reason to think BP is evil? They are burning turtles and actively working to stop people rescuing them.

The Family & Medical Leave Act will now apply to same-sex partners and their children. Thank fuck.

Why is Doctor Who the best show? Let the venn diagram show you.

Some asshole shot a goose in a public park here with a crossbow. But the goose is okay now, although he's been named Target.

On Angel: "Supersymmetry." Out of the clear blue sky Fred and Wesley are vengance buddies, Lillah's jealous and hey, Connor, you're a creepazoid. Gunn will surely hate and blame Fred for this fuckery forever and they are now doomed. I'd know that even if Gunn hadn't said as much. Also, yum, misogyny in academia.

Comments

[dkompare.livejournal.com]

That Doctor Who venn diagram just made my day. I must have the t-shirt...

Thanks!

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

Things I know: Doctor Who is the best show ever, and everything is better with venn diagrams.

On Angel: "Supersymmetry." Out of the clear blue sky Fred and Wesley are vengance buddies, Lilah's jealous and hey, Connor, you're a creepazoid. Gunn will surely hate and blame Fred for this fuckery forever and they are now doomed. I'd know that even if Gunn hadn't said as much. Also, yum, misogyny in academia.
I had this vague idea of saying something insightful about this episode, but you've pretty much summed it up. So yeah, all of this.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

You have all of the best links, every time. I'm constantly reposting the links that you post on facebook...

Thank you for finding this stuff so that I don't have to... ;)

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Who the hell is Vanessa Carlton?

best known for her 2002 hit "A Thousand Miles"

Well, alright then.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have no idea either, I just saw the headline, clicked on it because I was like "who?" and then was like "fail!"

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yay pterosaurs! (My mind went first of all to TW, as I'm sure yours did.)

All sorts of DO NOT WANT on the turtles. I can see why they might need to do controlled burns, but if there are endangered species in the way it's rather a good idea to get them *out* of there...!

Thank goodness re: FMLA!

So true about the Venn diagram. (I seem to recall old-school BSG had a time-travel subplot, but it wasn't a time-travel show as such.)

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

The Cease & Desist letter from the National Pork Board reminds me of something that happened to a friend many years ago. Said friend had made a gag webpage proclaiming that he was "The Association for the Study of Meats." They also kept joking around about getting a website that that had org.asm in the address. Anyhow, the website had a picture of a can of spam at the top of the page. Eventually, they got a cease and desist letter from Hormel, the makers of spam, over the use of the picture. I'm told that my friend toyed around with Hormel by writing a couple of tongue-and-cheek letters back to them before pulling the picture.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Saying the lyrics to your song could be about 'a boy, girl, tranny, whatever'? Tacky. At best.

I've spent the last week reflecting on "tranny." Well, gnawing at it more like. It's one of those words that I see people in the larger LGBTQ community use and toss about like "fag" and "dyke," regardless of the individual's status. I know people under the trans umbrella who use it, who are okay with it being used. I've used the term "trannyfag" as a self-identifier in the past (though less so now because it wasn't quite right, and because I got squeamish about the connotations).

I'm a huge proponent of reclaiming, and of groups of people being able to describe themselves. I know that language changes. For the life of me, though, I just don't know where the boundaries are with this one. I'm uncomfortable with watching people with cisprivilege toss it around like it's theirs, but...

Ugh.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's murky, and I certainly have less of a right to weigh in on it than you do, but I see it used far too often, both in and outside of the queer community to mean "ugly woman" and that's not helping anyone and I think additionally complicates the negative meanings of the word. I don't think it's something a cis person who is not identified with trans issues in some ways should be using in mainstream media at this juncture.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Right. It's a slur used against trans women more often than not, or sometimes cis women of varying orientations, more than it includes my set. (We're either nonexistent, Really Serious lesbians, or confused straight girls. *eyeroll* )

All of which is to say that my actual horse in the race is somewhat limited as well.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And yet, I hear the reclaiming sense of it far and away the most often from friends who are FtM.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and that's part of what put me off of it.

My whole existence doesn't get summed up in a less-than-human gross-out trope in the same way. The people I fear because I am trans -- cismen, mostly straight -- are less likely to notice me. If they do, my risk is less acute than it is for a trans woman. Much as invisibility and dismissal is a bummer, I'm uncomfortable with appropriating the struggles of people under the other half of the umbrella. For all the shit I go through, it doesn't hold a candle.

It describes me to some extent, and I'm not ready to march against using the word anywhere ever -- it is in a lot of ways more tenable than me using the word "fag" to describe myself -- but I'm sort of 60/40 on the whole thing these days.

It's also possible I worry too much.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

I hate Connor. So much that seeing him on screen now really aggravates me. He is a giant shark-jump. The show recovers somewhat in the future but Connor is just so. fucking. awful. I can't take it.

OK but was I right about the colossal mindfuck that is Wesley and Lilah? I love their relationship.