rm | sundries

It is pissing down rain here, making everything about the opera even more complex. It'll be fine. Right now: pinstripe suit, blue on blue shirt, with dark blue polkadot tie later (keeping my collar open for now, to be less obviously dude-like). Almost sedate, but totally not. Especially when you have to tuck your trousers into big black boots to save them from the deluge. It's a day. Rolled up my sleeves, cufflinks to be chosen, because it's sweltering in the office.

There seems to be more Amazon!fail afoot: basically if it's kinky, even if it's not queer, it seems to have wound up in the LGBT section.

A contest to win an expense-paid trip to TEDWomen in DC. What's your TEDTalk? Hell, what is my TEDTalk?

Soho actually starts heeding law about limiting lofts to working artists. WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN SOHO? WHO HAS HOPE? YES, PLEASE.

Bed-bug sniffing dog standards called into question. Oh, my city.

Oh, my city, even more: When new neighbors moved in who were later busted for running a heroin mill and neighbors saw them putting black curtains on all the windows they thought, "Maybe they just like to sleep."

I am missing everything: The guests wore red.

A profile on a part of the President's persona machine.

- Man hangs himself live on the Internet. Unlike similar stories I've heard from the US, it seemed people were mostly trying to stop him as opposed to egging him on.

- "Assertive" Chinese placed in mental hospitals.

Really am achingly sad about De Laurentiis. There's a bit of backstory from my NYC childhood there, but that's for another day.

More on Merlin: "The Changeling" -- not bad. I really love when Merlin and Arthur and, well, everyone, has these flashes of adult wisdom. And Arthur/Gwen is working for me in terms of chemistry and conflict, but irritating me a good deal re: the lack of narrative development to get there, because hey, it's like fanfic and we all already knew.

Yuletide!

1. I love Yuletide!

2. It may be a HUGE fan-wide community event, but it's still not something that we all get a vote in how it works. No, really. There's this illusion that often seems to take hold on the Internet that everything is required to be a direct hierarchy-free democracy. Yuletide's a thing some people run, and how they run it is up to them, and if that doesn't work for you, not participating makes lots of sense. Saying they are required to run it differently doesn't.

3. Can we knock it off with BNF as the dirtiest dirty word? Some people get well known in fandom because they contribute a lot to it. Some people behave well or poorly or neutrally in the face of this. Shouldn't the problem not be popularity or fame, but the grace with which one manages to navigate any public perception? Just rag on people for being assholes when they're assholes. It's clearer.

4. I like it's commitment to small fandoms and/or desires we don't think about year round, but if a fandom I think is too large gets in, especially if it's one I'm not involved with, then I won't read those stories. I only ever read a couple of dozen Yuletide fics anyway.

5. I am not in Hetalia fandom. I am very aware of some of the very bad behavior that's been engaged in my some members of that fandom (I refer to incidents involving Nazi uniforms and a Boston mall). I don't, however, consider Hetalia's possible inclusion in this year's Yuletide to be a social-justice issue that requires me to make a Yuletide participation decision. Obviously, YMMV, and that's cool too.

6. I'm in a "can't deal with fandom" place and have been for a while, even if I'm still reading some stuff and will certainly write fanfic again.

7. I am totally participating in Yuletide!