you kinky dino, you sundries

Long post on Quartett later, which will include references to Hypnotoad.

Cats with diplomas. via jackolatern.

starstealingirl alerted me to the existence of kinkfreezone. Now, I think it's perfectly reasonable for there to be fanfic communities that focus on whatever people are into or not into, and a comm devoted to vanilla fanfic makes perfect sense to me. Assuming you can figure out how to define that. Well kinkfreezone provides its users with a list of kinks that aren't welcome on the community, which, again, you know, FINE, except, you know, maybe kink isn't the best thing to use for some of these things.

Specifically, the community says "Gender themes (gender confusion; sex changes; genderfucks; hermaphrodites; cross-dressing or other forms of genderbending; drag queens and transvestites; androgyny; forced feminization; butch/femme; tomboys)."

Department of newsflash:

1. I am not a kink;
2. I am not a "genderfuck," but thank you for playing, and, by the way...
3. What about characters who canonically are or do any of those things (i.e., Desire from Sandman, Pie'oh'Pah from Imajica, etc.) Also the enforcement of gender norms can very much be a kink too.

Anyway, while I totally get the point of the community, they really may want to take a look at the degree to which their verbiage is a pretty vicious, heteronormative fuck you. Also, there's a ton of other really problematic shit lurking on there as well (all virgins are kinks; apparently so is all rape recovery).

One of the front page stories on About.com today? Everything you ever wanted to know about dino sex .
(Image created by About.com is of two cartoon dino silhouettes kissing; it makes me happy.)

Giant bird snags car. Actually not really, but you have to look at this image chickenfried_jo posted.

Best headline you're going to see on the Berlin Wall over the next week? The Berlin Wall: A Division Through Time. This article is pretty great, too. I know I will be reading too much nostalgia news next week.

Dog run portraits.

NaNo is officially getting hard. I remain under quota, but I have been writing every day. I'm currently in the middle of a huge scene that I think actually needs to get even huger and be broken down into a couple of chapters. I realize first drafts are always terrible, and I am trying to convince myself just not to worry, that structure, more richness in B-plot and flow will come in the second draft. I just have to get this done. But it's antithetical to how I work, and I'm hitting the "actually, I think this kinda blows" point, although I think it will be great When and If I Ever Finish It.

(I had an excerpt up a moment ago but then took it away, because I'm feeling vulnerable and weird about the whole thing).

brussels sprouts

Patty likes brussels sprouts and buys them full on the stalk. Today she says that parents repeatedly pointed out this stalk to their children as she walked around town. So this is a little photo essay of life in our kitchen, because in this condition, they don't really fit in our fridge.

Step 1. Pose.

( see the steps! )