elfinblaze

When I was 18 I used to follow along to X/1999. When new installments came out in Japan, someone would write out in English what had happened, because the official English translation was way, way behind, and us English-speaking fans lapped it up, hungry to know what happened next. I remember sitting infront of the computer, crying, almost every month, because each development was so heartbreaking, with the whole unfolding drama between Subaru and Seishirou. I think I cried more over those two than I have over anything else in my fannish life. I remember the question of who would end up killing whom being a big deal, and then the answer coming out of nowhere, and no one expected that ending... and then that obscured speech bubble where everyone guessed what Seishirou said but it was never confirmed! I remember what a big deal it was at the time.

When Torchwood, season 2, episode 6, aired, I was shocked. I hadn't expected that ending. My primary thought was: "How the hell did they manage to keep that quiet?" I thought it was a fantastic twist, but I also suspected how the series would continue. Come on, this is Torchwood.

I was also unspoilt for Harry Potter, book 6. I got spoilt for book 5 and was determined for it not to happen again. Then when I read book 6 it wasn't a surprise at all. I could see that ending coming from the beginning. On the up side, at least, in the future I'll be able to say I was there when everyone got all worked up about it, the same way people older than me experienced The Empire Strikes Back, or The Wrath of Kahn. And I do sort-of wish I had been around when Sherlock Holmes died. It was a huge thing at the time and I would have loved to have heard what people were saying at the time.

I loved getting to experience the shock of all those things though.

Now that I'm (sort of) in the Glee fandom, where getting spoilt for upcoming plots is the norm, it's so weird to me. Everyday someone is leaking something on the internet, including The Powers That Be (TPTB) themselves, and the line between teasers and spoilers isn't exactly clear anymore. I try to stay away from them because I still don't like getting spoilt, but I've nonetheless been spoilt for just about everything on the show.

Having said that, finding out ahead of time doesn't negate that sinking feeling in your stomach when you hear about something shocking, or take away from experiencing that emotion, and as long as others are in the same boat, there's still that community feeling where everyone else wants to talk about it too. The spoiler just takes the events out of context. Sometimes that makes it worse, because then you have to wait weeks or months for the episode to air until you can find out how it gets resolved.

Sometimes, it makes it better because you can prepare yourself.

Normally I hate surprises. Loathe them, in fact. So most of the time I'm glad for spoilers if there's a theme I have trouble dealing with, coming up. For example, I'm glad I've now been warned for episode 18 so I can brace myself for the worst and not expect to go to bed happy after watching that episode, so I'm glad for that. (While we're on the topic, I wish books had warnings like fanfics.) But I don't want to know everything ahead of time and out of context. That's why I don't listen to the songs or watch the videos from upcoming episodes. Sometimes I don't even watch the trailers, just read the official summaries.

Thankfully there's still some good discussion that goes on after an episode has aired, so it still feels like being in the midst of it, especially when spoilers turned out to be misleading and people are freaking out about surprise romances, near deaths, actual deaths, and whatever else.

So I'm in a weird position of wanting to know some things but not others ahead of watching/reading something. I think I'll sum it up as: I like to be warned, but not spoilt.

- JayJays is currently selling Hogwarts and House t-shirts, if anyone is interested. viciousdisorder and I went looking yesterday and she bought one.

- Saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 yesterday with viciousdisorder, starwolvie, and flylikethewind. I'm not sure if it's the painkillers currently racing through my system or if I need to see it a second time, but I feel like I'm forgetting heaps, but here's the things that I loved:

( cut for spoilers )

- I wasn't expecting to see the trailer for the Glee concert movie before the film, so that was a nice surprise. Although I like this trailer better. It has backstage footage. And Jane Lynch.

- After the movie we all went to celebrate viciousdisorder's birthday and ended up playing Mah Jong for three hours. Our parties are the best! Especially since I won three games. ^_^

- I still haven't caught up with Torchwood and at the rate I'm going I won't until I get it on DVD. It's hard trying to keep up with three active fandoms at once. But if anyone has the new radio plays, the "Lost Files", or knows a way I can listen to them apart from the BBC website, I would greatly appreciate it, because apparently Australians are the only ones in the world who are blocked from downloading from the BBC website. Go figure.

- Random find this morning: How To Increase Your Attention Span (Or At Least Stop Refreshing Facebook Every 3 Minutes).

- NSW MP Peter Phelps, who is otherwise wholly unremarkable, at least has his Geek Rights right: "The right not to leave your house, not to like football or any other sport, to have few friends, or none at all, to be overweight and near-sighted, to take over the world." Well, at least I can agree with that.

- The Broadway composer, Andrew Lippa, recoded a piece for the "It Gets Better" campaign, with Texas State University musical theatre students: It Gets Better.

- Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?
Abstract
The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

I was going to go, but then it was raining, which sort of makes things unpleasant. I mean, I suppose, considering it's Mardi Gras you could always join the parade wearing nothing but body glitter (which I do actually have, I just realised), and then it wouldn't matter how wet you got. XD But it's cold and I didn't feel like walking home at midnight again.

So I decided to stay home and read instead. But I still got covered in glitter because I cleaned my bedroom and had glitter-covered stuff to move.

I like glitter, okay?

More random points for the day:

- We have a water dragon that's moved into our back garden. It's been seen with its tail trailing in our swimming pool on hot days.

- My deodorant bottle has little black hearts on it. Which suits my little black heart perfectly. ^_^

- This is one depressing picture. All those books! In water! ;_;

- Damnit, I want these to exist! I would so read Albus Dumbledore and the Elder Wand. Victorian wizards!

- I completely missed this: list of "high fantasy" books that aren't full of rape, objectified women and headbanging misogyny. It makes me really glad that David Eddings was my introduction to fantasy, because apart from the everyone-over-7000-years-of-history-is-straight-and-gets-married-in-the-end, there was nothing to traumatise fourteen-year-old, budding feminist me.

- You know those questions geeks like me love? Like "Who would win in a battle between a Star Destroyer and the USS Enterprise?" or "Who's the quicker draw: Han Solo or Captain Mal Reynolds?" Here's another good one: What would happen if a Vulcan studied to become a Jedi?

- I'm already looking forward to Glee on Monday. It's ridiculous how happy this show makes me, but at least it's something I can look forward to every week. ^_^

- A few weeks ago it was raining every day. I'm looking out my window now and seeing a half-dead lawn. Gotta love this country.

- My TV guide claims new episodes of Glee will be on tomorrow evening. I'm assuming that means "Special Education" will finally screen here, although the episode title isn't listed in the guide, but that will be the next one they need to screen. I will be re-watching. It's a good episode, so everyone else in Australia, you should be watching it too.

- I miss Torchwood too and I cannot wait for it to come back either. I'm already looking forward to it. I just love the show, and if Torchwood were a real institute, my dream job would be to work there, despite the high body count. As it is, the likelihood of me getting killed by an alien at an untimely age is significantly lower at least. But I need more action and cracky aliens in my life!

- I'm just going to link to this post of all the H/D fic and art Fests this year, because I'll probably want to come back to that. Lots of stuff happening.

- I would add more to this update but my internet connection is ridiculously slow and some websites aren't co-operating. Which brings me to the last thing I'm looking forward to: faster internet connection again on Tuesday!

Well, this has been a useless entry.

I'll update with something more interesting when I have faster internet again.

- Fandom love! I love all you people and your enthusiasm. It's infectious and it's awesome. The world needs more of people getting enthusiastic about fictional story lines, and speculating about which pokémon are kosher, and discussing whether or not werewolves shift while on spaceships, and just more squee in general. The world could do with a lot more magic in it, and you all rock for bringing it.

- On a Mundane note: thankfully the weather only got up to 39 degrees (102 Fahrenheit, or 312 Kelvin, because I like the Kelvin scale) on Saturday. And I got a lot of reading and some writing done. And thankfully it's much cooler today.

- viciousdisorder has started watching Glee. ^_^ My plan to infect the world with my brain worms proceeds. XD Now all the rest of you need to get watching too! *shares the love*

- I have a new LJ layout! Glee, season 2, themed of course, but it shouldn't spoil anyone who doesn't care enough to have caught up with the basic storyline of the season by now. The background pictures are architectural shots from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, just because they're pretty and worked well in combination, and the lyrics are from Don't Cry For Me Argentina. The layout turned out more 'shippy than I expected or intended. Oh well.

- I'm really loving these two new Ministry of Magic videos:
+ House Song, featuring Kristina of The Parselmouths, Christian from Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, and Alex from The Remus Lupins.
+ Don't Leave, which is my second favourite song on the album.

- Apparently Darren Criss is an Aquarius. XD This explains so much! Nutter. I say this with affection, as a fellow Aquarian.

- Speaking of Wizard Rock and Darren Criss, I've been rewatching that video of him performing with Lena Gabrielle (The Butterbeer Experience). They need to work together more often. Like, record something properly, or him starring in one of her musicals, or something. Also, her album Love Will Prevail is spectacular. Of course now he's a massive star he probably won't have the time, which is a shame.

I'll just stay in this corner and keep dreaming of my perfect collaboration then.

- Firstly, as much as I complain about him, my brother can be pretty awesome. He's one of the nicest guys I've ever met and I put his self-centredness down to his age rather than a personality flaw. Which 19-year-old boy isn't self-centred? He's actually an amazingly nice guy otherwise. Hard to believe when I remember how angry he was when he was younger.

I just thought I needed to set the record straight that I do actually love my little brother. We're not biologically related, but it's honestly never felt like we were anything but. He's just my brother.

So when I say he's just been approved to get promoted on Triple J Unearthed, I am saying it with a lot of pride. It's also cool, because I actually listen to that radio station, even when I don't listen to any other radio.

- Secondly, I found Voldemort's wand on the street yesterday.

( picture )

Don't worry, I had a look around and there were no children nearby, and it was on the street, so there was no one around whom it might have belonged to. So I picked it up. Having said that, if you're looking for a Voldemort Wand and if you can tell me where I found it, I'll find a way to return it. Otherwise, I'll take good care of it.

So now I'm in Slytherin House, my favourite animals are snakes, and I have Voldemort's wand. I'm not sure I want to know what that says about me. XD

On the upside, my first wand! And it's only 17 years late.

- Thirdly, HSC results are out today, and as I do every year I check where my old high school is ranked in the state. James Ruse came top again, no surprises there. Now, according to the Herald, second are our old rivals, North Sydney Girls. *shakes fist at them* Nah, good on them. They were just always the rival school to mine. And Hornsby Girls is third. According to the Telegraph, Hornsby Girls is second. I'm not sure how the different newspapers work out their rankings, but either way, all you other Old Girls of Hornsby, we can feel proud of our old school, even if we never did quite that well. :p

By faith with fortitude this brand we'll keep aflame forever~ And if you now have our old school song stuck in your heads, my work here is done. XD

I took the day off work because my brother is a twit.

No, really. I need to go pick up my mother from hospital and carry her bags and and all that, because she's not allowed to lift anything yet. Of course, it would be ideal for my brother to be the one to collect her: he's not at uni, he's not working (during the day), but no, he's not responsible enough to do that, so I need to take time off work to do it! *throttles him*

He planned to go see her yesterday "some time after 6pm". He turned up at 6:45. And he started work at 7. *headdesk*

Oh, and while I'm venting:

Dear Channel 10: You suck for delaying Glee until next Monday!

Positives:

My mummy's coming home today!

Harry Potter is out today!

Yes, this is still making me squee because it is HUGE, in capital letters.

Imagine going through high school without even so much as a hint of yourself reflected in any of the things you watch and listen to, any of the things that literally every other kid is talking about. Imagine the one thing you want more than anything in the world: to be kissed, please god, just to be kissed, imagine you have never seen that depicted anywhere or referred to in any way but as something to be mocked and shunned.

We grew unexpectedly teary-eyed watching this number. Not because sappy teenage pop songs get us worked up, but because the sight of a sappy teenage pop song being sung by one cute teenage boy to another cute teenage boy is still, sad to say, an extreme rarity. All we could think while watching this number was, "My god. What would it have been like to see this at 14?"

I don't know the answer to that. It would have shown me that QUILTBAG people are not those crazy stereotypes that I couldn't connect with, for one thing. I can't even imagine what or how things would have been different as a result.

Last week I read Mark Reads Harry Potter, for the Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. It's reminding me all over again of how I fell for the series, especially since the second book was the first one I read.

This is one of my favourite scenes from Chamber of Secretsthat wasn't in the movie, the scene where Harry and Ron cause a distraction so Hermione can raid Snape's potions supplies:

( Chamber of Secrets: Chapter 11 )

The whole Polyjuice incident is one of the major reasons for why I fell in love with the series: I loved that Harry and his friends got away with the whole thing, that the books weren't politically correct with the kids being found out and punished, and dutifully learning something from it in the end, like all the other kids books I'd read around that time. Getting away with stuff is so much more fun, and I loved that a writer let her characters do that. It was so refreshing

I also loved how increadibly creative it was, how witty and clever. All that word-play and all that imagination. I'm a sucker for stories where you can see the author's brain ticking away on every page.

Unfortunately you only get to read the books for the first time once, but it's a lot of fun reading someone else's first experience too. I'm impressed Mark's remained mostly unspoilt for it so far. But it's reminding me of all the things I liked the first time I read it, and just why I started to love the whole series so quickly.

Now I'm going to be hanging out for him to finish the rest of the series.

Okay... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be FREAKING AWESOME! See trailer. *bounces with excitement*

It was 1°C when I left the house this morning. Who says Australia doesn't get cold?

I discovered today that I don't like Hurt/Comfort fics. I was reading one today and discovered this. They make me uncomfortable for some reason. Something about making one character (or both) hurt, just as a romantic plot line, doesn't sit well with me. But then, I'm not a huge fan of romance, so maybe I just don't get it. I prefer the romance in a story to be a sub-plot. Should probably have noticed this sooner considering I've been in fandom since 2000, but before now it just didn't register as a sub-genre as a whole that I don't enjoy.

Huh. You learn something new about yourself every day.

Also, I am bored and need a new book.

That is all.

*goes to curl up under warm blanket again*

Things I'm looking forward to:

- Asiavision! Like Eurovision for the Asia Pacific region. The countries competing this year will be: Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. As a follower of Eurovision I can only say: this is going to be so much fun! I'm looking forward to it already.

- Tanya Huff's new books. The Truth of Valor (the final Valor book, and damn it feels weird to write that word without a U) will be out later this year, but I'll have to wait until next year to buy the paperback version. The next book will be a stand-alone about Napoleonic werewolves, and the one after that will be a sequel to The Enchantment Emporium, focussing on Charlie. *waves Charlie flag*

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm guessing everyone's seen the trailer by now? My favourite part: ( spoilers ) These movies are going to be awesome! And I'm going to need a box of tissues in the cinema with me for the last one. I'm most likely going to be bawling my eyes out. Can. Not. Wait!

Also good news: Tom Felton won "Best Villain" for playing Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the MTV Awards. He has brown hair in his acceptance speech, if you want to see what he looks like outside of Malfoy-Blond.

- Torchwood. Yes, I'm still all squeeful since the news made me sit up in bed yesterday morning.

( Why I'm looking forward to Torchwood, since everyone else is doing this list too and I am a sheep. )

Plenty to look forward to squeeing over. :)