It is stupidly easier to romance Silk Fox as a female character than to romance Sky as a male.

Me: I think you're attractive and I don't hate you.
Silk Fox: I loves you forevers!

Me: Sky, I'm really beginning to have feelings for you.
Sky: Well, I don't know, there's just so many issues, and what would my dead daughter think, and...
Three Hours Later
...and my insurance really doesn't cover that kind of thing. You understand, right?

Why can't I just romance Dawn Star? We're childhood best friends, that's a third of all lesbian narratives right there. Alternately, why can it's just go like this:

Me: I like you, Dawn Star.
Dawn Star: So do I!
Me: No, I like like you.
Dawn Star: That's sweet, but I'm straight. Sadface.
Me: Hey, annoying girl!
Silk Fox: How dare you yell at me, you peasant!
Me: Well, excuuuse me, Princess.
Silk Fox: Don't say that! You'll ruin my totally-not-secret-at-all secret identity!
Me: Whatever. I think you're attractive and I don't hate you.
Silk Fox: I loves you forevers!

Birthday gift to myself yesterday.

So I, like quite a few people I know, grew up on the '90s X-Men cartoons from Saban. I had vague-if-pleasant memories of them, fuzzily edged with good intentions. I distinctly recall that they made me really wish I were reading comics at the time, a feeling I have since come to realize would have been A Very Bad Idea.

Blinded as I was by nostalgia, I acquired a VHS copy of Night of the Sentinels, the two-part X-Men pilot.

I would like to say that X-Men is able to power through on pure kitsch value, being as it was the era of blindingly bright spandex and inadvisable trenchcoats (See: Jubilee and her pink wraparounds).

It doesn't. The studio's clearly hankering for a budget over than five shoestrings, and most of the VAs haven't gotten a feel for how to voice their characters. Gambit's Cajun has a perpetual frog in his throat, while Storm is an unfortunately accented version of what people who have never met Stoned Granola-Eating Earth Mother Hippies think SGEEMH sound like.

To be fair, the aformentioned accents would be less noticeable if the dialog weren't so intent on emphasizing that X-Men is a Serious Adult Show Where We Kill People (No, Really! We Swear!). An intention which would work out better if the first sentence out of Storm's mouth wasn't something along the lines of, "He shall know why I am Storm, Mistress of the Elements!" (as you can practically hear the Approved Marvel Logo leaping out of her mouth).

You can see, however, the seeds of a good show getting ready to emerge, especially in the character of Beast - both voice and characterization are spot-on. And Morph's death isn't so bad as it is rushed and haphazard - they can't really "kill" him on-screen so much as clumsily insinuate death. There's no real impact except to prove that This Isn't Your Parents' Superhero Cartoon.

The rest of it, however, really doesn't age well.

Question: I am rather intrigued by SF X Fantasy Rayforce because I am easily distracted by shiny things. Has anyone heard if a Korean-focused sub group will pick it up?

With Sentai now pretty much an unofficial TeniMyu reunion (and so many toku actors doing musicals post-series), why exactly has Toei not yet created a full-blown sentai musical for their Live show?

If nothing else, I'm sure it, like everything else, could have Aiba in it to belt out something overdramatic and ridiculous.

So, in the process of Te's post on why no amount of shiny whiz-bang CGI can hide that big nasty white appropriation/racism shitstain on the screen (CODA: I am now totally using Moff's Law in the future as a response to "“Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is?"), there was a nice little discussion on the racism/religious privilege of romance novels, including this awesome comment from buggery.

( Out of curiosity, I also checked out the descriptions for Ravenous Romance's other '12 Days of Christmas' short stories )

Poll #1503534 A Question You Will Likely Never Be Asked Again
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2

Is $0.99 worth the possibility of fowl fucking?

I am mainlining my backlog of Shinkenger and it is glorious. Each episode post-Ushi origami arc has been great, though I reserve judgment about Samurai Ha-Oh. I know it's very obviously meant to invoke Buddhist iconography, but...eh. It's got so much crap on its chest it can't do the Victory clap. This fact annoys me immensely, for some reason.

However, I can ignore this because I just finished 37, which is nothing but glorious slash bait for a pairing with, at best, minimal chemistry. The Death Note-esque chaining setup! The restroom scene! Dialog like: "Will you please try to match me? My hands can't keep up with yours. So...you will need to lower yourself to my level to be in synch." "But Chiaki, you should be the one to shout the orders. I don't have a free imagination like yours." The bit at the end where Mako And Kotoha give each other sneaky shippy fangirl eyes!

<3

In past news: Major American media conglomerates (Disney, Fox) have begun entering foreign markets where they have less of a foothold and fund/make localized products with native companies, instead/alongside of the traditional "pump and dump"-ing of American media products. See the Japanese version of Sideways, Fox opening a Korean branch, Disney making animated films based on local Chinese/Russian fables.

And now, a Chinese version of High School Musical. Zhang Jun Ning is starring, alongside some of the guys from BOBO, apparently.

If nothing else, this'll certainly be...interesting.

Other stuff:

- Neat DanweiTV report interviewing organizers of the Beijing Queer Film Festival.
- I am going to regret starting The Prisoner, aren't I? I know what TV show I'm going to obsessively watch and finish at work during the wee hours of the morning!
- Top 10 Bad Messages From Good Movies. I especially love 2 and 3.

This attitude of brazenly encouraging learned technological helplessness is exactly why I do not and never will trust Apple. They may make an aesthetic product, but if I can't open said pretty box up without fucking myself over for all eternity, then I don't want it.

Other bits from catching up on my NYT/NPR/etc. backlog:
- Marry me, Gail Collins? I clean up after myself and I make a mean curry!
- Review of Sarah Palin's book, "Going Rogue". I can only hope someone does a reading to equal those of Joe the Plumber's and Carrie Prejean's "biographies."
- Fun collection of Ramen-related memories.
- Famous authors read the funnies, via Roger Ebert. Garfield via James Joyce has a surreal quality, being so awkwardly true to its source material.

EONUS: A surreal moment, courtesy of Mississippi's gambling interests. Sorry, casinos, but the only thing I really want to know about Troy King is if he's really yet another conservative republican homophobe hypocrite.

Given I'm ignoring the fact I had my first "I am gibbering and losing motor control" panic attack in a year and a half last night, I feel it is time for me + kittens.

( Kittens! )

Got asked to signalboost this, so posting:

"As you might know, lately Girl-Wonder.org has been plagued by malware, the source of which is as yet unknown. After valiant effort at piecemeal destruction, the webmistress finally resorted to asteroid bombardment, and the destruction resulting is pretty extensive.

If any of you are experienced in civicrm, and could lend Betty a hand in putting everything back together, that would be excellent of you. Please contact her at sturdyandserviceable AT gmail.com

If you have as much idea of civicrm as I do (which is, it starts with a c) it would be great if you could signalboost this call for help."

All will be sent for free, and there may be more added the longer I clean/arrange my apartment.

Comics:
Birds of Prey #105, 109, 144
Venus Wars II #1-5, 7, 9
Ultraman Tiga #3 (no cover)
Legend of Mother Sarah: City of Angels #4

CD:
Watashi Wa, "Eager Seas"

Books: See BookMooch list.

One of the things I love about my stress management tactics my ability to continuously create absolutely asinine projects that will please only me in utterly pointless ways. In example, stress means lots of making myself 9 p.m. cocktails and thinking thoughts like, "Hmm, Amp and Everclear. The hangover would be beautiful. And vomitous."

(I will be trying this Lethal Electroshock Injection Friday night, because I am really curious.)

( But really, I just want to babble about Anime Weekend Atlanta. )

A moment of fandom crossover horror, brought to you by Hulu.

What Edward Cullen really shouted when Bella saw him sparkle for the first time: "Believe it!"

Finally, a post which (sort of) alls for the laser cock.

Recently, there was wank involving Ravenous Romance. Being an, ahem, big fan, I decided to risk e-mail spam to get a copy of their current free short story, Handsome and Petal.

We begin with a fundamental question posed by the protagonist: "Could a simple male experience such superhuman sex without losing his marbles?"

(Warning: There is a Jesus joke in here. An "I Am Going To Hell" Jesus joke.)

( I don't know! Let's find out! )

Last Weekend, in movies:
- Cutie Honey
- Bullitt
- Citizen Kane
- Xanada

( This weekend, in photos. )

Ways to tell if I will bookmark something in Delicious:
- Is it about food? More specifically, is it about beer?
- Does it involve globalization?
- Does it involve Asia?
- Does it involve comics or animation (in China)?

Then I've probably bookmarked it. (Sadly, there are no Chinese comics/animation involving the globalization of beer in Asia. But one can hope!)

So, I may be the only person left who's still working on 疲子英雄。 It's not exactly good, but it's gotten plenty Tropperiffic, a They Fight Crime with Triang Relations and a decent Conspiracy Kitchen Sink full of Super Soldiers at the middle. (A conspiracy, it should be noted, named after french president Sarkozy.)警察

I do love that 疲子英雄 managed to combine the classic soap opera tropes "Magic Plastic Surgery," "Incest is Relative," and "It's Personal" all in one character and still make him likable instead of annoyingly simpering. Which is a testament to Vic Zhou's acting skills, given he plays the worst Wingman ever when Mark Zhao's on screen being angry.

Which, it happens, is most of every episode. I like Mark Zhao as an actor, but his depth is largely limited to "HELLO I AM YING XIONG. MY NAME IS UNIRONICALLY PROPHETIC. I AM A SIMMERING BALL OF FLAMING JUSTICE WHO IS CAN'T KEEP HIS BIG MOUTH SHUT. YOU MAY HAVE SEEN ME IN EVERY BUDDY COP MOVIE EVER. NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I NEED TO GO SIMMER."

Except when you put him on screen with Ivy Chen, at which point he remembers how to act and have chemistry.

I may be looking forward to the hot sex scene.

In "News I Did Not Expect to Hear," Disney is buying out Marvel Entertainment.

Mickey + Spiderman = Profit??? I may lack a magic 8 ball, but I sense that the answer is "Ask again later."

So, it was brought to my attention that Tony Bedard has seen my post on the Great Ten and responded.

(If it wasn't clear: I am a white American, born and raised in the US.)

( Rebuttal. )

Without meaning to, this post basically became a long-form essay on Western cultural appropriation of Eastern Asia sphere cultures in American comics, the nature of costumed superheroes as a media commodity, and why exactly I hate the Great Ten and what they represent.

( 'It’s like English-Chinese food, take away the spices and add sweet-sour flavour.' )

This book, Searching for Whitopia: How the Whiter Half Lives, sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm curious to see if he looked at if the places he went were once (or still are) considered "sundown towns."

I'm also interested to see his argument that "the small government movement has always had racial components, beginning with white flight from central cities and public schools in the 1960's -- and a great deal of this is based on fear"--and then see if it would hold up against white Southern minds.









And in Authors Not Of the Time, SF author John C. Wright gets his crazy on, then when faced with overwhelming internet derision, declares, "Even though we are on opposite sides, I assure you that the real division in the world is not between Right and Left, not between Homophobes and Pervertarians, but between men of reason and good will, we men of the mind, and our mutual foes, the men of unreason, the men of mere emotion."

Also, anger at his opinions is is in actuality all about others' collective daddy/mommy complex, for "Those folks are all mad at their fathers or something, and wanted to say to me hateful things they never got a chance to say to the people they are really mad at."

Of all the things I'd like to say to my parents (and there's a lot), that some guy on the internet is an ass is not one of them.

UPDATE: Aaaaannnndddd he's back! Some choice quotes:

"If the incest is consensual, between adults, and sterile (so that there are no birth defects) on what ground can it be called illicit while homosexuality is called licit?"

I WONDER.

"Those of you who argued that sex with a sterile woman is the same as homosexual acts: this is both irrelevant and false. You are conflating the sex act with mere stimulation of the sexual organs."

Sterile people don't have sex, they are...stimulated. By...sex? Puppies? Dildos? Unicorn farts? I dunno!