http://allthecanadianpolitics.tumblr.com/tagged/Fort-McMurray

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36199993

please donate to the canadian red cross: http://www.redcross.ca/

my girl cousin and her husband and two babies, plus one of the guy cousins are evacuating south to edmonton. my two other guy cousins were forced to evacuate to the north because the fire had spread and cut them off from the others. so my cousins aren’t all together and their homes may very well be gone soon, but at least they are all on the road and not trapped in a burning city. i really hope they all make it safely to edmonton, which is quite far. my girl cousin’s husband has family in calgary, so there is somewhere more permanent to stay if necessary.

"Gaudete" by The Mediæval Bæbes:

( Personal blatherings )

* * *

I understand that atpotch recently posted his thoughts on the manifestos of the five major UK political parties in anticipation of the election. He has not tagged these posts, unfortunately, but they begin with this introductory post and conclude on April 26, 2015, with the Labour Party. For those of you voting in the UK, I highly recommend checking out TCH's comments as he's an astute thinker and a brilliant writer.

* * *

( I don't suppose there's anyone on my flist interested in taking a cruise with me? )

Do you guys have any travel plans of your own? Exams are over, I think, for those of you in university. Do you guys have jobs for the summer?

I can't believe sga_santa is closing after this year! Well, I suppose it's fair given that the show is long over and the fandom has died down so much. But still, it's the end of an era... While I'm tempted to participate one last time for nostalgia's sake, I've defaulted on all my ficathons this year. It's incredibly sad, how little writing I've done in 2014. Stargate was my most prolific fandom, too. :(

But I would love to see other people sign up for SGA Secret Santa! For folks who have a LiveJournal, you can sign-up here. Alternatively, you can sign up on this post if you don't have an LJ. (And I realize after typing this paragraph how outdated "LJ comment"-style sign-ups are compared to sign-ups done on Google or AO3.)

If you're looking for something more low-key than a fic exchange, then check out space_swap's Space Fest! This is a chance for you to create fanworks based on a prompt you've claimed. All forms of media are welcome, not just fic!



Prompt claims opened yesterday and stay open throughout the posting period. The last day to post your fanwork is November 6, 2014.

This is an unpopular opinion, I suspect, but I really really hate those posts that mock Harry for naming Albus Severus after Snape (and Dumbledore), and basically argue that Harry should have named his kid after Remus, Neville, Fred, etc. -- anyone but Snape. And yeah, I totally accept that argument if you're saying that Harry should have backed the hell off and let Ginny name one of her own children, because dude -- I feel you there.

( Cut for length... )

Exams are done, at least until I find out whether I failed that last one or not. These past couple of days have involved a lot of sleeping and eating and watching old episodes of Criminal Minds. I also spent today making tarot cards, or at least an approximation of them--it's the major arcana using MCU characters. I've also posted it in pieces on Tumblr here.

( Really big graphic under the cut )

Dear Writer,

Thank you so much for writing a story for me! I hope my pairings and prompts spark your writing muse! While I have my own suggestions for the story you're writing, of course it's entirely up to you. But just so you have a starting point, let me say that what I want more than anything is for you to write a story about characters of colour and/or canon female characters being awesome. I want the white male characters of the MCU to take a backseat, given that they get more than enough attention in canon. *g* ( Cutting for length... )

More generally, I love fanfic with lots of banter, people who actually empathize with/understand each other, friendship, and teamwork. On the other hand, I also like a bit of angst and situations that create misunderstandings and barriers which the characters need to overcome in order to be together.

In terms of sex scenes, in case that's something you're interesting in writing, I don't have triggers and very little squicks me. Painplay, blood, and hardcore BDSM scenes don't do it for me. I really love verbal humiliation, manhandling (and size differences between characters, if it exists), hot and heavy make-out sessions with clothes still on (there just aren't enough stories with hot make-outs!), and desperate needy sex. I also like dubious consent, but I know not everyone's okay with that.

If you have any questions, you can leave an anon comment in this post!

Sincerely,
Scroll

The older I get, the less enamoured I've become of the primacy of the narrative of the loner rebel hero outcast who disdains and opposes the faceless evil bureaucratic power-mad government that needs to be toppled like the tower of Babel so that the people are freed from the yoke of oppression, yadda yadda.

Back when I was far less critical of Joss Whedon, I went three times to see Serenity in theatres. However, as much as I loved seeing the Firefly characters be awesome on the big screen, I was actually kind of secretly really really BORED of the whole plot? Bureaucracies are evil and you can never fix them, that's why you need to raze them to the ground and salt the earth and then start all over again. Which is a really exciting narrative until you're reading it for like the one millionth time, and you realize that razing and salting is maybe overkill? And also waaaay too much work.* I moved out of Buffyverse fandom into Stargate and The West Wing fandoms, both of which are pretty... institutional in terms of premise? And I rather enjoyed that there was actually some focus on solving problems with words. (Well, more TWW than Stargate, but SG-1 had its moments of verbal victory.) I think the world needs more mediators and diplomats willing to negotiate and compromise, and fewer narratives of lone wolves railing against The Man.

I mean, I'm not saying there aren't moments in history when we need the violent revolutionary, when diplomacy and negotiation and peaceful protest have all failed and there's nothing left but war. I'm definitely not saying that institutions can't be flawed--of course they're flawed, occasionally so terribly flawed that they must be stopped, not just cleaned up. But reaching that point where we say the system is so flawed that war is the only solution means that we've failed. If we're left with nothing but guns, then we have gone wrong somewhere as a society. We might not realize it until much later, when we look back and examine our history with less prejudiced minds, but why do we have to package stories of our failures for consumption like they're the best thing since sliced bread? We package these failures as though they aren't failures, our failures, the failures of our brothers and sisters, of our fellow citizens and our elected officials. A failure of at least one side no longer talking to the other.

(Also, come on, let's face it. How many of our wars are about moral outrage over real oppression, and how many wars are about economics and protecting resources we want to exploit.)

I've become less interested in celebrating, reading, exploring, using as entertainment, etc., stories about that terrible moment when all that's left is war. I've found that avoiding war is a far more interesting story. That moment when we set aside our blinders and finally see the other person as worthy of respect, and we value peace and each other's lives enough to actually accept an imperfect compromise. Just my two cents, of course, but this is why I have been and always will be a Star Trek fan (despite recent creative choices I can't agree with) and why ten times out of ten I would choose Star Trek over anything Joss Whedon has written.

If the only narratives we see, or the majority of the narratives we see, are about railing against an implacable foe that's simply unwilling to compromise, that is portrayed as a faceless evil wholly without humanity or empathy, then isn't a wonder that we grow more and more certain that our enemies want to wipe us out, and they become more and more certain that the we're trying to wipe them out, and nobody seems interested in trying to relate to anyone else, except those who already share our values and perspectives?


[Tangent: Sleepy Hollow is Not My Fandom, but it is generally a pretty awesome show/fandom from what I can tell. The one criticism I've had of the two episodes I've seen is that Ichabod claimed/implied that they fought the Revolution so they wouldn't have to pay taxes, and oh my God, I hope people don't actually think that??? I'm Canadian so forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, but I thought the U.S. revolution was about no taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION (aka participating in that faceless bureaucracy known as government, also known as public service) and not about George Washington thinking that taxes are inherently evil.]


* And yet, ironically, less work than actually trying to make friends. It's way easier to make enemies.

I'm kind of vaguely hoping to finish one more story in 2013, so I'm holding off on the writing meme for another day or two, but here are the other annual memes!

1. Your main fandom of the year?
MCU, with some dabbling in Marvel comics. I've really enjoyed Elementary, but I'm not active in the fandom beyond reblogging some gifs.

2. Your favourite film watched this year?
I still haven't seen Thor: The Dark World (yes, I'm a terrible fan), so I'll say Iron Man 3 since I'm pretty sure that's the ONLY movie I watched in theatres this year.

3. Your favourite book read this year?
I read a lot of fic this year that I enjoyed, but nothing non-fannish that wasn't a textbook.

4. Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?
Kyle Landry's Harry Potter Medley for Piano:



5. Your favourite TV show of the year?
Still Elementary! While I'd hoped Agents of SHIELD would become my new fannish thing, the show just hasn't reached that level for me yet. Which is a pity because although I adore Joan and Sherlock, I'm not fannish about them the way I could have been fannish about Skye and Melinda May and Mike Peterson, you know? Like, I love the SHIELD characters for their potential and I want the show to be better than it is, but something's still missing...

6. Your favourite online fandom community of the year?
I feel kinda guilty saying this, but Tumblr is beating out DW/LJ. It's not even the people there, though I do enjoy interacting with everyone I'm following, but I think there's an immediacy and constant bombardment of content (especially Marvel movie- and comics-related content) that appeals to me right now, since I (feel I) don't have time for long, drawn-out meta posts or RL updates. I've also been reading on AO3 more and more--I only go outside AO3 for niche pairings or fandoms once I've exhausted what's there.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Hmm, Arrow, I guess? I'd watched the first two episodes when the show first aired, but I only did a marathon of Season 1 this past term (while I was procrastinating, yes, unfortunately). I'll never be as fannish about it as I am about the MCU, but it's been fun to see another iteration of the DCU and all those old familiar characters.

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Maybe this is due entirely to unreasonable expectations, but I'd say Agents of SHIELD is my biggest disappointment. I'm still enjoying it and I haven't given up, but the mid-season cliffhanger left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm just not... ready to trust the show. I still feel like we don't really know these characters, even though we have had some backstory for most of them.

9. Your TV boyfriend of the year?
Hmm, Sherlock Holmes? From Elementary, obviously. Or Arrow's Oliver Queen, who almost never gets called "Ollie" by his friends, not even by the one guy who linguistically should call him Ollie... I'm talking about our Aussie, Slade Wilson.

10. Your TV girlfriend of the year?
Soooo much easier to answer! All my lovely, lovely Asian women: Joan Watson, Melinda May, and Skye have been my darlings this year. I also have a soft spot for Jemma Simmons.

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
I admit it, seeing the IM3 post-credit tag scene was my biggest squee. Doesn't quite compare to 2012, in which I had many, many big squee moments, but seeing Bruce's cameo was still pretty awesome. Also, the Season 1 finale of Elementary was fantastic.

12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
I really do miss Stargate fandom. I miss the people, I miss the shows, and I miss writing those characters and that universe.

13. The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
Shows I need to try: Almost Human and Orphan Black, the latter which I actually own on DVD and keep putting off watching.

14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
(Warning for spoilery pics from Captain America 2.)


Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx in Annie. RACEBENDING FTW!!!!


Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Please do NOT spoil me.

( spoilery pics from Cap 2 )

Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson in Cap 2.

Also, I intend to watch Thor: The Dark World at some point before school starts again, but it's probably cheating to call that a 2014 thing. But hell yeah, Jane Foster! I'm really looking forward to seeing her get her science geek on. :D

***

Happy New Year, everyone!

I'm sharing two versions, the first performed by a white Canadian artist Heather Dale, sung in Wendat (Huron), French, and English. The second version is English-only, but performed by Thomas Dale Jackson, OC, a Métis actor and singer.

Heather Dale:


Tom Jackson: