mothwing: An image of a snake on which is written the quote, "My love for you shall live forever- you, however, did not" from A Series of Unfortunate Events (Geekiness)
Even though I am not sure that imagining an icosahedron is ever helpful, I still had a lot of fun on a German site called Mathematische Basteleien which offers a neat tutorial for a Bascetta Star.

Inspired by our fröbeling yesterday and this is what is now gracing my desk:

Fröbelstern

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013 10:09 am
mothwing: An image of a snake on which is written the quote, "My love for you shall live forever- you, however, did not" from A Series of Unfortunate Events (Geekiness)
It was Crocky's sister Teddy's birthday party yesterday, or rather, one of them- this was the "queer adult edition". I was reacquainted (do people still use this word?) with Crocky's and Teddy's older bisexual foster sister and Crocky's bisexual godmother. I've often marvelled at the fact that my MIL, who died in 1991, had so many queer friends and foster children, and then wound up having a bisexual daughter, too.

Teddy, my former Russian learning partner, is still at it because she's planning to spend a few months in that country on her world tour. I'm slightly jealous because I could never do the same. I'm worried for Teddy, too. Still, I hope she's going to have a great time touring the globe and will return home safely. She cooked a tasty dish from her Russian cuisine cook book for us.

We spent the time eating, laughing, and trying to fold Fröbel stars. which their foster sister brought. The English Wikipedia has this to say:

"Froebel stars are very common in Germany, although few people know how to make them."

To which I can testify- IRL I don't know many people who can do Fröbel stars. I know that my grandparents could make them and my mother can, too, but I am convinced that in my generation I think that only the incredibly crafty like [livejournal.com profile] angie_21_237 can do it- and the latter is the head of a kindergarten, so it's probably basically her job to know these things.
I have the shrewd suspicion that you talented flisties are probably experts at paper crafts happily fröbeling away, too.

We did end up with things resembling the stars, though and were quite proud of ourselves.

If you want to have a go yourself or need a refresher on how to make them, here's something that looks a lot like the directions we had:

Art: Azkaban

Thursday, October 17th, 2013 10:01 pm
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
Title: Azkaban.
Characters: Bellatrix Lestrange.
Rating: G
Credits: falln-brushes's Hair Brush set and Smoke Brush set, amorphisss's Snow Brush, Wolfcatstock's 694 as reference.
Summary: Bellatrix in winter wonderland Azkaban at night.



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Magrat!

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 08:02 pm
mothwing: Image of Great A'Tuin from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (A'Tuin)
How perfect would Emma Chambers be as Her Majesty the Queen of Lancre Magrat Garlick?

I'm watching Vicar of Dibley and apart from marvelling at the rather consistent cast of British actors who seem to be in everything and giggling at Dawn French, but then she appeared:



She seems perfect.  

(no subject)

Monday, August 12th, 2013 09:03 pm
mothwing: Silhouetted Minerva and Severus sitting in front of a Christmassy mantlepiece (Hat)
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.

- from "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" by STC.

Trip photos

Sunday, July 28th, 2013 09:16 am
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Photo)
As always I took obscene amounts of photos on our trip, from which I've then chosen the handfulls of presentable ones, but there a still a large number that I wanted to include.

If you want, click on the image and it'll redirect you to a post of the day on which it was taken. I didn't really add a lot of text, because I expect not everybody is interested in Edward I's 13th Century quest for Wales (we did look at an awful lot of castle ruins, be warned).





    

 

mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
Short version: walked, hiked, biked, and went on buses, taxis and trains. Met people from various countries and centuries, got sunburnt, fainted, went back home.

Day 9 - Day 16 )
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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Day 12 - Stockholm

Saturday, July 20th, 2013 11:20 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)


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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)


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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
Greetings from unbelievably hot Wales (= the most beautiful country in the world. You're missing out if you've never been here, really).

Day 1 - Day 8 )

So now that I have overused the word "beautiful" enough, I'll go to bed. We'll have a look at Llangollen and its ladies tomorrow and I want to be well-rested for that. 
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
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Day 2 - Liverpool, Wales

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 07:59 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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Day 1 - Liverpool

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 06:32 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)

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Book challenge

Saturday, June 1st, 2013 01:31 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
23.


Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
Con artist Moist von Lipwig is pardoned, in a way, by Lord Vetinari who asks him to run the Ankh-Morpork post, which may or may not turn out more dangerous than the hanging he just avoided.
I book would have been around 300% better if it had been about Adora instead of Moist, but it's still fun to watch him run around.


22.


The Truth, by Terry Pratchett.
Two dwarves and a human start an Ankh Morpork newspaper together.
I'm here mostly for the dwarves, not too big a fan of William de Worde, though it's an interesting attempt of showing someone overcoming privilege. Not entirely successful, but cookie points apply.

Book: Scriber

Monday, May 20th, 2013 02:48 am
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
21.

Ben S. Dobson, Scriber
A Fantasy story about medically trained historian Scriber Dennon Lark who is living in the country after destroying a priceless religious artefact and losing the trust of the Academy. When people under a zombie-like-influence attack several villages, Cpt. Bryndine Errynson fetches him to investigate the past of their kingdom and the origin of the strange influence.
I have not finished this book yet, but I'm in love. Bryndine is a miracle. She is a strong, masculine, tall, a trained soldier, gruff and vulnerable and amazing. Both characters are flawed and I can't remember when I've been as impressed by a character as I am by Bryndine, though presented with burly soldier girls whom the author doesn't instantly turn into someone wanting to bone the male lead I'm easy to please and quite excitable. And this book is not too expensive, the Kindle edition comes at under $4!

Book Challenge

Saturday, May 18th, 2013 02:04 am
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
Read a lot on the trip to Munich, two bus tours of over ten hours took care of that, and even without that I love listening to audio books while walking around the city during breaks.


20.

Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
Angel Aziraphale and Demon Crowley have been stationed on earth on opposite sides for so long that they've not only become quite fond of earth, but also become something like friends. When Crowley is asked to plant the Antichrist in a family to bring about Armageddon the two change plans to try and stop it. However, it soon turns out that the baby that they believed to be the Antichrist isn't. While they set out to find the real one, professional descendant Anathema Device prepares to stop Armageddon with the help of the prophecies of her ancestor witch Agnes Nutter. She is helped by modern Witchfinder Newton Pulsifer and soon discovers that she is closer than she first thought.
I've re-read this book at least once a year ever since I was sixteen years old, and whenever I feel down. I love the characters, and though I notice the problems (casual racism, classism, gender issues, slightly flat magic) it is one of my favourites for the characters and how the authors see humans.

19.

Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
In the main plot, Samuel Vimes' life has become busy after his marriage to Lady Sybil Ramkin as well as his promotion elevated him to knighthood. The Assassins guild keep trying to kill him, people are killed gruesomely and there does not seem to be any trace of them left on the scene, and as though this is not enough, Lord Vetinari, benevolent tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, is poisoned.
One of the books that I keep re-reading when I feel down.

18.

Nella Larsen, Passing
Two black women, Clare and Irene are able to pass as white in twenties Chicago. While Irene does not rely on this in daily life and avoids confrontation with racism wherever possible Clare is married to a white racist who does not know that she is not white. Both women navigate their identities and personal happiness differently until the discovery of one has disastrous consequences.
I spotted this novel when I looked for books on passing and was surprised to find out it was so old, published in 1929. It's a fascinating insight, but also depressing.

17.

Donna Jo Napoli, Hush - An Irish Princess' Tale
Shortly before Melkorka's family is trying to avenge an offer of marriage by a Viking trader by her father she is captured by Slavish slavers together with her eight-years-old sister. Worried that anyone'll find out about their royal birth they keep silent to keep their secret.
The tale tells the story about how Melkorka became a slave and travelled to Iceland. I quickly grew fond of the characters, but it's a very depressing read. The first sexual assault of a thrall happens about 20% in, she starts having fond feelings for the rapist who purchased her at about 70%. Fuck that.

Book rec: Gossamer Axe

Saturday, May 11th, 2013 10:06 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
16.


Gael Baudino: Gossamer Axe
An Irish mortal-turned-immortal harpist-turned-guitarists forms a Heavy Metal band to rescue her lover from the realm of the Sidhe.
When I first heard the premise for this book I found it hard to take seriously. It sounded heard to pull off, to say the least. And yet, Gael Baudino somehow does it. Yes, the book becomes a bit preachy at times and silly at others, but it mostly works, and she always pulls it back so that it does. The main character is thoroughly enjoyable because she is competent, confident, and purposeful in what she does. The biggest hit with me was the author's music theory framework for her magic system, it's not often that you read about anyone using phrygian mode anymore.

Book challenge

Monday, May 6th, 2013 09:37 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
15.


Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Mississippi in the thirties told from the POV of nine-years-old Cassie Logan. In many ways, Cassie is lucky, growing up on land owned by her family with her father working for the railroad to make ends meet and her mother as a school teacher, but that does not mean that they are unaffected by the Great Depression and the terrorist activities of those of her white neighbours who are members of the KKK.
Reading about racism through the eyes of nine-year old Cassie is both heartbreaking and scary at times because she often doesn't envision consequences of her or others' actions that older readers are doubtlessly aware off. It works well and makes this book really scary at times. The characters are all fleshed-out and lovely, and the language Taylor really brings them to life for me. I really enjoyed this book.

(no subject)

Friday, April 19th, 2013 07:16 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Moth)
14.


Kevin Werbach,For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business
What gamification is and how you can use it in businesses primarily, though other applications are also explored.
I'm hoping to learn more about how to apply these techniques to the classroom to make learning more fun. I already noticed that whenever little quizzes are included in exams students are wild about them and are really motivated not only to find out the right solution, but also really eager to get started on it - they rarely have this reaction to regular exams. I've included different ones in all of the simple tests I give them and so far, it's been working great.

Kissing book

Friday, April 19th, 2013 06:50 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
13.

Kerstin Gier, Smaragdgrün- Liebe geht durch alle Zeiten 3
The plot thickens after the cliffhanger-ending of the second instalment: is it possible that Prince Charming double-crossed the main lady and only faked being in love with her to be able to do so?
Of course not. This is teen Fantasy romance. The ending to the series is as well-written as the other two parts, but the plot bellyflops severely several times. I suppose you have to care most about the romance plot to like it, and I don't. It was still fun to read, though.

Book challenge

Monday, April 8th, 2013 09:26 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
12.

Kerstin Gier, Saphirblau - Liebe geht durch alle Zeiten 2
Crocky and I are still entranced by the idiomatic German style of this author. It's basically Dan Brown for romance-novel-liking girls, and it does this well. Very light reading, but fun, and it's interesting to see what my students are reading.

Book challenge

Saturday, April 6th, 2013 02:22 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
11.

Kerstin Gier,Rubinrot - Liebe geht durch alle Zeiten
A story about a 16-year-old girl who has a rare time-travelling gene that runs in her family and causes her to randomly jump through time. Her family is protected and guided by a secretive masonic lodge who have found a way to control her time-travelling, but she soon finds out that they have sinister ulterior motives.
Since it looks like an extremely superfluous love story I was pleasantly surprised by the movie and the book  especially. It is a love story aimed at teens and filled with the expected angst and awkwardness, but the main characters are somewhat more developed than I'd have believed and seem to have character traits beyond a hair colour and klutziness/hunkiness, which is a plus.

Book challenge

Monday, April 1st, 2013 09:51 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
10.


Phillipp Möller - Isch geh Schulhof
A book about someone who studied adult education and works as a substitute teacher at a primary school in one of Berlin's poorest, most ethnically diverse and violent areas, his students, his struggles, failures and successes.
Another lower-class-zoo book. I worked with similar children, their fates are heartbreaking, though their lower-class second language acquired German does sound funny sometimes it feels uncomfortable to poke fun at them. They really don't know any better. Their lives are filled with neglect, loneliness, abuse, and deprivation, so a lack of grammatical correctness can be permitted under these circumstances, surely? Still, the book is entertaining to read especially for the school politics and recognisable classroom situations, though the occasionally very sanctimonious preachiness of the author does get old. He keeps saying he is no expert - which isn't entirely true - and then goes on to complain about his burnt-out, overworked, overtaxed co-workers as though it were a personal failure rather than a political failure that put them in that position. So, mixed feelings about this one, but entertaining enough to keep me reading. Bremen and Berlin have very similar school politics with staffing decisions and the release of official position numbers being delayed until seconds before the beginning of the holidays, untrained substitute teachers being employed instead of real teachers to cut costs, class sizes increased to unmanageable numbers, school reforms being employed frequently and haphazardly without any realistic plans being made as to their concrete implementation. It's a nightmare, and it's somehow good to see that this city is not alone in its chaos.

Easter!

Sunday, March 31st, 2013 04:53 pm
mothwing: Silhouetted Minerva and Severus sitting in front of a Christmassy mantlepiece (Hat)
Dear flist,

I hope you all have a happy, snow-free and relaxing Easter if you are celebrating or similar spring-related holidays!

It's a blessing to have you in my life. ♥

Moneysink

Sunday, March 24th, 2013 09:34 pm
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
This shop called Kallipos sells shiny and glittery inks and nibs and all sorts of things that I really don't need, but, of course, want.
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
Title: Detention.
Characters: None. There is a werewolf, though, and others are mentioned.
Rating: G
Credits: =charfade's Grass Brush set, *HOTNStock's Mexican Wolf Stock 22, ^PirateLotus-Stock's Crouching Ninja Pirate Pack 2.
Summary: James and Sirius get bored during detention and decide to deface school property.
Comment: Having fun imagining what windows at Hogwarts might look like and that mermaid hints that there are creature windows and possibly less student-safe versions in the private chambers? Who knows.



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Book challenge

Friday, March 22nd, 2013 07:42 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
Two German books - one a comedy on poor, out of work Germans living on welfare and one on the German school system written by a mother.

You can imagine how both turn out.

9.

Kai Twilfer, Schantall, tu ma die Omma winken!
I found this one at the train station store bargain bin when I had an hour to kill and bought it in spite of the little red sticker on this book calling this a "Spiegel bestseller". Being familiar with SPON, I absolutely believe that. The book says that this is a social worker's account of his experiences on his job with a family. So this is an account of what the social worker in question imagines the life and decision-making-process of his charges to be like, though that particular character himself is never introduced, he merely narrates the story. Since he is a middle-class white German and his charges are lower class, it's obvious this would not end well, and so it is what you can deduce, a middle-class German attempting to show that the family he is looking after are a bunch of morons with their priorities completely wrong who cannot live unsupervised. Well. You are a social worker. Who did you think you were going to look after? So don't waste money on this.

8.

Lotte Kühn, Schulversagen
A mother outraged at the German school system works out her frustrations in writing therapy. At least that's what I took away from the experience. She does raise interesting points, but her sources are ridiculous and she doesn't really follow through on any of the points she is making or draws any conclusions other than "teachers are terrible, incompetent people" and "school doesn't live up to all of the parents' expectations and the childrens' needs". Which... well, no, of course it doesn't, and how would it? How would anything but a private tutor do that? She does not have any answers, she does have a lot of frustrations that German schools are not like Swedish schools, (and I remember reading studies don't differ that much from problems German city schools are facing in Swedish city schools). So - if you feel like reading a hearty gripe at the German school system, evil teachers, and poor parents and students, this is the book for you.
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
Title: Brothers.
Characters: Regulus Black and Sirius Black.
Rating: G
Credits: ~mostlyguystock's Standing 6, *Beinspyred's Art Nouveau Border 28, =charfade's Grass Brush Set and ~Frozenstocks' Broken Glass. Thank you!
Summary: A window on the second floor of Grimmauld Place.



Read more... )

And back home.

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 10:33 am
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
We arrived back home at 6am yesterday morning! The trip was a very mixed experience - the bus ride there and back were both miserable and I need to remember to never get it into my head again that an overnight bus tour would be a good idea. It's just not because in spite of the company's announcements, you can't sleep on overnight buses.

Still, Paris is of course amazing and like being hit in the face with significant European history every couple of meters.
There are a lot of things (mostly museums) that I would have really liked to see but didn't get to because we didn't have enough time to waste on standing in line for hours, but even like this there simply was not enough time to take everything in and I think you could probably walk the same routes several times before you have seen what there is to see. I put the picture dump into two backdated posts called Paris I and Paris II.



Ten things... )

Paris II

Sunday, March 17th, 2013 11:28 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
It's amazing how little I remember of my school French, and yet, how much comes back when I'm surrounded by native speakers. Because everybody speaks English I did not have to use my A2 French to full advantage, but it's still comforting to know that in a pinch, I can buy meringues in various flavours in French. Ordering food at the restaurant we had lunch at did not work as well and thus we switched to English, but speaking the language after such a long time was still a very nice experience. Today, we had a look at Notre Dame and the Operas. There is so much to see that I only have pictures of a fraction of the interesting things that we did see, and even those are too few.


Notre Dame )


Odds, ends, and the opera )
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
Backdated, because who cares.

I am not convinced I'll do much better this year, as the main reasons why I didn't make it last year still exist and I'm down to barely two books a month. Also, I'm rereading so many books that I am not sure whether to count them or not.

7.

Jim Butler, Storm Front
See my longer account on the book here. The short version: I did not like it much because of the misogynistic male character, though I wasn't that thrilled about the world either. And I thought you couldn't go wrong with a wizard private detective!

6.

Kirsten Boie , Skogland
A shy girl takes the place of a princess after winning a casting show.
Not sure about this one yet. So far, I've only met one of the two main characters and she is very likeable. Maybe this goes onto the potential books I might read with my fifth grade, though.

5.

Nora K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
I'm not very far in - so far the heiress of a slightly dilapidated Northern kingdom called Yeine Darr travels to the court and is named one of the potential successors of the current ruler, her grandfather, who disowned her mother for marrying a commoner. Various of her cousins are also interested in ruling the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and thus she is thrust into a power struggle in which both gods and mortals play a role.

4.

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
The Lancre coven is up against a group of modern vampires, an indecisive Omnian gets in an ax fight with vampires and a crisis of faith.
This goes well with Small Gods because of what Granny Weatherwax and Mightily Oats have to say about relativism.

3.

Terry Pratchett,Small Gods
While the Omnian church is powerful and is busily being spread by the sword and the inquisition, their god finds himself incarnated into a small tortuous and sets out to find out what happened to his church with his one remaining believer.
Terry Pratchett once said in an interview that he got very positive reactions on this book both from Christians who consider this an incredibly pro-Christian book as well as from atheists who think this is a very anti-Christian book. This makes sense, because most atheists I know have issues with the OT rather than the NT, and this is a very pro-NT and a very anti-OT-book.

2.

Patrick Rothfuss,The Wise Man's Fear
Kvothe leaves the university, becomes a court musician, sleeps with a sex fairy, is a Nice Guy(TM), kills lot of innocent people, takes a roat trip, and is a douche bag.
I'm torn on many parts because they piss me off, especially how the main character treats women. Pacing is a little off, but the author's language and world are still interesting enough to keep me interested.

1.

Patrick Rothfuss,The Name of the Wind
An intelligent boy of varied talents called Kvothe grows up in a group of traveling performers in a renaissance European world, loses his parents to demonic fairy creatures, becomes a street urchin and a thief, gets his way into university, and starts searching for the forces who killed his parents.
I love this book because of the world building and the impeccable pacing of the narrative. The author is incredibly good at language and style. His main character is a bit of an annoying tit, but if you can get over him, this is a really rewarding and fun read.

Paris I

Saturday, March 16th, 2013 11:24 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
Bus tours: Never Again. I think we vowed that last time we went on a bus tour in '07, and yet again we found ourselves cramped into bus seats on an overnight bus. We thought it probably wasn't going to be so bad because it doesn't take as long to get from Bremen to Paris as it does to London, but we were wrong. Many of our fellow travellers were sick and kept the bus up coughing, it was impossible to put back the seats and get sleep, and thus, we arrived in Paris dog-tired and stiff-limbed.

We still had a lovely time.



Trip and generic Paris. )



Louvre )


Various of the Tuileries )


Eiffel tower: way to and view from )

Cheap Bus Tours II

Saturday, March 9th, 2013 03:03 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Adventure)
Managed to book us a tour to Paris instead of to Prague.

I'd have been more interested in Prague, but this is nice, too. I've only ever passed through and it'll be nice to go exploring, brush up my French, and look at some of those places that I only know from school books and movies.

Supernatural

Saturday, March 9th, 2013 02:43 pm
mothwing: "I can't be having with this" next to the grim looking face of Granny Weatherwax (Granny)
The fight between good and evil as told from the refreshing POV of two angsty built white dudes in their twenties. So. Um. Who is this show for?

It's as though they marinated an eighties cop show in current slash fandom for a while and this is what came up. There are these two angsty brothers in their tweens who fight demons, and angst about the (dead) women in their lives, go to hell, and angst, and get tortured, and angst, and torture others, and angst, and kill boatloads of innocent people, and angst. Later on, they acquire an angelic side-kick, and the show seems to be fully aware of the slash potential, at least I find it hard to explain away the way scenes between these three are filmed otherwise.

Much like in most corners of manslash fandom, there just are no female main characters in the show, and if there are women, they are used as bait, as window dressing, as a cause, as a reward, and usually to scream because they can scream at a higher pitch. Every female character is a "bitch" or a "whore", and they all come between the brothers and therefore ultimately need to be destroyed. But they are demons, so that is fine.

The series seems to be aware of the fact that it has a fandom, but also seems to think that they're a bunch of overexcited morons. So... is this aimed at self-loathing or ~self-ironic~ white female slash fandom or really misogynistic white gay men (and neither seems unlikely, given that the series seems to imply that one of the male leads is bisexual)?

Internet, please explain. 

Done vs. to-do

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013 11:38 pm
mothwing: Image of Great A'Tuin from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (A'Tuin)
Done:
sleep in to catch up on sleep.
have porridge with unsweetened cocoa powder and a bit of peanut butter for breakfast.
inspect piles of assorted stuff that have grown on our floors during the past week and throw away half of it.
vacuum everything.
clean all floors.
clean bathroom and dramatically recite "Crossing the Bar" while scrubbing shower.
wipe down all surfaces with furniture polish.
load and run dishwasher.
reorganise kitchen closet.
cut off cables and plugs from lamps to prepare them for being put up in hallway.
nearly electrocute myself doing so because, contrary to what common sense would indicate, the lamps in the hallway are not connected to the fuse labelled "Hall", but to the "Kitchen" fuse.
celebrate fact that growing up I was drilled to use a screwdriver test light before attempting anything on anything electrical.
call my mother to inform her of my near-death experience as she is the one responsible for my test light training.
mope to my mother about fuses, school, and students for an hour.
defrost freezer and peel about 1kg of solid ice off the evaporator coils.
do laundry, including curtains.
play a merry game of sock memory to reunite long-lost sock brethren.
buy black leather coat on eBay for under €6.
buy soft shell coat that looks like a cross between a diving suit and a raincoat but which the reviewers said is very comfortable.
attempt to draw something. Give up when it turns out it sucks.
research short city sightseeing trips Crocky and I could take in the Easter holidays.
research courses offered by the local university and debate feasibility of pulling off completing one while working a full-time job.

Actual to-do-list:
- correct my seventh year's exam.
- talk to the kind crazy cat neighbours.
- draft an exam paper for my other seventh years.
- prepare exercises for my eleventh years for Monday.
- finish minutes of Wednesday's workshop.
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
Well, this was the funniest rendition of Tosca I have ever seen, but the unexpectedly light-hearted mood made it harder to get into the mood of the third act. I simply had not been prepared for the dramatic part of the melodrama.
Still, a nice night out. 

Wolfy stories

Sunday, February 17th, 2013 01:46 am
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Catastrophe)
Periodically, I browse the internet in search for werewolf books. Most of what I find reads like a PSA for why it's a great idea to stay with an abusive partner ("Not his fault that he turns into a werewolf, it's the curse! He's not himself! It's just his violent nature that wants out!") or porn (really lulzy porn).

Female werewolves are far and few between, and they're often either porn stars, or sidekicks to male werewolf love interests (hi Leah), or exotic monsters for male heroes to sleep with (I suppose even Angua, my favourite female werewolf, falls into this category).

There are exceptions, of course, but the last werewolf stories I read - Patricia S. Briggs novels and Gill McNight's lesbian werewolf oeuvre - have left me rather underwhelmed. So I went looking and added these to my books-to-search-at-the-library-pile:

  • Helen Kate (aka She-Wolf)'s Wolf-Girls. An anthology exploring a variety of female werewolf stories. I don't like short stories, but this one has been on my list for a while. This I won't find at the library, but it's available as a not too expensive ebook, though I don't use my slow ebook reader unless forced to.

  • Carrie Vaughn's Kitty series. I'm trepidatious about this series mostly because of their covers, but the main character appears to be a female werewolf, so why not.

  • Naomi Clark's Silver Kiss. This one has lesbian werewolves in a world in which werewolves and humans know about each other.

  • Martin Millar's Lonely Werewolf Girl. It has an eccentric self-harming teenager as the main character. Why not.

  • Allison Moon's Lunatic Fringe about a College group of feminist werewolves sounds a bit choppy, but both FeministFantasy and She-Wolf were ok with it, so why not give it a whirl.

I am also reminded to put Ash and Huntress by Malinda Lo on my to-buy-list. And possibly The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer.

I'm grateful for any wolfy recs that you have! 

Meme.

Saturday, February 9th, 2013 11:27 pm
mothwing: An image of a man writing on a typewriter in front of a giant clockface. At the bottom is the VFD symbol and the inscription "the world is quiet here" (Pen)
Stolen from my flist. 

Read more... )
mothwing: Image of Great A'Tuin from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (A'Tuin)
Crocky and I went to a local insect exhibition today. It was at a tiny community centre around the corner and the poster had promised all manners of exciting large exotic creatures and they charged a rather hefty entrance fee. However, we soon realised in the first room that it was two small and rather dingy rooms and most of the all insect exhibits and also most others were pinned, some already very old and discoloured, and therefore not all that exciting - even though the organisers had clearly attempted to make them look more interesting by arranging them in terrariums. 

The second room was a very pleasant surprise because the organisers had brought their pet reptiles, spiders and myriapods and were showing them to visitors. Espeially the boas and the tortoise petting zoo were a big hit, though was a bit worried for the tortoises in particular. But the owners always watched out for their animals, and especially the teen handling the snakes and spiders seemed to know what he was doing and always made sure that the visitors treated his charges with respect, so I suppose they were fine.  



Spiders, insects, myriapods, and snakes. )

I want giant millipedes as pets. Crocky favours the boa we met today, but I think that these tiny plant-detritus eating creatures that don't grow to a length of 6m and don't live on live piglets are infinitely preferable. 

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