Elizabeth Culmer (
edenfalling) wrote2010-03-31 10:09 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
3 things: grocery stores and the closing thereof; lgbtfest and asexuality; Code Geass
1. I went grocery shopping this evening and discovered that Tops has decided to close the P&C location on Hancock St. (Tops is a grocery chain that recently bought most of the old P&C grocery chain; what they didn't claim, Price Chopper did.) Either they were not able to negotiate rents with the couple who own the site, or they decided the store was not profitable enough.
It will close in mid-April.
This is unfortunate, as that store was the only grocery store within walking distance of my apartment, and all other stores require a twenty-minute walk into town and then a fifteen or thirty-minute bus ride (in other words, forget buying dairy products; they will curdle) or a ten minute walk and a five minute bus ride to the ultra-discount Aldi, and I don't really like discount stores; they have such awful selection.
So it looks as though I will be joining the Ithaca car share program and doing all my shopping once a week down at Wegmans. *sigh* Damn it all to hell.
-----
2. In a fit of madness, I signed up (at least, I think I signed up) for this year's
lgbtfest. I found a prompt that really spoke to me in a fandom I know. I think it may have originally been intended to be about a man dealing with subsidiary issues of being gay, but it can be read equally validly as a man dealing with asexuality, and upon considering said character (Astrin Ymris, from Patricia McKillip's Riddle Master trilogy), I suddenly cannot see him as anything but asexual and cannot figure out why I didn't realize that before.
And the fest is allowing prompts and stories about asexual issues this year, so my interpretation is allowable. Yay!
I have realized over the years that while I see some characters as asexual and tend to write most people as not especially interested in sex and/or romance unless said desires are notable character traits or sex is the point of a given story, I have never really written about asexuality as an issue. It will be interesting to try. It's something weirdly personal, in a way that other issues aren't usually for me. (Not even feminism, because for me, being female and therefore part of a community of women and girls has never been a question, whereas being asexual is something it took me time to realize and start working out what the implications meant for me on a practical and emotional level. And I still have not told my family in so many words, though I have danced very pointedly up and down the edges of the issue.)
Of course, from another point of view a ridiculous amount of stuff I write is already dealing with asexuality and/or aromanticism, since even when I am writing sex and romance, my treatment of said elements is awfully dry and glossed over, and I place more importance on friendship and familial relationships anyway. But still, the one time I previously tried writing a story specifically about asexuality, I was still not down with the whole implications of the thing (I had identified myself as asexual, but not really connected that to there being other asexual people) and therefore tried to justify a character's planned asexuality as nerve damage or some-such instead of just letting his orientation be natural and normal. That pathologizing of my own orientation is probably as much a reason I abandoned that story as my growing lack of interest in Harry Potter in general.
Anyway, hopefully I will be working on both my issues and this new story, and have something presentable done at the end of May.
-----
3. I've been overdosing on Code Geass fanfic the past few days. (You may have noticed over the years that I have a thing for mind games and antiheroes, though I rarely write them. I also have a thing for explorations of morality and ethics, which I do write about. Also, war stories are cool.) The upshot of this is that I have added the series to my Netflix queue and am morbidly curious about whether I'll enjoy it.
It will close in mid-April.
This is unfortunate, as that store was the only grocery store within walking distance of my apartment, and all other stores require a twenty-minute walk into town and then a fifteen or thirty-minute bus ride (in other words, forget buying dairy products; they will curdle) or a ten minute walk and a five minute bus ride to the ultra-discount Aldi, and I don't really like discount stores; they have such awful selection.
So it looks as though I will be joining the Ithaca car share program and doing all my shopping once a week down at Wegmans. *sigh* Damn it all to hell.
-----
2. In a fit of madness, I signed up (at least, I think I signed up) for this year's
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
And the fest is allowing prompts and stories about asexual issues this year, so my interpretation is allowable. Yay!
I have realized over the years that while I see some characters as asexual and tend to write most people as not especially interested in sex and/or romance unless said desires are notable character traits or sex is the point of a given story, I have never really written about asexuality as an issue. It will be interesting to try. It's something weirdly personal, in a way that other issues aren't usually for me. (Not even feminism, because for me, being female and therefore part of a community of women and girls has never been a question, whereas being asexual is something it took me time to realize and start working out what the implications meant for me on a practical and emotional level. And I still have not told my family in so many words, though I have danced very pointedly up and down the edges of the issue.)
Of course, from another point of view a ridiculous amount of stuff I write is already dealing with asexuality and/or aromanticism, since even when I am writing sex and romance, my treatment of said elements is awfully dry and glossed over, and I place more importance on friendship and familial relationships anyway. But still, the one time I previously tried writing a story specifically about asexuality, I was still not down with the whole implications of the thing (I had identified myself as asexual, but not really connected that to there being other asexual people) and therefore tried to justify a character's planned asexuality as nerve damage or some-such instead of just letting his orientation be natural and normal. That pathologizing of my own orientation is probably as much a reason I abandoned that story as my growing lack of interest in Harry Potter in general.
Anyway, hopefully I will be working on both my issues and this new story, and have something presentable done at the end of May.
-----
3. I've been overdosing on Code Geass fanfic the past few days. (You may have noticed over the years that I have a thing for mind games and antiheroes, though I rarely write them. I also have a thing for explorations of morality and ethics, which I do write about. Also, war stories are cool.) The upshot of this is that I have added the series to my Netflix queue and am morbidly curious about whether I'll enjoy it.
no subject
They closed the P&C in the town next to mine, and now the nearest grocery store is a twenty minute drive with no public transportation to speak of. :/ But hey, the put in a Family Dollar!
no subject
I hate the way 95% of America is designed on the assumption that every owns a car. :-(
no subject
Unfortunately, I hate driving more than I dislike the idea of living in a city, so I may be stuck with the inevitability.
no subject
no subject
But yeah, it's more than just a Thirty Xanatos Pileup. Although it's fun to watch for that alone. I just wish we'd gotten the originally-planned Season 2.
no subject
no subject
no subject
That, and it's most decidedly a filthy stinking mecha-scum infested show that should be purged with a face-full of shaped charge from the earth! I've got a tank as an icon for a reason, not a freaking Gundam. And in the timespace of about a year in universe, CG makes the jump from unrealistic 'real robot' show to hyper-unrealistic 'super-robots' flying around and spamming beams at one another. Blah. Not my style of military at all.
no subject
Welcome to the produce aisle! We have lettuce, fruits, and vegetables! Sorry, no meats here, try three aisle over.
no subject
Yes, I am aware that it is a bit strange to complain about these things here, but I simply don't think it's right to have superior damage resistance when your armor, judging by mass and area it must cover, can't be much thicker than tinfoil. I'm the kind of person who takes a long hard look at Star Wars, and then gets out a graphing calculator to figure out how much power a Star Destroyer should have by scaling the Death Star's reactor.
no subject
I kind of like CLAMP's art style, actually, so that will not be an issue.
no subject
Yeah well, the art doesn't do my mind much good when I realize that 2/3 of these characters, as a rule of thumb, is leg. I'm fairly certain people aren't built on those proportions. And what's left universally looks to me like it could use a couple sandwiches.
no subject
Ah, so you are looking for realism in art as well as in military concepts? Fair enough. I am mostly looking for clarity -- can I understand what is happening, can I consistently recognize characters as themselves and tell characters apart from each other, does the art tell the story rather than obscuring it, etc. After that aesthetic appeal does come into play, but I can appreciate a lot of things as attractive. (Also, I think some artwork styles are pretty and/or cool on a linework, design, and coloring level even though they may be awful when judged as a realistic depiction of whatever they're portraying. CLAMP is not that great at realism, but they are good at storytelling and their work is just pretty. YMMV, obviously!)
no subject
Clarity, I am willing to sacrifice on the alter of storytelling. I loved FLCL, despite the fact I didn't understand it. I am also willing to at times sacrifice realism, such as in the case of Gurren Lagann. The key difference being, Gurren Lagann did not make me EXPECT realism. For various reasons, I went into Code Geas expecting a semi-serious Alternate History. It is a genre that I have held to an unusually high, perhaps unrealistic standard of realism. I judged it according to my expectations of that genre, which it failed to measure up against. I'll admit, I probably judged it like that because the first encounter I had with it was with secondary materials and the background timeline, a thing riddled with names like Queen Elizabeth, Ceaser, and Napoleon. As a result, I formed ideas about the series that were unrealistic. Unfortunately, those ideas were about the only things that had drawn me in in the first place.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
btw, if you have any good suggestions for cg fic, would you post it? actually, i'd be interested in any recs that you have in any fandom. good writers give good recs, that's my favorite way to find fics.
speaking of anti-heroes, morality, ect. ect. have you seen Dexter yet? the show with a serial killer as the protagonist? worth it.
no subject
I have not seen Dexter the show, but I have read the first three books in Jeff Lindsay's series, which the show was based on. The first two are very good. The third goes off in a stupid direction, but is still interesting. I have not read the fourth.