Rather than many coherent posts, I make one fragmented one instead

[laceblade]

For those going for the Minimalist RaceFail experience....
I found sparkymonster's RaceFail, Silence, and Words quite valuable and link-rich.

miriam_heddy's Where is your home? is intense and true. I don't think it's difficult to become informed about RaceFail.

Also love tablesaw's O HAI RACEFAILZ: Notes on Reading an Internet Conflict.

---

Does the wording of any of the WisCon panels make you cringe?

I found one! Emphasis added by me.

Are we done believing in god yet?
The freakish antics of true believers, the willful naivete of not-so-true-believers, and on the other side "Society Without God", the president of the United States acknowledging "non-believers", Darwin's 200th birthday, and the possible discovery of simple life on Mars. Are we finally going to shake off the institutionalized fears of our ancestors? What will we replace it with? Is "replacing it" even a valid point of discussion?

:[ is what I have to say. I have yet to attend a WisCon panel about religion. I do not think that it would go....well....for me.

---

I finished reading Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Choice and have Things to Say before I go on to the next book in the duology.


I think I really would have liked these books without the POV character of Aly. I love the court intrigue, the inability to trust everyone, even the trickster god. I really really love the Tudor-esque royal stuff going on. LOVE. It's what keeps me reading.

Why couldn't Dove have been the POV character? Dove is so intelligent and so central to the plot - being the younger sister of Sarai, the woman who might become queen? What a great POV character!

Alternatively, I would have loved a girl who actually was the servant Aly was pretending to be. If a Trickster god is picking someone for their potential/skills in eavesdropping and planning and stuff, I think a servant could have been a very workable a choice. The fact that Aly's constantly hiding her noble birth and true parentage seems unnecessary to me.

Instead we get Aly, a white woman from a different country, who's captured as a slave, chosen by a god, and ends up being the honky who comes to sort out this mess of court-rule, entangled by race and centuries of in-fighting.

To begin with, she arrives fully formed, with an arsenal of skills at her disposal. I really liked the Lioness Quartet and the Protector of the Small Quartet a lot more, because we get to see the protagonists working hard, sweating, learning, getting better, getting stronger. Aly's already learned everything from her father, and she does everything perfectly, especially in the first 150 pages or so. Also, maybe it was just me, but her thought process was spelled out almost ad nauseum. Judging people's character as related to court drama is cool, but EVERY TIME she got on a horse, Pierce reminded readers that she was pretending to be a bad rider so that she could play a role. I found Aly to be extremely conceited, and she kind of ruined the books for me. To me that's a flaw, but not really a self-acknowledged one. I think Kel was very self-aware of all her failings, but she also had a fear of heights that was pretty spelled out. Ditto to Alanna's issues with intimacy and trusting people.

Anyway, I found her presence problematic for other reasons, too. The book is basically a version of What These People Need is a Honky, which is part of why I would have vastly preferred Dove or a raka [ie, person of color] servant as the POV character.

"That's not what I learned at my da's knee," Aly retorted. Her mental image of people executed by righteous natives was too awful for her to let Ochobu's prejudices stand without argument. "The raka used to kill all the time. Your nobles and your rather temporary queens in the years before the luarin came were so busy battling each other that you didn't have the strength to fight off an invasion. By the time you banded together, it was too late."
"I know that," Ochobu growled, mashing her berries with ferocity. "All of us who inherited this mess know."

...

Ochobu laid her pestle aside. "We have lived too long as tenants on lands that our foremothers owned. I know that. I know what is at stake. I can see for myself that a certain young woman is royal in two bloodlines, and that seems to fit the prophecy. But I am no lapdog, trained to roll onto my back for you or any other luarin. I am here to make up my own mind."
Aly brushed a speck from her sleeve. "Then let me tell you something I've observed. Those you call luarin here, including the ones who are part luarin, part raka - they aren't citizens of the Eastern or Southern Lands. They see themselves as Kyprians. They took your land's names for thier own. They've made the Isles prosper. I think they've earned the right to stay, if they don't side with the Rittevons when the time comes."
"Is the god speaking through you?" Ochobu demanded, eyes flinty. "Or just you?"
Aly fought the urge to give Nawat's shrug for a reply. "I assume the god picked me for my opinions as well as my skills, however temporary I might be. I am an outsider. Sometimes we see more clearly than those who live inside the problem."
"I'll be better off when you leave," Ochobu complained. For the moment she sagged, the lines of her face deepening. "You've given me a headache. Go away."
Aly went.

---

I started a Kingdom Hearts game, which means I'm now in the middle of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, and this game.

I recognized something extremely familiar as soon as I heard Squall Leon talking.....LOL DAVID BOREANAZ. What a perfect combination. It was like....suddenly there was liquid sex in my video game!

I find a lot of the interface stuff super annoying, like the fact that I can't be moving my character while simultaneously controlling the camera angle. Also found myself longing for the ever-present Final Fantasy XII map. Maybe I should just play FFXII some more. I love it, but I remember last saving in a place where my characters were in a bit of a pickle. Hopefully I have another save point close to that one.

---

Lots of people have blogged about Kaori Yuki manga before BUT I DID NOT BELIEVE THEM.

I have now read 1.5 volumes of Cain Saga. OMG!!! Tortured soul Earl Cain Hargreaves lives in Victorian England. He keeps a collection of poisons handed down in his family for generations. He solves mysteries! He has a curse to never have anyone love him.....BUT HIS HOT BUTLER RIFF CARES FOR HIM AND HIS MAN-PAIN.
I loved the sidebar in which Kaori Yuki was like, "Lots of people say they like Riff, and I think it's funny, because I don't get it." And I was like, OH YOU ARE SO SILLY, YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING, HAVING THOSE HOT MEN KEEP HOUSE TOGETHER.

I am so excited to read more! Heinous Victorian gothic manga is apparently exactly what I need right now.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

OMG YOU KNOW NOTHING OF KAORI YUKI YET! NOTHING!

It...I...THERE ARE NO WORDS!

Because Cain Saga? Is before KY truly got her crack and kinks going. (She wrote Angel Sanctuary between Cain Saga and Godchild, and you'll notice the difference.

and buttery?

[hikaru-no.livejournal.com]

I think, with very little certainty, that having hot liquid sex in your video game would make for messy clean up.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I'm... almost thinking of volunteering for that WisCon panel just so it's not a self-satisfied echo chamber. (Nota bene: it's equally easy for panels of believers to become self-satisfied echo chambers. But that panel description is nothing good). But I don't know that they're going to find four people volunteering to step into that can of worms.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Does this mean that I should read Angel Sanctuary in between Cain and Godchild??

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

I will go to that panel with you and have your back!

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

yeah, that religion panel description made me cringe, too. I was like "hmm, I wonder the opinion of the person who wrote this!?? Clearly they are looking for unbiased opinions!"

I think for next year I will propose a panel exploring why people of non-Abrahamic faiths/religions/etc. can't seem to get along with atheists, either. I mean, you would think that pagans and atheists could get along, at least. But, sometimes, no. (Often because of the language exhibited in that description).

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that offer!

I might change my mind before WisCon, but I'm not sure I would attend the panel at all.

Not all of the panels end up BEING panels, right? Maybe not enough people will volunteer to be on it...

Re: and buttery?

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Yeah.....controllers are really hard to clean, you know.




OH SNAP.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

You could totally do it!

But yeah, I'm hoping that not enough people will volunteer and it won't be a panel.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

That would be a much more interesting panel!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I don't know that it really matters, to be honest.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

The wording of that Wiscon panel is really offensive! I don't understand how that could fly, really. Why is offensive language to some condoned by a group founded on egalitarianism? I mean, let's be honest - many awful things have been done in the name of religious zealotry, but that's not the same thing as saying "freakish antics of true believers." Oh, and Darwin was Christian! And many Christians believe in evolution! I'm not even Christian and I know this!

You should ask them to change the wording of the panel. In fact, I don't think they do a very good job of tying in the panel with what I would think of as relevant content for Wiscon, though I've never gone and am just speaking of my general conference experience here.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Ditto!

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I do know that WisCon has a practice of not editing program panel descriptions at all, except for grammar/minor clarity. That way, they don't have to take flak for people disliking the descriptions, bwahaha.

But yeah, I guess I could write them a note saying that I find it distasteful.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

That WisCon panel description is making me cringe too. But it's a characterization of religion that I've seen from fans and other people for whom intelligence is a big part of their self image. "Oh, isn't that cute - you have those fantasies of the sky god who can fix everything (except cancer and war and torture and my car's transmission). Do you believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause too? Well, I'm too smart to believe that, and you are a delusional idiot. Now that you know how illogical you are, how can you believe in God?"

I don't think than panel would go well for me either. If I were going to WisCon I wouldn't bother to attend because these people are true believers too. There's not much you can say to them, including "Can you at least refrain from insulting people with different beliefs?" They usually say something like "I'm just telling you this for your own good. How can it be insulting to refute your illogical thoughts?"

[homo-nescius.livejournal.com]

zomg i think u just hit two of my favorite fangirl crushes right there.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I would support you.

[seeksadventure.livejournal.com]

I agree very much with your critique of Trickster. I think that set is the weakest of the Tortall books, and Aly is my least favorite narrator. Your suggestion that it should have been a raka servant is a very, very good one; I sometimes think that Tammy was trying too hard to shoehorn this into the rest of the Tortall series by connecting the characters, and it would have been much better off if it had more stood on its own.

Re: and buttery?

[(Anonymous)]

Also keep in mind it is my controller :-(

Re: and buttery?

[tdwf.livejournal.com]

Okay, that didn't need to be anon.