entirely ruined her disposition with books

Hey, y'all! I hope you had a good Thanksgiving if you celebrate and a great weekend if you don't. I had amaaaaaazing food and lots of it, so I'm generally feeling pretty good. I also finished the very last episode of Friday Night Lights and cried like a baby, watched every aired episode of Happy Endings (which is fun! I like it!), and started The Walking Dead, which I have decided how I feel about yet, as much as I love post-apocalyptic stuff. Also I am slightly ahead on NaNo! So I will definitely be writing 50,000 words this year! Yay me!

And I'm thinking about what I'm thankful for, and I serendipitously ended up reading this article which is old but awesome and all about how Young People Today (Gens X and Y, apparently) are obsessed with Not Looking Stupid and so never want to Be Seen Caring Too Much, and you know what? I recognize that in a lot of people I know, especially my smarter real life friends. But reading it made me sad, thinking about what kind of a tiny life that must be, except then it made me think about the internet and all of y'all and I was reminded that there are a lot of people out there who Don't Care about Being Seen Caring Too Much and who just embrace being in love with things and being passionate and loving what they love and how I think that that's one of the more important things in life.

Which makes me think of one of my favorite quotes from John Green:

…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.’

I'm thankful for fandom as a community. It can turn ugly, as we all know, but most of that ugliness comes from a place of Caring Too Much. And yes, we should all learn not to take things so seriously that shipping wars become the end of the world or we attack other people for liking a character we hate or vice-versa or whatever, yes learning those lessons is a good and necessary thing. But I think I'd rather flounder into a big mess because of Caring Too Much rather than just live my life so tepidly in a constant attempt not to be Mockable in any way. (BTW, there's a Happy Endings episode about that, and I loooooved it). I care, y'all. Those silly characters I reblog gifs of on my tumblr and write fic about? I love them so much that sometimes I feel like I'm going to just explode with the force of it. I really, really do. And I care about other things, too, like justice and kindness and basically just being a good person and trying to make life easier for other people if I can. And I don't care if that makes me Not Cool. I don't. I am a geek through-and-through, and you know what? I love that about myself, and I love that about y'all, and I love all of you for providing me with a place where I can just revel in that love whenever I want to. Fandom, to me, is a place where people love things and get excited about things and get upset about things and basically just scream at the universe that they are human and so they care. And how amazing is that?

Anyway, my apologies for being sappy, but y'all are awesome. ♥

i fail at life so hard.

i just went over here:


(click on the picture)

and left a bunch of prompts, and every single one of them was a faulkner quote. whyyyyyy?

I'm going to Blast! tonight! OMG SO EXCITED! I got to see them the last time they came through (which was...a lot of years ago) and I always watch them when they're on PBS and also I have the album of course, but I am JUST AS EXCITED this time around.

For those of you who don't know what it is, it's basically Drum Corps on steroids on stage. (For those of you who don't know what Drum Corps is, I feel sorry for you, and you can read about it here. It's kind of like competitive marching band on steroids on tour). I grew up on Drum Corps and until a year or two ago, I went with my daddy (and sometimes my mama and sister) every summer when they came through. My daddy grew up going to it, and both of my parents were band geeks, so it's kind of a family tradition ("Drum Corps does it better" is often heard in our house after listening to basically any kind of music. We say it even when it's not true). Which I realize makes us a very geeky family, but I do not even care. LIVE MUSIC. LOVE. So when we heard Blast! was back in the country (they were in Japan for a while, I think?) and coming to town, we of course immediately bought tickets. And for once we have REALLY GREAT SEATS.

I am going to cry during "Malaguena," y'all. I already know. It's my favorite.



Anyway, I just needed to briefly geek out about that. And now I am going back to work on my seasonal_spuffy entry because my posting day is TOMORROW.

I think these will be Relevant to Your Interests:

On why The Social Network is problematic quite aside from its explicity depiction (or lack thereof) of women

and

the best article I've read in a while on being a feminist geek. Things I never get tired of: talking about sexism in geek/fan culture.

ENVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY FUTURE HUSBAND JUST GOT CAST IN A PILOT I MIGHT DIE OF HAPPINESS EVEN IF THE SUMMARY SOUNDS A LITTLE SILLY I DON'T CARE ENVER IS PLAY A SEXY CON AND THERE WILL BE FAMILY TIMES I MIGHT DIE.

NO BUT SERIOUSLY.

The only two other thoughts I have are:

1. I am not thrilled with the other lead. That guy really bugged me on Heroes. Remember when I watched that show? HAHAHA!
2. elisi and I were just talking yesterday about how Enver needed to get cast in something soon and LO AND BEHOLD. QUICK, MRS. DARCY! TALK ABOUT HOW I NEED A MILLION DOLLARS, OKAY?

To reiterate:

ENVER. GJOKAJ. ON. MY. TELEVISION. SCREEN.

I just had a mind-melting moment when I realized that, no, my crazy brain wasn’t tricking me, and yes, that really was Amy Acker in those episodes of Wishbone, aka the Greatest Show in the History of the World. It’s like COLLISION OF AWESOME THINGS. I seriously haven’t been this excited since I realized that Moody Spurgeon grew up to be Zone from Dollhouse.

Someone please explain to me why I get so irrationally excited about things like this? Because I was just sitting here flailing going, "OMG SHE WAS PRISCILLA IN THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH EPISODE! I REMEMBER THAT ONE! I REMEMBER THINKING SHE WAS SO PRETTY!" And I feel like I should not get this worked up.

So on a scale from 1 to 10, please tell me how silly you think it is that this excites me so. Go!

So guess what I'm doing right now when I should be NaNoing? Or at the very least replying to your comments? Or cleaning my house or a dozen other things that are far more important?

I'm race-swap casting Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

OMG Y'ALL I'M SO EXCITED. And I found the world's second best cheekbones! Move over, Marsters! I've found the race!swapped!Spike! (And lots of other people, but I'm most excited about finding Spike.)

I'm having an extremely hard time finding people for Riley and Oz and Faith. Extremely hard. But I will prevail! Because this is way, way, way too much fun!

So I've been kind of absent of late. Between new job, NaNoWriMo (which is going pretty well! Post about that to come, hopefully!) and busy family-ness, I just don't really have the time or energy to post a whole lot. Basically, by the time I get settled at home, I'm so tired that all I have the energy to do is reblog pictures of pretty people on tumblr, because that takes zero thought.

But I've been trying to keep up with y'all's posts, so there's that, but, once again, I am hopelessly behind in replying to comments in this here blog. Hopefully I can catch up with that very soon.

I've got a few fics ideas stewing that I might have some time to work on after November's over, and there's also YULETIDE OMG MY FAVORITE FANDOM ACTIVITY OF THE YEEEEEAR. Speaking of which, if you haven't signed up, it's not quite too late! You still have a few hours left! Get on it! Y'all, I signed up to write YA books of wonderfulness from my childhood! Heartbreaking and/or silly movies! Random Korean television! No matter what my assignment is, I will be psyched about it. Which reminds me that I need to finish up my "Dear Yuletide writer" letter stat.

Also! I have my next casting/picspam planned! Basically, now that I've started this, I will never stop. I have made a monster of my own self.

Oh, and I have a big big big project I need to start working on for January--keep watching this space for more info (and a couple of you keep watching your email boxes for requests for help--you know who you are, even if you have no idea what I'm talking about. If you think I'm talking about you, I am. I can vague that up a bit more, if you like. And yes, that's a hint).

I hope y'all are all doing well and that the gross weather (if you're having gross weather) hasn't been getting you down. Feel free to let me know what you're up to. Hopefully once the month is over, I'll be able to plunge back into lj life. I miss it.

Oh, and the last and most important thing (of the moment): in an hour and a half I will be sitting in a movie theater waiting for Harry Potter to start! My ticket is in my wallet! YAY YAY YAY!

Oh, and Emmie--I can't access my email here, but I wanted you to know that I got your email before I left for work this morning and I can't wait to check it out! Yay some more!

I seriously can't believe I finished this! It's been stewing in the back of my mind for months and months and months, but I almost never thought it would come to fruition. But here it is! Much thanks to everyone who really wanted to see it, to eilowyn and madcap_shiny for helping with the casting (Lexi, you deserve an AWARD for finding me a Weevil!), and to marketchippie for helping me figure out how to do the picspam.

I had originally thought I'd write an explanation for each pic, but now that I've assembled all the pictures, I think they stand reasonably well on their own. But if you don't quite understand the reasoning for any of them, please let me know--I'd be glad to tell you my thought process!

Notes: I've stuck to seasons 1 and 2 only because, well, I've never actually watched all of S3. Also, this is my first ever picspam, so it's not as aesthetically pleasing as I'd wished, but I hope you enjoy and that it doesn't make your eyes bleed!

( we used to be friends a long time ago.... )

Dear German language,

I love you and the fact that you have a word for everything. I also love that when there's not a word for something, you make one up by smooshing already-existing words together. I hope we get tons more loan-words from you (schadenfreude is one of the most useful words in the world!), but I hope we steal this one from you next:

fremdschämen: cringing embarrassment for the actions of others

What English says with seven words, you say with one.

SO. USEFUL.

It describes why I can't watch The Office or America's Funniest Home Videos and why I can't be friends with that one--very nice girl--from high school who I have a lot of common interests with but who makes me wince whenever she's around.

Thank you!

Umarmungen und Küsse,

Lauren

P.S. You are also the most fun language in the world to sing in.