10 Things

[lizbee]

1. I need reading glasses for the computer, apparently. MY EYES HAVE TURNED AGAINST ME!

2. If I never see another essay, LJ entry or blog post that begins, "While other little [persons of same gender] were playing with [toys stereotypically associated with said gender]", it will be too soon. I played with trucks as well as dolls, and my doll-play involved fraught interpersonal dramas that wouldn't have been out of place in Russian literature, had Russian literature been about plastic people in space. And I wasn't a particularly special or unique snowflake. Neither are you.

3. Speaking of fraught interpersonal dramas, I have written 500 words on my AU Big Bang. Although said words are so very purple that the Victorian Era is embarrassed for me.

4. There are children playing games and throwing rocks at each other in the alley that runs outside my room. This is disturbing to both me and the cat.

5. I had a nightmare that I was stuck on an island and my e-reader wasn't charged. This is extra-strange because I'm currently in the middle of a dead-tree book, although I have to say that it isn't very good, and I'll be picking up something else right as soon as my e-reader has power.

6. Doing so would, of course, be easier if Borders hadn't, as part of its administration process, stopped accepting gift vouchers online. Now that the axe has fallen and none of my friends have lost their jobs (yet), I can bitch about the annoyance of having had $70 in vouchers, all allocated to ebooks, and then having to spend them in store instead.

7. Last night I finished my Star Trek: The Next Generation re-watch. So that was nice. I had some proper thoughts about "All Good Things...", but a night has passed, and the only one that remains in my head is amusement that I counted more than 10 cats in Data's future home. Anyway, I've now seen every episode of TNG except "The Outcast". Which I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid, on the grounds that it was intended as pro-gayism propaganda, and which I declined to watch this time on the grounds that it's massively homophobic.

8. Now I very much want to keep going with DS9, but I'm not in the mood for Voyager. This is a problem. I'm tempted to put all of Trek on hold and watch Fringe, which seems to have eaten my LJ friends' brains in the same way that Avatar has eaten mine.

9. I was going to complain about the tumbleweeds over LJ and DW, being that since I filtered out all the fight clubs, it's taking me about 10 minutes a day to read my friends lists. But then, just at the moment being online for me involves adopting a kind of hunch and squinting in order to read, so I shouldn't complain.

10. That is all. FOR NOW.

Comments

[recessional]

If I never see another essay, LJ entry or blog post that begins, "While other little [persons of same gender] were playing with [toys stereotypically associated with said gender]", it will be too soon. I played with trucks as well as dolls, and my doll-play involved fraught interpersonal dramas that wouldn't have been out of place in Russian literature, had Russian literature been about plastic people in space. And I wasn't a particularly special or unique snowflake. Neither are you.

Ahahaha, yes. Also my dolls and my GI Joes got together and saved the world from Sauron. Repeatedly. Which I suppose indicates they weren't that good at getting rid of Sauron in the first place, but as they are plastic people, we should probably give them some slack.

And often the game never actually got started because me and my (boy) cousins were too busy trying to make THE ULTIMATE SANDCASTLE FORTRESS for it out in the sandbox, until I freaked out and ran away from the wasps.

But seriously, that phrasing always makes me want to grind my teeth. That and "when the other little girls wanted to be princesses, I wanted to be a vampire" - yeah, well, I wanted to be a resurrected Maia!Eowyn with psychic powers and a dragon she redeemed from the Underworld. And so on.

[lizbee]

But seriously, that phrasing always makes me want to grind my teeth. That and "when the other little girls wanted to be princesses, I wanted to be a vampire" - yeah, well, I wanted to be a resurrected Maia!Eowyn with psychic powers and a dragon she redeemed from the Underworld. And so on.

I would have liked to be a princess, but what I really wanted to be was a sorceress-queen who wore long black dresses and fought evil magicians and rival witches for control of her kingdom. Like a goth Lady Lovelylocks.

Mostly, I just think the games of small children are much more arcane and interesting than stereotypes and marketing allow.

[recessional]

Yep. Even kids who didn't drink in SF from the cradle often manage to come up with some of the most strangely interesting games (like opening a restaurant).

Ooo. Sorceress-queen would have been awesome, too. Somehow I always defaulted to the knight-errant.

[ellen_fremedon]

A few weeks ago, there was cake at work left over from some event-- and, inexplicably, My Little Pony paper plates to eat it on. The male co-worker in line ahead of me passed me a plate:

Him: Can you believe this?
Me: Oh! I think I had that one! *nostalgia swoon*
Him: (looks extremely non-plussed)
Me: (continuing) I uprooted its tail for hair transplants to turn my Barbie dolls into cyborgs!
Him: That's... unusual.
Me: Not really, no.

[lizbee]

Yeah, didn't most little girls eventually hit the point of modifying their dolls? Though I never understood My Little Pony, what with being raised in a bubble, pop culture-wise.

[violetisblue]

I tried turning one of my Barbies into a brunette by coloring her hair with a black permanent marker. It turned a translucent purple color instead, which was even better.

[lizbee]

I turned mine into punks by putting my mother's blue mascara through their hair.

The 80s: best decade ever, or BEST DECADE EVER?

[holyschist]

I colored my sole Ken's hair black and lacquered it, although it backfired and made him look even sleazier, forever dooming him to be the villain.

Purple would have been a lot cooler.

[violetisblue]

But you had a Ken with GENUINE LACQUERED HAIR, which is so perfect I'm giggling contemplating it right now.

[holyschist]

He looked like a lounge lizard when I was done! Not quite as planned....

[prof_pangaea]

i love this comment. <3

[cereta]

2. If I never see another essay, LJ entry or blog post that begins, "While other little [persons of same gender] were playing with [toys stereotypically associated with said gender]", it will be too soon. I played with trucks as well as dolls, and my doll-play involved fraught interpersonal dramas that wouldn't have been out of place in Russian literature, had Russian literature been about plastic people in space. And I wasn't a particularly special or unique snowflake. Neither are you.

Can I say how much it particularly irritates me when women brag about not playing with dolls or other "girly" things? Because yes, the way to earn your feminist cred is to talk about how you're not like those icky girls. It's one of the reasons I like the books this icon is from. The little girl plays sports AND has tea parties.

[holyschist]

#2: SO MUCH WORD. Although in my case, I never got into trucks, despite my mom's best efforts. Plastic swords and pizza-cardboard shields, yes. *sigh*

I have found that kids play and interact in much less stereotyped ways than adults assume, if you actually look at what they're doing instead of assuming they're doing what you think boys and girls do.

[phosfate]

I had fucking MASSIVE Tonka trucks and I loved them so.

The little bastard next door stole them. He's probably a senator now.

[holyschist]

I had some of those! But I never played much in my sandbox, preferring to set things on fire and run "scientific experiments" on plant growth when I was outside.

I wonder if they're still at my mom's house or if she passed them on to some other kid....

[shewhostaples]

My pa was playing with trains and dolls in the forties. Not news, people.

[phosfate]

Anyway, I've now seen every episode of TNG except "The Outcast". Which I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid, on the grounds that it was intended as pro-gayism propaganda, and which I declined to watch this time on the grounds that it's massively homophobic.

And that's why zie's AN OUTCAST!

[6p00e5538e66e68833 [typepad.com]]

Here's how GLAAD NY reported on the Outcast at the time:

-------------------------------------------STAR TREK'S MIXED MESSAGE

Star Trek: The Next Generation garnered mixed reviews for its March episode, "The Outcast," in which the crew encountered an androgynous race.One of the aliens, Soren (Melinda Cullen), tells Commander Will Riker of beingborn with the feelings of a female. They fall in love but when their friendship is discovered Soren is put on trial and sentenced by her people to curative "psychotechnic" treatment.On the one hand, Soren gave an impassioned speech saying "I am female.I was born that way . . . All of the loving things you do with each other,that is what we do. And for that we are called misfits and deviants and criminals." But in the end she is "cured," or maybe brainwashed, and rejects Riker. Many found the conclusion ambiguous and disturbing. While there were elements to praise, no mention was made of gays or lesbians in the future or about anti-gay discrimination in Earth's past. Both would have been natural to mention.

Before his death, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry told TheAdvocate "In the fifth season ... viewers will see more of shipboard life[including] gay crew members in day-to-day circumstances." This didn'thappen.

Ask for REAL gay characters next season by writing:
Rick Berman
Executive Producer Star Trek: The Next Generation
Paramount Pictures
5555 Melrose Ave.Los Angeles, CA 90038
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