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meme-thingy is memed, II
<--check out Mr. Nigel Murray there. He is WISE, my friends, wise like a crazy owl. In fact, he totally knew the answers to the five things meme, as posed by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
insight2.
Finn
Finn is my black dog! He is a rescue, and named after a character in Beowulf. (Notsheafrotherdon's Finn :D) He is also a huge goof who eats too much for his own good and loves attention, and I can't imagine not having him around. Along with dogeared's black dog, he is a charter member of the black dog club.
Uriel appreciation
Uriel is so badass, I love him even though we are perhaps not supposed to. Some of my love comes just from the fact that Robert Wisdom plays him beautifully, and how he will so obviously smite you if you step over the line. (I think it's related to the fact that next to him Castiel is so... short and unassuming XD and it's more knowing what Castiel is that inspires fear and trembling.) The rest of it comes from my own private fanon, Paradise Lost-inspired, where Uriel watches Adam and Eve leave the garden and humankind's first rocky, difficult days in the land just outside Eden where they learn about things like jealousy and how to kill each other. Yeah, I would not like humanity much, either :|
Language aesthetics (artses and fic and maybe RL too)
I just love language, everything about it. I love it written and signed and spoken, and how it carries almost all of what we are along with it, in its different ways. Whenever I get a chance to play with it in fic, I do--it's one of those things that moves back and forth between fandom and RL for me. (You should not even get me started on Skanr and constructed languages.) Lately I've gotten into text art and presentation... I'm not very good at it yet, but I love how text presentation can be used to play with meaning and emphasis, and how language really doesn't have to get in the way of what the picture is trying to present, but can instead work with it. SO AWESOME IN GENERAL YAY.
Orange fleece of infinite cuddliness
The first time I thought "I WANTS IT" with reference to SGA was not with reference to John Sheppard or Rodney McKay, but to Rodney's orange fleece. Now in my head it is associated with everything warm and cuddly and comforting--especially now that I have one of my own that keeps me warm in the cold corner of the house where my desk is ♥
Moleskine
Moleskines are the best notebooks EVAR. I put just about everything in them: fics and fic ideas (the Notebook, where everything fic goes, is a Moleskine), poems and songs I like, my conlangs, a novel-in-perpetual-progress, dissertation notes... yes. Everything. They're perfect for me, the lines just the right width apart, soothingly cream-colored paper, sturdy and compact... Yes. Me likey.
In fannish news: I wroted a drabble for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
deancastiel drabble fire challenge, Secretum secretorum (The Secret of Secrets), featuring Dean, Castiel, and the Impala ♥
Also, I will confess to watching a few episodes of Merlin. So far, I am prepared to grant that Merlin is adorable (aside from the hair, oh my god please change the hair), Gwen is lovely, and Arthur needs a swift kick in the pants. Also, it is not as boring as 99% of the Arthurian stuff I've been exposed to in my life... Probably this is a bad thing for a medievalist to admit, but most Arthurian literature puts me to sleep. The majority of the Morte Darthur makes me catatonic, except for the part where Lancelot gropes the open, bleeding wounds of an injured knight. Heh heh heh, wound-groping.
In other news: To quote the BBC Pride and Prejudice, "Damn tedious waste of an evening!" I had to go out for drinks tonight, which is usually not bad, but this time it was because I didn't know anyone outside of two people, and all the people I didn't know happened to be Law and Business Students. We had nothing to talk about and very little in common. ("So... you want to research medieval literature, huh?" "You're trying to get a job as an investment banker in this economy, huh?") So, I had a glass of wine, made one of the people I knew very sorry he had asked me to come, and left.
Also, all the cretins were out on the road tonight. WTF is up with that? I arrived at the bar red-faced with shouting unheard threats, advice, and curses at the morons I encountered on the way.
insight2.Finn
Finn is my black dog! He is a rescue, and named after a character in Beowulf. (Not
sheafrotherdon's Finn :D) He is also a huge goof who eats too much for his own good and loves attention, and I can't imagine not having him around. Along with dogeared's black dog, he is a charter member of the black dog club.Uriel appreciation
Uriel is so badass, I love him even though we are perhaps not supposed to. Some of my love comes just from the fact that Robert Wisdom plays him beautifully, and how he will so obviously smite you if you step over the line. (I think it's related to the fact that next to him Castiel is so... short and unassuming XD and it's more knowing what Castiel is that inspires fear and trembling.) The rest of it comes from my own private fanon, Paradise Lost-inspired, where Uriel watches Adam and Eve leave the garden and humankind's first rocky, difficult days in the land just outside Eden where they learn about things like jealousy and how to kill each other. Yeah, I would not like humanity much, either :|
Language aesthetics (artses and fic and maybe RL too)
I just love language, everything about it. I love it written and signed and spoken, and how it carries almost all of what we are along with it, in its different ways. Whenever I get a chance to play with it in fic, I do--it's one of those things that moves back and forth between fandom and RL for me. (You should not even get me started on Skanr and constructed languages.) Lately I've gotten into text art and presentation... I'm not very good at it yet, but I love how text presentation can be used to play with meaning and emphasis, and how language really doesn't have to get in the way of what the picture is trying to present, but can instead work with it. SO AWESOME IN GENERAL YAY.
Orange fleece of infinite cuddliness
The first time I thought "I WANTS IT" with reference to SGA was not with reference to John Sheppard or Rodney McKay, but to Rodney's orange fleece. Now in my head it is associated with everything warm and cuddly and comforting--especially now that I have one of my own that keeps me warm in the cold corner of the house where my desk is ♥
Moleskine
Moleskines are the best notebooks EVAR. I put just about everything in them: fics and fic ideas (the Notebook, where everything fic goes, is a Moleskine), poems and songs I like, my conlangs, a novel-in-perpetual-progress, dissertation notes... yes. Everything. They're perfect for me, the lines just the right width apart, soothingly cream-colored paper, sturdy and compact... Yes. Me likey.
In fannish news: I wroted a drabble for the
deancastiel drabble fire challenge, Secretum secretorum (The Secret of Secrets), featuring Dean, Castiel, and the Impala ♥Also, I will confess to watching a few episodes of Merlin. So far, I am prepared to grant that Merlin is adorable (aside from the hair, oh my god please change the hair), Gwen is lovely, and Arthur needs a swift kick in the pants. Also, it is not as boring as 99% of the Arthurian stuff I've been exposed to in my life... Probably this is a bad thing for a medievalist to admit, but most Arthurian literature puts me to sleep. The majority of the Morte Darthur makes me catatonic, except for the part where Lancelot gropes the open, bleeding wounds of an injured knight. Heh heh heh, wound-groping.
In other news: To quote the BBC Pride and Prejudice, "Damn tedious waste of an evening!" I had to go out for drinks tonight, which is usually not bad, but this time it was because I didn't know anyone outside of two people, and all the people I didn't know happened to be Law and Business Students. We had nothing to talk about and very little in common. ("So... you want to research medieval literature, huh?" "You're trying to get a job as an investment banker in this economy, huh?") So, I had a glass of wine, made one of the people I knew very sorry he had asked me to come, and left.
Also, all the cretins were out on the road tonight. WTF is up with that? I arrived at the bar red-faced with shouting unheard threats, advice, and curses at the morons I encountered on the way.
no subject
I only vaguely remember teaching Yvain and parts of Malory's Morte Darthur. I tried to get through Parzifal and could not manage it XD Really the only Arthurian-type stuff I like are the Welsh stories and poetry, The Holy Grail, and The Sword in the Stone :D
I think there's a need for things to be "just like the book," in some senses...maybe because we want comfort-viewing fare? Something warm and familiar that we don't have to stretch our brains too much for?
I think the problem with that, at least as applied to Merlin is... which book? :D The traditions are so nebulous and crazy and filtered through so many lenses that you really can't pin any of them down. And I think trying to force any modern reinterpretation of, oh, any medieval tradition into historical accuracy is to mistake what's important, and really, to miss the point that a lot of the texts we reproduce as books, TV shows, or movies, as I say, have their own relationships to history. Just, you know, sit back and enjoy the story for what it is, I guess.
no subject
Medieval flavored piiiiie.
Also? One of my favorite comments from the whole Checkmate thing was where the commenter wondered aloud if John's transformation was going to be like when Wart got turned into various critters to teach him things.
And I quite gleefully replied, "Castor and Pollux blow me to Bermuda!" (Which was one of my favorite scenes, along with Wol saying, "There is no owl.")
no subject
He's a very Rodneylike owl.
no subject
no subject
The trouble with the Welsh stuff for most people, of course, is no Lancelot and no (in the usual sense) Merlin. Though I'm working on a series of historical novels at the moment, drawing on the Welsh tales, that turns on its head the obviously nonsensical claim that Caerfyrddin was named after Myrddin (Merlin to Saxon-speakers). In Late Antiquity, a man would be officially referred to by his name, his father's name and the city he belonged to; so "Maridunensis" could be part of the name of someone generally known by a different name altogether!