This is another one of those posts you don’t need to read if you don’t know me personally, but which I’m sharing on the off chance that it might be beneficial to other women who have to go through the same thing.
The general theme of this post is “surgically-induced menopause sucks” (punctuated, if you will, by Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon bellowing “WHAT A DAMN NUISANCE!”). Medical things about my girl parts behind the fold.
I’ve continued to see a lot of brouhaha over the character of Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and as near as I can tell, the objections to her presence in the movie fall into these general categories:
As I’ve already stated in my review of the movie, I actually very much like the character. And while I do not expect to change the minds of anyone who dislikes her, I thought I’d speak a little more on the topic on why I like her, and yes, why even the romance angle she’s in works for me.
Needless to say, spoilers for the movie will abound behind the fold. So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you might want to skip this post for a bit.
Dara and I just finished watching “The Time of the Doctor”, a bit behind the rest of the world, but not so late that I can’t get a reaction post up tonight!
Non-spoilery picoreview: I liked this pretty well, but mostly for the sake of getting a lot of pending questions answered. For sheer emotional impact, I think I actually liked the 50th Anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor” QUITE a bit better.
Spoilers behind the crack in the universe!
A lot of authors like to share deleted scenes out of their novels, a thing I’d been meaning to do for quite some time. So tonight I’ll share with you all the first of these–the original prelude to Valor of the Healer, back when it was still called Lament of the Dove.
Those of you who’ve read earlier drafts of the book will recognize this, but for those of you who haven’t, there aren’t any spoilers here! These two scenes are backstory for Faanshi, describing her birth and the rising of her power.
You can find ’em right over here. Enjoy all, and Merry Christmas to you all! I’ll post a few more of these as the holidays proceed on to the new year!
Et maintenant, une p’tite histoire, pour pratiquer mon français. Plusieurs de mes amis peuvent reconnaître cette histoire, parce que j’ai raconté cette histoire avant en anglais. Comme toujours, je vous invite tous à me dire où je fais des erreurs dans ma grammaire!
Mon père a dit toujours à moi que pendant mon enfance, parmi mes premières mots ont été, “Jouez plus d’Elvis, Papa!” C’est plausible, ça. J’ai beaucoup de mémoires d’écoutant des disques de Elvis Presley avec lui, et j’ai vraiment adoré.
D’autre part, ceci était le même père que dit à moi que je fis des sons comme un canard devant j’ai appris à parler.
Duck-Obsessed Little Blonde Kid
Il a dit qu’il et ses frères ont aimé dire à moi, “Les chasseurs de canards viennent!” Ils faisaient semblant de viser fusils sur moi et faire des bruits BANG. Et moi, j’ai ri beaucoup et s’enfuis à travers la chambre.
Entre-temp, ma mère a été là, et elle insistait très fortement, “MA FILLE NE FAIT DES BRUITS DE CANARD.”
Et moi, j’ai dit, “Coin-coin!”
En 2001 mon père a décedé, et j’ai pris l’avion au Kentucky pour les funérailles. Ma famille s’est réunie à la maison de mon frère. J’étais là dans la cuisine de mon frère, et mon oncle Larry, je n’avais pas vu depuis quinze ans, entra.
Le premiere chose qu’il a me dit a été, “Sais-tu que tu ressembles exactement ta mère?”
Et le deuxiemes chose qu’il a me dit? “Sais-tu que tu as fait des bruits de canard quand tu as été un enfant?”
Aux funérailles, mon autre oncle Marion est venu sur moi. Il a dit aussi à moi, “Sais-tu que tu as fait des bruits de canard quand tu as été un enfant?” Et chaque fois que j’ai pleuré durant les funérailles, il se pencha vers moi et a dit, “Coin-coin!”
Ceci, mes amis d’Internet, est ma histoire de canards!
Immortal Lies
And now, for a quick post-Solstice roundup of stuff I’ve recently acquired for my electronic reading amusement!
Scarfed off of Project Gutenberg (yay! Project Gutenberg! Because free books are awesome!) because of this article about women doing horror writing in the 19th century, and I wanted to check out some of the titles they mentioned:
A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest, by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards. Grabbed this one in no small part because of this woman being the model for the character of Amelia Peabody, who, as you know, is EXTREMELY relevant to my interests.
The Uninhabited House, by Mrs. J.H. Riddell.
A Phantom Lover, by Vernon Lee.
And, grabbed off of Kobo (to whom I must give props for FINALLY implementing an actual shopping cart, because WOW it annoys me to have to buy a bunch of ebooks one at a time!):
Immortal Lies, by S.L. Gray. A.k.a. my Willowholt tribesmate 
shadowhwk
On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard. SF. Grabbed this one due to Tor.com speaking well of it, and also because I want to expand my horizons a bit. The thought of some SF written with non-Western sensibilities appeals.
181 for the year.
Let’s get this right on the record: I loved this movie, and in fact, I loved it more than the first one.
Picoreview: Overall a tighter experience than the first one, without the need to do all the setup, and there was much less superfluous action. There’s a lot more changes to the core Hobbit storyline that yeah, diehard purists will definitely object to–I’ve already heard and read a lot of those objections. With wry apologies to the purists, I don’t share those objections. Every one of the changes totally worked for me in the context of the story Jackson’s telling in this movie, so I have no qualms about them whatsoever.
Which means that yes,
Overall my expectations, set by the first movie, were in the B- range. I was so delighted by so much of what I saw in this second installment that I gotta bump up its grade to a B+, though!
So let’s get into the deets, shall we? Shining starlight-colored spoilers behind the cut!
Above-cut ETA: Dara has her review post up now right over here, in which she brings up the point about Tolkien’s work as a mythos, and myths getting changed and reinterpreted. And which she also points out very correctly that representation does matter, and that’s a big big plus for having Tauriel in the movie.