Things, You Know, Stuff

[netgirl_y2k]

-This week I got suckered into teaching my younger sister how to drive. I think I have given the finger to more people this week than I have in ten plus years of driving, or indeed the whole rest of my life. I am kind of appalled and amazed at the number of people who think that, if someone is obviously new to driving, say because they are in a car covered with L plates, and they get flustered at a junction and stall the car, then the thing to do is rev right up behind them, flashing your lights, and holding down your horn. I mean, it's not going to fucking speed up proceedings, is it?

I've never had road rage; but I seem to have driving instructor rage.

It's going quite well. The only thing is, my sister, who has many otherwise stellar qualities, is one of those people who has difficulty accepting that she is ever in the wrong. And she will patiently explain to you why she was right, and actual, objective reality was wrong. Over the years I have learned to mostly tune these explanations out-- but, 1) it really would be better if she didn't insist on explaining these things to me when we sitting in the car trying to get onto a roundabout, and 2) you are in a toyota hatchback, and he is in an articulated lorry; this is the very definition of a might makes right situation!

-I went to see Maleficent, which I loved! I liked lots of things about it, particularly I liked that it was less than two hours long and not part one of whatever. It has become a bit of free entertainment amongst my friends, of an evening, to get me started on my genuine and lasting bitterness about Desolation of Smaug.

We went for a drink after Maleficent and I was talking away about how much I'd liked it, and how feminist retellings of fairytales were pretty much my bag, anyway. Always a bit of a risk - one of my dearest friends is a wonderful woman, kind and funny, she's prone to baking me red velvet cupcakes when she thinks I need bucking up... she also uses the word feminazi un-ironically. So I got to talking about the scene where Stefan steals Maleficent's wings, and how I thought it was a date rape analogy. I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious, he drugs her and violates her bodily autonomy, together with Maleficent's reaction when she comes round and realises what's happened. And I was accused of being a pervert for reading such things into a children's film. Not in a horrible way, really, just in a 'oh you, with your feminism and overthinking things, bless'

It was just interesting because I realised I was talking to my mates in the pub as though they were, well, you guys. It was a weird moment of inadvertent crossing the streams.

Also, I thought pervert was kind of a strong word. Many years ago we used to share thin-walled student housing. I know things about some of these people that no self respecting homosexual should know.

-I have been writing further tropey fic(lets)! I have now written 10k of tropey ridiculousness in a fortnight; let us never speak of this again.

Only Love Can Break Your Heart (LotS; Cara/Kahlan, Kahlan/Richard; 1200 words)

Is it still a soulbond AU if the soulbonds are more, er, guidelines than anything else? Also, I still can't write Cara/Kahlan without significant wailing and gnashing of the teeth over Richard. In my defense, Richard is a precious puppy.

Practice Makes Perfect (GoT; Sansa/Margaery; 2000 words)

I'm going to call this a sixth form college AU, because that way I feel better about having written what is essentially a high school AU. Also, I am ridiculously fixated on the idea of Sansa as a lesbian; as an identity, I mean, not just an excuse for femslash.

No Gravity, No Fallen Angels (Merlin; Gwen & Morgana; 1900 words)

Um, behold as an atheist attempts to write an angels & demons AU without ever alluding to god or religion!

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I was an adult learner (I lived in large cities from ages 18-26 and didn't need a car) and I was really pissed off with how rude people were to learners! I don't understand the logic of "find anxious and inexperienced person in control of a tonne of moving metal and make them more anxious". I'm glad I didn't learn as a teenager, it would have been really off-putting.

[netgirl_y2k]

I learned at 17, which in retrospect I'm so glad I did, because the test seems to have gotten a lot harder since then. But I do remember sitting behind the wheel at that age going, this is ridiculous, they can't let me drive this thing, I could kill somebody!

Obviously, I have chilled somewhat since then.

My sister was going really slowly round a roundabout the other day, and a bus driver - in a double decker! - started tailgating her and honking his horn. And, like, that's the opposite of helpful, and how would you like it if people had done that to you when you were a wee baby bus driver?

[wordsplurge]

Oh my goodness, I had the same reaction when I saw that scene in Maleficent as well. First thought that popped up. It seems pretty obvious to me and I think is a brave little risk the writers took with it. Not to mention the idea that Mal is now also disabled because of the cruelty dealt to her. Two birds with one stone.

[netgirl_y2k]

I thought the same thing - that it was a brave little risk, especially since I saw an early evening show on a Sunday, and the cinema was full of kids.

I mean, I didn't think it was the only interpretation of that scene (the disability thing is also an awesome take on it), or even the most obvious one, if you're not steeped in fandom's way of engaging with media. But, yeah, I was surprised that my friends seemed to think that this was a thing I'd pulled out of the sky/my sick imagination.

Anyway, I thought it was an awesome little film.

[frayadjacent]

I actually was having an off moment or something and didn't notice the rape metaphor, but went home and promptly read a review that pointed it out, and I agree.

I LOVED Maleficent, by the way.

Sorry about the awful drivers! That is really bizarre and super stressful sounding. Where/when I learned to drive, you couldn't tell if someone was a learner (plus the it was a rural area with lots of wide, flat, easy-driving roads). And even then it's plenty stressful!

[netgirl_y2k]

I loved it too, and I very rarely love films these days; I'm not a superhero buff.

Yeah, I didn't think the rape metaphor was so obvious that you couldn't miss it, or even necessarily that people should have picked up on it, especially if they aren't steeped in fandom discourse. But, I thought it was definitely there, and I was surprised that my friends seemed to think that this was something I'd plucked out of my sick imagination.

Here learners have to have red "L" plates on their cars - which counterintuitively seems to make drivers be more impatient and wanky.

[aralias]

being a driving instructor sounds terrible and terrifying. useful thing to do though, so well done.

also - i haven't seen malificent and i didn't click on the spoiler until i was in the comment box, so based on what you said i assumed you were talking about.... i don't know, something that might actually be perverted. children's films talk about dark stuff all the time, though. what you said there seems vv reasonable :/

but then i guess i am one of those people on the internet.

[netgirl_y2k]

Being a driving instructor is alright now, but I did spent most of the first couple of days scrabbling at the upholstery, and going "goodbye, cruel world." Apparently, this was neither comforting nor encouraging.

Yes, I thought I was being reasonable too. Wrong audience, I guess.

We'll be those people on the internet together :-)

[glinda]

When I was learning to drive, the test centre was in a rather scabby bit of town and the local kids would play chicken with the learner drivers. Which struck me as more than normally stupid, learners are more likely to accidentally (or "accidentally") stomp on the accelerator when they go for the brakes and then where would they be. (My emergency stops were flawless by the time I sat my test though.)

I haven't seen Maleficent yet, but just reading that I would completely agree that its meant to be a metaphor. It is always weird to catch yourself talking about that sort of thing in the pub, I do have some rl friends I can talk to about that sort of thing (being an ex film student does have its advantages), but most of them there's a definite 'crossing the streams' affect...

[netgirl_y2k]

My test centre was halfway up a hill. To this day I can do a perfect hill start.

Yeah, the crossing the streams thing is weird - last summer I met some fandom friends in person for the first time, and I was like, can we just talk about this stuff, like, on the train, where people could hear?

There's a certain point where my mates will nod along with what I'm saying - nitpicking plot holes and the like, but as soon as I get into, say, why something might have been a wee bit sexist I start getting the strange looks.

[ravurian]

Oh! Oh! That happens to me too with my friends, ALL THE TIME, as if I've started speaking in tongues. I'm always so taken aback by it. We forget, I think, that we occupy a bubble here; things we accept as self-evident are the result of years of education and conversation to which the outside world has not been privy. It's really disconcerting to have to fumble back to the beginning to explain why, for instance, Benedict Cumberbatch's casting as Khan in the ST Reboot was racist (as I found myself having to do in a pub on Thursday)

[netgirl_y2k]

Yes! Not only do we forget that other people weren't privy to the conversation, but we forget that they don't look at media, or necessarily want to look at media, in the same way that we do. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's just that it's alien to me, in the same way as I forget that other people don't make up little stories in their heads as they go about their daily business.

More than once I've found myself trying to explain to someone why I've cooled on Doctor Who in the last few years; I've tried framing it both as a problem with Moffat's plots and the relative thinness of his characters, and his women problem. And what I always forget is that I'm talking to people who, by and large, wouldn't know, or care, that there had been a change of show-runners if I wasn't talking about it.