lollipops and candycanes

[freckles_and_doubt]

Heigh, ho. Yet-another-unsuccessful-lectureship-application last week has induced the usual despair and angst, leading to a vale of tears and self-loathing, a retreat into Supernatural and sewing, and really boring blog posts, for which I apologise. In an effort both at distraction and actual interest, have some Monday morning linkery.

• Completely incredible Bioshock cosplay, photographed at an aquarium. Now I want to play Bioshock again. Memo to self, make Evil Landlord buy the sequel when it comes out, possibly by repeat application of creme caramel.
  
  
• We don't often get to hear about this side of the abortion/adoption debate. Reading this is making me slightly ashamed of even thinking casually about adoption as an issue; it's also engendering the usual feminist rage about patriarchal control of female reproduction and the incredible powerlessness of so many women in this situation. Also, now I like Juno a lot less.

In other, less depressing news, Hobbit has a new trick, viz. lurking under the giant leaves of the delicious monster on the edge of the patio, and ambushing your ankles as you walk past. Fortunately he still hasn't got the hang of this strange "skirt" concept, and tends to suddenly veer off and look embarrassed at the last minute instead of actually connecting with my ankles.

Also, halfway through Season 2 of Supernatural, and am I imagining it, or is the writing suddenly on an upswing? I'm a bit over-emotional at the moment anyway, but "Houses of the Holy", "Born Under a Bad Sign", "Roadkill" and "Heart" were a series of gut-punches which did wonderful things with the emotional arc of the season, and also didn't go quite where narrative cliché dictated they should. ("Tall Tales" was also bloody good fun, and the slow-dancing alien made me laugh a great deal). Also, this show works as a Necessary Perspective Vortex: no matter how annoying my life is, at least I don't have to deal with demon possession, a life based on credit card fraud and running from the police, and the ongoing possibility of having to kill someone I love.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent adoption post, but I don't go along with the anti-Juno line. Which I have heard before. It's just a movie. It's not the film's duty to present a balanced and searching look at all possible ramifications of teen pregnancy. It's one story about one girl, and I loved that it *didn't* go down the oh-so-traumatic road. Similarly, this post is one woman's experience; I bet it's a very, very common one, but I don't think *every* birthmother has as lousy a time.

Reading that post, I was really surprised at her experience of other people's responses. As far back as I can remember the main attitude towards giving baby up for adoption that I've encountered has always been "gosh, so hard". Never "monster!" and certainly never an assumption that it's easy. So it's enlightening (and really depressing) to hear that those attitudes do apparently prevail among many people.

scroob

[mwotn.livejournal.com]

I had not thought of that aspect of the debate before. Thanks for the link. It's a side that's never really mentioned, even in the supposedly all-inclusive moral education the kids of today are meant to get...