torchwood liveblogging and such

Right I'm going to liveblog my way through torchwood cos I has no one to watch it with...
(I've also added in random asides clarifying points in this charming italic font ;) )

I am so excited, I cannot tell you how excited...

Huh the whole first section revealed by trailers; not good.
(I must admit that I could have avoided being spoiled were it not for my temptation to see lots of the james marsters John barrowman kissing that comes up later)

Although the fact that this whole first section is all kinds and flavours of awesome = love
the blowfish sports car is delight
(I particularly liked the little old welsh lady. Spot on to have her swearing at them!)

love that Gwen cares about speeding while chasing the fish because of running of kids; gwen is brill
(and its what i always think when I see them racing around cardiff, and so in keeping with her previous character development and the boy that was run over and died in Season 1's Random Shoes)

owen is some how magically sexier now, being in charge suits him, plus has he lost weight. love the music btw, very seventies cop show esque. the whole thing as a grittier feel than the last time
although blowfish's monologue is a little predictable and ott. Recognise the voice of blowfish man as well
(this is because he's always playing monsters on doctor who it seems. His name is Paul Kasey )

the face on tt= (team torchwood) when they notice its jack= great love
and jacks as they cope with out him; jealous and proud. oooooo gwen is pissed.... ianto jack shippers will be happy; that was a flirty look

james masters walking through like some sort of god!!!! boooyakasha! sex on a f-ing stick. randomly violent sex on stick. yum yum. I have a thing for peninsular war era uniforms ever since sharpe, james in one is exciting... and pick the ones he wants in the bar is hilarious. he's funny too!
(I may have gotten a little carried away in fangrrrl squee-ness around now.)

geek-gasm star wars reference!!!!
(I heart random appropriate referencing to other cultural tropes, and this one was bang on)

and they're time agent friends. tt are not happy about being left behind and their gonna follow- I think this might be a bad plan

oooo jacks sad, he's sexy sad. james masters is so flirty. Is it wrong that this is an ginormous turn on. captain jack and spike making out all sexy then fighting with guns and blur and it's crossing the same line as that buffy episode where her and spike fuck the house down....
lol! the more fun when he's around thing.... ooooooo james marsters character is called john hart sexy; is that a thing for time agents then? being called captain j~ h~? drinking together awesome.

ooooo and john's in rehab, murder rehab.

tender almost kiss. nice. gorgeously filmed.

partners for 5 years!! arguing over which was the wife. he is cute tosh! well noticed. oooo dick jokes lol
(there's nothing wrong with appreciating cock innuendo, especially when there's someone involved whose happy to admit that his is the smaller, if he'd been huffy about it I wouldn't have liked it)

ooooo he's come for the powers of good! (supposedly- don't believe that) ooo he likes tosh. cute. awww john's hurt that jack don't want him. and johns right tosh is the cute brainy one :)
(one of the things I like about torchwood is that it plays off these tropes of the cold distancing guy, the sex crazed cad the cute geek girl etc but the characters do not become the cliche; they are derived from the trope not part of the trope if that makes sense)

poor cgi for the entrance shot. disappointing. god james marsters has a nice arse.
oooooo jack gwen moment. he wants to tell her it's a moment all right. blimey jack's flirting. shit Gwen got engaged!!!! jack's jealous. subtly but still. lol stands to reason that Gwen's proposal would be a joke

oooooo jack does want her. Goddamn it I don't want her and jack I want her and Owen!

john is sexy and even more flirty than jack; unbelievable. ha no kisses!! that's gonna get broken
I've missed wales...

john in love? it's a lie. he shot her. thats my bet. john killed her.

Gwen broke a rule. oh dear. silly gwen. she's jumpy. I was jumpy. ha now he's playing the seeds of doubt card. well played captain john.

I knew the kissing rule was gonna get broken. yep he's paralysed her with lip gloss; awesome. oh and she has 2 hours not to die. excellent.

ha it's all about jack; john wants him back..... unsuprising
nice cut away trick.

owen and tosh, not a combo I woulda picked. ha! welsh word! please don't flirt with owen tosh, it'll only embarrass you. owen saying he needs a proper woman. oh my god he's flirting back? holy crap no. blimey he nutted her. owen does like her! christ last season he might have let him kill her.
(I really should have seen tosh and owen coming; owen needs a woman to feel validated and tosh is lonely/desperate)

shit did john shoot him?
ah.... ianto and jack that's more like it. ianto's not playing. he won't flirt with him. jack asks him on a date!!!!!!!!! shit yeah!!!!!! ianto will go on a date with him!!!!! blimey blimey blimey. ianto's sexy and flustered and that was bloody fantastic!!!!!!
(This was the point when I started dancing around in fangrrrl joy)

so excited. jack and ianto finally for real. they're gonna have lovely dates. torchwood is so good.
oooo open lift danger!
calling ianto eye candy = brilliant!
james giving ianto a chance to save them. ooooo john is a bit of a nihilist isn't he. sex and jokes to cover the essential nothing ness of existence
5194 jack= rear of the year! wow

tt are pretty but stupid. awwww he really has done it because he wants jack back.
bloody hell! we know jack can live but john doesn't. looks like murder rehab didn't take. no wonder he wants jack back ;)

ianto as the hero figure :) just where he belongs. ah the swagger, traditional james master swagger.

tosh finds gwen. cute. I really really miss wales. cardiff looks nice at dawn.
hmmmm john putting together his pieces. seems he know the fish boy. ah fish boy has a piece of the bomb thing. awww tt are back ready to stop him. and johns face when jacks not dead. brilliant.

awww jack comes back for beauty. I knew john killed her :) ha he's gotta try the orgy card. cute. o no. john's gonna die. and he's taken gwen hostage. plus - tt are cold they were happy for him to die.
(This for me is the main difference between doctor who and tt- tt are way way more ruthless and human and base about this sort of thing than the doctor. the doctor would have either felt guilty or been making some moral pronouncement if he'd been willing to let john die. tt are just living in the moment not the consequence)

they're doing something exciting with dna.... lol! the poodle fancying = priceless. the theory on 51st century sexuality is expanding to encompass beastiality....

shit gwen does love him

awww and they're pagan in the future

awww the final kiss is the most believable and cute.

ooooooooo whose grey. a kid? jacks kid? that's my official guess

final shot is over dramatix but excellently so

the previews are tres tres exciting. and alot of sex. an awful lot of sex.. plus they've got a doctor and Martha jones and another jm visit by the looks/ sound of it.

I am now in a state of barely contained excitement....
I think I have to go and have a lie down...


In summation; new torchwood rocks

all at sea

This was a hard week.

I've been quite stupidly ridiculously lucky and since I was 17 have been pretty much exclusively in the company of pro-queer, pro-feminist clever liberal types. And while during that time I've had to deal with people who were not any of those things I've done it through the lens of having regular affirming acceptance of my ideals, my beliefs, my sexuality. Which I always knew was actually pretty unusual, but it's one thing to know and it's another thing to actually live it, as I am now finding out.

I am glad in a funny stupid sort of way; it's a great way of hardening my feminist resolve, of reminding me of my privilege as an articulate intelligent person. And yet it's too hard.

I've never been an adult queer in an unwelcome environment. Avoidance of unwelcoming environments has dictated some very important choices in my life so being forced to be here isn't wonderful. And I just found out my first school placement (this course is 50% taught at uni, 50% practical placement) is in a Roman Catholic school which, according to its website, thinks that drawing pictures of dead relatives and saints is an appropriate activity for 8 year olds! Pagan queer feminist teacher in a rough inner city catholic school... yeah I'm nervous.

I just feel isolated at the moment, in a way I haven't done since I was... yeah 17. There are so many ways in which my attitudes towards things my coursemates take for granted are so different as to be alien to them( ; ie. they say:little girls are naturally sweeter and like dolls and boys have more energy I say: mostly behaviour which is induced by society, AND I don't see the difference in energy just in ways people let them express that. they say: I don't care how many civil liberties the government encroaches it if might save one life. I say: arag!! well no actually I respond with coherent if extremely simple arguments against their crazy right wing conservativeness, but inside I am saying ARAG!!

coming out is a process. I always knew that, but it feels like I keep having to come out as so many different things at once. Like when someone said "so you're a feminist to me" yesterday like I'd confessed I enjoyed dismembering puppies in my spare time, or when I talked about an ex-girlfriend during lunch one day and the whole group perceptibly moved away. Or indeed pretty much any time I express any opinion about anything. And I know this is most likely what most people go through, and I probably sound whiny and naive but I really hadn't expected it would be like this; so overwhelming and isolating.


And that's my life at the moment, which combined with a whole load of other shit is making me feel really really crap... I'm trying to keep it together, to remember why I'm here, why I'm doing this, who really matters. But urgh. Ad next weekend I have to go play nice at my parents 25 wedding anniversary, which is actually the absolute last thing I need to do right now.

But even though the people I really love are a very long way away right now they are still trying to be there for me. I spent 2 hours yesterday on the phone to a friend who hates the phone. It's just hard to remember how loved and supported you are in the moment you're feeling the hate.

Any advice on how to deal with dense conservatives who believe whole hearted in the patriarchy and are so hetero normal as to not even understand what that means will be more than appreciated.

Princess Leia made me a feminist

I know it's been a while since I posted but I've been busy in land of joyTM, also known as Norway and buying a car and other mundanities since I returned. There are many exciting posts backlogged now, including an article on Virgina Woolf and Iran (together not 2 separate articles) that I wrote on a train, two band reviews and a number of other sundry musings.

But before any of that I saw this story today and I had to blog about it, it came as no surprise to me, I've watched the original 3 movies so many times that I actually know a lot of it off by heart. As a 10 year old girl I actually knew the entirety of those three movie of by heart. And not just because they where cool sci-fi films. Nope, Star Wars changed my world. It wasn't the first of my great existential moments of childhood, of which I shall say more in a later post, but it was the experience that made me a feminist.

I mean Princess Leia is a pretty amazing role model. She's an experienced politician, and while ok she is beautiful it is, in the first 2 original movies, a beauty without vanity, prepared to get down and dirty with the rebellion. She's a leader, valued for her intelligence and her passionate commitment to a political course. She's a fighter, in fact she's the best shot out of anyone in the original star wars films. And she doesn't just sit and wait for stuff to happen to her, she instigates, she's more important than her love interest and he isn't threatened by that. Their relationship is based on antagonism sure but also respect. I challenge you to find a better feminist role model in the movies for children growing up in the 80's and 90's. There was really very little there.

Which is the key for me really. Growing up in the deepest darkest back waters of west wales I had no feminist role models apart from my grandmother and the kick ass feminist attitude of ones then 60 year old grandma is rarely apparent to 10 year olds. I lived in a household where women waited on and took care of men. Where men could and did use physical violence and the threat of physical violence to silence women and 10 year old girls. I lived in a society where intelligence, especially and particularly female intelligence, was a bad thing. And where male and female relationships were based on the physical attractiveness of women, not their fesitiness or abilities. In that context Star Wars didn't just give me hope, it showed me what to hope for. And gave me a massive crush on Harrison Ford that I still can't quite get over....

Writing this has reminded me that I've been wanting for a long time to write a series of essays on female characters relationships as models for their fans relationships. Maybe I'll post them up here. I could cover how the Sarah and Jareth relationship in Labyrinth has left a generation of intelligent women with a david bowie fetish (or according to one of my ex-girlfriends a significant penis fear... but that's an entirely different story), and examine how her self actualisation is only achieved through rejecting powerful symbols of patriarchal oppression.

Or how Spike and Buffy's relationship on BtVS is a direct consequence of the psychological affects of the Han and Leia and Sarah and Jareth relationship on the audience physche; same generation was the key audience for all three shows. Buffy has a relationship based on mutual antagonism and respect, but which also has a phase of jareth like obsession and possessive behaviour which is only resolved when she rejects his power over her through self determination.
The relationships of key characters in shows can actually be seen to reflect the growing rise of feminism and, in turn, the changing feminist struggles of its audience....

I could write a brilliant doctorate on this, if only I was doing a phd in television or media or something. Instead I got in the Warwick PGCE course and shall be studying there next year. I am very excited, I mean this will pay the bills and I'll have the chance to shape and mold young minds. Apparently some people find it slightly disturbing the way I start moving my hands like a puppet master of tiny invisible puppets everytime I say that....

But yes to swing back on topic. Princess Leia is why I because a feminist. Not many people can say that.

fuck the patriarchy

I got a book out from the library. The way we are now. Go have a look at it. I'll wait. There are no bisexuals in that book. There are no bisexuals, we don't exist. And when someone lives a lifestyle that's bi we assign them a gender role. On occasion I read the lesbian press. But I don't much because I'm a bisexual woman, not a butch or a femme; I don't fit into that world. I'm trying to exist in a world where there is no box for me.
I used to think it was easier to be a bi woman than a bi man. I think I've changed my mind. The only reason that it's easier is that supposedly you can pass as straight. Well its not that you pass as straight, you are straight. No-one takes you seriously; friends of all gender identities dismiss it as experimentation. And yes I know that bi guys get this treatment too, but the difference? They can continue experimenting for years, decades even indefinitely. Men have no duties other than to themselves. A woman has a duty to everyone but herself.
Today I brought the may issue of Cosmo (yes I know I read cosmo magazine and I'm a feminist. I promise to discuss the why's and wherefore's of this some other time.). In it there was an article on the "LUG" phenomenon; Lesbians until graduation. The entire premise of this phenomenon is that sure it's fine to experiment with your sexuality, but once you graduate you have to settle down, have babies, the whole caboodle of the patriarchies expectations for women. So you stop being a "lesbian" and become a "heterosexual."
NO! You don't. Whether you're living a lesbian or a heterosexual lifestyle that person is "bisexual" but as a bisexual female if you want all the things that the patriarchy has spent years telling us all that all women want, like stable relationships, children, acceptance in society, then you have to choose one way or the other. It doesn't really matter which.
To continue "experimenting" past the point where society sees you as a grown-up is to invite pariah status. Except they're not experimenting. Not really. They're living their life how they choose to in an ideal world where gender identity doesn't matter. But that can't be a valid lifestyle choice right? Because in the real world gender does matter right? Wrong.
And yes, I know this is not "news" as such. But people my age have been let down by the third wave of feminism. I grew up thinking that feminism was a dirty word. I was a politically active teenager who was afraid of how people would think of me if I called myself a feminist. And the patriarchy fights on. It restricts the choices of men and women the world over in order to perpetuate a stagnation that it sees as wholly natural, over looking the vast scientific and cultural evidence that tells us that actually this whole charade is just that- a charade.
Humanity has so much invested in its need for an "other" that we create one even where none exists. We put ourselves in boxes. Sometimes I think that categorisation is most basic function of society.
But it doesn't have to be. No more I've had enough. The patriarchy ends. In my life time anyway. Who's with me?