Where the word things are

Dear DC Comics

Thanks for giving me such a succinct and easily understandable answer that I can give when people ask incredulously "you're not buying any DC books anymore? You?".



It's not just the obvious change, which is the weight. There's also her hair, her expression, her skin tone, her makeup, her clothes, her posture -- the entire presentation of the character has been altered in order to make sure that she's as mainstream "sexy" as possible.

I had a whole long entry planned out about signifiers and power and all of this other important shit, but the pictures side by side make me so incoherently pissed off that all I can really manage is Fuck You, DC Comics. I hope you get an awkward rash.

I got my welcome letter for the Pottermore beta, finally. I'm in Slytherin, my animal's a black cat, and my wand is a 12.5 inch unbending sycamore with a dragon heartstring, which essentially translates to "Mary is a drama queen, stubborn, and likes seeking out new experiences" in wand-language. It's a fair assessment.

A few weeks ago I switched to using a Lush solid shampoo and look how great my hair is now! That's from ddoing nothing but brushing the knots out while it was still wet and then letting it air-dry, and the photo doesn't even convey the extent of neato flippity-ness that exists in-person. TRULY THIS IS MIRACLE PRODUCT.

Man, look at those sexy dark circles under my eyes. Hawt. Speaking of (that was the best-worst segue I've done in a while), Death Note! It's neat! I love it! I know I am the very last person on earth to get on the Death Note train, but it is truly glorious. It's genuinely tragic one moment and then oh god are L and Light really engaging in a psychological tango by an intense and overthought game of tennis the next. I cannot properly cope with how clever-stupid the pair of them are. I laugh out loud while reading the manga in public. I can't help it. Plus Near, Mello, and Matt give me all of the Robin feelings, and Misa is somewhere between pre-Crisis Jay and Harley Quinn, honestly.

You can take the girl out of DC-reading, but you can't take the DC-reading out of the girl.

I may have a publisher for the novel I wrote between October and April, aka New Novel, aka The Devil's Mixtape. It's a wee indie one in the US which my friend Narrelle suggested. I have a lot of feelings about this! There have been some crying moments, and not the happy-crying sort (which I mostly only get from Rumer Godden books and sometimes fanfictions) -- going with a small publisher (which I haven't yet, officially, but which is almost certainly how things are going to work out) feels like I've failed to be a success at this whole thing, yet again. Which is stupid! And a part of me knows it's stupid!

But still there are tears and feeling bummed, because another part of me remains convinced that all the publishing industry people I know, be they writers or editors or agents or whatever, think that I'm rubbish and, if they feel any emotion about me beyond 'she's rubbish', feel pity at me for my rubbishness. And even though hard-copy book stores are rapidly approaching status as an endangered species in Australia at this point, I still hold fragile girlish hopes of someday seeing my books for sale in book stores. Oh well, Hares & Hyenas might take a couple, I guess we'll see.

Next Novel (which genuinely doesn't have a title yet, not a good one anyway -- I suspect I can't just call it "A Biopunk Story About Feelings") is dragging a bit simply because I've been busy doing not much of anything useful.

Hullo! It has been a while! I am sorry about that. I've been a bit all-over-the-place with nothing much useful to say, aside from endless tumblr-spams of gifs from The Social Network because augh, I love them so and I seemingly never stop having new thoughts about all the ways in which I love them, which I guess means that those Oscars it won were well-earned.

I've hit 25,000 words on Next Novel, which would be cause for more celebration if I hadn't started it in April. I know I've had the winter blues and also those good old-fashioned crazybrain blues, but come on.

(though now that I think about it I've also had a death in the family and enormous amounts of work stress, so I don't know, I guess 25,000 words is okay when I am so far out of my comfort zone with regard to genre and plot on this one. Still incredibly frustrating though, especially when the story I finished before this one is still in no-publisher-limbo and I remain solidly convinced that I will never be a successful writer ever no matter how hard I want it.)

But yeah, day job, man, it's been pretty soul-devouring lately. I'm burned out to the point where I don't even properly feel sad or stressed or exhausted anymore, I just feel like I wish I didn't exist. And I don't want to quit, because I know being the editor of a national publication before I'm 30 is something that no sane (or high-functioning crazybrain, in my case) person walks away from just because it's intense, especially not in a job climate like this. But it's really intense. I was sitting in the board room surrounded by print-outs of articles to proof yesterday and just crying, because I'm in so far over my head and I don't even have the energy to tread water, much less swim for shore.

Um, HAPPIER THINGS! Let's see. I no longer have a credit card, because I am going to actually Be Responsible With Money. Or at least make an effort in that direction. I've gained some weight, which I dislike, but I have a pretty new tattoo on my arm which I like, so that balances out for the most part.

I have been watching a fantastic anime called Tiger and Bunny with Audz and Erinna, and highly HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who loves superheroes. Even if you're not an anime person usually, give it a look, because it is so fucking good.

I have mostly broken up with DC Comics because they finally hit a point of fuckbaggery where I was too worn out with their shit to protest and have negotiated readings and all that other fan engagement possible with problematic texts. Congratulations, DC, you can go join Supernatural in the corner and think about just how misogynistic you have to be to drive away someone who cannot stop talking about The Social Network. Because, that is a fairly high bar of dickbaggery you have to be able to jump over, and you managed it!

Saw Captain America on the weekend and was excitedly planning out a sequel to Rescuers with Audrey before we were out of the parking lot. So, uh, that will be coming eventually! When I have braincells to stop squealing over Audrey's preliminary sketches and actually write the rest of the words to go with the pictures. Marvel movies, man. I dig them.

Speaking of, Spider-Man! I am excited about it! Because, you know, young wisecracking superheroes are kind of a thing for me. But also because it leads to things like this because I mentioned that I'm still kind of one-track-minded, right? And while being a long-time bandom-er means that I am more than used to the fourth wall not existing in the slightest, I still find it entertaining every time the flimsy construct/reality division we rely on in order to stay sane in real-people-based fandoms starts breaking down. The dream is collapsing! Anarchy in the streets! Flee for your liiives!

Somewhat Damaged

A Social Network / DC Comics crossover

by Mary

(The people who are to blame for this know who they are AND I HOPE THEY FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT.)

Rating: General audiences.

Summary: Jason Todd steals Mark Zuckerberg's tires.

( Read more... )

Theopteryx is doing a Killjoys art meme, for everyone to design themselves and their rayguns for the world of Danger Days. Since I've pretty much got my 'character', Sharpest Rose, worked out already, and also because my drawing skills are shameful, I just did the raygun part of the meme.

My raygun's name is Junior.

( Pow pow pow )

Thing the first: Red Hood scans. Oh Jason honey I love you and your amazingly amazing oedipal complex.

Way, waaaaaaaay too many sexual relationships in Gotham are initiated by the idea of "this is as close to sleeping with Batman as I can get right now". And when both partners are engaged in that same thought process, I'm pretty sure that's a bingo.

Also, hee! I love it when I get quoted as some kind of authority by posters. It's a small bright spark of momentary vindication in the endless litany of self-recrimination which is my wasted life.

Thing the second: Speaking of my wasted life. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah can we talk about how FUCKING AMAZING HOLY SHIT the Sing trailer is? SO AMAZING. I love this band and all the things they choose to be.


Okay I have an article, an interview, an assignment, some Etsy photography, some Etsy postage, writing, and house cleaning to get done before class tonight, so off I go. If I owe you a comment or an email I will get to it this afternoon, sorry about the delay, I am rubbish.

Tiny Titans is one of my very very favourite comics at the moment; it makes me laugh out loud pretty much constantly and is frickin adorable.

And issue 33 has this page, which I am going to marry and adore forever, because OH MY GOD THE SHEER AMOUNT OF JOY AND LOVE AND VERY POINTED SNARK contained in just a few panels is kind of amazing.

Previously in 'Mary unlocks old fanfiction': stories from 2004. Now here are the stories from 2005.

( A zillion million old stories! Plz r&r lolz!!!!1 )

The new issue of the Red Hood comic is SO GOOD. SO GOOD. Aside from the fact it looks really pretty, and functions as a very cleanly written short story, and is all about Jason who is, you know, my spirit animal, it was like a particularly bloodthirsty balm for my soul.

I make a standing monthly donation to World Vision's Child Rescue project, which fights against human trafficking. As I mentioned last night, I just finished watching season 2 of The Wire, which also gives a fair whack of narrative time to the issue. What I'm saying is, there are real-world things which I, personally, do to fight child slavery, in my own little administrative capacity. I've also just finished viewing a narrative in which the bad guys go largely unpunished and the vulnerable get exploited and harmed. So I get weighed down by the misery of the world sometimes.

And today I have discovered that, in those moments of being weighed down, there's just nothing more satisfying than reading a comic book in which your favourite vigilante cuts a bloody swathe through some child traffickers. Go Jay go! You are my favourite, baby, and this issue is your Crowning Moment Of Extreme Fucking Awesome. You are the wish-fulfillment power-fantasy whatevery thing that people say comics are meant to be.

Or maybe I'm just weird. But whatever, my journal is read by miraculous, glorious free spirits who make things like this heartbreaking work of staggering beauty (otp!!!) so I think you can deal with my daydreams of killing bad guys in the face.

(And those who read my twitter are subjected to a near-daily litany of 'I AM GOING TO KILL TONY ABBOTT' and variations thereof, so.)

SPEAKING OF COMICS, Red Robin is also amazing and excellent, because Tim makes up glorious mastermindy plans and gets his whole Bat-family involved and they are all super-badasses. Dick and Damian are the most endearing Batman and Robin team ever, and Steph and Wendy and Babs are a superstar taskforce of sheer determination and adorableness, and and and. Comics!

Remember years ago when Te and I wrote that series of stories about a Gotham City where Bruce Wayne was dead and the resultant configuration of the Bats was functional and worked together and actually communicated and stuff? WHO KNEW HOW TRUE THAT WOULD BE. I am going to be so bummed when Bruce comes back, you guys, because he's going to be a mean jerk to everyone and they'll all be sad and grumpy again and this moment of everyone being wonderful will just be a memory. :(

AHHHHHH I HAVE TO GO READ RED HOOD AGAIN A FEW THOUSAND TIMES SO GOOOOD.

I thought about trying to write a post about Stuff, but then I decided I'd rather spam my journal with cranky little pre-Robin Jason Todd. Because he is and always shall be my boo.