“take Me To The Book That You Wish You Could Reread For The First Time”

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!!

This time, it’s Mica’s “Dad, why the hell would you give me Star Trek shirts? One has your face on it. It’s creepy. I don’t care that a con gifted them to you. You’re not going to wear them? Fine. Tumblr can have them” giveaway!! Rules:

you don’t have to be following me, but it would be awesome if you did. Also, I’ll put your name in 5 times rather than 1. I know I’m not a Star Trek blog, but I do post a lot of the reboot! Because Chris Pine’s eyes are the bluest blue to ever blue.

I’m going to regret this if someone from China wins due to my college student budget, but I’ll ship anywhere. 

I’d like it if it get’s a few hundred plus notes so, you know, it’s worth it.

Reblog as many times as you want. Likes count.

Don’t be a douche bag and have a giveaway blog.

Giveaway will end on August 1st like my Supernatural one.

You shall receive:

4 Star Trek shirts shown above. 

They are all various sizes from S-L 

If the post gets 1,000+ notes, I’ll throw in an autographed and personalized picture of LeVar Burton. Why not? I live in the same house as him, might as well make use of it.

Good luck!

11 Questions Meme

I was tagged by startrekmania. (Oh God, I've never been before and I'm all flustered about it.) It's a question game! Here are the rules: Answer the questions. Write 11 new questions. Tag 11 people. Let them know they’ve been tagged and…GO!

1. STAR TREK???

I'll take one in every color. *expectantly folds hands together* I’m a new Trekkie, just sat down to my first TOS episode earlier this year in fact, but I've fallen hard and I'm so far gone. Like, picking out my Starfleet uniform pajamas gone. I intend to see all of it, though, in order of publication.

2. Pick your favorite character from your favorite book, movie, or TV series and explain why! No, it does not have to be Star Trek.

Mm, well. Choosing absolute favorites isn't exactly my thing - no one and nothing ever occupies those spaces for long, alone at least. It's a temporary position, we'll put it that way. But! For Star Trek, it's always been Spock. AOS, TOS, every possible iteration; all his imperfections, his irrationalities, his mistakes, and the other sides of those coins. I just flat-out love him.

3. What stereotype would you stereotype yourself as?

Hm. If we go all TVTropes here, The Quiet One? Either that, or Defrosting Ice Queen with a generous shot of Hates Small Talk.

4. What is/was your favorite/best subject in school?

Thankfully I'm well and truly out of it now, but it was English. I was one of those insufferable advanced track underachievers it came naturally to. I had just enough raw talent to maintain and even sometimes surpass the expected level of performance in my classes without much effort - sat through a few awkward heart-to hearts with teachers who thought that with further application I could have a future as an author, in fact - but I was honestly never more miserable than when I was writing. And that still holds true. So it was my best, yes, but never my favorite.

5. What’s your dream job?

This is unimpressive. But anything that totals around thirty hours a week, is done solitarily, requires constant physical exertion, and is never taken home after hours suits me. Extra points for low stakes and midnight shifts. You know, office cleaning, overnight retail ... I'm not ambitious, and I don't dream above what I consider my desserts.

6. How has your blog transformed from when you first created it?

When I first joined up just over a year ago I had no intention of running a blog of my own - my account was strictly a way to keep tabs on the artists, writers, and other fandom creatives whose work I wanted to follow. Even so, I was terribly self-conscious about everything tumblr at first;  I didn't even click like on all of the posts I genuinely liked for fear of drawing attention to myself. It took a few months for me to brave interacting with other users (my first foray into that venture was my entry for the I'm the Real Project), and a few more to start posting anything of my own. I'm still not what you would call an active poster, but now there's at least a bit to see on my page. Check out my art tag, if you want?

7. Android, iPhone, oldPhone, WindowsPhone, BlackBeret (Blackberry), or other?

iPhone. My S.O. received one as a gift from his father, and before you could say "hailing frequencies open" I had it nestled between an off-brand screen protector and a Spock-themed hard case, bursting with bookmarks and notes on fic reccs. It's more of a portable slash fiction library than a communication device, really, as far as I'm concerned.

8. xBox, PlayStation, PC, Wii, or other?

xBox, PlayStation, and PC! I've got a first-gen box and a 360, as well as a PS1 and 2. Besides that, I've got a NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, GameBoy, GBA, DS, DSiXL, 2DS, Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast. I ... might have a bit of a habit.

9. What career would you have in Starfleet and why?

I'd be stunned more than anyone if I managed to snag a berth in Starfleet of all places, but knowing me it'd have to be something maintainence-related; haven't got the education or experience for anything else. I'd be the one scrubbing down the corridors, polishing the bulkheads, sanitizing the replicators. Unglamorous, maybe - but I don't live my life at work.

10. More specifically, what would you love to do in Starfleet and why?

I'm kinda delighted that there's a distinction made between what you'd actually do and what you'd love to, haha - refreshing. Call me crazy, but if I could choose I think I'd be proud to don a redshirt and do my level best to protect and serve my fellow crewmen phaser in hand, even if it would very likely mean my death. I've always been a crack shot, oddly enough, and I've got a decent danger sense. Call it intuition? Frankly, having the opportunity to bend any skill I have to service other than my willingness to singlemindedly work where other people just won't for once (if you can call that a skill) ... would be interesting.

11. What’s your biggest fear?

This questionnaire doesn't pussyfoot around, does it? *shuffles feet* I'll come out and say it, though; the thing I'm most afraid of is losing my significant other to death. It terrifies me so much to think about that I can barely bring myself to type it out - we've been together eight years and understand each other so well, leaving even the love aside - that I can't help but believe I'll never find anything to rival it again. I'd unironically call the man my t'hy'la ... so, um. Yeah. I'll play myself out.

Oh, but my questions!

1. List your top three vices. 2. Now, your top three virtues. 3. Any personal quirks you're fond of? 4. What was the last thing you were really surprised by? 5. Lay out your favorite outfit, and tell us why it's your favorite. 6. And your favorite meal? Take us all around the plate. (Bonus: give recipes.) 7. What was the first thing you can remember being a fan of, i.e. your first fandom? 8. Is there anything you've always wanted, but would be embarrassed to actually own? 9. Can you recite anything from memory, like a poem, or a passage from a script or book? 10. Would you rather be caught in a lie, or realize that someone's been dishonest with you? 11. If you had to choose between a new television adaption, movie, or novelization of your favorite story, which would you go with?

As for my tags, because I'd love to see their answers, I'll go with: sionid, sunderlorn, wiggleofjudas, needlesslycryptic, trashhqueen, and maketreknotwar. Hope you don't mind, tag-ees!

But I confess I don't actually have enough tumblr acquaintances to completely fulfill the last bit of this meme. So if you're seeing this and would like to make a go of it, consider yourself tagged by me!

For those times J.J. Abrams Abramses up your day. Cumberkhan? You just got Abramsed. Every non-mother shown in her unmentionables? You just got Abramsed. Female characters with no names? Abramsed.

So I saw settlingspace's magical girl!Simra a few days ago, and knew that that was a bandwagon I had to jump on.

Simra Hishkari (dunmerofskyrim) belongs to sunderlorn.

You guys are awesome, so here! *shoves an armful of giveaway at you*

SO. Here’s the rules.

- Reblogs and likes both count. You get an entry for each, but just once! So multiple reblogs do not...

My friend: *updates me on her relationship encounters*

My asexual ass:

Parvati Holcomb: The Unaccountably Happy Face of the Unreliable

The Outer Worlds, the new space RPG courtesy of Obsidian, helpfully provides your player character with exactly the sort of ragtag gang of misfits which you are probably expecting in such a game. Today, we’re going to talk about the most important of them. 

Parvati Holcomb, likely the first companion you meet and definitely the first companion you can recruit, is a well-written female-character. Her talents for engineering and her incredibly positive and cheerful outlook quickly draw comparison with the character of Kaylee from Firefly (allegedly one of the main inspirations for the character), but there is one very clear difference between the two. 

Parvati Holcomb is an asexual character. 

While the term “asexual” is never actually used in the game, Parvati’s experiences and worries were so obviously born form the real-life experiences of asexual people that I was not the least bit surprised that she had been written by an asexual woman: 

I was, however, properly delighted that Parvati had always been intended to be an asexual character, even before an asexual woman took over as Parvati’s writer; Chris L’Etoile, the original writer, explicitly made the decision to create a warm and loving character, someone who could see the beauty and hope in a failing colony, who could express all the wonder they wanted their players to feel, and then he decided to make her asexual as well. 

The stereotypical ‘link’’ between asexuality and ‘coldness’ is even explicitly referenced by Parvati herself, when she explains her fears about starting a new relationship: “I’m not much interested in… physical stuff. Never have been. Leastways not like other folk seem to be. It’s not that I can’t. I just don’t care for it. It’s been a problem, in the past. The folk who wanted to be with me, back in the Vale? They didn’t - They said I was cold.”

The first response offered to players? “You’re about the warmest person I ever met. To hell with them.” 

Indeed, The Outer Worlds is a game which, over and over again, tells us that Parvati is not cold or unfeeling. This is a young woman who names a robot the moment she fixes it, who worries if the Captain calls the ship’s computer “it”, who checks in with crew members and, in a game with a reputation system (rather than a Mass Effect style morality system), acts as the world’s most adorable conscience. 

And, while Parvati does find her relationship with Junlei complicated, those complications have very little to do with her sexuality and far more to do with her being a young woman, away from home for the first time, and experiencing possibly the first great love of her life. There are miscommunications, a night of drowning sorrows, endless over-analysing of each other’s words and actions, and the need to go to four different worlds just to plan a date. As the player character can say: 

PC: “If you two marry, you’ll be saying, ‘Haha, just kidding. Unless you’re not.’” Parvati: “I resent you saying such, on account of it being uncomfortably likely.”

But once Parvati has worked up the courage to tell Junlei who she is, the relationship works well. Well enough for Parvati to find a new home with Junlei once the fight is over: 

Now, I always expect an Obsidian game to have some awareness of the wider spectrum of human sexuality - Fallout New Vegas included some same-sex relationships, and the player character could be played as straight, gay or bisexual, depending on which perks you picked. But I wasn’t expecting the only great romance subplot in an entire game to include an asexual woman actively pursuing another woman. Were this just one relationship among many, it would still be beautiful, but for it to take centre-stage and not have to share that space with anything else? It’s phenomenal. 

And, just when I think that The Outer Worlds couldn’t get any more lovely, it did this: 

Yep, that’s the option to identify your character explicitly as asexual. There’s even the option just afterwards to clarify your character as aromantic as well, which Parvati takes perfectly in her stride with a nice little nod to the player’s strong relationships with their friends. Either revelation is meant with the same response from Parvati: 

“So we’re… we’re kin-like. That makes me, well - unaccountably happy, Captain. It’s a lonely thing, being different like this.” 

Judging from that reaction, the Captain is likely the first fellow asexual who Parvati has met, and the relief in her voice was such a punch to the gut. Because Parvati’s right - the loneliness of feeling “other” sinks in fast and there’s nothing quite like the relief when you finally feel like maybe you’re not alone after all. 

And the idea that this game and this character might give that moment of relief to someone out there, well, that just makes me unaccountably happy as well.

Spotlight on naked Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets books

Reblog with your personality types bolded, for your own reference, or for your followers to get to know you better! Add some others if you know any (such as Hogwarts houses: not a typical personality test, but they give other people insight into what you’re like!). Ones with free online tests are linked.

Name: C.J.H.

Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces

Myers-Briggs [x]: ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ, ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP, ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENFJ, ESFJ, ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, ENTJ.

The Four Temperaments [x]: Melancholic, Phlegmatic, Choleric, Sanguine 

Enneagram [x]: Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7, Type 8, Type 9.

Hogwarts House [x, but Pottermore is better]: Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw

Get to know me! Personality Types