(no subject)

*struggles manfully with DVD player*

*watches extended potions class skene*

*DIZ*

Someone out there did a totally brilliant animated ikon where we see Snape scribbling with his quill (from the end of that bit), then discover that he's just drawn Trogdor the Burninator.

(no subject)

I can't remember how this got into my bookmarks - if you're the person who pointed it out to me, I thank you:

Nancy Kress, An SF Moderate Climbs Cautiously Onto the Barricades

There's one more possible answer the question, ''So what if there's a relative dearth of credible characters in SF?'' It's the answer given by the young fan I mentioned at the New York convention last year. He said it was ''satisfying to just see the good guys mow down the bad guys.'' Well, perhaps it is. I have no quarrel with his view of ''satisfying,'' since that word is purely subjective, and who can say what is or isn't satisfying to somebody else? However, I did have a quarrel, loudly expressed, when he added that he wouldn't read anything with complicated characters in it ''because SF shouldn't be work.'' At that point, he had crossed the line from subjective reaction to evaluation of a genre. And evaluation implies the existence of some sort of standard against which one is measuring. He was saying that reality, in all its conflict of values and obligations and desires and needs, is not an appropriate standard for SF. Technological plausibility is an appropriate standard; magical inventiveness is an appropriate standard; societal consistency is an appropriate standard. But plausibility of characters, inventiveness of the amazing facets of human personality, consistency with human diversity and even sheer human cussedness -- those are standards for mainstream, not for us.

(Emphasis added. If I had a dime for every time Who fanboys crossed that line, I'd have a whole s***-load of dimes.)