zhadrani

Heya, this journal is now partially friends-locked, and will likely be getting more locked in the future! I'm no hardass about it though, and I love meeting new people, especially those with common interests (see my profile page for some of mine~), so if you want to add me, just drop a comment so I can add you back, yeah? :D Cool.

Note: My fic are staying unlocked for now, and can be found through the FIC tag. :)

Sneaking online at lunchtime to throw up this quick post of character notes for an AU event at luceti. This is a bit incoherent and sketchy and mostly for my rp buddies, but anyone's welcome to say what they think!

So I'm going with genderbending for this AU. Girl!Zoro is from a universe where the Straw Hats (and possibly some other people) are and always have been the opposite sex. Key persons such as Gold Roger and Hawk-eyes Mihawk are not switched. Neither, I've decided, is anyone else in Zoro's background. Her sensei is still a man, and her rival and sensei's daughter Kuina was still that—a daughter.

( Girl!Zoro Stuff )

PROP 8 OVERTURNED FUCK YESSSSS!!!! 8DDD!!!

This makes me so happy I want to dance in the streets. .../PROCEEDS TO DANCE IN THE STREETS. And the actual ruling, unnnf, so intelligent and fair and sensible, it's just as satisfying as reading through the rationale for the Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover ruling when the judge gave Intelligent Design and the people trying to weasel it into classrooms as 'science' a thorough kicking in the rear end. 8D

Shall I quote bits of it?? YES, I THINK I SHALL. /snags shamelessly from here.

Judge Vaughn R. Walker's conclusion, page 135:

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in  singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

On the overturning of Proposition 8, page 136:

"Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result ...

"Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently ... prohibiting the official defendants [state of California] from applying or enforcing Proposition 8..."

On why voters are not able to ban gay marriage in California, page 24: [Updated, 2:51 p.m.]

"Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough. Still less will the moral disapprobation of a group or class of citizens suffice, no matter how large the majority that shares that view. The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in such disapproval. As such, Proposition 8 is beyond the constitutional reach of the voters or their representatives."

SWEET LADY JUSTICE, COME HERE, LET ME CUDDLE AND SMOOCH YOU AND RAISE MY MIDDLE FINGER IN SALUTE TO THE OUTRAGED SUPPORTERS OF PROP 8, MWAHAHAHAHA. *pant, pant...smoothing hair and attempting to sound like a level-headed and rational human being again.* Eh-hem... >.> Have some more highlights here, and the above link also includes some beautiful smackdown of the one witness Prop 8 proponents brought out to to 'testify' that children raised by their married & biological parents do better than children raised by...anyone else, which is such BS that it boggles my mind. Take a ride on the clue train, people, and learn some more about developmental psychology, this is such a non-issue in the field.

I know that opponents of this ruling are already planning an appeal and that it will doubtless go all the way to the Supreme Court, and that this is a first world problem etc etc etc., but I am NOT letting any of that harsh my mood from this news. HURRAY FOR AMERICA NOT SUCKING TODAY!!! \o/!!!!

(On this specific issue, anyway. >.> Eh-hem.)

/dancedancedancedanceCaramelldansendancedancedance

ETA: Oh, oh, I just found this other tidbit, which is one of the most important parts of the whole ruling, in my opinion, and also gives a right proper slap of good sense across the face of all the opponents of this decision who keep making righteously disappointed noises about this judge overturning 'the will of over 7 million Californians who made a decision in a free and fair democratic process'. (HAH.)

The fact that Prop 8 passed as a voter initiative is irrelevant because "fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." Yessss. Honestly, those insufferable people. If, purely hypothetically, all of those 7 million Californians had joined the rest in voting against Prop 8, would these hypocrits be acknowledging this same argument now? No, because it wouldn't suit their goals. All of their butthurt 'bawww'ing about democratic process, it's so ridiculous and I have no respect for it whatsoever. It'd be nice if we'd democratically elected to legalize gay marriage (and a survey shows that if the same vote had happened today, 51% of Californians would vote to do so!), it would show we had good sense, but it's not necessary in order to affirm people's basic rights. That would be 'tyranny of the majority', and I, for one, am glad that the courts can prevent that. (>.> And that the courts had the sense and constitutional righteousness on their side to do so, here.)

"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, and then expecting different results." (Commonly attributed to Albert Einstein.)

So despite buying and losing copies of this ring:


twice over the past four years, I bought it yet again today. And I will not lose it this time, dagnabbit! B|  Third time's the charm, right?? ...It's the only ring that I've ever bought and worn consistently, and I keep gravitating back to it, even though there are bajillions of other ring designs. The guy in the ring shop today said that it's called the 'wave ring' and that the pattern symbolizes life's ups and downs, which tickles me, but the guy was also going on about how he gave some credence to numerology, so I take his words with a grain of salt.

...I think I'll just never take it off until someone pries it off my cold, dead finger sometime in the far distant future. Yes, yes, that's clearly the way to go about it. ...No, I'm not doing the crazy eyes, what are you talking about.

/CRAZY EYES

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS SOONER FFFFFFFFFFFFFF STUPID FINALS

House Passes 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal Amendment, Senate Bill Advances

234-194 is still far too close, but I'll take it. I liked the speech given by the House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (embedded in the link above); he hit on most of the good stuff, and he hit it hard. Wish I'd been able to catch the actual broadcast last week—I'll probably be wasting some time today that should be spent on essays looking up more speeches. Probably even speeches by the opponents, if only to piss myself off at their illogic, hypocrisy, and blatant denial of the basic human rights that this country is supposed to hold sacred. All of the parallels in rhetoric to the advocates of racial segregation in the military during the Civil Rights movement, god, it's like these people are copy-pasting, and it just doesn't hold water. Didn't then, doesn't now.

The majority of the American public, the majority of those currently serving the military, and a good number of former and current military leaders support the repeal, so I'm...cautiously hopeful? -__- With numbers like that it should be in the friggin' bag, but, y'know. Things happen. Grrrr.

Anyway. There's still a long ways to go—through the Senate and the inevitable filibuster attempt by Senate Republicans, and even if it passes there the repeal's success is still contingent upon the results of the Pentagon's study on its possible impact, including input from troops in the actual armed forces. And then the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have to certify that repealing DADT won’t have negative effects on the military’s fighting readiness. (Which...-__- it still boggles my mind why anyone thinks it would.)

Bearing all of that in mind...oh please, please, please, please.

We fell down on Prop 8 in California—hence the 'grrrrr'—and that still stings like hell (also I just found out that one of my best friends here at college voted for that. :| What the actual hell, Friend A), so I know it's far from a sure thing and I'm wary of getting overly excited about this too soon—but it's so hard not to! Quoting an observation by elspethdixon, "The three cornerstones of citizenship are voting, civil marriage, and military service (I know, because the Reconstruction-era political posters in my grad school advisor's office told me so). Now we're halfway to having two out of three."

We should have all of them—like, yesterday—but it's progress.

...By some standards, perhaps I'm completely unqualified to remark upon the last episode in Season 5 of Supernatural, "Swan Song". In October of last year I got frustrated with the online fandom and aspects of the storyline and, without making any particular decision about it, quietly stopped watching. The last episode I saw before tonight was 5x04, "The End", which I enjoyed a great deal.

So I've missed whatever problems that I've heard the edges of, that fandom had with the rest of the season. Monster-of-the-week hunts in the middle of the Apocalypse, too much heated strife between the brothers, the twists and turns and reveals of the myth-arc, etc. I also missed the impassioned, highly polarized, and by turns euphoric and venomous opinions of the individual fans as the episodes aired. Their understandable preoccupations with certain characters, the squeeing, the dissecting of every scene.

And, naturally, the details of what happened.

However. By and large, I consider this to be a good thing, and regardless of my own qualification to speak on the matter, I'm going to say a few words about "Swan Song", having watched it clear-eyed, blank of the layers of bright colors and emotions of immediate context, save for a quick Wikipedia look-up for the episode summaries of the span that I'd missed. I went into it with no expectations on my mind other than, "I want to see how this ends. I want to see what the boys do. I want to see who they are, at the end of this."

That said.

( SPN 5x22 )

So apparently I'll just never get tired of re-watching Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy. Which is the documentary made for the 2004 release of the original trilogy DVDs, and is just fantastic about conveying the scope of the movies' creation, and the impact that they had on the world.

( Rambling About Star Wars )


Rec

Webcomic: FreakAngels
Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy/Steampunk/Post-Apocalyptic Earth
Length: 95 six-page long chapters, currently incomplete
Style: ...I'll just throw up an example of the art, shall I?
( A Quick Rec )

*bangs head against wall* Oh. God. I. Hate. Writing. Apps. NNnnghhhfjg. Why do I fail so hard, ffffff.

And also *flails wildly* I went to watch my favorite Zoro AMV for inspiration, and it was taken down from Youtube for copyright violation or something! D: OTL!! Luckily, after panicking for a while I managed to find it on Tudou, but I can't figure out how to embed that here and it's lower quality, so I'm just putting up a link.  Hopefully the creator will put it up again somewhere in HQ. Anyway, watching it still broke my little Zoro-loving heart all over again, I ♥ it so. Here we go!

A Lost Dream, by Seren278.



ETA: Okay, that's it, I can't fiddle with it anymore, I'm gonna post it now. *writhes at how horrible it is* Oh god, so long and rambly and incoherent and badly organized and I don't talk about nakama relations enough and I'm sure I forgot ten different things I should've mentioned and left in twelve other things I should've cut out, but holy shmoo I'm tired and I've read it too many times and fksdkfj. ...Yeah, I'm done.

ETA2: ...Oh. That's...just great. ... ... ... ...Frick.