Lady Geek Girl & Friends’ Best of the Blog Sundays

We’re still on hiatus until January 6^th. Happy New Year, everyone, and we’ll be back soon!

Oh, My Pop Culture Unchristianity: Sandman’s Humanizing Subversion of Common Christian Tropes. Syng illustrates how Sandman plays with common Christian tropes.

An imperfect God is easier to believe in. Just as a mystical pregnancy that doesn’t result in special children (because statistically, so few people are likely to become Great; why should children of mystical pregnancies be any different from typical humans?), and the death of a son of god being much more personal than a momentous world-saving act is easier to believe in.

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Religious Practice in the Potterverse. Stinekey speculates on how magic and religion work in the Potterverse.

However, there are a few canonical instances where wizards do actually practice (Christian) religion in the series. St. Mungo’s, the wizarding hospital, is actually named for a real saint. St. Mungo, also known as St. Kentigern, was a Christian missionary who performed miracles and founded the city of Glasgow. The Fat Friar is the ghost of Hufflepuff House and was a monk in his former life.

Lady Geek Girl & Friends’ Best of the Blog Saturdays

We’re still on hiatus until January 6^th. Happy New Year, everyone, and we’ll be back soon!

Sexualized Saturdays: A Genderqueer Take on Slash Fanfiction. Pan reflects on their experience with slash fanfiction.

As a genderqueer person I’m fairly certain that my own experience with slash fanfiction differs somewhat from the norm. Only recently have I begun reflecting on how formative both writing and reading fanfiction was at a time in my life when I felt isolated and frustrated by my own seemingly incongruous feelings. Knowing now that there are a surprising number of people for whom the gender binary doesn’t hold true, I like to think that for some small portion of the fan community fanfiction has been an important tool for self-discovery, as it was for me.

Sexualized Saturdays: Teen Wolf and the Turmoils of Male Puberty. Pisces talks about how the cis male werewolf experience is analogous to the cis male puberty experience.

Lycanthropy also serves as a metaphor for the inherent state of physical transition and transformation that is a defining part of puberty. For most able-bodied, non-chronically ill people, puberty is the first time we actively feel out of control of our bodies (potty training notwithstanding). The changes are sudden, violent, bizarre; simple changes in height are nothing compared to the fundamental, irreversible changes to the character and nature of our bodies that happen during puberty. It’s rooted in the same basis that makes all body horror so terrifying—the involuntary changing of and lack of control over the body.

Doctor Who Gets a New Companion

If you haven’t heard the news yet, consider yourself informed: there will be a new face in the TARDIS when Doctor Who returns this fall, and I don’t mean just Capaldi.

Actor Samuel Anderson will be joining the regular cast as Danny Pink, a fellow teacher at the Coal Hill School and a coworker of Clara’s. Anderson has been in a ton of British television shows that I’ve never seen or heard of, but fan reception of his acting seems to be positive. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about this announcement, so let’s get right into it.

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Steven Moffat, the New Feminist

gif via giphy

Few people inspire more division and frustration in the geek world than Steven Moffat. Showrunner of Doctor Who and co-creator of BBC’s Sherlock, Moffat’s storylines and female characters have attracted plenty of accusations of misogyny. But Moffat refuses to acknowledge any problems with the way he handles his shows. It’s abundantly clear that he believes he’s a feminist… and I think he might be right. Although he probably doesn’t know it, I believe Moffat is a New Feminist. New Feminism is a flavor of feminism popular among many religious conservatives, arising from a supposedly “biblical” view of the sexes.

Sherlock: “The Sign of Three” Review

I actually disliked a lot of “The Empty Hearse”, unlike Saika, so I wasn’t much looking forward to yesterday’s “The Sign of Three”, either. Imagine my surprise when this episode of Sherlock turned out to be the fluffiest, most fun episode of TV I’ve seen in a long while. Spoilers after the jump!

Sherlock: “The Empty Hearse” Review

I’ve just finished watching “The Empty Hearse”, and, well, it’s a very strange feeling. Finally having Sherlock Series 3 is surreal. I was actually not really looking forward to watching it; I have become exhausted over the past year by the depth of my dislike for the majority of the cast, fandom, and writing team, and I tuned in more out of duty to this blog than a genuine desire to see more of Sherlock and John et al.

Given my apathy, I am surprised to report that I enjoyed the episode. I’m not sure if it was a case of having such low expectations that I couldn’t possibly be disappointed, or whether it was actually good, but, well, there you go.

Spoilers abound beneath the jump.

“Time of the Doctor” Review

Merry Christmas, Whovians and sundry! Yesterday sure was… something, wasn’t it?

Hit the jump for spoilers.

Doctor Who? Your Guide to the Newest Doctor

After a long wait, we now know that the next Doctor is Peter Capaldi! Yeah, I wanted a non-white, non-male Doctor too, but Moffat’s said that Capaldi was the only actor he auditioned for the role, so as long as we’ve got Moffat on board I suppose the Doctor will always be white and male. As white male choices go, though, I think Capaldi was a great one. For those of you who don’t know, Capaldi is a 55-year-old actor most known for his role as Malcolm Tucker in the British political satire The Thick of It and its spinoff In the Loop. Like David Tennant, he’s Scottish; unlike Tennant, he’ll get to keep his accent as the Doctor. Capaldi is a huge Doctor Who fan and is delighted to step into the Doctor’s sizable shoes, and I think Capaldi’s going to bring a very different sort of energy to the role. Not gonna lie, I’m a massive fan of his. Let me tell you why.

Sexualized Saturdays: The Doctor Who Issue

Obviously, the Doctor Who fandom is still bathing in the afterglow that was Day of the Doctor. It is at this point that I want to bring up something that has been discussed by a couple people, but never by me.

I am of the opinion that, as long as Steven Moffat is the executive producer of Doctor Who, the show will not be able to grow as a series.

Yeah, I’m using this .gif again. Wanna fight about it?

Pope Alexander recently wrote an article on Moffat’s inability to properly kill characters, so I’m going to avoid that. Instead, I’m going to focus on his inability use the full scope of the human condition. Specifically, the lack of LGBTQ+ relationships.

And this lack of LGBTQ+ relationship is not an LGBTQ+ or heterosexual issue. It’s both.

Sexualized Saturdays: Asexuality in Fiction and Fanfiction

I have to admit that before writing this post, I had never purposefully sought out fanfiction involving asexuality, if only because I was too scared to. I’m not trying to say that I think all ace fanfiction would be terrible or poorly written—one of my favorite fics stars an ace character—but I’ve had a lot of bad experience with stories that have unfortunately made me a little terrified to see how other people interpret my sexuality. As such, I generally get my fanfiction kicks from reading stories that simply have no pairings, or no overt romance and sexual tension, as I more or less know what to expect from them.

Though I know there has to be plenty of well-written stories involving ace characters, there are also plenty of bad ones, and I sometimes feel as if this lack of quality comes from not only certain misunderstandings about asexuality, but also from how the original source material and writers treat asexuality.