What made you happy today?

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

Having a two-hour skype chat with a TMNT buddy and talking about fanfic tropes that irritate the crap out of us - including the current obsession with mpreg which is driving me insane (seriously, it's everywhere right now). Other gripes also included OOC writing (for example, woobie Leo), badly written kink and stories where a character is sexually assaulted and then they have a cry and a hug and are back to normal by the end of the story with no lasting trauma.

Okay, I have to ask- what's woobie Leo? Not familiar with the term. And yeah, I get annoyed by the mpreg stuff, too. I MAY be slightly guilty of the rape with a cry and hug bit, but in my defense, the character who got raped DOES fully intend on getting paybacks against the one who did it, so there is some consequences and closure coming- it's just not readily apparent yet.

[pennydreadful]

My happy thing - had the most kickass dream last night that I was a gorgon and could breathe fire. I woke up feeling very empowered!

I'll throw the fanfic response stuff under the spoiler:

Spoiler:

That dumpster pic is very on-point.

Woobie Leo is when someone writes Leo as a weaker character than he actually is - crying all the time or being described as giggling (!!!)... basically just comes back into OOC writing where the author changes the traits of the character to fit the story that they want to write. Just one of those things that bugs me; it feels like lazy writing.

I'm not going to say OOC can't ever work - in fanfic there are no absolutes; it's all down to execution - but sometimes it can just read like "the author wanted to write this type of story and the characters just happen to be Leo and whoever; really they could've slapped any names on the characters and you'd never know the difference".

As far as mpreg, I've never been crazy about it - it ain't my thing, but I can handle it in small doses... but right now it's just everywhere and it's just always written as the same weak, heteronormative cookie-cutter "Character X is crying and needs icecream - Character Y will tell them that they are still beautiful and then they'll play happy families" dreck. Sorry, but just... barf-o-rama, y'know?

As far as the rape thing - I can handle it being in stories, I mean, some of my fave stories have sexual violence. For me it's just important that the subject is treated with respect - it's not just thrown in there as an excuse for a hurt/comfort storyline. It's a serious subject so I hate it when it happens in a story and then it's just hand-waved away and everything's fine at the end of the episode. Like you said Marvel, I like consequences, I like closure -- and really, that goes for any major life-changing event that happens to a character in a story. If someone nearly dies in a story, I want the character to take time to come back from it, I want to see how it's affected the people around them. If there's major character death, I want to see how it's changed the dynamic - it shouldn't just feel like an episode where the character happens to just not be there. For me, it comes back to proper world-building, research and decent writing.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

Spoiler:

For me it's just important that the subject is treated with respect - it's not just thrown in there as an excuse for a hurt/comfort storyline. It's a serious subject so I hate it when it happens in a story and then it's just hand-waved away and everything's fine at the end of the episode. Like you said Marvel, I like consequences, I like closure -- and really, that goes for any major life-changing event that happens to a character in a story.

That exactly. Making it legit and treating the subject matter properly is fine. When the consequences, emotions, and healing process are legit. On the other hand, character A being assaulted, abused, and/or raped, but hey it's all ok now(!) because they've fallen in love with character B who did it to them (how romantic!)... seems like a common theme and makes me fear for humanity. Esp when I realized how young many of the writers of such material were.

If they're going to fall for the abuser, at least be a fictional study in stockholm syndrome.

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

My happy thing - had the most kickass dream last night that I was a gorgon and could breathe fire. I woke up feeling very empowered!

That is a seriously awesome dream. I'm lucky if I can even remember my bland ones anymore. lol

[Cure]

Rape is such a happy topic. I'm happy I came into the happy thread to read about it.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Cure

Rape is such a happy topic. I'm happy I came into the happy thread to read about it.

I don't know whether to wait for Purple_Kraken, comment on Game of Thrones, or just back away slowly without breaking eye contact.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Cure

Rape is such a happy topic. I'm happy I came into the happy thread to read about it.

Your happiness at posting a happy comment about other people's comments has made me happy to comment happily.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

And thus shall we spread the happiness all around! This thread just makes me want to start a BIIIG group hug, LOL!!

[pennydreadful]

All this happiness in here makes me want to break into song - you all know the words; come on now, sing along!



Life's a happy song when there's someone by your side to siiing alooooooooooooong!

[IndigoErth]

Spoiler:

Edit:

[Mew]

I'm supposed to be happy ?

[AT-Man]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEGM6UYtnE this makes me happy every time. Not embedded because of explicit lyrics.

[Candy Kappa]

Tested my electric bike today, worked pretty good, and I didn't get killed in the area where we don't have pedestrian and biking side-streets, but big ass trucks still drives way above the speed limit there.

So overall pretty happy inducing.

[BubblyShell22]

What made me happy: That my eye appointment went well and we made it down and back okay.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I got some AWESOME shots of one of the kites living in a neighborhood along my route to work today! I also finally got a positive ID by checking my pics against the ever-helpful Google. It's a pair of Mississippi kites, and I think the one I "captured" is the male because it's very light on the head and chest. Beautiful birds, look like a small light-colored falcon-type, with dark-colored, long pointed wings and a dark, squared tail. They have a very distinctive call- sounds like a short, sharp, high-pitched "Kee, Kee, Kee!" or as wiki described it, like a squeaky toy. They seem to have staked out a territory about halfway between my home and the place I work, with a tall tree that's mostly dead as their prime hunting perch. They like to sit there for a while, then fly around in two or three large circles of the area, before landing again.

Here's a few links to show what they look like!:

http://texaslastfrontier.com/wp-cont...kite_crop3.jpg

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migra...gpic/miki2.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...te-wichita.jpg

[ProactiveMan]

I fixed my couch, so I no longer have to rest against a leather clad block of wood. The padding in the armrest herniated into the base some time last year, and got worse and worse as time went by. The other day I was resting my head on the arm and I couldn't stand it any longer.

I removed the fabric from the base and looked into the arm - turns out the padding was self contained, like a pillow, and had simply pushed through the crappy fabric sling that was keeping it in place. I decided to fix it with high tensile webbing/straps, by screwing them into the wooden frame; problem was, the gap I had to work in was less than 100mm wide, and my forearms are bigger than that.

I pushed the cushion into place with a broom handle, borrowed my sister's electric screwdriver, and repaired the couch. Luckily, my arm would reach far enough in to screw the webbing to the frame, but just barely, and I've go a patch of missing skin for my troubles. It's amazing how crappy the inside of a couch looks. I guess you would never normally see it, but that furniture you spent too much money on is just a collection of indifferently cut ply, staple-gunned together, and wrapped in foam.

[IndigoErth]

Walmart this time having something I was after this time (that they didn't have last time I looked and then that truck ran into me on the road making it an entirely pointless trip). They only had two, but at least it was there, and given the nature of it (lets say it's lady stuff)... it's good to know some other woman is going to go in there and say "thank god they still have one."

[pennydreadful]

Oh Indigo... admit it, after my infamous tampon rant, you went out and bought yourself a diva cup didn't you. Embrace the tides of the moon, my sister!

Seriously though, I'm pretty sure that a lot of us here on the boards have synced up... I think it's all the time we've spent together in the DF group. We truly have become one through our bleeding!

[Prowler]

The couple of posts above made me happy for being born a dude. Feels good not bleeding every month

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Walmart this time having something I was after this time (that they didn't have last time I looked and then that truck ran into me on the road making it an entirely pointless trip). They only had two, but at least it was there, and given the nature of it (lets say it's lady stuff)... it's good to know some other woman is going to go in there and say "thank god they still have one."

Ah, you too, I see?

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

Oh Indigo... admit it, after my infamous tampon rant, you went out and bought yourself a diva cup didn't you. Embrace the tides of the moon, my sister!

Seriously though, I'm pretty sure that a lot of us here on the boards have synced up... I think it's all the time we've spent together in the DF group. We truly have become one through our bleeding!

Yup. I was talking about this just the other day with my hubby, LOL!

Originally Posted by Prowler

The couple of posts above made me happy for being born a dude. Feels good not bleeding every month

Dude, you don't know how LUCKY you are....

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Dude, you don't know how LUCKY you are....

Indeed I don't. I can imagine, though. It's already a pain to have stomach pain when I have a severe case of diarrhea, so I can only imagine how bad a rough period might be. And I bet the situation Indigo has described(there not being any left at the store) doesn't help at all either.

Also, feels good not to need toilet paper after peeing.