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Banner by phdelicious. Much love and moose to her.

Post an anon request for a fic you'd like to see for Christmas. If you see a request you'd like to take on, feel free to! I shall in any case do at least two, and see what else time and my brain will allow.

No real restrictions on fandom, but I am naturally more likely to write fandoms I actually know.

This post brought to you by six am on a Monday morning - everyone's favourite.

Managing a new low, some vandals have destroyed the Gingerbread City in Bergen. Over 600 gingerbread houses, decorated by kids yesterday with the city to be put together this week. See, it's a non-profit activity aimed at children and children with developmental disabilities. It's been running for several years. People love it.

Pictures from previous years. You can see some of the destruction here.

That's just so utterly low I have no words. But people are pitching in to rebuild it, so I hope they manage.

Meanwhile, Hollywood, I have two pleas:

1) Please, please, please let British actors you cast either keep their accent (it won't bite, I promise!) or give them a dialect coach or something. Because listening to British actors not quite managing to sound American pains me and listening to them in their original accent would just please me. Rawr.

2) Please, please, please get American actors who are trying to do non-American accents some tutoring OR just have them do it all American and count on some suspension of disbelief. Because this half-half is bloody annoying. Also, throwing "ja?" at the end of a sentence does not make you German-sounding. Really. And The Swedish Chef is not a guide to Scandinavian accents. Really. And no, playing it like a stereotype that walked out of a tourist guide written by someone who has never visited the country does not make up for the actor utterly butchering the language.

... Yeah, I shouldn't get into that rant or I'll be here all day.

Meanwhile, they've cast Heimdall in the upcoming Thor movie and oh my. Granted, the comic it's based on isn't exactly staying true to Nordic mythology to begin with, and I guess this kinda reinforces it. Because the Viking gods are generally depicted to be pale in colour, mostly because the Vikings were and we all tend to envision things based on our perspective, you know? The Vikings were no expcetion. So I did blink a bit initially, I must admit. (There's even a Black Viking trope, as I learned.)

But I found myself really warming to the idea and you know why? Because neo-Nazis are going to have a fit. They've always tried to hijack Nordic mythology for their own racist, hateful agenda - just as the Nazis themselves did. To say this displeases me is putting it mildly. That's my cultural inheritance they're twisting and getting associated with their shit.

So I shall sit right back and laugh and laugh and laugh and hey, the dude isn't bad looking either. Win-win!

Slides Towards the Future
by misscam

Summary: Afterwards, she does wonder - Was it inevitable even knowing the future, or is seeing the flash forward what made it so? [Mark/Olivia, Olivia/Lloyd]

Rating: Teen. Some non-explicit references to adult activities.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: The show will undoubtedly make this AU. Um, yeah. I'm writing FlashForward fic. Oops.

( If philosophers can argue over it for decades, Olivia Benford (maybe-to-be-Simcoe one day) doesn't have much chance of certainty. She can watch her life in slides forwards the future and still never know for sure. )

One of my favourite books is by Douglas Adams and isn't The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Rather, it's a little book called Last Chance to See that is utterly non-fiction and all the more sad for it.

In it, Douglas and Mark Carwardine (a zoologist) travel around the world to see various endangered species. At least one of these have been officially declared extinct in the wild since the book was written - the baiji dolphin.

Whenever I read it, I get an urge to explore. To see all the wonderful things this universe has to offer. Especially knowing that not all of them will be here forever and the chance to see them is limited.

I wish I could see everything - a supernova, a star being born in a nebulae, what May 8th 1945 in Norway was like, a Triceratops, the first Norwegians, the forming of the moon, the library of Alexandria, mammoths, the Decan Traps, the silence at the great depths of the ocean, the storm that never dies on Jupiter, a binary star system and so many, many other things.

None of these things are possible to see for me and this makes me a little bit sad. But there is still so much I can see. A shark. A tiger. Angor Wat. The ruins of the Incas and the Maya. Penguins in Antarctica. The Amazons. Nine billion diffrent people on this Earth.

There is how much I have seen. Fjords. Northern lights across a winter sky like some painter gone mad with green. Midnight sun. Kangaroos. The redness of Uluru against the blueness of a cloudfree sky. The stones of old Rome. An ampitheatre of Greece. A Buddhist temple in Thailand. A city of Svalbard, covered in snow and framed by darkness. A blue-tongued lizard taking a liking to my hair.

To quote the Discovery Channel - The World Is Just Awesome.

What would you like to see, if given the chance?

Anyone willing to make a few icons for me from bases I've cropped? I am rubbish and have no photoshop. I offer gratitude and return favours/bribes.

I give you stupid shit on a Monday:

- Did you know white are facing racism and being discriminated against in Hollywood? That Heroes' writer sure seems to think so. Poor, poor him, never given any advantage. Except all the ones he has from birth, of course.

Oh yeah, my heart bleed for him. Won't someone think of the poor white males?

(Hey, I think of white males - if they're hot enough! Actually, that kind of goes for all males. Mmm, hot males of all kinds.)

- "No but I don't see the big deal. What is so horrible about it? Think about it. It's just sex you didn't agree to," says (hopefully) a troll or an utter, utter ass about rape. Yeah.

I mean, what's so bad about murder? It's just death you didn't agree to!

- A guild on my server is accused of ninjaing and shitty behaviour in PUGs. Some members take exceptions. 27 pages of wankiness ensue.

World of Warcraft is serious business, if you didn't know.

In better news:

- Book overdue by 50 years returned to library - with a 1000 dollar check to cover late fee..

- Sweden returns skulls to Hawaii to be reburied.

- Australian sniffer dog missing in action for eight months in Afghanistan is found in good health.

- A Zambian journalist has been acquitted of pornography charges after sending officials pictures of a woman giving birth in a hospital car park,

Off to kill some Yogg-Saron!

I think I might be getting attached to Castle and FlashForward. Hum. Castle for the wit and snark and awesome female character and FlashForward for the premise and the Jack Davenport and John Cho (and maybe Jospeh Fiennes and Alex Kingston and others).

Things are always most shiny when new, right? I need new shinies. Haven't felt the urge to write something in ages. I should finish my BSG AU-Daybreak thing and the Star Trek-Doctor Who crossover, but a really strong urge is just not there.

Blah.

But hey, new Doctor Who to watch - maybe that'll spark something. Hmm, I wonder how FlashForward would work with Doctor Who?

So what would you do if you lived in Nazi Germany, you knew the neighbours were hiding Jews, you knew bad things were happening to Jews and Gestapo or SS men came asking you if you knew of any hidden Jews?

Apparently telling the truth and giving up the Jews is the Christian thing to do. At least according to one Christian fellow.

Personally, I'd lie my ass off, but maybe that means I'm a bad, bad person and a tool of Satan. For lying and potentially saving lives. Or something. Who else would be a bad lying person here?

In other news, I am never eating kebabs in Russia.

In real life news, working with nine-year-olds is tiring, wonderful and quite educational. I like.

Finally, still taking addresses for Christmas, if you want a card or are doing gift exchange with me. Mine can be found via here.

Man, time flies.

And what's up with you?

A group of past and present University of Sydney students set up a ''pro-rape'' page in the sports and recreation section on Facebook, describing themselves as ''anti-consent''.

Anti-consent. Because that's so much better than pro-rape, naturally.

The list of allegations is pretty sickening as well, but hardly surprising if this is the sort of place to spawn a Facebook group like that. The fail is astounding.

I'm not sure if I feel more angry or sick. It's probably a tie. UGH.

First snowfall this week. You can also see here. I like the snow, at least compared to wind and rain. Truly winter now, Norway. Get out your mittens and reflectors.

Did I miss wank in the BSG fandom? Because that secret and the comments make me think so (well, coupled with some deleted journals I've spotted).

If you haven't already, you can leave your address for Christmas stuff here. My address can be found here (if you're on my flist, at least).

( My Christmas wish lists )

Or just something you think I would want ;)

Finally, Africa might be getting a new sea. Huh. Curious. Our world really is a world that keeps change, tectonically and otherwise.

Now I have weekend, marzipan and a new DVD with Marple stories. What's your weekend treat to yourself?

So, if you want a Christmas card from Norway or are doing a gift exchange with me, leave your address here in a comment. All comments are screened, so only I will see.

If you're doing the gift exchange, you can also leave a link to your wish list / Amazon wish list if you have one.

I'll be posting mine a bit later.

(Yes, I'm alive. Vaguely.)

So, this week I have in addition to being madly busy to begin with 1) sprained an ankle and 2) gotten a cold. Had to go to hospital for x-rays on the ankle, while the cold just likes to hang around. Real helpful, body.

But teaching is brilliant and kids manage to be utterly adorable and pests at the same time. It's uncanny. Very interesting experience. I have to think more on it when I actually get time to reflect a bit.

Anyway, point of this entry is (apart from letting you know I live) Christmas gift-exhange. Yes, it's a bit early, but I have to start planning already as December will be rather busy in other ways.

So, same procedure as last year, really. First ten who comment here with "gift me!" gets on the gift exchange list. (Some are already on it.) All taken now! Everyone else who wants will get a Christmas card from Norway. I'll do a post for leaving addresses in screened comments in November.

Time sure flies, huh?

Meanwhile, this story sure is a reminder that there is something seriously wrong with some people. There are just no words.

Go hug the nearest decent person to you, yeah? That's what I felt like after reading it at least.

Finally, research shows Norwegians are most trusting in Europe. Naive? Sure. But it kinda works for us, in this tiny country of ours.

(*eyedart* Um, yes, well.)

Studies in Orc-Human Relations
by misscam

Summary: All she ever wanted to do was to study. An innocence ago. Before a human became the enemy of all living and an orc became the dearest of all living to her. [Jaina/Thrall, references to past Jaina/Arthas]

Rating: Teen (a gentle one). Very non-explicit references to what adults can get up to.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: The timeline would put this just before patch 3.3 in gametime. Vague references to a role Jaina will take in it, nothing beyond what Blizzard has already revealed. Much thanks to lotus79 for being encouraging and giving me many an 'aww!'.

( She isn't sure what orcs consider romantic, but she is sure Thrall grew up among humans long enough to know the meaning of a kiss )

So, following the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, I've heard, seen or read the following claims:

( Norwegians are actually Swedish liberals who have been 'excited by black iconography' and are actually being racist in giving out the Nobel Peace Prize & other claims )

Sigh.

I see at least one Norwegians newspaper has been getting a lot of angry e-mails from Americans, too.

So, in case you have missed a few vital point, here is how the Nobel Peace Prize actually work:

- Alfred Nobel was a very rich Swede, who in his will set out that he wanted achivements in medicine, physics, literature, chemistry and peace to be honoured with an annual award. The money part of the award comes from the means he left.

- For whatever reasons of his own, he decided that the Norwegian Parliament was to be the one to award the Nobel Peace Prize, while Sweden had the responsibility for the others. Why he divided it like that, we cannot be sure as he didn't say himself, but there are a couple of likely theories out there.

- The Norwegian Parliament appoints a committee according to the stipulations in the will, and with a few of their own - while the people in the committee do represent parties in Parliament, they cannot currently serve in it or be in government. This to make the committee a little more independent.

- The Norwegian people have no say in the award, do not vote in it and have only a tiny indirect influence through elections to Parliament, since the set-up of Parliament will play into who is appointed to the committee.

- It is not awarded by Norway the country. The committee is independent, possibly a bit more so than Nobel had in mind, even. This is by choice of Parliament, who wants the committee to have that independence.

- Norwegian people often disagree with the award. Norwegian politicians often disagree with the award, actually. It's not an award that represents Norway, though it can at times reflect certain Norwegian values.

I actually know the leader of the Nobel Committee (he and dad were in politics at the same time and have many mutual friends) and well, this is just like his kind of thinking. (A lot of fellow Norwegians I've talked to have also remarked this is 'typic Jagland'.) If you read this misconceptions about the Nobel Peace Prize it's the last sentence this one is really all about. I can't say I excatly agree in this case, but we'll see how it plays out.

Ironically, this week Norway was also named best country in the world to live again and yesterday was Leif Eriksson Day in the US. Some timing.

Now, to do a week's planning of teaching or attempt to write something... Bleh, sometimes I hate choices.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama..

Um. Right Well then. That's more for intention than achivement, that's for sure.

So now the US right-wing is going to be slamming Norway and claim various absurd untruths about us again, right? Oh joy. It's always such fun. What are we going to be this year, evil socialist bitches? Probably some absurdity about us trying to force socialist healthcare on the US through awarding this prize.

And if Obama comes here on December 10th to accept the award personally - man, that's going to lock down the whole of Oslo and be the biggest bruhahaha ever.

It's funny how Norway never gets much peace whenever the Nobel Committee awards its choice. Thanks a lot, Alfred Nobel.

"Because of work" is clearly not one. Ugh ugh. Add to this being October, making it pitch dark and wet outside. I hate October in Norway. It looks so dreary and usually involves too much rain.

So, do you have any actual good reasons to be up at six a.m.? Being creative is allowed.

(First day of teaching 9-year-olds ahead. Oh my.)

This has been your "mornings are so unfair" whinge post.

Women's rights - it's not a won battle. It's really not.

So I'm reading this article in Norwegian about Norway and Finland building a women's prison in Afghanistan and our defence minister visiting it, crying.

You know why she cried?

These are four of the women serving there and their "crimes". You read what happened to them and see if you don't want to cry, too.

Najilia is 20. She was accused of helping her cousin see a man on the side. Originally, she got six months in the local courts. Then it was appealed and when the case reached the high court in Kabul, she got more. A lot more. Her sentence is now 12 years. Her three children live with her in prison.

Maria is 18. She was wed at 11. Her brother-in-law raped her while her husband was away and she got sentenced for infidelity. The brother-in-law got nothing and wasn't even charged. The son that was the result of the rape lives with her in prison, as her family as disowned her and the kid.

Dowlatnama is 55. She got sentenced for kidnapping initially, because the court felt she had encouraged a boy next door to meet a girl in secret. But when the family of the girl murdered the girl for dishonouring the family, Dowlatnama got a sentence for "indirect" murder. The father who killed got nothing.

Hanifa was married to a man who disappered and was assumed dead. So Hanifa remarried. When her first husband turned out to be alive, she got sentenced for infidelity and thrown in prison.

Yeah. I don't even know what to say to that. But note, all these cases are *after* Taliban's regime fell.

Before Norway and Finland built a prison and educated prison staff, these women were serving in a damp, dark cellar. With their children there.

The same city has a men's prison as well; 300 men are serving in a prison built in 1905 meant for 60 inmates.

One Norwegian observed that animals in Norway were treated better than that, to which the defence minister pointed out you'd go to prison in Norway for treating animals like that. But Norway is helping to finance a new prison for the men too, and trying to help reform Afghanistan's legal system.

I'm glad my country is doing something, but I hope we can do more. We need to do more, all of us.

In the world today, we still have so very far to go with human rights and women's rights. So very, very far. Najilia, Maria, Dowlatnama and Hanifa are all testimony to that.

Remember them.

(You can read more about women in Afghanistan here and here. There are also campaigns to help, like this one.)

I know, I know, it's like picking a scab, but I can't help myself.

So, a petition has sprung up asking for Roman Polanski's release, where his arrest is charmingly described as "a case of morals" and they show a distrurbing lack of knowledge of what a neutral country actually is. (Tip: It's about neutrality in wars, nothing to do with crime.)

People who've signed that one includes Terry Gilliam (nooooo), Salman Rushdie, Tilda Swinton, David Lynch, Woddy Allen and Whoopi Goldberg.

Whoopi Goldberg said this: “I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, ‘You know what, this [judge] is going to give me a hundred years in jail. I’m not staying’.” (Source.)

( Wherein Cam discusses Bill Napoli definitions of rape, putting it on the victim, doing harm and Roman Polanski's own charming words about what he did )

There are also some who are speaking up against support of Roman Polanski, and I give them props: Bill Maher, Kevin Smith and Gren Gunberg at least.

ETA: Noel Clarke too.

I sure hope some petition to have him face justice comes about and enough sign it to make me feel better about humanity. Because right now, I'm not feeling so great about it.

Help a kitten live?

Cats own my heart, I swear. I mean, they're cats. I can't not help.

In also depressing news, the list of people asking for Roman Polanski to be released is seriously depressing me. I mean, I get discussions over how he was arrested and international law isn't always simple and maybe some feel that this is a waste of resources compared to other things when even the victim wants to let it go now. Okay, those are debates to be had.

But quit treating him like the victim over this case. The victim is the 13-year-old he raped. Read her testimony (warning, content can be triggering). The Smoking Gun also has his plea bargain. You can also read this letter on why the rape charges were dropped. Not lack of evidence, but rather the harm a trial would do to the victim.

I'm going to have to echo Salon here: Roman Polanski was arrested for raping a child and lets not forget that.

I do understand the victim not wanting another round of this case. I understand it so much it pains me. But he is the one who fled. He's the one who led to this. Not to mention, by evading justice and jumping bail, he's committed additional crimes to the one who was charged for.

Really, in all this, just don't forget this one fact: He raped a child.

Meanwhile, I will be teaching 9-year-olds for the majority of October and my brain is insanely focused on it at the moment. In addition, the school I'll be working at is rather different - over 70% of the children there have one or more parent that isn't Norwegian born. (In the general population, immigrants or people with immigrant parents count for about 10% nowadays.) I look forward to it, but I am also nervous. First time teaching kids.

A lot of the rest of my brain is currently taken up by Warcraft thoughts. ( Spoilers for the next expansion, hoo yes )All this has filled me with a strong urge to write Jaina/Thrall lots. Oops. And I need to bribe someone into making me icons of them, damn.

How are you all this autumn evening?

Why am I suddenly filled with random urge to write Dean/Castiel despite 1) never having been much of a Supernatural fan 2) never been that into slash 3) being vaguely scared of the fandom and 4) having enough other stuff to write if I want?

I don't know. Maybe it's the angel/other than human angle, which I do have a certain liking for. Or maybe I've lost my mind finally. Judging by fandom having wanks like this, I probably have.

Speaking of fannish things - would anyone like to do a fannish gift exchange for Christmas rather than a more traditional one this year? I'm pondering what to do this year - like to plan well in advance since the first half of December will be half mad for me.

The world's longest running soap ends. Aww. Aww, vaguely fond memories of liking Days of Our Lives and Sunset Beach back in the day. Poor soaps, ever since everyone else nicked aspects of how they did things they've been struggling. And not been quite able to renew themselves. I suspect they are a bit of a dying breed, though their legacy lives on in most other shows out there.

And hell, their influence will certainly live on in fanfic. Hoo yes.

Meanwhile, this scathing review of a romance novel reminds me of something I utterly, utterly hate in fanfic or any medium at all, really:

Sex as punishment.

No, I am not talking about two people being mad at each other and then falling into bed together - that's more channeling one very strong emtion (anger) into another (lust) and yeah, well, that can even be hot. Or even using sex to as a way recover some intimacy after a fight or having been hurt. Hop to, bunnies, I'll read that.

I'm talking about using sex as the way of hurting someone, usually the woman. And then she likes it anyway because it's twuwub and I make insistent barfing noises. It plays right into that old way of using sex against women - you know, all the slut, whore and similar words that come out so often to play. And it's so close to rape - where sex is the means of hurt and control over someone - I can't not feel sick.

It's not okay to use sex as a way of punishment. It's even less okay when it's written and treated as okay and fine and dandy. And if it's written as a kink - well, at least the writer then tends to be aware of it. It's written unaware and not seeing what's so iffy about it that really gets me going.

Quick, someone link me to hot sex that doesn't do that shit.

/rant

WEEKEND! Have a good one, yarr.

Life's a Time Machine
by misscam

Summary: The Doctor, born a week ago, feeling ancient and new both, remembering hundreds of years of life and having just a few decades of them still ahead. [TenII/Rose]

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Post-Journey's End. Prompt 015 for 50lyricsfanfic. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.

( He remembers five million, three thousand, four hundred and eight sunrises, and this is still the first he actually sees. )