Amal Nahurriyeh

So, it seems that everybody on my flist is super into Elementary. I am excited for all of you! It really seems like the leaked pilot is hitting everybody's buttons and is well-done to boot. This is awesome! I am happy!

I have no idea if I'm going to be able to watch it.

( pretty much all that is under here is navelgazing, and is horribly self-involved and whiny. Here Lies Amal Overanalyzing Her Feelings About Competition Between Shows. )

I guess what I'm saying is this: I am excited that Elementary appears to be awesome from the pilot. If I'm not watching it, it's not because I don't support its existence and wish it well. And if I don't comment on your reaction posts and thoughts about it, it's not that I don't care. And if I keep talking about Sherlock, it doesn't mean I've picked my side.

I've done many brilliant things in my life. However, I think all of them pale next to the realization that you can make instant pudding in an old peanut butter jar. And then eat it.

I got Marvel 1602 out from the library last time I went, because I wanted to reread it. (For those who don't know it, it's a Neil Gaiman-written alternative Marvel universe, in which many of the characters from Marvel superhero comics are transformed into characters in Elizabethan England. Also there's some timey-wimey.) I enjoyed it the first time, but I wanted to see if it stood up. Plus, I now actually know more about some Marvel characters, due to fannish osmosis, so I thought it would be better on a second read.

Much of it was, and I did enjoy it. (Isk also likes when I read to him from my comic books, and long stretches of this one are Isk-appropriate. I'm keeping him away from Alan Moore for a while, though.) But, one of the reasons I wanted to re-read it was that I wanted to see if the character of Rojhaz was as fucked up as I thought it was.

Surprise: oh fuck yes.

( spoilers galore )

tl;dr: I like this book, I want to read the next ones in the series, goddamn is there some racefail up in this joint.

(Feel free to get me started on the gender problems in comments.)

Also, fuck you, Neil Gaiman, you give me Marvel set in 1602 and I don't get to meet Elizabethan Tony Stark? Pssht.

Moral of the beta I just got back:

When you write original characters, you have to tell people what they look like.

One of my tasks for the summer is to learn a new dialect of Arabic. It's necessary, and fascinating, and frustrating, as all language study is.

My name, the one I use here, rests on a pun of Arabic-to-English transliteration. عملنا حرية means "our work is freedom," and املنا حرية means "our hope is freedom," but you'd write the first 3amalna hurriyeh and the second amalna hurriyeh so it's a simple thing to make them the same thing, to create a person, Amal Nahurriyeh, from the linguistic mess. (It helps that Amal is, actually, a name.)

One of the things about the dialect I'm learning is that it does away with the [q]. Formal and classical Arabic has a sound, like a [k] but made in the back of the throat (here it is), but most dialects do away with it, turning it into a [k] or a [g] or an [ʔ] (that's the glottal stop, often rendered as ' when people aren't using IPA for fun and little-to-no-profit). In the dialect I'm learning, it turns into a [ʔ]. Simple enough to remember: qawha is ahwa (coffee). waraq is wara' (paper).

But qalam is 'alam (pen). But that's a problem, because then there's 3alam, world and if you start telling me that the world is a pen I'm not going to know what to do with myself.

***

If I sound like I'm a little crazy, that's pretty accurate. Suffice to say that you're very lucky you're getting medidations on Arabic phonology and not a ten thousand word essay on why Regina Spektor's Eet is the perfect embodiment of my mental state right now.



it's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
you can't believe it, you were always singing along
it was so easy, and the words so sweet
you can't remember, you try to feel the beat

spend half of your life trying to fall behind
keep using your headphones to drown out your mind
it was so easy and the words so sweet
you can't remember, you try to move your feet

Cracky: Bound in Gold. ARRANGED MARRIAGE AU that is set in 21st century Britain. It is awesome. I want the suit Sherlock wears to the wedding. (Not the mask, though, that sounds creepy.)

Not-Cracky: The Paradox Series. I like my Sherlock Holmes as much a space alien as possible. This Sherlock Holmes thinks as differently from neurotypical human beings as I've ever seen him portrayed, and is trying desperately to figure out how to be in a relationship and care about someone who doesn't think like him. It is amazing, and heartbreaking, and has a happy ending though it's also got plenty of angst. Does a beautiful job with both John and Sherlock's voices.

Um, OK, so I have read this fic twice today already?  And it's 55K words, so that's saying something.  It's called <a href=http://archiveofourown.org/works/204010>Indecorous</a>, and it's the brilliant story of Sherlock, John, and Tai (whose name happens to be Mary Morstan) forming a most odd polyamorous triad.  It has many things I like, such as complicated people who love each other figuring out how to do so, sex as a means of revealing character and furthering plot, a lot of cuddling, friendship as a component of a romantic relationship, Sherlock working through his issues in a totally batshit way.  Oh, and blistering-hot kinky sex.  It's just a charming story, and romantic in a terribly unconventional way, and I adore it.  

 "Would you please just stop it" is the best thing ever said to a tombstone in literary history.

Brb, having feelings.

if you want to see pictures of my current sewing project, here it is. I need advice, too, so even if you don't do cross-stitch, tell me what I should do!

Also: I was invited to three weddings between late April and this coming weekend this year. I have not been invited to a single wedding since my own, five years ago. I think all my friends just turned into grown-ups. (Insert mutterings about how marriage does NOT equal adulthood and all the issues with the institution of marriage and whatever.)

Do any of you know Sinhala or Tamil? Or, in a pinch, any other South Asian languages (pref. not Urdu, but it'll do)? Lemme know if you do--I just need a couple of lines for a story I'm posting tomorrow, and I sure as hell don't trust Google Translate.