Udder Randomness

[Gift_in_Edge]

Yea I love female characters that don't ascribe to society's idea of what "feminine" or females should be... Just I mean come on - if men had to bleed once a month it'd be "Awesome! Most manly thing eva!!!!" but because women do it it's "Ew gross" and all the things girls have to do to even walk down the street without aghast looks and yet they're still being judged by appearance alone :evil: I really think I make my females "Just people" in response to that most of the time (Aiko is certainly an acception! :lol: )

Many years ago, and showing my age now :D, Ben Elton did a short routine about how men would be comparing the size pads they had to use and boasting that they were using ones the size of a brick and so on! I think it started off with him commenting incredulously on some mini tampons that were designed to look like sweets or something to avoid embarrassment if they were seen in your bag.

Which leads on to me just discovering that one of the brand names one of the meds I've been prescribed for back pain is sold under is Feminax Ultra (aka naproxen) :D The other one is valium (diazepam) to help the affected muscles (and the rest of me!) relax. And will, as the dr so wonderfully put it, make me feel like I'm in cloud cuckoo land. So pleased it's a long weekend as there's no way I can do anything remotely productive for a couple of hours or so after taking them!

heheh... maybe. I think plenty of women have their own way of doing this. Listen to a bunch of new moms brag about their childbirthing. "Yeah, well I was in labor for X hours and... blah blah blah."

On the same train of thought. I bought a new bra last week and I was trying hide it while walking around the store. Then I asked myself who cares, they can clearly see I have boobs and have to wear a bra.

[MeltedCaramel]

Bat Country!!

Loki is currently most displeased that his car has been taken to pieces by Stark...

Melted Caramel: Glad I could help! It's even more epic than it first appears actually - there's a second set of stories in the series out now under this title : http://archiveofourown.org/series/11260
Despite the epic length it's well worth it though, and there is eventual Qui/Obi! Haha! Yea Jedi Smut is great - (gods I miss the Master/Apprentice archive - it was nothing but smut...)

Yea I've been out of the loop on the smaller action figures for a bit too long - but I'm glad Revoltech have improved their basic male sculpt (snigger at the manboobs though), though yea I'd agree with you there - if Revoltech's attempt at Iron Man is anything to go by - the extra headsculpt only looks like Tony Stark by dint of being in the Iron Man armour

Hah yes - the judging countries by their media output is a trap we shouldn't fall into! I've grown to love many things about Japan that weren't discovered by anime/manga watching - and I'd have really missed out on those aspects if I hadn't dug deeper than just that cursory glimpse! Though if the UK is purely being judged by Sherlock and Doctor Who I reckon we've got a fairly good deal going on (Ignoring Moffat's hideous sexism which I wish wasn't representative but it really does reflect the views of a healthy proportion of that generation ¬.¬). Oh snigger about the caldera - if it goes off - yea we're all screwed - but meh I reckon it's unlikely to in our lifetime ...right?

Hah - yea I saw the Queen's Blade figures - it's falling into the old trope of less armour = better because Movement thing isn't it?

(Linky: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/65508 ... ted?c=ufb1)

Yea I'm definitely going to succumb to temptation at some point! (Snort at the gel/crotch armour...)

Hah well guitar playing psycho is a semi-apt description when surface-scraping! I'd recommend the comic before the film though - much as I admire the film (hell Proyas directed one of my all time favourites - Dark City so I was bound to like it), the comic made me love the characters!

Yea I think you're right there - like how I adore Vincent despite him being a glorified statue with negligible articulation!

Yea I love female characters that don't ascribe to society's idea of what "feminine" or females should be... Just I mean come on - if men had to bleed once a month it'd be "Awesome! Most manly thing eva!!!!" but because women do it it's "Ew gross" and all the things girls have to do to even walk down the street without aghast looks and yet they're still being judged by appearance alone I really think I make my females "Just people" in response to that most of the time (Aiko is certainly an acception! )

Ugh yea I really aim for "realistic" in the sculpts I tend to buy - but it's a difficult look to find! Where are all the big nosed guys??? Actually I think that's why I tend to go in on MNM group orders/buy sculpts that are supposed to represent real people - since they're a slightly idealised version of a warts and all face! Natrume has made her version of Tom Hiddleston - and he's a slightly exagerrated version of him, unlike Whispering Grass's Thomas - which is pretty accurate.

Eep! Yea ending up in hospital because of bjd love would be awkward! I've not specifically looked around for mature MSDs (since MSDs = children and SD13 = teens for my purposes) but I have seen more and more mature looking sculpts popping up in the 50cm range recently

Yea I ascribe to ROB's stance too! And I love how he's now so comfortable with who he is, even if it saddens me that it took him 60-odd years to reach that level of self-acceptance. (Ugh to be honest it just boggles my mind that because of something as petty as what some conservative old men wrote down thousands of years ago in a book, which has since been translated into many other languages through the lens of conservative old men hundreds of years ago can have any impact on how people view what is right/wrong in human sexuality... And yet our societal norms are still governed by such things...)

Thanks! Sadly I really lack the vocabulary to satisfactorily write about that particular character in any detail without using terms that really don't fit/would probably be slightly offensive to an actual individual in that situation! But they're almost certainly getting shelled at some point - which is going to lead to some interesting choices regarding body sculpt/head sculpt.

Hah yea he's from the absolutely marvelous Discworld, another epically long series though this one is a comedic parody/pastiche/satire of our world. Or at least it starts out as such, Pratchett matures as an author as he writes the series, and it's really fascinating to watch/read it! My personal favourite sub-series from the books is the "City Watch" range. Thus far you'd struggle to find any fic that I've written! It's mostly in my head at this stage! I might write it all down/do photostories one day - but I'm currently in a too small house so photostories are out...

Vetinari: Good Lord woman! You recced me AN EPIC. Although I've been bad, I've been skipping around since I noticed warily the whole "Obi/Other" tag and I was like "eeeeaaaahhhhhhh.... ". I'm weird, I just see Obi as this moony teenager over Qui and no other shall do. See what years of archives has done to me!? Mostly I just tend to read about these two getting it on because the source material makes me want to see some form of HEA despite knowing the ending. We need to trade recs sometime or something. (Also I totally miss the Master/Apprentice archive too, it was a lot of well written smut, and all in once place! *sobs in corner*)

Ahhaaha, oh God, I had a good giggle over poor Revoltech!Tony. I had to check out if his face was really that terrible, and it's worse, so much worse. Revoltech is actually really good at male bodies, it's figma that leaves something to be desired. Revoltech is just terrible at anything but the most basic anime faces, because of the scale. You have a face the size of a finger nail on a mass-produced figure though, I suppose I should expect some decline in quality....?

British people where I live tend to get that basic "BBC" second glance. I admit all countries seem to judge by media output. Apparently you Brits are all stuffy know-it-alls that produce really good serials. It's terrible, and that's not my opinion (well, good serials aside)! As for Japan, the reality and the media are so different, it's strange. My friend is packing up to live there for the second time and her stories are just very fascinating.

Calderas, we be in ur ground, waitin to blow up all ur base. Haha, nope, from what I read the Yellowstone caldera isn't scheduled to blow for, I quote, "eons", whatever an eon may be in scientific terms.

Hehe, Queen's Blade armour falls into the "Less Armour=More Sexy" thing. It doesn't even try to hide what it's doing. In a way, I respect it more for that.

HAHA, that collegehumour video!! "Armour is made to be shiny, they go for the shiny part!"

Well if you feel better about the temptation the Queen's Blade figures are quite gorgeous. Now, the only thing left is...do you want one that strips it all off? Heh, in all seriousness though you'll probably want to avoid some of the "younger" looking characters unless that's something you're cool with (it doesn't bother me, but I know it does others). I own Alleyne and personally I'd recommend her. She's not overly "busty" but she's definitely mature. What one were you looking at? Some of them have strange hidden pitfalls, like Nanael, when she's...err...undressed (damn that sounds strange) she's moulded with....oh God, non-removeable "Holy Milk" (I swear it's a thing, I swear!) on her torso that's kinda icky looking (it looks like exactly what you think it does).

I'm terrible with comicbook origins for some of my favourite stories. Even though I would probably love the comic book origins I find myself constantly back-up on all the stuff I meant to buy. Though now I kind of want to add The Crow to that list.

Pffft glorified statue! Sadly I own a few like that. I also own a few actual!statues because....manbodies? The Japanese tend to pull out all the stops when they finally make a male statue. Lancer has got quite the body going on. I'mma stop perving on my collection now.

Men would turn it into a big competition wouldn't they? "I bleed like a firehose man! I'm getting lightheaded, that's how much blood I've lost!" "Screw you Johnny, I gotta use ten pads an hour dude!" And they would have pad names like "Steel Loins".

There are a few bigger nosed guys that just came out, I can't remember the company though...the one I remember has a rather unattractive faceup full of moles, but the underlying sculpt could be really cute taken in a different direction. I love Whispering Grass Thomas but...good Lord, looking at all the hybrid photos on the site just now...poor Tom makes a really bad BJD head doesn't he? I mean, the sculpt itself is gorgeous but what is with all the giraffe necking!? Eeek. Also, why hasn't some superfan done a to-scale Loki BJD yet? (*impatiently waiting* XD)

I generally like the MSD range for size and undfortunately mature looking sculpts are extremely hard to come by. I know the BJD world kind of takes it as "MSD=Teen/Kid" but ehhh, I can't physically handle the bigger guys (......damn that sounds bad) so the MSD size is a perfect weight and heft and...god I'm just gonna shut up on that subject because my mind is trawling the gutter big time.

I'm glad Richard O'Brien actually found that self-acceptance at last though. It seems like the world is slowly, slowly changing. I think all we can do is be at the forefront of that change, you know? Keep doing what we're doing and accept all genders, orientations, bodies and types.

As for your Matriarch/Patriarch, if you're worried about offending I would suggest seeking out the trans community and having an honest talk with a few different people and ask them what they hear most often, what offends them, what doesn't, etc. Call it research but I bet it would be fun!

Another epically long series? *sobs* Nooo! Although I've wanted to read Discworld for awhile now so I'm going to give in I'm sure. And...whoops, I could have sworn I'd seen you mention writing something. I'm probably getting sources mixed up, sorry! Doesn't mean I want to read it any less though!

[DollyKim]

Finally got some Sixlets after searching for a big bag of smaller bags that hadn't been opened. Of course I opened it the moment I got out the store. It's not fair that people open CLEAR bags of stuff.

They taste just like I remember, the bag won't make it to May.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

I am not taking valium for back pain (or for anything else for that matter) ever again. It's going to be a struggle to finish this course and there's only a day left.

And my 45cm Obitsu body's torso sounds and feels like a squeaky dog toy with the squeak mostly broken . This is causing more amusement than it probably should.

With regard to gender and sexuality, the world maybe slowly changing, but it is changing too slowly. In too many countries people who aren't heterosexual, or who don't identify as their birth gender, or both, are treated atrociously. It's not that difficult, really - they're people, same as you, so treat them that way (this is obviously aimed at all the *expletives deleted* out there who can't deal with difference and not anyone here (as in, no-one here's given me cause to say that. I can have no way of knowing if anyone here actually feels like that - I'm working on the basis they don't as it's better for my temper and you all generally seem like really nice people )). I also like RoBs stance - we need more people to say this sort of thing; and sadly probably we need more high profile to say it as world+dog is not going to really care if I mention I see gender and sexuality as continuums, and thus am pan sexual (bi- would be a misnomer as it would imply two fixed genders), and that I consider myself gender-fluid, leaning more towards the masculine. For example

Some advice I came across, which would work for any group you are not a member of, is to read what they are saying to each other - what pisses them off, how they are treated etc. Personally I would only feel vaguely comfortable doing this on a public forum/list/etc, anything else would seem wrong, but ymmv

[Vetinari]

Woo! Found my Liam Neeson/Qui Gon/Ras Al Ghul head - he looks great on the Hot Toys body - just waiting on Clonobi to arrive now...

Hah! Wow it's been brilliant reading the responses to the can of worms my feminist/equalist (or People are People as I have it in my head) tendencies have opened up!

ShortNCuddlyAm - Eep good luck! I hope your back sorts itself out soon.

I'm going to have to youtube that Ben Elton sketch it sounds absolutely brilliant! Ugh yea I agree totally with you there about sexuality being such a stupid thing to judge someone by. I really hope that in my lifetime it will get to the point where we currently are with racism: i.e. treating anyone who uses someone else's sexuality as a means to belittle/demean them with the disdain they deserve... (Hah yeah I'm still not 100% sure what I'd label myself as - but I'm definitely not at either of the extremes of the Kinsey Scale, which itself is flawed by assuming only 2 possible leanings but I'm not well-read enough to know the proper terms!)

Yea I should probably take that advice - I managed to get into a heated debate with an older gentleman on a long train journey once about sexism! It was a debate - it never descended into argument territory, though I really should have known to leave that topic well-alone, but being friends with a staunch feminist (as in wrote the feminist column in the university paper, and simulatneously headed the society and now has a job in the field). Well I think she's rubbed off on me - I'm a lot more vocal now about the inequalities we face just for posessing a womb! I really hate how so much of the feminist argument can be boiled down to "We're human too!" and how it's still such a horribly relevant term, and so so similar to the fight for equality that people face for sexuality and race, and yet this is for something that affects 1/2 of the worlds population... O.o So yea self label of feminist, equalist and people are people-ist... Ahem rant over...

Trethowan: Snigger - that is reminding me of this old sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo
(actually at the slightly dodgy accents, with the half failed attempts at pronouncing "t'mill" and veering wildly between Oxbridge English, West Country, Black Country, Yorkshire and something utterly unidentifiable to my untrained ears!)

Gift_in_Edge: Yes! This! I caught myself hiding bras the other day - and was subsequently "No f*ck it!" and annoyingly got funny looks for daring to shop for underwear openly in a department store... Seriously why are women taught to feel shame at basic bodily things ¬.¬

MeltedCaramel: Sorry! If you do manage to find the time I reckon you'll love it though! I do think this series really is my favourite Star Wars fanfic! (Oh the Obi/Other tag makes sense in context - um Spoilers: it happens when Qui Gon is dead but before the Qui/Obi happens...Spoiler!) She's also written some shorter more manageable stories - Speaker of Valaeanath stands out: http://archiveofourown.org/works/496954 Yea I first ran across Flamethrower's stuff on the M/A archive... Gah - though I've rediscovered a lot of the old favourites have been reposted up on Archive of Our Own: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ ... ce_Archive

Yea I think the whole teeny-tiny likenesses being not great is what put the nail in the coffin for me with properly collecting smaller figures. I do still pick-up the odd "must have" such as Chell from Portal or any version of 8th!Doc that I can get my hands on. But eeeh - I saw a documentary about how they made the BBC/Doctor Who 5inch line - and it involved a 3D head scan and 3D printer, and yet the likenesses were still less than stellar due to the limitations of the scale.

Hah! Britain = BBC would be a brilliant thing to be true, incompetence & well meaning if ill-thought out programme ideas and all! Though I do love the comedy show 2012/W1A for an idea of what the company is really like... I strongly suspect it cuts a little too close to the bone for industry insiders!

Snigger! Yea but I do love the way these documentaries always play up the alarmist tendencies. If BBC4 were to be believed Krakatoa is going to submerge most of the UK by exploding any day now...

I think I'll have to wait until I have money again at this stage before I really properly look into buying more figures (Seriously blew my budget with Clonobi and the discovery that the body I had planned for him wasn't going to work... Eating soup for a month...) but the Queen's Blade figure I quite liked the colour-scheme for was ...Echidna? (That seems like such an unlikely name - she's green/white) Snort at the holy milk! Egads!

Hrmm yea I'll definitely avoid the younger looking characters, I'm a tad uncomfortable with the concept of these figures in the first place, despite my curiousity the squick factor is definitely still there. Even more-so with characters that I don't view to be adults, hell I get a bit squicky at the slight sexualisation of the girls in Neon Genesis Evangelion and I don't think there's anything overt there.

Welllll.... The Crow is a relatively short comic as they go! It's thinner than the thinnest of the Sandman volumes - though it is much more intense emotionally... (Hah yet another link, a combination of two of my favourite things Qui/Obi and the Crow: http://archiveofourown.org/series/11262 ...Yea Flamethrower is definitely one of my favourite Star Wars fanfic authors...)

Hah! The whole competition thing - and oh gods I now have the urge to go and create the "Steel Loins" range of products! (And I'll refer you to the youtube sketch for Trethowan - it's exactly that sort of thing)

Well sculpt-wise I'm currently staring really really hard (imagine the Derek Zoolander look of concentration here) at Charles and Hansel from Granado.. I think Hansel, with an appropriate eye-opening mod would make an amazing Frank with the right face-up... And Charles is just a lovely very overtly masculine sculpt... Gah yea WG Thomas is a favourite sculpt of mine, but he doesn't do well just because he isn't stylised enough somehow.

Yea I think I'm foruntate in not needing mature MSDs, I'm sorry I'm not much help on this hunt! I know they exist, but I know they're rare and tend to fit into the girly-guy aesthetic.

Yea in all I really hope I'm as content with myself as ROB appears to be at some point! He's really someone that I admire for having the sheer bravery to be who he is openly, I mean Rocky Horror is 41 years old now. It came out in the early 70s... And they were not ...enlightened times and yet it became a massive success and yea - I really view him as a role-model of how to go about being yourself and screw everyone else.

Hah yea I should probably do that - but eep how do you bring that up in conversation? I can imagine it now: "So... I collect/customise very large, probably slightly-creepy dolls... Would you mind walking through character ideas with me?" Yea I expect there'd be more acceptance there than I'd think, but gods I'm painfully socially-awkward generally!

Weeeell... Discworld is well into the 40s book numbering-wise at this stage... But I could happily get through 2 of the books in a sitting if I had nothing else to do that day! They're very easy reads, without being the kind of book that only sells well at airports! PTerry is a very clever, extremely readable author. It doesn't feel like an epic series despite the sheer volume of paper that's got his name on it sitting on my shelves!

[knittnkitten]

mmm valium. too bad I have a crazy tolerance for it. (its from being a red-head)

doing a little fun project with my gardening pants. going to do some embroidery/patchwork on them and just keep adding stuff, repairing what wears out when I wear them. got all the stuff already for it, so its basically a free project.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Thank you Vetinari!

The sketch is about 20 years old now, so may be hard to find (although I have found plenty of references to it). I was at my sister in laws a couple of weekends ago - her and my nieces were talking about packing to go away for the following week. My mother in law piped up with "have you packed..." coy glances all around "you know...?" It took me a moment to twig, when I did I came out with "Oh! You mean tampons and stuff!" Neither my nieces (coming on for 16) nor my husband were in the least bit phased, sis and mum in law looked horribly embarrassed (mother in law especially)


Knittnkitten - I would kill to have a tolerance for it (except, y'know, I really, really cannot be bothered ). It's not so much making me relaxed as knocking me out!

[kenaiqueen]

ShortNCuddlyAm, valium puts me out too. I used to break a 5mg pill in half to get to sleep when I needed it. Even the 3mg pills would knock me out. I remember way back in the 70's when I had a hospital stay and it was procedure to get a seconal if you weren't asleep by midnight. They had to wake me up at midnight the next day, because I had an order for another seconal. I politely refused it!

[Trethowan]

hahaha... I love it. "We lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road."

[Mirrin]

So this happened while I was at dinner with all my fellow grads...