but would they get the broccoli?

[lotesse]

I love my Boy thiiiiis much. He's working with a prof on his novel for a independent study credit, only it's more him explaining the novel to the completely non-geek prof.

Now, it's a slashy little book - we've been talking about it as a non-sexual love story for a long time, and that's just what it is. The nail from which the novel hangs is the pairbonding-type relationship between the two male leads. I think it's adorable. And while he's not writing it as gay romance, we've found that slash language works really well for us as a linguistic tool in talking about it. So I guess the Boy was trying to explain to the prof about that "we don't need words to communicate our love" sort of thing, and apparently he ended up talking about the Broccoli Test.

Punchline? The prof really liked the concept, and said that he'd been looking for a way to describe precisely that sort of thing to his fiction classes. The Broccoli is taking over the world, yo.

also,

Comment on this post and say YO BABY ! I WANT TO DO THAT INTEREST MEME or something like that. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

my answers:

age of sail

I'm a sailor's baby. I grew up on sailboats; we still live on the boat for a few weeks each summer. I can hand, reef and steer as well as any middie living. So as a little bookwork girl with a family history of boats, I read boat books. Daddy started me off with "Captains Courageous," and then I read all the Horatio Hornblower books, and "Swallows and Amazons," and Rafael Sabatini who is fricking awesome, and topped it all off by eating Patrick O'Brian whole in high school. I love water, and I love books that are about that love. Also anything with pirates in it. I totally love how the rest of the world has suddenly seemed to catch up wit me on the whole "pirates are bloody awesome" thing.

corsets

I'm a busty lass, no two ways about it. And I would sell my soul for a good spiral steel corset, instead of bras. Soooo much more comfortable, in that you're not suspending any weight at all from your shoulders. I look hot as hell in a corset, and I actually find them pretty darn comfy. And hot. mmmm, bodice laces.

grimms' fairy tales

My College Honors thesis on fairy tales is open on my desk at the moment, which should tell you something about how I feel about them. The Grimms have always been my favorite. They're just dark enough, just weird enough. I want to smack Perrault up most of the time, and Joseph Jacobs and Andrew Lang and that lot are too normal, and while I have a total thing for Andersen he's just a wee bit too morbid sometimes. But the Brothers Grimm always hit my sweet spot.

Btw, this also totally applies to the Gilliam movie with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger where they're totally incest-tastic and broyayful and adorable.

intertextuality

Being an acafanbrat. One of the things that I like best about stories is the way that they get all tangled up around each other.I’m a very allusive person; nothing excites me more than seeing parallels between one story and another, or one image. I’ve spent years pushing books at people, hoping that through giving them my texts I can somehow show them myself. It rarely works, because of course they’re my images and are inaccessible to anyone who isn’t me. I can take you walking in the woods out back, and show you my tree that was hit by lightning last year, but it’s so much harder for me to show you what that space means and has meant to me, because in my mind it’s layered with a bunch of Tolkien, and all the dark forests from the fairy tales, and the Talking Trees from Gene Stratton Porter’s novels, and the midnight adventures I had there after bedtime with my cat. When I look at my tree, all of those things inform what I see. No one else sees it in the same way. But I want everyone to, and that's what intertextuality is for, and also fandom, which has wonderful intertextual in-jokes and bits of fanon and whatnot.

mary shelley

I love Mary Shelley, and she breaks my heart. I love her because she was not, as Percy Shelley was, "a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." Mary's books don't have any answers in them, only questions, only anxieties. They're not easy books to read, because they disallow resolution. I love Mary because she lived with all these radicals, her husband and her father and her dead mama and all the others, and she spent all of her writing saying "yes, but." They're unforgiving books, and they're pragmatic, and I breaks my heart so completely that she was left alone.

tarot

My mama gave me my first tarot deck for my thirteenth birthday, and it's still the main one that I use. It's my belief that my tarot gives me reading of my energy at the moment when I drew the spread. It's not a decision-making tool. Tarot is more about me noticing what's going on within and around me, bringing my attention to things that I'm overlooking or dodging. It's about keeping track of myself. My cards tend to be either cups or swords, with a few wands thrown in. Almost never coins.

thursday

Oh man, this takes me back. This is about ladyjaida's Shoebox Project, which used to be updated every Thursday. But I've also just always liked Thursdays. There's something tranquil about them.

Comments

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

YO BABY ! I WANT TO DO THAT INTEREST MEME!

And I'm not sure if I want to ask this or not, but...what's the broccoli test?

[lotesse]

edna st. vincent millay, elisabeth, flute, frida kahlo, meanings behind names, ordinary princess (eeeee m.m. kaye!!!), puppetry

The broccoli test is a measure of otp-ness. The scenario is: if one half of your pairing was at the supermarket and wanted broccoli, would the other half be able to figure it out without needing to be told? So, frex, Will Stanton would totally bring Bran the broccoli, because he's wise like that, but Taran would end up bringing Eilonwy daisies instead, and they would be very nice, but not at all what she was going for. See?

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

Will Stanton would totally bring Bran the broccoli

Hee!!! Taran/Eilonwy is still an OTP, though Taran definitely ends up as a case of Boys Are Dense. (I'll be getting on the interests later.)

[lotesse]

Hey, different relationships have different strengths. It's the real fun of the broccoli game - I meant what I wrote about Taran and the daisies. He's too dense to figure out what it is that she's asking him for, but he simultaneously gives her something that I don't think she even knew she needed. Broccoli ends up being this fabulous metaphor for what we give and get out of relationships. In conclusion: oh Taran.

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

This comment has no actual relevance, it is merely here to express love for your Lyra icon. :)

[lotesse]

Ooooh, thanks, I'm glad you like it.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you on the Brothers Grimm love, especially the darker un-kiddified versions.

Have you read any of Tanith Lee's fairy tales? I think they capture something of the Grimms' feel.

[lotesse]

You know, I actually haven't, but one of my professors suggested her in connection with my research just yesterday. So clearly, I'm going to have to starting reading these books! Where's the best place to start, with her?

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

If you're looking specifically for fairy tales, then you should try to track down her collection Red as Blood: Tales From the Sisters Grimmer. It's out of print, but you might be able to get a used copy from Amazon or find one in a library.

In general, I think her short fiction is much better than her novels, so I'd stick with that.

[lotesse]

Thanks, I will!