Critisizing Plain Jane. Part 2: Description and Intro

Following with my MTV Plain Jane feminist criticism (and snarky attack) (Part 1: Introduction here), let’s take a look at the great description and intro of this show:

You can watch the intro here

"PLAIN JANE" is a new summer reality series that transforms one woman from the inside out to reveal a brand new woman. Each of the eight episodes will feature a new "Jane" searching for the change of a lifetime. With the help of British fashion expert Louise Roe ("Fashion Police: The 2009 Grammy Awards"), each "Plain Jane" will receive a head-to-toe style transformation, including new wardrobe and confidence-building exercises. Once the transformation is complete, the formerly "Plain Jane" will surprise her unsuspecting crush with the new look and reveal her true feelings to him. A love connection is - or isn't - made.

Charming description, isn’t it? Just like a fairytale!

And the intro is even better! (I have omitted the ‘Hello, I am Louise Roe, the world's best stylist with a frightening sexist mindset’ line - which didn't run like that of course - because it didn't add much to the criticism and I'm not wasting typing time on her, thanks).

 "Meet Plain Jane. She's ordinary, awkward and forgettable. Every Plain Jane has a secret crush, but she can't imagine telling him how she feels. And that's where I come in (…) My job is to help every Plain Jane come out of her shell by facing her biggest fear head on and being transformed into a new woman with style and confidence to surprise the man of her dreams on a romantic date. Will it be true love? Find out in Plain Jane!”

Just the title is so freaking offensive. 'Plain Jane' - Let's turn a "plain girl" ('plain' according to your narrow-minded standards, of course) into a sexy princess so that she gets her prince. Nice, respectful.

 "Meet Plain Jane. She's ordinary, awkward and forgettable - So everyone who doesn't conform to your sexist and very limited rules based on patriarchal gender roles and the beauty and fashion industries is 'not special', unattractive,, forgettable, and awkward. Wow. So respectful. I'm digging this attitude.

Every Plain Jane has a secret crush - Yes, because the major problem of any girl is to find a man - heteronormativity is also the norm here, remember - who will find her acceptable and sufficiently attractive!! And this guy comes into the intro with self-confident manly swag and bravado included, because he’s perfect already.

But she can't imagine telling him how she feels - Because she is oh-so-awkward and because apparently all girls who don't wear heels and/or make-up on a daily basis can't be confident and direct enough to ask someone out. Suuuuure.

And that's where I come in (…) My job is to help every Plain Jane come out of her shell... - Because if she's different in some way from your COMPULSORY flirty/sexy/feminine/cute patriarchal af mold she must be in a shell and in need of some change and a sexist fairy godmother to give her a dress and a pair of heels, OBVIOUSLY.

...by facing her biggest fear head on... - You think? That's a woman's biggest fear?? Asking a guy out? Oh, do educate yourself and respect women's lives and goals a little bit more! My biggest fear here would be that I would be forced to endure this kind of makeover, to be honest xD

...and being transformed into a new woman - Transformed. They don't even try to lie about this -  with style and confidence... Again, to these people confidence means altering someone's style and personality so that she fits in with society's limited ideas, right? I guess her original syle wasn't her true inner style, she just needed someone to change her, lucky her for finding you!

...to surprise the man of her dreams -  all for him, folks, never forget that!-  on a romantic date. 

Will it be true love? - True love? Seriously? You make a girl think that she can only go out with someone by dressing and behaving in a certain way, to please her crush so that he finds her desirable enough, and you call that love?  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?? That kind of relationship-wannabe doesn’t even deserve to be called legit ‘attraction’!!)'

This series sucks.so.much!

I can't wait to rip it apart here *muahaha*

Tolkien essays - Las Traducciones de Rivendell

This below is an essay I wrote in 2011 for the seasonal magazine of the Spanish Tolkien Society, Estel (No. 72, pdf included below as well). I tackled the Spanish translation of 'Rivendell', a place name that, contrary to pretty much the rest of toponyms in Tolkien's world, keeps being wrongly translated - in my opinion - in most of the Spanish Tolkien material, books and film dubbing alike. 

In the 6-page essay, I talk about Tolkien's own translating advice and guidelines, describe the way that 'Rivendell' has been translated into a number of languages, focus on the Spanish translation choices and give my opinion on the matter and my personal choices in order to translate the name of the Elven settlement in Eriador.

This essay is, for the moment being, in Spanish only, but I am open to translate it into English in the future if someone expresses that interest :).

'The Hidden Valley' by ArwendeLuhtiene (me) on DeviantArt

-Estel No. 72. My essay is on the pages 2-5:

And a pdf version of the essay (once again, in Spanish):

Critisizing Plain Jane. Part 1: Why I hate makeover shows

Once I accidentally stumbled across this makeover show called ‘Plain Jane’ while zapping. I’m not a huge television fan, I usually stick to streaming and watching movies and series on the laptop, and I think I end up zapping about twice a year, give or take. One good reason for this is that I always end up encountering gender stereotypes and sexism everywhere I go. And this show is a particularly nasty example of that. So nasty that, after finding it twice in my unfortunate zapping sessions, I got so angry I had to do something about it.

So now I'm finally counter-attacking by officially criticizing this sexist rubbish like it deserves *snarky activist mode on*! And that involved enduring the torture of watching through the whole first season in order to criticize the hell out of every single line (NEVER AGAIN!!), so yeah, I was invested in this xD

Why this particular show? There are many makeover reality shows like this one around, but this one I found especially obnoxious and sexist. And maybe I can’t change much by writing snarky rants, but I think that the messages in these kind of shows (and the fact that there’s more than one aggravates the problem) are so awful and so unhealthy and toxic for both women and men (and especially for young girls and teenagers) that someone should point out how utterly wrong they are from time to time, even if we can’t achieve a lot by it.

And even though I had this written roughly months ago, this kind of criticism is, I think, now more important than ever. First we got glorification of abusive relationships "thanks to" the likes of Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey. And now, thanks to the new action Disney movie, Cinderella seems to be becoming ‘cool’ and a ‘great role model for women’ again as well – And I find that particularly troubling, especially after the effort that Brave, Frozen and Maleficent tried to make regarding more empowered female role models for girls and women. Cinderella’s story of a girl who’s rewarded with a prince because she’s beautiful and puts up with everyone’s crap passively (which apparently means being 'good', and I don't buy the usage of the 'have courage and be kind' phrase in a context completely devoid of the gendered roles in this story, sorry :S). She then gets a makeover, of course, so that the random dude can look at her and find her attractive enough to marry - actually the basis of this sort of reality show. And most young girls, still growing up with these stories, do believe that if you are beautiful and kind to everyone (including but not limited to your abusers and the dude who literally has to identify you with a shoe because he can't remember how you look like even after the effort you took with your makeover), your life is pretty much fulfilled and happiness will surely come without any effort (and happiness in these stories usually means ending up with a man in a traditional relationship full of gender roles, which is definitely not everybody’s definition of ‘happy ending’, and definitely not the ideal relationship, either, if we take into account both the fact that the women are told to be pretty passive and they only barely get to know the man before they marry him).

Who cares about archery and an adventurous spirit, or about ice powers and finding oneself? Being pretty, putting up with crap with a smile (...I mean, being good!), wearing a pretty dress with a veeeery tight corset (liberal feminists: 'Actually, historical corsets were not uncomfortable and not a double standard even though men never had to wear them, and it's her 'choice'!') and losing a veeeery high-heeled shoe, those are your best...and only...chances at being happy and impressing the man you've just met!

Plus I found a disturbing number of positive comments on this particular makeover show and others like it, in places such as YouTube or the MTV site. Young girls and women commenting about how jealous they are of the 'Plain Janes' in the show, and how better they look after the makeover, and how romantic the plot is. Frankly scary.

There are so many things that are so wrong with this show. Everything about it is plain sexism. It’s a 100% sexist ‘Ugly Duckling meets Cinderella' makeover show, full to the brim with awful messages for young girls and women. It's all about how to alter your appearance and personality (wait, does that even matter? *scoffs*) so that you please your male date. Because apparently, you can only get a boyfriend if you conform to society's rules about what it means to be 'feminine' and 'sexy'.  Apparently, the only important thing is that HE finds you attractive. According to this show, 'building up your confidence' is equal to 'Hey, let's change your appearance and personality so that you please your date!'. Sounds pretty legit, right?

 All the episodes of this appalling show start with a girl who’s self-conscious, passive and has no luck in love because she is shown with no make-up, wearing casual clothes, a casual hairstyle and lacks a flirty, sexy personality. So what does she need but a makeover featuring a new style of clothing that must always be “cute”, “feminine” and/or “sexy”, plus make-up and those compulsory heels, in order to 'build up her personality' and succeed with their date! But her appearance isn’t the only important thing, oh no, her personality is also taken into account! She also learns how to flirt and give a man conversation, and must have her original personality completely ignored and, if possible, altered. Voila! Love is 100% ensured! 

'Hey there, nice to meet you! Allow me to tell you that your whole life as a woman has been a lie until you met me. I'm here to objectify you, change your personality and style, and transform you so that your male crush likes you!  During the whole time, I'll be relying heavily on a variety of misogynistic gender stereotypes and subjective personal tastes and opinions that you should, of course, adopt in order for your life to have some meaning. I'm such a nice person, I help girls and women so much!'

Not only do I find all this astoundingly narrow-minded, demeaning, sexist, offensive, invasive and the total opposite of making you confident - The main idea about these episodes, apart from the fact that your looks are pretty much everything that matters in order to get a boyfriend, is that being yourself is not OK…unless you're already the sexy/cute/feminine woman you're supposed to be, of course.  The most frightening thing about this kind of shows? While they’re probably mostly scripted beforehand, they could be absolutely real and they don’t only promote sexist stereotypes and double standards – they get inspiration from the real world.

• 'Plain Jane' tells women that getting a man is supposed to be one of the essential aspects of their life. If you don't get a man, I’m sorry, but you fail as a woman.  And the only way to get one is to have a makeover and think about what they like all the time. Yay equality.

•   It focuses mainly on a woman's appearance, altering and shaping  it so that she is acceptably sexy and attractive to males. There are also only limited ways to be 'sexy'. If you do not conform to any of this, you're not even worthy of being considered a woman, probably.

Most of the 'how to succeed in your date' tips they give is about looking good. A woman can hardly be confident and successful, let alone get a man!, if she isn’t attractive and feminine and sexy. Hair, shoes, clothing, make-up and sexy attitude, that’s the ONLY way to go. What a message to girls. Oh, and you also need to know how to flirt and give a man entertaining conversation. Talk about an egalitarian relationship, and indeed *scoffs*, about "love".

NO ONE NEEDS A MAKEOVER. Not for a man, not for anyone. You DON’T HAVE TO CHANGE your style, aspect, character or personality for ANYONE. And honesly, blast anyone who thinks you have.

•    Being yourself is wrong if you do not conform. Self-esteem is not being yourself, it's about conforming to society's fashion and stereotype rules. Then, bam! Empowerment! Success! Romance!

•   Tells people that not conforming to society's rules is bad and unattractive. A woman who likes casual wear, for example, isn't 'graceful' or even a ‘woman’, apparently, and if she doesn't wear heels or make-up she’s basically going to be unlovable in every single sense. Compulsory femininity is enforced to the highest degree.

 One of the main messages in this show is that, in order to win a man, you must NOT be yourself. You must be sexy and attractive, and only according to a very limited established mindset. If you are not, you have  a makeover done.  And forget your own style, there’s only one acceptable style: Make-up, high heels, non-hair-friendly hair products, a compulsory hair-cut just frigging because, and cute/sexy/feminine styles of clothing are the one and only key factors in order to win your man.  Being confident while rocking your own preferred style? Not an option. If you have longer-than-deemed-acceptable and/or less styled/”messier” hair, or a more casual/sportive look about you,  or if you don’t wear make-up everyday or ever, or  if you prefer comfy footwear rather than high heels, and especially if you wear “unfeminine” clothing (which can include anything from baggy clothing to pretty much everything that is comfortable…well, virtually everything but heels, tube skirts and frilly dresses, apparently)...Forget about it, you won't dazzle a man in a date. Which should be your main goal in life, remember?

Being yourself doesn't matter. Your man, and people in general, will ONLY love you when you are attractive, feminine, sexy and/or cute, and, very importantly, when you follow society's tastes and conventions to the letter. Be sexy, be cute, be feminine, but only in the way I tell you to, put on the clothes and shoes that I give you, don’t do that anymore, throw out those clothes and those hobbies of yours already. If you are different in any way, people won't love you. Your crush won't love you. You're handling your life wrong. How dare you have your own style and your own hobbies, for heaven's sake?

•  Featuring an incredibly obnoxious, prejudiced, dogmatic, and generally sexist presenter-stylist who states society's rules and her tastes as universal truths. I am massively pissed off when someone thinks themselves entitled to manipulate other people in this way and tell them what to do with their frigging lives. This is the ultimate Umbridge-Capitol stylist female figure of patriarchy, selling the idea that there is only one way of being attractive (the sexy/feminine/cute style outtake, which is all fine if chosen freely, but oppressive and sexist if applied to every women by force), and that being attractive is the only way to 'boost your confidence' and get a man. NOT COOL AT ALL.

•  Notice that the men who are going to get the girl in their date don't get asked to change ANYTHING about themselves. Except for showing some chivalry and romantic rubbish to impress their princess. But no demands regarding their appearance, tastes or general personality. Because PRIVILEGE.

All in all, yeah, not my version of a date. If you're going to date someone, which should be your own choice and not a pressure from society, by the way, you want to be yourself and not masquerade and lie to fit society's standards in order to please your date. If you change your style and your appearance and lie about your personality to please someone, you're doing the worst you can do in a relationship. You might ‘get a man’ (of course, this show is strictly heteronormative), but said man won't "love" you for who you are, which I guess is not the point of a short-to-long-term relationship. Supposedly, you've chosen that date because they like something about you, and hopefully, it will not only be your looks. Hopefully, they'll like something about your personality (if they don't and you’re looking for a relationship and not just casual sex [which is perfectly fine as well, obviously], why even bother to lie about anything? - and I actually don't think this kind of forced makeovers are necessary when it comes to casual sex, either). 
Even regarding your looks, supposedly you shouldn't need to change your style or hair for a date either, if the date already feels attracted to you! What the hell. Morphing into a high-heeled individual with tons of foundation and a tube skirt if it's not *your style to begin with* is turning into someone else, and doing anyone no favours. Naturally, one does want to look nicer on a special occassion, but preferably while being true to themselves and their style, I guess. If I don't like stiletto heels, for example, why  should I wear them randomly to a date, prioritizing society's enforced gender norms over me? Just wear what you like and feel comfortable in. Personal style, your own personality and the confidence and self-esteem that comes from all that, that's what should be considered 100% sexy and attractive. Just my 2 cents.

This new series of feminist criticism posts will feature a pretty exhaustive criticism of each episode in the first season, plus an additional short post criticizing the title description before that. I really do not recommend watching that rubbish, better save your time for better things, and it's actually pretty fortunate that it's not that easy to find online (I tried MTV in various countries). My snarky commentary tries to follow the episodes in detail, copying many of the lines, so, unless you're curious and want to have a taste of how horrible this series is, I guess the commentary alone should be reasonably easy to understand without having seen the episodes.

So, if you're interested, I'll see you in part II :)!

This unnecessary gender bias is sheer stupidity

Brainwashing children into thinking that they must favour certain colours, activities or role-models just because of their gender is a special pet peeve of mine. Not only am I routinely angered to no end by the strict dichotomy that exists between "boys' " and "girls' " toys. You know, that poorly disguised and one-direction-only attempt to direct girls straight into the pink-and-pink doll, beauty and house appliances department, and boys to the red-and-blue realm of action heros, scientific games and cars - all while pretending that cultural stereotypes and society have never played any role at all, and hiding all the number of girls and boys that don't especially like their assigned toys and activities when it comes to lying to people with statistics: Because it's all genetics, folks! As a girl, I was born with the special gene designed to appreciate pink and dolls over anything else! Biological determinists with some serious sexist brainwashing ftw!

Well, now it seems that I should be worried, and angered, about the food as well. Because boys and girls need this kind of gender bias brainwashing to feel enticed into buying and eating chocolate. Obviously. It's quite clear that girls need that pale pink incentive ridden with hearts and Disney princesses in all their artificial beauty in order to enjoy their chocolate, while boys need that red-and-blue packaging with, in this case, planes (but superheroes or cars would also do). Because even when wanting chocolate, children (and adults as well), need some gender bias in their lives to keep them interesting.  

I remember seeing this in a local supermarket a couple of months ago, flipping out, and thinking about the number of parents who, brainwashed themselves by the societal gender stereotypes, will choose the 'correct' wrapping according to their children's sex without any second thoughts. Perhaps you will think - But this is fun and colourful, and children can choose whichever they like! Yep, same way girls nearly always choose pink and Barbie and boys nearly always choose blue and planes. because they've seen and they've been taught all these gender bias BS since the day they were born. But no worries, people will scream at you when you mention the phrase "cultural impact" and proceed to explain it all by referencing their innate biology and falsifying statistical surveys that have the nerve to call themselves 'scientific'. 

 And if you think that is hardly an important issue, think about how far society goes in order to manipulate and brainwash people into accepting unnecessary and non-existent 'innate' differences in likes, aspirations and abilities between women and men. This chocolate brand took the time, effort and money to create two separate wrappings in order to make girls and boys believe they must like and choose different things just because of their gender. And that, frankly, scares me. And it also scares me that it doesn't scare you.

The Wheel of the Year: Samhain

So here we  are, Samhain, the beginning of the Dark half of the Celtic year. A blessed three-day long Samhain to all those who celebrate it and may no evil spirits find you tonight - or humans getting drunk and throwing eggs at strangers' houses because "yay, FUN!"...which might be way worse, now I think of it *facepalms while weeping at humanity's twisted view of what it is to "have fun"*

Samhain might be my least favourite festivity in the Celtic/neopagan/neodruidic Wheel of the Year, although I do admit the neodruidic and Celtic-inspired feast can have a strong charm of its own. As an agnostic neodruidess, my activities during these three days (31 October - 2 November, seeing as Samhain festivities traditionally lasted for three days) usually consist on a walk in the garden or a trip to the mountains, plus a seasonal plant adornment in my kitchen 'agnostic altar', plus a cake, usually including pumpkin and/or nuts.                                  

 The current Halloween festivities, however, generally annoy me. I've got no problem with people dressing up, I'm a cosplayer myself. And it isn't because 'it isn't a traditional feast in the area', an argument I'm frankly tired of reading and hearing. You can enjoy any festivity disregardless of your area as long as you like it, feel drawn to it and are respectful about it,  My reasons are:

1.  All the death and horror themes, which are generally not to my liking. 

2.  I associate it with the days becoming shorter and the illogical decision of shortening the already short days courtesy of the infamous Winter time change. Not a fan of short days, or cold, for that matter.

3. But what I really, really dislike about Halloween is the way people 'have fun'. Once again, dressing up, having a party, that's all good. Not so good if your main aim is getting drunk at a park and potentially bothering people, though. And how the hell is going from house to house throwing eggs and putting toothpaste in door knobs even remotely OK??  Would these people (kids, teenagers, adults, there's a bit of everything) enjoy it if I suddenly came and threw eggs all over their house, and then defended my right to have fun, calling them 'intolerant weirdos'?? Do you know how bad day-old eggs smell? Do you know how disgusting it is to clean  that up? Why is it even remotely OK that I have to clean rotten eggs up in my goddam house so that some egotistical drunk teenager idiots and some spoiled kids, sometimes with their morally-dubious, irresponsible parents actually accompanying them while they throw rubbish at people's houses (A+ parenting!!), have FUN?!  Having fun does not mean having a go at people in this way, since last I looked. Seriously, if you like throwing eggs and stuff so much, why don't you go throw them at your own windows and walls? Don't want to clean that up afterwards, right?  And let's not talk about the assholes that throw eggs and stuff at buses and cars. Not only have the poor bus drivers to clean all that up after their whole day's work - they could cause a damn accident!

  *Ugh*

So anyway, to celebrate Samhain today :) I've decided to post a series of Power Point slides that I made about the festivity and the seasonal gods and goddesses according to Celtic mythology.  The Irish+English+Spanish texts are part of a show about the Celtic festivities that I and my fellow Irish students and teachers prepared and took part in during 2011-2012. 

-DISCLAIMER about the images:  I always try to credit every image I use in my blogs, same as I'd like people to do with my own artwork and photographs. I really like to illustrate my posts and projects, and I deeply appreciate the work of all the artists and photographers that make that possible. However, it's not always easy to credit a picture, seeing as most of them come from Google searchs and many lack watermarks. All of this makes the job of tracing back each picture to its owner/artist/original page very difficult. I do try to take my time in order to do this, but I don't always succeed. So I'll gladly credit any picture that remains here uncredited, if you know who's the original artist. And if you find you own some of the pictures shown here and you don't want me posting your (credited) work in this blog, please do let me know as well!

 -Morrígan's name is spelled in a variety of ways, from 'Mórrigan', to 'Morrígan', to 'Morrigán', to 'Mórrigán', to even 'Mórrígán'. Personally, I enjoy the last version quite a lot, although I alternate from time to time.

Geeky London trip 2014: Doctor Who haul

Continuing the fandom-centric parts from my geeky trip to London, here is what I got in the Who Shop (for my visit to the shop, see previous post here):

Both my mum and I got Ten's sonic screwdriver (I want to cosplay Ten and she wants to cosplay Nine, but the screwdrivers are pretty much the same except for the colour of the case - Ninth's is bluish). I also got a model of the TARDIS.

The items out of the packaging:

The TARDIS I got is the 'Spin and Fly TARDIS' (This one). It's sturdy and very nicely made. The level of detailing is also very good, from the wood texture, to the windows, the lantern top and the 'Pull to Open' sign. The colour shows darker on the pics, but it's very close to the trademark 'TARDIS blue' in real life. The doors open to show a curvy 'bigger on the inside' view of the console room:

This model simulates the TARDIS' take off and landing sequences (also the vortex buzzing) with sound effects and the top lantern blinking on and off. The sounds are cool, but way louder than I expected! This TARDIS also has a detachable transparent 'flight cradle' attached, so you can spin it (by hand). It's definitely not the best feature of this model, as it's cumbersome and tiring to spin smoothly. 

                                        

  

Ten's screwdriver plastic replica (this one) is a pretty cool prop, well-made, with button-activated light and sound effects (four options). Very happy with it :). Of course, one always wishes it was the real deal so that I could open doors, repair stuff, do sciency scans and fight aliens xD. But even considering its limitations, I find it really very cool :D

After visiting the Who Shop, we went back to the hotel and proceeded to play with our sonics while eating chocolate, so here's a video featuring the four sound effects:

Next Geeky London Trip post will feature Harry Potter :)

Geeky London trip 2014: The Who Shop

UPDATED: So regarding fandoms and this blog, I leave most of the fandoms stuff for my Tumblr blog here, but from time to time I'll be posting geeky stuff here as well, especially if reviews or feminist writing are involved (especially given that I'm the writes-a-lot type and I don't want to flood my Tumblr with lots of writing as yet xD). 

*END OF UPDATE*

So, first geeky-site review! I've recently come back from a geeky holiday in London (with my equally geeky mum) and I have so many geeky pics to share ^^. During our stay in London, we focused on three fandoms: Sherlock BBC (my favourite fandom!), Harry Potter and Doctor Who. 

I'm relatively new to Doctor Who, although I'm steadily beginning to identify with the word 'Whovian' and am currently the proud owner of  my very own sonic screwdriver ^^. General info about me and DW includes Ten and Nine being my fave doctors and loving the TARDIS :). And I'm still interested in writing reviews of DW episodes from a feminist point of view, btw (just, I haven't got a lot of spare time at the moment, that's why there's only one review here. But I've already drafted a couple more). 

   So, during our stay in London we decided to pay the Who Shop a visit. Emboldened by our desire to get a model of the TARDIS and sonic screwdrivers xD (just because they're cool :), and for our future cosplays as well), we undertook the relatively lengthy journey to this whovian destination in Upton Park. 

   I had read that this area was a bit dodgy, but, to tell the truth, I didn't find it all that different from other parts of London. It's not central London, granted, but (at least during the morning) I didn't find it that dodgy-desolate as I had been expecting, which was a good thing. The only unsavoury people we met was a brute of a woman shouting and hitting her children for asking her water on the tube back to central London (poor kids :( ).

   After getting off the tube, we decided to go the opposite way and ended up taking one bus to nearly Canary Wharf (the fates wanted me to experience feels again, it seems), and then another back to where we should have been going. Turned out that London A-Z was right and it was a short walking distance from the Upton Park tube, only the numbers on the streets were a bit jumbled up and we decided that turning right instead of left was the right thing to do xD. Well, at least we got some fish and chips for lunch.

    So after our little adventure, here we were (click on pics for larger image):

The shop is biggish and TARDIS blue (obviously). The shop windows were pretty cool as well, with lots of random Whovian merchandising, daleks and a cardboard cutout of Ten included:

The interior of the shop was satisfyingly geeky, even for one who doesn't still fully identify as Whovian. They had quite a lot of stuff, such as TARDISes, Daleks (both full size decorative models and merchandising), books, magazines, toys, prop replicas, some costumes, plastic screwdrivers with light and sound effects (we got two of those, Ten's - my mum will cosplay Nine because he's her favourite, but the screwdriver is basically the same), DVDs and CDs, and T-shirts, among other stuff.

 Regarding the T-shirts, they had some female sizes as well as male, yay for a bit more equality. Although there wasn't a lot of variety, imo, and the sizing, even if female-intended, was still too large for me. I don't see why thin-structured people like me can't have geeky T-shirts that fit us snugly (it is a bother to be a female geek and like snug clothing rather than loose clothing!). And the same for larger people. Such limited sizing is not cool (anywhere in the clothes industry, but specifically in the geek culture industry) :/.

There were also some Star Trek and Sherlock items (just some T-shirts and books in the last case). My mum got a cool Sherlock T-shirt with 221B on it, and we also got a cute (and shared) TARDIS model with sound and light effects.

One of the two full-sized TARDISes in the shop, and the full-sized Dalek (with 'Don't touch or you will be exterminated' on it):

And here's me having fun with the (very fearsome xD) Dalek. I've always thought they're kinda cute, but it actually sort of freaks one out a bit when you have a full-sized one standing right next to you in real life...Laughing at it in the pics might not have been a great idea, now I think about it...:D

                                       

The shop also includes a small museum with some costumes and props, some of them replicas, some original, and mainly classic Who-themed. I personally didn't find it all that thrilling (I wasn't expecting Cardiff Who experience level (which I still haven't visited), but perhaps a little bit more). Also, I'm hardly familiar with classic Who yet, so that's probably  another factor why I wasn't thrilled about it.

The visit to the museum included unlocking and stepping into one of the model TARDISes, and that was pretty awesome on its own and totally worth it, though! (Please notice the fact that we both decided to wear something blue :) ):

 

And more fun pics with the TARDIS! 

     

                                                

I like this pic a lot :). TARDIS aside, hey, my hair's looking long! From my perspective, it usually doesn't feel that long to me, so cool :)

And because we need a rant of sorts in an activist blog (feel free to skip. If not, read more):

 The staff of the shop was friendly and helpful, but there was one thing I didn't quite like about the Who Shop, and that is their photograph policy. Apparently, you can only take pics in the TARDIS if you've paid to see the 'museum', and you can take pics of the items in the 'museum', but you cannot post them online (I'm sorry, but what's exactly the point of that, from a fan's point of view? I didn't feel like taking any pics because I'm not familiar with Classic!Who yet, but still, didn't quite understand. Do they think that people won't come to visit their museum if there are pics online? Personally, seeing pics of places where I want to go further motivates me to go and gives me an idea of what to expect). You apparently can't make videos either (once again, I find video tours pretty helpful before visiting the actual place). Also, donating the museum fees to charity is pretty nice, but I still think that donations should be about free choice, rather than a part of compulsory fees to get into a museum.

Quenya translation - Diálogo de Astérix en Quenya: Eleniono Tecië mi i Lambë Eldaiva / Translating Astérix into Quenya

I've been studying Tolkien's Quenya for a while, and one day I decided to translate something. So I ended up translating some frames from one of my fave Astérix comic books: The meeting of Anticlimax and Astérix in Astérix in Britain (Astérix chez les Bretons in the French original). It's nice to be a geeky erudite :) 

 The tricky part about translating Astérix comic books, in my opinion, revolves around all the set phrases, idioms and double-meaning jokes. So I wanted to base my tolkienized translation on at least two different translations. As well as the original French version of the comic book, I used the English and the Spanish translations in order to create the Quenya translation - I like the Spanish translations of Astérix books because they're reasonably literal and quite close to the original; on the other hand, I find that the English translations deviate quite a bit from the original more than once, so that was the version I ended up using the less for my translation. 

 The final study includes the comic panels with the Quenya dialogue superimposed (bigger pic of the panels below as well), the English and Spanish translations, a brief analysis of my own Quenya translation, and a list of the dictionaries/glossaries and the rest of bibliography I used.   I initially published this translation here as a pdf file back in 2014 (the English version is below), but I recently updated it and got it published in the Summer 2019 Estel, the official seasonal magazine of the Spanish Tolkien Society (Sociedad Tolkien Española), so here's the updated version from the magazine :D :

In English (earlier version, not updated):

Closer look at the panels with  my Quenya translation (Open in a new tab for a larger image):

And bonus pics of the newly received magazine with the article :D ^^

  

 

 

-On the use of my essays and studies: DO NOT use this work without my permission. If you're interested in it and want to share it or expand on this idea, you're allowed to reference it AS LONG AS you credit me and link to this post. It would also be nice if you contacted me beforehand. DO NOT publish as if it were your own work, always quote and link.

My response to '20 Things Women Do That Men Probably Don't Know About'

I found this list about "20 things women do that men probably don't know about"  the other day (thanks, Facebook, for giving me such profound things to read). You can find it here. Not the best read (I will copy the points of the list below when I comment it, too).

Although I usually just scroll down these kind of lists (after scoffing inwardly for a bit about sexist stereotypes),  I'm feeling activist and snarky, so let's critisize stereotypes for a bit.

Before I begin, I suppose that some people will not be interested in a more or less lengthy, and 100% snarky, commentary about a theoretically "harmless" list ridden with gender stereotypes. I really don't force anyone to read anything. So please, let us not have any comments about how I overreact to a harmless 'fun' list on the Internet, and how I must have a lot of free time, or how I'm a 'crazed, bitter feminist'. I do enjoy myself by writing snarky responses to stereotyped texts, because yes, I am against stereotypes and don't think they're fun or healthy. And no, I'm not exactly bitter because of it, although my life would be so much better without unnecessary gender roles. To each their own :)! Only, I don't feed trolls.

 Before commenting on each point, I'd just like to mention that I'm not a fan of generalisations. Generalisations are often wrong, misleading and/or prejudiced or ridden with stereotypes. Generalisations do people very little good and they're certainly not the best argument to use if you want to validate a point.  I'm saying this because this list - as well as so many others - is brimming with generalisations about how women supposedly act and think, thus promoting a lot of stereotypes that are not true in many cases (some of these, or all, may be true for a faction of women, but certainly not for all), and not exactly harmless, either.  And the same goes for lists about how men supposedly think and act.

 I think these lists bug me quite a lot because they appear shallow and harmless, but they keep promoting these unhealthy stereotypes that just enforce sexism. Just notice how this list about 'things women do that men don't know about' MAINLY focuses on physical aspects having to do with clothes, make-up, evaluation of the body and so on. There is practically nothing about character or mind or thought, or anything else (after all..."what else is there?!"). According to this list, women are beings who overly focus on their bodies and are usually self-conscious about them, feeling pressured to conform to a certain 'ideal body'. It is inferred that all use make-up and shave their body hair. It is inferred that all have deep interest about clothes. The only non-physical point of this list is that theoretically women get emotional in an irrational way from time to time. And for them, apparently, breasts are apparently so important when it comes to defining their "womanhood".

While many women may identify with some or even all of these points, what bugs me is that the writer chose these frankly shallow points as points that theoretically describe what a woman is versus a man. Men are also pressured to conform to certain body types and ideals in our society, but to a lesser extent than women, of course, and if one takes a look at these kind of lists, for men, there are comparatively very few points about physicality and 'beauty themes', and way more points about character, thought and action. And specifically quite a few points about how women make myths about men, and how they aren't really true. And yet women's lists, not all of them but way too many, still focus on these beauty points and apparently they're not myths or generalisations or anything. See, just at the right of this '20 things women do that men probably don't know about' is another list called '20 myths about men that need to be erradicated immediately'.  Double standards much?

Some of these points I have done or experienced. But I would never say that such things as poking myself in the eye with a mascara wand or wearing the same bra for a few days defines me as a woman (I'm also non-binary and gender critical, so the concept of 'defining myself as a woman' doesn't even apply to me). Given that 99% of these points are about someone's  beauty routine and thoughts on their body, generalized to extend to all women, I would hardly say they're a good way to describe a whole sex, or a whole gender (even if the gender construct does come with a lot of these subjective stereotypes). 
And about the title, 'that men probably don't know about'...No wonder men don't know about aspects having to do with someone's private routine!  Some of these stereotyped thoughts are so stereotyped, though, I do think men already must know about them. After all, we don't stop reading about how all women should be self-conscious about their bodies because they don't conform to the idealised body of society, or how women are so irrational and governed by PMS, right?

If someone wanted to 'define herself/themselves as a woman', first of all (and I repeat that for some people who are trans, agender, non-binary, genderfluid, and/or queer in some other way, that concept nay either not 't even apply, or apply in a very different way), I guess they'd prefer to define herself/themself without using too many gender-biased stereotypes, which basically make no sense. And second, while they could talk about their body at a certain point (this post is focused on women with female bodies only, though), they would probably choose aspects that had to so with character and way of thinking before and/or at least in addition to their body and, indeed, before their personal beauty routine.  Also, you cannot expect to summarize a complex individual, disregardless of their sex (and/or gender), by 20 points about someone's personal ideas, like I said. According to this list, I'm just someone who's seemingly rather obsessed with her breasts, self-conscious about her body, jealous of the bodies of other women, equaling her beauty routine to everyone's beauty routine and the very "essence of womanhood", and crying irrationally to add a bit of variety. Yeah, I think I'll write another list for myself, if you don't mind.

Pretty much

So, a bit of a more detailed commentary on each point.  Read on if you're interested!

-UPDATE: A commenter just kindly let me know that these points were selected in a pretty biased way and taken out of context from this Reddit, where individual women are commenting about things that they do or have done. Meanwhile, the Tickl post takes the problematic turn of selecting (in a biased and subjective way) a few of these personal, individual experiences, taking them out of context and massively generalizing them so that they're the things that apparently define women vs men. Thus, we go from a series of relatively harmless, individual experiences (still influenced by gender roles, but that's another issue) to a stereotype-promoting message implying that women are these beauty-obsessed and emotionally unstable beings who owe society (and men) their appearance. Proof of the harm which something can do when taken out of context and interpretated in a subjective, biased and manipulative way. And that is NOT OKAY. I don't care if the selecter's original intention wasn't to promote an stereotyped view of women. That's what (s)he is doing.