zianuray

First bit ganked entirely from greeneyedtengu:

09:57 am - Firefly Fandom Wank Response

An interesting-- and intensely hilarious-- response to _allecto_'s claim that JOss Whedon is an anti-feminist rapist comes from aic_weirdo in Miandry in Popular Culture, Part I.

I'm staying out of the wankage this time. But this is too funny to not pass on.

Thank you spankerella, from whom I ganked the anti-wank.

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The only bits I feel qualified to comment on -- not having seen the series and all -- are these:

(from _allecto_'s post)

"The first scene opens in a war with Mal and Zoe. Zoe runs around calling Mal ‘sir’ and taking orders off him. I roll my eyes. Not a good start."

"The basic plot of the series is Malcolm Reynolds and his second in command Zoe <snip>"

"Zoe...(h)er role is to support Mal’s manly obsession with himself by encouraging him, calling him ‘sir’ (emphasis mine),and even starting the fights for him."


My notes:

Uhm.   OK, I do NOT know who is the ranking person in the first quote, but from context in the post let's say it's Mal.
And in the SECOND quote, it's pretty darn clear.

Point?  If you're the brass, you give the orders.  If you're NOT the brass, you FOLLOW those orders, especially in the middle of a war.  As a general rule, you call the captain of a ship (or any officer, including any NCO if you're a Marine) "Sir."  Or Ma'am, if they're female (and not a Marine).

Heck, I call my classmates (and instructor, and HUSBAND for gossakes) Sir or Ma'am as appropriate just from force of habit -- it doesn't mean I'm gonna crawl over and lick their boots!

Someone (_allecto_,  perhaps?) needs a bit of a reality check, IMO.


"Aside from women being fuck toys, property and punching bags for the men, the women have very little importance in the series. I counted the amount of times women talk in the episode Serenity compared to the amount of times men talk. The result was unsurprising. Men: 458 Women: 175. So throughout the first episode men talk more than two and a half times as much as women do. And women talk mainly in questions whereas men talk in statements. Basically, this means that men direct the action and are active participants whereas women are merely observers and facilitators."

Mal, Wash, Jayne, Shepherd, Simon
Inara, Kaylee,  Zoe,  River

OK, maybe this is an accurate count.  I have the possibly mistaken impression from somewhere that River doesn't talk much, if at all, for at least the first couple of episodes, so maybe we should count her out for this.   And -- who is onscreen more?   Questions can be used to direct action or make people think -- if you're captain of a ship, are you going to be more receptive to "Have we tried this yet?"  or to "That's a dumb idea."? 

Also, is the poster counting each time one starts to talk, or is word count taken into consideration?  Is a 4-page monologue one utterance?  Would this entire post be opening my yap ONE time, or once per sentence, or per subject...?  Not enough information here.

Trying to find a book
With no clue who the author is or what the title is/was is an exercise in futility most times.

Then I got the notion to post what I remember of the story HERE and see if anyone can help me find it!

I was living with Virginia so it was before 1973. (Meaning I was less than 10 -- so no slamming a kid for not writing it down, ok?)

The version I read was in a Reader's Digest Condensed. One of the collections of four stories in one volume.

The basic idea was that four people -- two couples -- moved into an old house. Three ghosts/spirits haunted this house, and eventually "took over" three of the people. I remember one scene where the one not possessed (a female) is sitting on the basement stairs watching what unfolds between the others.

The people are not paranormal investigotors and at first have no idea what is happening.

I think it was set east of the Mississippi, but not willing to bet money on it.


The house was in a town, not up on a hill away from everything -- it's NOT The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, I bought that one thinking it might be and it's not. :(   Nor is it  The House on Haunted Hill -- no milliionaire, no eight or ten people trapped overnight. 



SO....if anyone knows what this might have been, or knows where i can get a list of old RDC volumes with their contents (yes, I tried the company itself. bleah.), the info would be most appreciated.