psalm_onethirtyone | "Ophelia's Mind Went Wandering, You'd Wonder Where She'd Been..."

So I've started watching True Blood, and I actually really like it, although I wasn't sure that I would. The main girl is sort of--not wholly Innocent, more like just Super Nice. Almost a Holy Fool type. Which obviously I am a sucker for. She's kind of like Percy but with telepathy and being a different person. I thought she might annoy me, but she actually seems fresh and honest enough about it that I quite like her.

And I pretty much thought I wouldn't like the main fellow either, since he is all broody and emo and sexified, kind of Edward Cullen but older and non-sparkly, but he actually turned out pretty good too. Also, the way he sort of smiles and blossoms when he's interacting with the main girl's grandma and being a friendly Southern gentleman is adorable and really winning.

And Sam Trammell is adorable and the reason I started watching the series in the first place, oh my stars. &hearts

The bad thing is that all the supporting characters (except the grandma and Sam Trammell) really irritate me to death and I really don't like them. But I am only two episodes in, so possibly they'll grow on me. I rented the whole first season for our trip to Tennessee for Nana and Granddad's memorial service Thursday.

The other really nice thing about the series is that it is just so good to hear characters with thick Southern accents who are not being portrayed as either evil or stupid rednecks. There is a HUGE anti-Southern tendency in our media, and I can't help feeling twitchy about it, given my background. For me, Southern accents have always been comforting and normal and part of life, and the fact that in the past year 90% of the Southern accents I have encountered in media are for bad or ignorant people really bothers me. And if I hear another joke about how all the folks in Tennessee are trying to kill black people in between sleeping with their sisters, I may have an aneurysm.

IN OTHER NEWS, I saw a mother turkey hen with a bunch of poults on my way to Newport this morning. Also, Maria and I did our hive inspection and the bees are doing fantastic; their second hive body is full of honey. ALSO, I am volunteering at Vacation Bible School as part of my pastoral internship, and it went really well to-day. The kids were total sweethearts. I am kind of scared of little kids, inasmuch as I am terrified of doing something moronic/traumatising around them, but things were actually really okay! So that was nice.

Thursday, as I say, we are going to Tennessee for a week, so I will be MIA.

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There are these turkeys that just HANG OUT by the street on my bike ride to work. Like, they're always there, on the grass a couple feet from the road, or occasionally in the road, just chillin'. Three of them! I can't figure out where they came from.

Oh, awesome! I love wild turkeys, they're so pretty. Do you live near a wooded area?

Not at all, I'm on the coast! It's very confusing.

Oh, that's totally crazy then, I have no idea!

eeeee stephane eeee

OH. SPEAKING ON THE MATTER OF MR. LAMBIEL (I know you were tiny-texting but this deserves caps, okay), I would be totally remiss if I didn't rec you this, if you haven't read it already. It is the best fic about Stéphane that exists, in my opinion.

Eee eee eee thank you for-ever. >_>

There is a HUGE anti-Southern tendency in our media, and I can't help feeling twitchy about it, given my background.

Ohhhh my god, totally.

Last summer, here in Dayton, I was at a bluegrass show & one of the performers said something like, "I bet there are a lot of you who know just where [obscure Appalachian town] is." And there was this HUGE NOISE from the crowd; it hadn't occurred to me until just then that a lot of people in this area have a background like mine -- Appalachian grandparents who came to SW Ohio so they wouldn't be stuck mining coal until their back/lungs gave out.

Whenever I hear people who seem to think that a certain kind of accent means someone must be [insert awful stereotype here], it makes me kind of stabby. :/

Even the tradition of bluegrass [and country]! I mean, people tend to make the assumption that that genre is composed of the same set of stereotypes, rather than being a rich musical genre from the South and Appalachia. I have met so many people who just dismiss it out of a hand as some kind of redneck thing without ever listening to the music!

Totally agreed. It is so frustrating and narrow-minded.

I hear ya about the accent thing. Of course, I'm from Texas, so occasionally, I do hear an accent I hear every day attached to a sage old cowboy instead of an inbred, racist hick.

I think Texas gets that because there aren't bigass mountain areas; since the accent thing can be a combination of "lol those racist Southerners!" and "lol those ignorant hillbilly mountain-dwelling folks!". This is my theory.

The secondary characters are far less annoying in the books *coughTaracough*, but on the whole I can put up with anything else in the show because of Sam Trammell and Alexander Skarsgard. (Plus, I have really hilarious mental images of awkward immortal father-son bonding between Eric the Vampire and Bootstrap Bill Turner. Heh.) However, I will say, I hate what the show does with Jason. But it's kinda like Dexter for me - I have to think of the show and the books as separate entities and try not to compare them too much.

That gives me some relief, because Tara is one of the worst--I get that she's supposed to be outspoken and intelligent, but she really unfortunately comes off as belligerent and pretty much just a bitch. >_> Also, yeah, agreed. (...lolol.)

JASON OMG NEEDS TO DIE WHAT EVEN. Kill him for-ever with fire.

Haven't really seen/read Dexter, but I definitely understand things that you have to enjoy as two separate things. Some things just don't work in comparison.

Yooou should check out Justified, miss. It's set in Harlan, KY for the most part, and fills me with glee.

And wooo Tennessee.

What is it about?

Tennessee, Tennessee, ain't no place I'd rather be, &c.

It's kind of a classic modern Western crossed with a crime procedural? The lead is a U.S. Marshall who makes bad choices about women, has a problematic relationship with his father, and who may have a bit of a problem with his temper, but is really, really good at what he does.

Timothy Olyphant is fantastic, and the writing's only improved over the course of the first season. (His girlfriend irks me. His ex-wife is mostly awesome, though, which makes up for it some. There is not nearly enough of his competent co-worker in later episodes, I do confess. Still.)

/needs a Justified icon, discovering she does not have one.

Oooh, that sounds interesting.

"Ophelia's Mind Went Wandering, You'd Wonder Where She'd Been..."

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