Since Monday’s ace swag post went rather better than I figured it would, I thought I’d try seeing if open threads would work here. If this one goes well, this will probably become a weekly or biweekly thing, just as the linkspams did.
Feel free to discuss anything in the comments here!
So, a question to kick things off: What would you, personally, like to see in an asexual character? Since the posts I’ve done about asexuals in fiction have been consistently some of the more commented-on pieces I’ve done, I thought I’d ask what opinions other people have on fictional aces.
Writing From Factor X 
Personally, I’d like to see a wide range of ace characters, in varied relationships. (In every genre!)
But, and this is more self serving, I’d also like to see some characters who are aromantic/aromantic presenting and not “Totally evil/inhuman/freaks/etc”.
Comment by Bagheist — June 24, 2011 @ 8:57 am |
Demi/grey-a visibility would be pretty cool.
And while I’m dreaming, I want a leopard. (No, not a pony. Horses are ENORMOUS and kind of scare me. >_> But big cats are gorgeous <3)
And to attempt to, er, open-threadiness, I shall complain about the game I am playing! (Kingdom Hearts 2). I am really, really bothered by the treatment of the humanlike Nobodies. The rhetoric is… uncomfortably similar to the treatment of multiple systems and the bullshit around integration. The nobodies (who are slightly different looking split off versions of 'normal' people) are 'not real' and 'aren't supposed to exist' and they should just rejoin their originals and 'become whole' and if one protests that they don't want to die oh they are assured that they won't be dying! They'll just be becoming whole! Whole is good! Even if they won't exist anymore, not even their memories! TOTALLY NOT DEATH I SWEAR!
It is making me really twitchy. Also, making me sympathize with the antagonists over the protags, because fuck you where do you get off saying someone else isn't a real person? Who died and made you the arbiter of personhood?
Hmph. I really loved the first Kingdom Hearts, too. Not so fond of this one.
Comment by Shiyiya — June 24, 2011 @ 9:36 am |
OH MAN I HEAR YOU ABOUT KH2. I… okay, I got into that fandom in my weird and wacky never-actually-played-the-canon ways, but… I thought, although seems occasionally contradictory on the matter, that Nobodies? Not their originals! Not actually at fault for how they came into existence! Trying to figure out where to go from there! And like, some of the things the “good guys” say is *horrible* on that front. It’d be one thing if they went “okay, so you are separate beings with a right to an independent existence but you’re doing really nasty shit and we’re going to come after you for that!” but a lot of them totally buy into the “things that aren’t people and have no right to exist” business, oh and also the “same as your originals and we will punish you for their crimes” and sometimes simultaneously.
I had never actually made the parallel to multiple systems myself but that is a very good point and makes it all just that much more icky.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:34 am |
It is really pissing me off! Every cutscene around them, Sora is all YOU DON’T REALLY EXIST! YOU AREN’T REAL! YOU CAN’T FEEL ANYTHING! and even if Xemnas agreed with Sora it is no less bullshit. And then Sora is all compassion to Axel when he [spoilers?] dies! And doesn’t go I DON’T CARE THAT YOU JUST DIED SAVING MY LIFE BECAUSE YOU AREN’T A REAL PERSON. Unlike the ones he kills! ALMOST LIKE HE’S ONLY TREATING THEM LIKE THEY AREN’T REAL PEOPLE BECAUSE HE DOESN’T LIKE THEM. Organization XII’s entire motivation is wanting to be properly ‘real’ by the ‘good guys”s standards! Grumble. And ~Ansem the Wise~ and ~King Mickey~ are all THEY ARE NOT REAL! THEY SHOULD NOT EXIST! and I’m like wait, you’re supposed to be the cream of the crop good guys? I mean, you could argue that there should be no nobodies because there should be no heartless, but that’s… not what they’re doing.
(And then there’s the implicit oh, but it’s DIFFERENT for Roxas and Namine because they’re unusual and they do have hearts and they don’t have their original’s memories! So they don’t need to be shot on sight! …But they need to ~become whole~ too. So not *very* different.)
I am like, raeg at every cutscene now.
Comment by Shiyiya — June 24, 2011 @ 6:31 pm |
Okay, I just hate KH2 forever now. There are stamps that show up in your journal when you get 100% completion of a world, including rather difficult minigame goals. I am having terrible trouble with several of them, and I would probably keep beating at them except my emulator is a bit glitchy (I haven’t been able to see my hp gauge the entire game. Funtimes!) and I can’t see the thing that indicates when you’re supposed to push the buttons in the rhythm minigame in Atlantica. So… it is actually impossible for me to get full 100% completion. This is really really breaking my brain. It would be so much easier to ignore if it wasn’t for those bloody stamps and the holes where they should be on uncompleted worlds and ARGH.
Comment by Shiyiya — June 25, 2011 @ 6:53 am |
Inspired by the previous discussions of ace characters, I started a new story, and the main character is aromantic and asexual (possibly grey-a, but I don’t think so). I haven’t really gotten into the ace bit yet, because she won’t really talk to anyone, except me. But I’m afraid I’m perpetuating the “damaged” stereotype, since, having moved to a new place to start over, she’s kind of isolated and lonely. I’m worried about finding the balance between portraying issues that go along with being ace or aromantic (like loneliness) and making the problems bigger than the character.
I’m going to suspend major worrying about this until her character develops more– it’s still early days in the story, relatively speaking. But, in terms of what I would like to see in ace characters, I would like to see someone who isn’t lonely and derives hir sociality from a variety of relationships/from a community, since I’m certainly not getting that with this one.
Comment by Aydan — June 24, 2011 @ 9:56 am |
I dunno, variety I guess. Lots of different kinds of aces, lots of attitudes and approaches towards sex, lots of different types of relationships. For specific characters, it’s nice if I happen to see someone quite a lot like myself, but not a necessity (Also by now pretty much any ace character gets counted as quite a lot like myself).
My current concern is more the way that romantic relationships are almost always done in fanfic for Bioware games, really. It’s always… awkward. And I mean that would fine, if it wasn’t ALWAYS awkward. With big confessions of love, I dunno, you’d have to see it. So I’m most emphatically writing a fic where people are more relaxed or more direct, attraction is not so angsty, etc. I’m actually a bit surprised because though they have their moments, the in-game romances are usually far more… easy. Like, no people harbouring feelings of love for ever, brooding over them, and then a big teary confession or whatever, or endlessly fucking up while they obviously like each other. (We’re not counting Anomen+Bhaalspawn here).
Comment by Norah — June 24, 2011 @ 10:16 am |
Out of curiosity, which Bioware games are you thinking of there? I’ve spent some time in Baldur’s Gate fandom and am trying to remember how those fics usually went on the romance front. (Although yeah, didn’t In The Cards take, like, hundreds of chapters until the couple actually got together…) Haven’t set foot in Dragon Age fandom though as I’m still so bitter about my computer not being able to handle that game without crashing ten minutes in, and although I’ve heard about KotOR fandom I also haven’t looked into it.
non-Bioware, but I remember when I was reading the Cordelia Naismith books by Lois McMaster Bujold I was pleasantly surprised at how unangsty the romance was. Like, the two characters in question realised that they liked each other ~that way~ and that it was mutual early on, and even the fact that they were technically on opposing sides caused way less melodrama than I was used to. I only really realised then how very sick I was of the “do they like me?! this is the most important question ever and one that will be dwelled on obsessively up until twenty pages from the end.”
And verily, we shall not talk about Anomen+Bhaalspawn. >> (also whoo another Baldur’s Gate fan! TinyKaz actually started eir online life on a Baldur’s Gate and other CRPGs message board, so it’s quite possible that if it weren’t for that game I wouldn’t even be here. ;))
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:50 am |
(I’ll excuse Anomen+Bhaalspawn as their first foray into romance for female PCs, though I’ve heard that the male romances aren’t that much better, but I haven’t played those).
[SPOILERS FOLLOW!] Mildly, anyway.
I’m thinking of the fanfic for Mass Effect 1, 2 and Dragon Age 2. In game the romances were pretty relaxed. I romanced Kaidan and Liara in ME. Kaidan eventually makes you choose, Liara wouldn’t be bothered by poly, but there you go. They’re all very mature about it though. Liara is the bumbly, nervous character. But still, no angst. Of course in a game you can’t really take it as gradually as you might in meatspace, but the romances were not just falling out of thin air. ME 1, 2 do more of the personal talks as a way into a romance, DA2 does more of the flirting. DA1 kinda did both. DA2 especially is amazingly relaxed when it comes to romances and relationships. You can even break them off without overmuch drama. You ease into them pretty well, although the games never really escape from the ‘relationship culminates in the one obligatory sex scene’ thing (you do in DA1 though. There can be endless sex scenes), although it’s not right before the end of the game for once.
I haven’t read much DA1 or KOTOR1 fanfic. (I haven’t played KOTOR2, but I hear there are no romances there). Haven’t thought of looking into BG fanfic much, though I did recently. Found mostly Anomen fic for female PCs, though some people write fic about the various mods too. The Anomen fic was much like the fic I was referring to, but in this case it’s not actually surprising.
Actually the reason I even started writing fanfic recently is that all the other fanfic, even the really nice stuff, just doesn’t really view the characters the way I do, and I desperately want to tell (and embellish) the stories the way I like them best (resulting in 4 different versions of DA2 >_>)
Comment by Norah — June 24, 2011 @ 3:29 pm |
Ha, this means we have no intersection at all since I haven’t played any of those games. On the Western RPG front I’m into Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment (and am writing an ace manifesto for one of the characters in that one – asexual succubus REPRESENT) and Morrowind. Now I want to play DA2, or DA1!, because that sounds quite cool and I’ve heard awesomesauce things about these games and this genre is my first love, but my laptop…
I didn’t play the male romances in BG2 either (I have this Thing about having my customisable PCs be male, where Thing means that they aren’t) but from what I remember other people talking about and reading in fic… I think the Jaheira romance may have been quite interesting but I could never believe in that because Jaheira/Khalid OTP WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S DEAD. *sniffs*
UM UM UM. I am not sure if you know this already but if you don’t – if you’re looking for Baldur’s Gate fandom, the largest part of it is not near FFN, AO3, LJ, DW or any of those sites. There’s a highly active forum-based ficwriting community called The Attic, which also has a LOT of stuff in the archives (although given the forum-based structure trying to find all the chapters of what you’re looking for is a hassle and a half, and also they had some downtime and had to revamp the site so a lot of the links are broken and oh dear lord trying to find stuff will be a nightmare.) I’m particularly fond of Laufey’s Cards series (BG1 here), which is an Edwin romance (yes, really.) I mean, if you’re not interested in BG fic that’s fine and if you know this already I will shut up and slink away in embarrassment, but this is a site that can be very hard to stumble across if you assume BG has a typical fandom structure and there is some AMAZING stuff on here. (Morrowind also does this, with an incredibly active fic-writing community on a UBB board somewhere that’s almost completely disconnected from the LJ/FFN crowd. I keep wondering if it’s typical of that type of canon, actually.)
Also also, that is totally the best reason for writing fanfic! I started a Morrowind novelisation because I felt the other novelisations were all ignoring really cool possibilities and not taking advantage of their medium and you could do this, this and THIS instead of just writing the game hack’n’slash… and lo, I am about 30k words in. >>
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 5:21 pm |
Oh, no, I didn’t know that! The fandoms for ME and DA on FFN are *huge*. And there’s more elsewhere too. I mostly look for specific fics (no DudeShep, no DudePC in general, I like romance but not only romance, and I’m a bit picky about the quality of the writing, but not much). Edwin romance O_o. (Isn’t he actually a step above Anomen in the worst personality contest?).
I liked PS:T, too, but not as much as BG. I do something like 95% female playthroughs, and then one or two male playthroughs too. I keep waiting for more options in that area too, but I expect they’re ages away yet. I have a sort of special dislike for Morrowind and its sequels :S. The controls and the way the world is structured made it more than a chore for me to try and get through. Most of the RPGs I play are Bioware for a very simple reason: pause-fighting. Keybinding and a special mouse have made things easier, but I lack a large amount of coordination, motor skills and muscle tone. I also like the Divinity games a lot. Drakensang was ok. I’m considering one of the Fable games.
DA 1 and 2 are really nice, but I found myself liking the ME series even better (Surprisingly, since I usually can’t play shooters, but Bioware is pretty good with making their games playable on different levels of difficulty and such for a wide variety of people). ME always seemed a bit more backwards in the romance department though, but in 3 I hear they’re finally going to add gay romances and a female PC on the box cover of the special edition. I liked Jade Empire a lot too, but there’s a lot of stuff there that I’m not sure about such as: how much of this is actually cultural appropriation and stereotyping, even though I know it falls into a specific genre of films and games.
Currently replaying BG1 and 2 (and ToB). I installed some extra romance mods for BG2, will have to see about the quality.
I also write quite a lot of fic for MMOs I play, but that’s different from the fanfic for offline RPGs. Currently I’m just waiting for SW:TOR, have a bit of unpublished snippets for FE on my drive somewhere. Currently I’m on downtime due to too much stuff going on to write anything, but for the DA2 fic, I was like 30 minutes into the game and I already had 30 pages of text *cries*. It’s going to take forever.
Comment by Norah — June 25, 2011 @ 4:28 am |
That is immensely interesting, and I wish I knew what was going on there… my suspicion is that a lot of the fanfic-writing community for the earlier games got drawn in from game-based forums instead of wider fanfic community, which explains things like the format (it’s often very reminiscent of various CRPG fan forums, and IIRC there at least used to be a very active Morrowind fanfic community on the official Elder Scrolls forums) and the culture which is sometimes very different from the fanfic culture I’m used to. (As a simple example that tends to make people’s jaws drops – I haven’t actually looked into this in detail, but my gut feeling is that the Attic is maybe around half and half in terms of male female and the Morrowind fanfic forum I read is majority male.) Maybe the newer games became more widespread among “traditional” fanfic-writing groups? Something I’d love to know is if there are active writing forums for ME and DA in *addition* to the active FFN community, or if the fandom as a whole has shifted over to FFN, or if the forum-based writing groups weren’t as interested in DA… and okay I’ll shut up now it’s just that this stuff is really interesting to me. 😦
Re: Edwin romance – that was about my reaction when I heard about it, but amazingly enough I thought it worked? Somehow the author manages to write it as sort of hilarious but endearing
and the heroine gives back as good as she gets.
I shall not go all PS:T fannish on you because I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. *g* And although I love Morrowind a *lot*, I can understand your issues – I was actually surprised I liked it because I usually cling to that pause button like nothing else and don’t do well with real-time games (not muscle coordination, though, just some autism-related stuff that means I get stressed out *really* easily from that sort of stuff, I think). There were a few things about Morrowind that made that not apply (mainly that the combat system and especially the potions system was so broken you were effectively immortal from very early on), but despite how much I love the game I haven’t actually played the sequel because from what I’ve heard that’s been changed. And… wow, yeah, I’m realising how I haven’t actually played any of the games in this genre in almost ten years. ;_; should look into that (er, if I ever get a laptop that can survive them) especially if we have gay romances now! Yay for replaying BG2 though, and ooh mods! I’ve always considered the installation instructions sufficiently daunting for BG that I didn’t use any mods, but I know there’s some cool stuff out there.
for the DA2 fic, I was like 30 minutes into the game and I already had 30 pages of text *cries*. It’s going to take forever
*pats* that was about my experience with my Morrowind fic too, yes. >< over 10k words to get her out of the tutorial area, I swear.
Comment by Kaz — June 25, 2011 @ 6:30 am |
There are also separate sites and some blogs where fans of DA and ME write, and also on the Bioware Social Site forums, but I rather dislike those forums :S (Massive crapheap), oh and also on Deviantart, both writing and art. There are very large fandoms for specific characters especially, like Alistair (And Varric), they tend to get their own sites or sections. A lot of the authors I see write for a huge variety of games and sometimes also books and series. Though there are a few I’ve seen come from the Bioware forums that only write for one or two Bioware games.
I get that stress too, but as long as it’s not too much I kinda like it. Had to give up playing the X-files adventure game over it though, too many enemies popping out from behind pillars that you have to shoot in time.
I think Jade empire was actually the first one with a gay romance, of the Bioware games anyway, I’m not too sure about other RPGs. Have you played the Fallout games? I’m guessing if your laptop can handle BG, it can handle Fallout 1 and 2.
As for BG mods, they can be kinda rough to install but more and more of them are being adapted to be self-installing, and so they all work with eachother without causing conflict (cheers for all the people who spend so much time on this stuff!). Weidu standard especially is one to look for. Portraits and such are easier.
Comment by Norah — June 25, 2011 @ 7:18 am |
Like Aydan, variety is one I’d like to see – our community is so incredibly diverse and I’d like to see some of that diversity represented.
Also, since we’re dreaming… for fandoms/canons that are set in modern day, I’d like to see some community going on? Like, asexual characters with some connection to the ace community and asexual… culture, for lack of a better word. I’m not asking for an ace character that wears homemade ace flag scarves and amoeba T-shirts and goes to meet-ups or wants to go to meet-ups and is on tumblr and is or used to be on AVEN and goes to Pride parades with their ace swag and watches Doctor Who and eats cake all the time and has a black ring glued onto their finger and and and (although face it, that’d be hilarious), but… some of that maybe? I mean, honestly if you run into a random ace-person-who-knows-they’re-ace in RL I think they generally have or had some idea of the community and the culture. (See also: the one other ace person I met in RL we immediately started making cake jokes.)
Oh yeah, speaking of which, ace-person-who-knows-they’re-ace fic would be nice. I mean, the angsty “I have no idea what’s the matter with me” is very realistic (apart from the part where the sexuals swoop in with definitions? still haven’t seen that trope myself but the mere idea makes me want to spit fire…), but that’s exactly the problem – it’s too realistic. I have LIVED that, okay, sometimes I don’t want to read about it. Asexual character who figured that out years ago and is totally confident in their asexuality and their asexiness? Gimme.
On a selfish note, would kind of like to see a repulsed ace where that’s not taken to be a sign of something Wrong WIth Them or the end-all and be-all of their sexuality. Like, a repulsed ace who makes sexual jokes or reads porn or flirts with people or whatever but goes “ugh, no way in *hell*” at the idea of having sex themselves.
Ooh, and trans aces! And…
I can see this comment will never end if I don’t stop here HA.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:25 am |
aaand I just realised I’ve been misspelling my own name, lol.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:34 am |
…and correcting the spelling in my name ate all the replies I’ve left? WTH? Er, trying this again, sorry if it ends up posting twice or something:
Like Aydan, variety is one I’d like to see – our community is so incredibly diverse and I’d like to see some of that diversity represented.
Also, since we’re dreaming… for fandoms/canons that are set in modern day, I’d like to see some community going on? Like, asexual characters with some connection to the ace community and asexual… culture, for lack of a better word. I’m not asking for an ace character that wears homemade ace flag scarves and amoeba T-shirts and goes to meet-ups or wants to go to meet-ups and is on tumblr and is or used to be on AVEN and goes to Pride parades with their ace swag and watches Doctor Who and eats cake all the time and has a black ring glued onto their finger and and and (although face it, that’d be hilarious), but… some of that maybe? I mean, honestly if you run into a random ace-person-who-knows-they’re-ace in RL I think they generally have or had some idea of the community and the culture. (See also: the one other ace person I met in RL we immediately started making cake jokes.)
Oh yeah, speaking of which, ace-person-who-knows-they’re-ace fic would be nice. I mean, the angsty “I have no idea what’s the matter with me” is very realistic (apart from the part where the sexuals swoop in with definitions? still haven’t seen that trope myself but the mere idea makes me want to spit fire…), but that’s exactly the problem – it’s too realistic. I have LIVED that, okay, sometimes I don’t want to read about it. Asexual character who figured that out years ago and is totally confident in their asexuality and their asexiness? Gimme.
On a selfish note, would kind of like to see a repulsed ace where that’s not taken to be a sign of something Wrong WIth Them or the end-all and be-all of their sexuality. Like, a repulsed ace who makes sexual jokes or reads porn or flirts with people or whatever but goes “ugh, no way in *hell*” at the idea of having sex themselves.
Ooh, and trans aces! And…
I can see this comment will never end if I don’t stop here HA.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:40 am |
And by Aydan I mean Norah, sorry.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 11:40 am |
Ooh, you know what, I’m actually baking 2 cakeses at the moment and I wear homemade ace gear and a black ring (no glue, that would be painful. Also no amoebas), and I watch so, so much Doctor Who… There are no meetings here though. There’s bound to be more aces in town but I wouldn’t know who the hell they are, also, judging from our forums they’d likely attribute asexuality to trauma (and I don’t mean in individual cases). So I kinda don’t mind the lack of meetings.
Comment by Norah — June 24, 2011 @ 3:38 pm |
Yeah, a possibly embarrassing amount of that stuff is true for me… but it just goes to show, doesn’t it? >> I don’t have a homemade ace scarf or an amoeba shirt or a black ring (but *yet* on all of them because I have plans for all), I don’t really watch Doctor Who but that’s more a function of my video issues and I’ve definitely seen more of Doctor Who than most things these days, I still hope to have an ace meet-up! even though I only know one other one in RL (but she is awesomesauce so I am hopeful), and cake is amazing. ALSO I have an amoeba board game which must make up for some of the lack.
Comment by Kaz — June 24, 2011 @ 5:24 pm |
I would like to see more characters that are not in fanfic, because I don’t read that 😛
On an unrelated note, the carnival of aces currently has… zero submissions. I don’t know if it is typical for everyone to submit in the last week, but if there aren’t more I will make it bimonthly.
Comment by miller — June 24, 2011 @ 12:01 pm |
It’s pretty typical to get the bulk of submissions at the last possible minute, yeah–I had similar issues with both of the carnivals I was involved with hosting. People procrastinate! (On that note, my submission should be up in two days. Hopefully that will remind people a little.)
I think that the carnival also needs to get promoted out of the blogs and signal-boosted more often, which I should probably mention here at WFX more… whoooops. I think otherwise people have a tendency to forget it exists.
Comment by Sciatrix — June 24, 2011 @ 12:54 pm |
I tried to write a post for the carnival, but really it just boiled down to “ew, neckbeards”. 😦
Comment by pen — June 24, 2011 @ 1:39 pm |
I actually have a post I want to write but I don’t think I’ll be able to write at all, sorry. Too much going on, spoons all reserved or used up. Probably all the way into August.
Comment by Norah — June 24, 2011 @ 3:41 pm |
Oh hey, agreement! I don’t do fanfic either. (It’s confusing if it’s not a fandom I’m familiar with, and if it is the characters are never exactly right and it makes me twitchy.)
Comment by Shiyiya — June 24, 2011 @ 6:36 pm |
I would like to see an ace character who is comfortable flirting for fun and flinging innuendo back and forth with their friends.
I would like to see an ace character who completely brushes off a James Bond-like character, and is not later seduced or evil or frigid etc.
I would like to see an ace character who has friends that support them, who will stick up for them against acephobes.
I would like to see an aromantic character who doesn’t understand romance in the slightest, and has conflicts with their romantic friends about this because they don’t understand why their friends’ partners are so (much more) important — and works through these conflicts, and stays friends with those people.
I would like to see an aromantic character who is able to give their friends good romantic advice (like if their relationships are going bad).
*wistful sigh*
Comment by pen — June 24, 2011 @ 12:15 pm |
This. Just, all of this.
*joins in with the wistful sighing*
Comment by Bagheist — June 24, 2011 @ 12:23 pm |
Basically I’d just like to see someone who succeeds at creating fulfilling relationships outside of the dating/marriage paradigm. Maybe it’d be easier for a fictional character than it seems to be for real people…
And agreed on “outside of fanfic”.
Comment by ily — June 24, 2011 @ 8:03 pm |
(Since I can’t comment on the tumblrs)
Yes, I created the pie chart graphic in excel for the purposes of this post. I cited my sources in the caption, but since then it’s gone all around the internet without citations. Perhaps I should have cited sources on the graphic itself.
Comment by Siggy — June 29, 2011 @ 12:58 pm |
Maybe this one is weird, but I’d be really interested in seeing a functional relationship between a pair of romantic and aromantic aces that they respectively define as romantic and zucchini. Just a relationship concept that came to me while thinking about my future.
Comment by Finbarr Ryan — July 3, 2011 @ 7:38 am |
Oh, that’s a really interesting idea! I know an aromantic and a romantic in a relationship that’s defined by both partners as romantic, but I’d be pretty interesting in seeing a story on that idea, too.
Comment by Sciatrix — July 3, 2011 @ 11:29 am |