well behaved women

In my Astronomy lab today, we devolved into a discussion of reality, and time as a measure, and the theory about how if we as 3-dimensional objects cast 2-dimensional shadows, we could be 3-dimensional shadows of 4-dimensional objects.

I--

AWESOME

I CANNOT STOP SMILING

THAT CONCEPT MAKES ME SO HAPPY

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I know it was naive. I know it was foolish. I haven't even read the books all the way through myself! But I honestly thought my shock and horror at Stephenie Meyer was tapped out; that she had gotten all of her 'WHAT THE FUCKING HELL NOOOOO's out of me.

I was wrong. Mark of Buzznet has been reviewing Twilight, and it's a fairly stress-reducing ride, at least for those that have read the books previously and are just relieved to see somebody sane react. The gifs help.

Then we get to chapter thirteen of Eclipse, where I thank the lords I didn't read it and we get to read SMeyer writing about how Mexicans are violent awful people (as opposed to the "civilized" north), and how being a vampire automatically makes you white.

Gods above and below, how the hell is this woman too fucking stupid to understand how offensive she is?

Picked up from randomsome1

I need to purge my brain of this ugliness.

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Simon Woods did a decent job of making Octavian seem, if not actually regretful, conscious and even concerned in his own way, of the damage he realizes he's done to his mother and sister. He's still about as shit at social interaction as he was as a child. 'How's Octavia?' YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW, BUCKO. Too bad you totally screwed them over, huh? Kind of burnt your bridges there, honey. And his behavior after the dinner--was that the first time he realized exactly what his position with them was? It doesn't seem possible.

I did love that little interaction with Octavian:
'No, I was all sweetness and light with her.'
'Yes, that is your most disheartening manner.'

BECAUSE IT KIND OF IS.

Cleopatra's portrayal is a major fail, and the portrayal of the Egyptian court is contemptibly ridiculous.

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Neither Fictional nor Real:

So, Hollywood. Take a power structure of people who are willfully ignorant and unwilling to deal with people as people, as well as making concentrated efforts to keep us from having access to venues to tell our stories.

The argument "it's only fiction" really can only apply if you have context to understand the difference between fiction and reality. And, it's also interesting that we're not allowed to tell EITHER our fictions OR our realities, but that others get the right to do that for us, and seem amazed as if we stepped out of a comic book or something when we demand the right to tell our stories.

And it's always interesting how one group profits in reality for making fantasy about another and that group is never us.

Television Without Pity - But Racism is Dandy!

Not that I ever expected well of a site that Supernatural is heavily connected with, but hey. This is pretty nasty.

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All mental points awarded to Rome are revoked. Totally, permanently and irrevocably revoked. Infinite, infinite fail.

I mean, there were some hints previously. The conspicuous casting of Eirene vs Gaia, the skewed amount of white to darker characters in villainous/antagonist roles, the gender!fail inherent in Vorena's portrayal--she's made a prostitute, her attempt to reclaim her sexuality leads to terrible things, and she's redeemed by swearing herself chaste to a goddess. (Oh screw you, show.) Not to mention Atia's obsession with the bottom feeder.

And now their portrayal of Cleopatra.

Cleopatra was a powerful, political, canny queen, reputedly the only Ptolomeic ruler to have actually learnt the Egyptian language. She and Egypt did not exist merely as some subnote to Rome, as some ~exotic~ place all about debauchery and corruption of those fine Roman men. I was nearly nauseated at the whole scene where she had to be 'schooled' by some condescending bastard of a Roman soldier--a woman who grew up in a cutthroat family, ascended to the throne at eighteen, raised a rebellion and won an alliance that raised her once more to the throne, a woman who is intimately familiar with murderous politics.

And yet in Rome, somehow she turns into a completely amoral, depraved druggie who proclaims herself a 'slave' of Caesar and then seems to have nothing to do but sleep with and be rabidly possessive of Anthony as opposed to, say, running her country.

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Name your 15 absolutely favorite couples (het/slash/canon/fanon) and ask people to see what trends they notice about your couples. Try to pick different fandoms. Picked up from lucifuge5 I HAVE LOTS MORE. But these are the ones that came into mind first. I also narrowed it down by picking only the ones that had definite, confirmed basis in canon.

1. Chiara/The Bear (The Wolf King)
2. Regeane/Maeniel (The Silver Wolf)
3. Leetah/Cutter (Elfquest)
4. Dante Valentine/Tierce Japhrimel (Working for the Devil)
5. Chihiro/Haku (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)
6. Sunshine/Constantine (Sunshine)
7. Jill Kismet/Saul (Dante Valentine)
8. Kamiya Kaoru/Himura Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin)
9. Allen Walker/Rinali Li (D.Grayman)
10. Jaenelle Angelline/Daemon Sadi (Black Jewels)
11. Keiko Yukimura/Yusuke Urameshi (YuYu Hakusho)
12. Kaylin Neya/Severn (Michelle Sagara's Cast series)
13. Bonnie McCullough/Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries)
14. Vesper Lynd/James Bond (Casino Royale)
15. Anita Blake/her awesome (early Anita Blake books)
...what do you mean, that doesn't count? Okay, fine, have an extra: 16. Sesshoumaru/Rin (Inuyasha)

...apparently I like a lot of relationships where there's equality, but the girls are unequivocably in charge. Especially when the boys are a bit dangerous/amoral/etc.

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On rewatching Transformers: God, Sam is such a fucking sleaze. We're supposed to be rooting for some asshole who would dump his friend in the middle of nowhere just so he can make the moves on some complete stranger?

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Okay, so. I've tried to restraint my anger with the Rome fandom to a few tamped-down comments here and there. But it's not going away, so here's my space to scream and rage a bit. Feel free to ignore this post.

( Read more... )

Not that there isn't a perfectly simple explanation. There is! And it's that in fandom, manly angst takes precedence over women's actual suffering and trauma.

SCREW YOU ALL.

ETA: ...I feel a little better now.

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Thoughts on Rome: Vorena makes me cry. She is, in my opinion, both the bravest and the most tragic of the characters on the show, and I love her, and what she goes through makes me want to cry. And I'm glad that despite the focus on the male characters, the show doesn't once make me feel as if she should be blamed. (Unlike the show's fans.)

On Merlin: I LOVE FREYA KIND OF A LOT. A WHOLE LOT. **criiiies**

( from comment on camelot_fleet. spoilers )

Can we goddamn fucking well get rid of the "female characters used only to advance/influence male characters' plot/emotions?"

From tavella:

But... I'm just not very optimistic, because the real problems I have with the show are less with character arcs and plot holes (though they don't help), but underlying principles. The constant gender!fail -- when a producer bursts into laughter at the suggestion that Morgana and Gwen could have their own episode, that's not a sign anyone is thinking it's a problem. And of course, the whole having Arthur leading the slaughter of a village and then thinking it doesn't even have to be addressed.

Maybe not.



THE ONLY WORTHWHILE THING IN THIS SHOW. Well, Freya can stay too.

( quote that, for the moment, sum up my general feelings. more coherent post probably to come later. spoilers )

On rereading The Vampire Diaries: I love how the explanation for why, in the end, Elena is not at all afraid of Stefan basically boils down (from somewhat flowery terms, as Stefan is a bit of a sap regarding Elena) to 'she totally tops and she knows it.'

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I LOVE AND ENDORSE THIS SENTIMENT.

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Whenever someone says Jo was 'too immature'--ostensibly in general but, it is fairly easy to discern, meaning 'for Dean'--I have to laugh. By anyone's estimate, Jo Harvelle is a great deal more mature than Dean Winchester.

Let's see...wants to strike out on her own, seems perfectly capable of it. Doesn't collect venereal diseases like stamps. Behaves with maturity, is self-contained, isn't a total sleaze. Independent, quick and clever, capable...although Dean may have those qualities, too.

Just--can't you shut up now that [spoiler] has happened?.

Supernatural has been leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth for far too long. It's amazing how you run into this stuff when you no longer have the slightest amount of interest in the canon and never had an interest in the fanon.

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I have been watching Rome.

Surprise! I am fond of it. It is, in some ways, all about the menz, but the female characters are fabulous, despite the fact that their lives seem to revolve around the male characters--I think that's not unreasonable for the time period. There was--GODDAMNIT--what I would definitely classify as a fridging, but I'm hanging on for the other women. I don't actually know that there are any male characters besides season 1 Octavian where I'm actually interested in finding out what happens to them, never mind liking them. The fandom corners I've dipped my toes in are full of raging misogyny--how dare she be angry with the man that caused her mother's death! How dare she try to move on and pursue a life of her own after her husband's death! Bitch, slut, whore, etc--as to be expected, I suppose. But I love the way the show never makes me feel as though I'm intended to blame Niobe for her choices, or Eirene or Vorena for their anger. And while male characters are shown as sympathetic after doing terrible things, female characters are too. Which is really cool.

The sets are pretty fantastic, and I'm told that it goes to great lengths for historical accuracy. I think they do a really good job of making the characters' certain outdated views understandably their own without supporting it textually, which far too many shows/movies fall into doing.

My favorite characters are Eirene and Octavia, but even the female characters I find reprehensible are fascinating. The male characters are well written as well, but a lot of the qualities I'm intended to find interesting and sympathetic fall flat.

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"If" Black Women Were White Women"

Written, apparently, in the style of 'What if Men Could Menstruate' by Gloria Steinem. To quote fiction_theory: There is some discussion of sexual assault in the essay - but I feel it is worth it.

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I'm watching an Emily Browning image community that keeps tagging entries with heaps of tags about Twilight and how she's Bella Swan, Edward is the only one for her, etc, etc.

I...actually find it really obnoxious. I'm not sure if this is obnoxious of me, in turn? I ended up commenting today. They basically replied with 'shut up, we're going to make up whatever tags we want.'

It's funny how feeling snooty can salve your worries about your own obnoxiousness. **shifty eyed**

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Net Speed: 78 WPM
(words/minute)
Accuracy: 90%
Gross Speed: 86 WPM
(words/minute)

**sadface**

ETA: No wait!

Net Speed: 92 WPM
(words/minute)
Accuracy: 97%
Gross Speed: 94 WPM
(words/minute)

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IT'S LIKE A FREAKING TRAIN WRECK. I can't stop opening these posts about Glee. How can people defend this show? Oh wait--ignorance, all the sundry ugly -isms, privilege...

haddayr:

For the record:

1. When an old folks home has a tag sale, they do NOT have a dozen state-of-the-art rigid lightweight wheelchairs in funky colors to get rid of for nothing. The hardware they had in there, even massively used, would have paid for dozens upon dozens upon quadrillions of bus rides. Old people get piece-of-shit rundown folding chairs that are nearly impossible to push on your own.
2. When your sister has Downs? You don't hold her hand as you read her stories in precious, pwecious tears at her pathetic wretched handicapableness. You've known she had Downs your whole life. You're over feeling sorry for her, assuming you ever did, since you're her LITTLE SISTER.
3. When you are in a wheelchair and you find out that your love interest has been FAKING HER STUTTER? You are not angry because she's now "normal" and you are "stuck in this chair for the rest of your life." You are angry because she's been playing at what you actually experience. You are angry because half of the world treats you already as if you're faking it, and she really WAS faking it.
4. Noble and adorable cripples do not clasp their hands and give an "aw, shucks" look when their AB comrades in wheelchairs say: "This is for YOU," and point at them cheesily.
5. Schools that are not fully wheelchair accessible are BREAKING THE LAW. You do not have to give up your bus to pay for handicapped ramps. People do not have to write their own checks. Ramps are not provided out of the goodness of people's hearts. IT. IS. THE. MOTHERFUCKING. LAW.
6. And no one is worried about getting sued if they don't hire disabled people. Disablism in hiring practices is rampant and accepted. Threatening someone with the ACLU is a way to get yourself laughed out of the place, not immediately hired in a horrible economic climate.

This show actually had someone pretend to be disabled to get a job. The sheer breathtaking offensiveness of it is a marvel.

Also? For any idiot who wants to whine 'it's just a High School Musical soap opera TV show, you're taking it too seriously' I'd like to quote balgar

It's quite odd to assume that certain cultural products are beneath analysis. Operas, symphonies, novels in the "literature" section, and subtitled movies more than two hours long do not convey more information or perspective than thirty second commercials, top 40 singles, network television shows, or comic books. I'd say that mass-marketed, "low culture" works are less idiosyncratic in their perspective and are therefore more useful in terms of understanding the society of which they are a product.

So how about all the morons who thought writing about the ~poor hopeless needy~ disabled person without a life was a good idea watch this gorgeous piece of work?



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Oh! Oh! Also I would like this share this. It's something of an examination of fanfiction and original fiction, and the differences between, and I like it. It starts out by a (relatively non-spoilery) excerpt of a review of Cassandra Clare, the famous plagiarizer's, 'original' work, and expands.

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Disney FAILS. So hard.

I'd just like to quote randomsome1 on this--I don't think I could put it better if I tried--from here.

Also, it appears the publisher Harlequin has shot themselves in the nuts. They added on a new vanity publishing wing--a wing towards which authors who are rejected from their commercial branches will be funneled. Reactions seem to vary from "But self-publishing isn't bad!" (which completely ignores how this isn't self-publishing, it's vanity publishing, and yes it fucking is) to the hardcore, as the RWA (Romance Writers of America) has (have?) revoked Harlequin's recognized publisher status.

I'll be the first person to mock the romance novel section, sure--but that's still one hell of a shitty thing to do to potential authors: lure them in with an established name, reject their novel, then flip them over and shake them for whatever money may come out while telling them that this is really the best way for their career to start.

Fun times, people. Or not.

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I visited the Wing Luke Asian Museum today, and went on a guided tour of the restored and preserved sections--everything from goods in the import shop to beds in the apartments saved. It was incredible.



**sigh** I love Eva Green. She is, hands-down, my favorite actress.

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I'm disappointed.

I can't say I expected miracles from the book. Indeed, my first and strongest motivations were the cover, by an artist i am very fond of. Hey! It looks awesome! I am shallow.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ride isn't promising.

John Clute at SciFi Wire

That, on the other hand, Lake’s savagely pollarded heroine never seems to shut her mouth should come as no surprise either, I guess: because it is clearly not part of Lake’s belief system, or of his writerly strategy over the long consolatory pages of Green, to treat the savageries of immurement Green suffers as a child as ultimately deforming. Wolfe, whose example has clearly shaped Green, may be the only contemporary author of American fantastic literature consistently to treat damage as damaging; Lake adheres to a sunnier version of the costs of being born in prison: that spunk will unlock the barred door.
[...]
It is here we come to something of a sticking point, which is rage. The young peasant girl Green (she refuses to use the name her owner gives her), who has spent most of her life in a deep Skinner Box being shaped, refuses to accept her destiny. After all her travails, she tells us, “I was still me“, and my heart sank. The person we have thought she was—the aleph self gaining some dark noumenousness from her immurement in the heart of the Wolfean world she had been selected for as an infant—turns out to be a cloak that only half conceals a moderately sophisticated Liberal Humanist teenager from California with anger issues. Made berserk by the thought that she—a simple illiterate peasant lass from a subsistance rice paddy—has been bought and educated by immortals whose nature and purpose on the plate of the world we have not yet learned, Green kills one of her teaching Mistresses, scars her face so she cannot become a concubine, and escapes with Dancing Mistress into the City.

Kyra Smith at Strange Horizons:

Specifically, there are two ways in which we can interpret Green’s sadomasochistic lesbianism. We can see it as the sort of empowering lesbianism practiced by apparently kick-ass fantasy heroines or we can see it as yet further evidence that Green has been completely broken by her time of enslavement. Either reading is discomforting, the former because it strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of homosexuality to view it as more legitimising than heterosexuality, and the latter because it implies a direct causal relationship between abuse and ‘aberrant’ sexual behaviour. In both cases, Green’s sexual preferences are reduced to something illustrative rather authentic. The upshot is that there is no sense of emotional reality to her attractions beyond shared orientation and the possibility, perhaps, that the author finds the idea of two girls getting it on a bit hot. Or one girl and a catgirl. I’m not joking.
[...]
I think I would have had less of a problem with Green had I been able to shake the suspicion I was meant to think she was awesome. She does kick-ass fantasy heroine things like kill people, sleep around, win fights and be Chosen By The Gods (yes, she’s that too) and her only flaws are the sort of flaws it is acceptable for a strong woman to have—i.e. she is a little bit impulsive, a little bit ruthless and just too gosh darn stubborn sometimes. Because of this, and her general disinclination to give a damn about anyone else, she never felt like a real person to me.

I am especially tired of this. I am tired of being fed the archetypes, either the Girlfriend or the Tough Chick (or fascimilies thereof). And yes, even today they dominate, though simply having the Tough Chick can be seen as a step forward. In more varied, subtle forms--and in their base forms, both are stories that very much deserve to be told, and that I want to read--but they dominate the field. Either the woman is the love interest, or she is the Faux Action Girl, possessing traditional "male" skills, almost always portrayed as emotionally ackward, lacking or wounded, with a tragic past or downright inhuman callousness. Now, I love these kinds of girls--but the point is that largely no other kind of Action Heroine is allowed to be. She can't be chirpy and happy and still kick ass. She can't be a soldier, tough and dangerous on the battlefield, that comes home and is just an ordinary human. There must be something wrong with her for her to be dangerous and tough in a physical (or mental) way.

She can't be strong as a woman, with only traditional "female" traits; if she is, critics and readers (usually female readers) alike revile her. If she does posess traditional "female" traits, she is relegated to the role of the girlfriend, who can't "understand" what the hero goes through, and is generally relegated to unfailing, selfless support on the sidelines. (There are exceptions! I know there are exceptions! But that is exactly what they are--exceptions to the rule.)

Either way, all too often I'm given stereotypes, or archetypes. I want to read about people. Female people.

There are a variety of reviews. Some are very good. But the good--and this is key as I consider them as a whole--simply do not address the important issues that the critical reviews do, or if they do they gloss them over.

Daniel Hemmens at FerretBrain:

It gets worse, considerably worse, when she returns to her home. Suddenly Copper Downs goes from being not merely more affluent than her homeland but objectively better. Green states, quite clearly, that:

My captors had been right. Rather I should have been on my knees thanking the Factor for what he had taken me from.

Now I know that this is partly Green giving in to despair, but nothing in the text challenges this conclusion. It’s rather an object lesson in the dangers of taking on too many genre stereotypes at once.

Had this been the story of a white man who was taken away from his pseudo-European farming village and conscripted into the armies of the Dark Lord of Evil then I would have been overjoyed to find him returning home to realise that his long lost homeland was a poverty stricken shithole and his father was a bastard who never cared about him. It would challenge the assumptions of a genre that frequently glamourises poverty, and it wouldn’t have any creepy overtones (unless you want to make a big thing about militarism).

Make the white man a south-Asian woman, however, and you start getting into difficulties, because now you’re not saying “being poor sucks” you’re saying “being foreign sucks”. Turn conscription into slavery and you’re not saying “you might be better off in the army than on a farm” you’re saying “you might be better off as a slave in Europe than as a free man in your own country.” Add in the courtesan angle and you’re saying “it is a good thing for south-Asian women to be sold as sex slaves to European men.”

I hope I don’t need to point out that this really isn’t okay.

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I have an astronomy test today! Everybody cross their fingers for me, yeah?

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One of my cousins was using 'gay' as a derogatory epithet today. I expressed that I did not find that very palatable, and she was offended and got bitchy, among her 'defenses' that 'no one uses gay for homosexual people anymore!' and 'faggot turned from a bundle of wood into an epithet so that makes it okay!' and a collection of others, equally tiresome.

I feel very tired. She came in later and said some nasty things about Megan Fox, specifically about how 'self-absorbed' she was or some shit. Very cliche, typical misogynist shit aimed at Megan Fox, but then again I wasn't particularly surprised by this coming from the girl who thought she, as a privileged person, got to dictate whether or not an epithet was insulting to a minority.

Oh, and she got real offended when I didn't have much patience for her comments about Megan Fox, either. Something about how I was 'jumping on everything she said.' It makes me nauseous to hear those familiar lines coming out of my family's mouth.

It always makes me so much more bitter when it comes from someone I know personally.

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Another Merlin post, this time a bit of a linkspam to articulate, well-thought out opinions, specifically concerning where Merlin falls through in gender and race issues.

How Not to Handle a Woman: The Problem(s) with Morgana

The White Mists of Avalon: Thoughts on Morgana's Race


And this, not on Merlin: [IBARW] It's not murder, it's a metaphor

Abstract: If you're going to argue about a text's metaphorical or allegorical representations of race, you may want to take a look at how it treats actual people of color before forming your conclusions about the subversion of racial stereotypes.

This includes huge problems I have with a frequent approach to supernatural genres: associating the plight of minority groups with the plight of supernatural beings that actually feed off of humans/are animals is actually pretty insulting in its own right.

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Merlin 2x07 and 2x08

How much do I love Morgause? I love her a lot. More than I expected to. She feels like a person, which I halfway didn't expect, considering the show's general development of female characters. How much do I love Morgause/Morgana/Gwen's interactions in this episode? A LOT. I like that she helped her, and their concern, and the interplay between them in the scant seconds we're given.

Here is my opinion on Merlin and Uther in the episode. ANGRY. (My second comment is a little less frothingly angry.)


I love the dragon.

Wait, people are depending on Merlin? You mean all the many, many people that he's pretty much murdered indirectly by saving a serial killer with a monstrously large kill count again and again? Wow. I'm sure they're glad to hear that.

I'm really glad that Morgana told on Gaius. People have been whining about how she 'threw Gaius to the wolves'--she told the truth. I feel nothing for Gaius. He has aided, abetted and supported a murderer for years and then--most loathesome--tried to blame the victims. Burn, baby, burn.

ETA: &hearts &hearts &hearts Can I just say how much I love Gwen, still and always, especially her detective work and her brilliance? Oh, but it's all the fault of the vanity of women, of course!

ETA2: Oh, and can I just say--this was the first episode where I really, really felt for Arthur. The actor hasn't had that much to do, emotionally, before now, but he was incredible here. I wanted to cry and scream encouragement at once. And even though I know they'll cop out when there is the reveal, I really want this to be dealt with; Merlin's first true betrayal of his prince, and it is a horrific one.

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From randomsome1 on IJ: Fanlore steals.

Where is the outrage? Is it because these people are supposedly fans? Fanlib said they might copy parts of &/or a work to a different location and people flipped the fuck out. These people lift artwork without permission and run roughshod over the 'zinemakers, the people who helped really get this fannish boat sailing to begin with, and I only hear about it from a friend of Sockii's? How do any of us know that our fanworks, in any format, won't be lifted for their site/archive under the guise of some sort of historical importance?

Yeah, I'm...not touching Yuletide after this. No way, no how. Which is a shame, because I've been tempted by the unanswered prompts before, but I'm not letting them touch anything I make if they think it means they have the right to do whatever they please with it.

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- Take four books off your bookshelf.
- Write the first sentence
- Write the last sentence on page fifty
- Write the second sentence on page one hundred
- Write the next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
- Write the final sentence of the book
- Let your friends guess what book it is.


BOOK ONE
- Dear Diary,
something awful is going to happen today.
- Sometimes, right after the funeral, she had come out here to rage at them, angry with them for being so stupid as to get themselves killed.
- "I guess we ought to go after her."
- I'm not going to press criminal charges against Tyler.
- Just one word, but the one she knew would bring him.

BOOK TWO
- The wolf awoke.
- "Pay...pay...you talk about payment."
- And besides, there are things that make you seem young as children; the rocks, the sea, and the stars.
- All members, subject to their fear of hunting or surviving alone, were free agents.
- He shivered as the pack closed in.

BOOK THREE
- The cavernous maw of the warehouse was like the throat of some huge beast, and even though it was large and airy claustrophobia still tore at my throat.
- Paper stirred uneasily on her desk, stroked into motion by the tension in the air.
- What possible difference could it make?
- "Thanks for the compliment," I managed, my jaw set tight as I bent down to wrench my knife free of a werecain's ribs.
- It didn't matter.

BOOK FOUR
- Jenny glanced back over her shoulder.
- But it isn't, Tom, it isn't...
- Audrey was lying in a ball beside Jenny near the bottom of the slope.
- The one of a painting in front of an open window, matching the landscape outside exactly.
- One of them flicked out a knife and slit the tape.

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I'd pretty abandoned any interest in Smart Bitches, Trashy Books when they posted a book review that, frankly, sounded exactly like the uglier behavior of fanatical fangirls; they called the heroine a Mary Sue because she had friends and complained that the hero shouldn't have fallen in love with her because she wasn't nice enough to him.

Basically, fulfilling the whole 'jackass men are hawt, angry women are bitches and should die alone' trope to the painful, painful hilt.

But some of the quotes from their new book sound awfully tempting, even genuinely amusing and insightful about the genre...I'm wrestling with myself.

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FAIL, DISNEY. TOTAL, TOTAL FAIL.

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I keep coming across this caption, on icons and banners and such in very varied fandoms:

"sex on fire"

I get the feeling it's supposed to indicate burning sexiness, but my first thought is, "sounds like infection" and my second thought is "owww" and my third thought is laughter. Does anyone know where it comes from?

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Aaaaand back to the subject of racist white women, Kirstie Alley trashes any esteem I had for her as a person after her protest of Polanski.

"becuz it is my observation that African Americans are more free and fun and light hearted, as are Italians..."

Oh, christ. Then she goes on to dig herself deeper and deeper. Next she throws a big, public temper tantrum over being called out. Good lord, what a child. What a sad, arrogant, petulant little child.


And to cap things off as completely depressing, here's this: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Inspires The Murder Of Children

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Announcement: I have no idea how I am going to survive Multi-Cultural class this quarter even remotely sane.

The teacher is great. The class would be agonizing instead of infuriating if he wasn't, and after having a long talk with him it's actually not as stressful and upsetting for me anymore. But oh my god, the students...

Today a woman tried to tell me that by dressing scantily, women were 'asking for it.' And then defended the stance at length, one of her arguments being 'it's like putting a steak in front of a dog.' Then right after class, my two table mates (both female) condescendingly did their best to put me in my place. I was ready to spit nails.

People are so goddamn determined to IGNORE the male in this scenario. THIS IS NOT ABOUT A WOMAN'S MANNER OF DRESS. This is about one sentient, conscious, thinking being making the deliberate conscious choice to assault, violate and brutally harm, mentally or physically or both, another sentient, conscious, thinking being.

In other words: STFU. I'm not buying your piping-hot misogyny. Even Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler couldn't sell it.

They also tried to say the women 'weren't respecting themselves.' I wish I'd thought to say at the time; 'no, you aren't respecting them, or yourself, by trying to make excuses for rapists. Get the hell out of my gender and planet.'

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A-AWESOME

IT'S ALREADY OUT. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS.

On the other hand, I was watching it going 'I really hope Lola gets to do more' and she doesn't even appear once. **sulks**

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I have never read or seen the Dragon Ball, and yet when I saw a page about the history of Honolulu on their site (.gov and everything) that mentioned "King Kamehameha I, who conquered Oahu in a decisive battle..." my mind went straight there.

**shakes head** Internet fandom osmosis is no joke.

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I need to stop getting, like actually angry over the shit Allan Ball does to Charlaine Harris's books, but this just stirred up boiling anger that never left me.

Ball said the Vampire King of Mississippi is coming in season three. He provides a contrast to Sophie-Anne, the Vampire Queen of Louisiana (Evan Rachel Wood). “He’s older,” Ball said. “He’s much more mature. He’s much more methodical and grounded. She’s kind of crazy. To me, she’s kind of like Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan, where she has a very short attention span and she’s very, very egomaniacal and very self-obsessed and doesn’t really think about her actions, whereas the Vampire King is very much an adult. He has an agenda. He has things he wants to achieve. I think he’s much more formidable than she is.”

So basically, he took Sophie-Anne's character and gave it to a man. Who is, of course, this being True Blood, 'much more formidable.' And set her up to take a disastrous fall and have 'higher' vampire authorities PO'd at her.

I mean, he spends the entire second season undermining and sidelining Sookie--I'm not even mentioning Calypso being turned into Maryanne--and a fair amount of the first season too, so I'm not surprised, just frustrated all over again.

ALLAN BALL. SOOKIE DOES NOT NEED POWERS TO BE AWESOME. SHOVE OFF.

(Source.)


All I've been doing is complaining lately!

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I'm not sure why Uther being an asshole is supposed to surprise/alarm/set off warning bells for anyone. So he indiscriminately murders his people, but they're shocked if he taxes them? He isn't acting any different than usual, beyond fawning over Sarah Parrish, who is actually kind of awesome.

ETA: Guys, I can't help but think that saying 'Uther is good king except for the whole magic thing!' is like saying, 'he's a good boyfriend except for the bit where he stabs me in the face when I breathe in the vicinity of another man!'

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On Hating Female Characters.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about how many readers seem to hate female characters more than they hate male. Or rather that the same behaviour from a male character is okay but someone inexcusable in a female.

NO KIDDING. I read and enjoyed this post a while back, but a link popped up on my flist, and I returned to it and decided in light of some recent comments I'd read that it needs to be sung from the rooftops.

She also has a very good post here: The Advantages of Being a White Writer Highly recommended.

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My Multi-Cultural class--a class that tries to teach the students to acknowledge/understand/fight racism, sexism, hetereosexism, ableism, classism (and on)--upsets me, badly.

I walk away from every class where I have to interact with my fellow students feeling indefinably sick, with a greasy, twisting knot of anxiety, dissatisfaction and unhappiness in my stomach. I trip over my words. I get upset over the issues and can't express myself properly, especially since my tendency is to shut down and fold inward when upset; they don't even listen to statements the teacher has made five seconds earlier, they're so convinced they're right, why would they listen to me?

I went to this class because I thought it would--I don't know, teach me, be a place for discussion, and I have learned and I'm glad for it, but I just.

I feel so awful and miserable and twisted up in knots almost every class.

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There's plot! There's plot threads coming together by way of answers! There's the strong potential for some actual resolution!

There's not enough Rinali.

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Well, uh.

I made some remark about smug villains/antagonists/anti heroes not being my thing. Then I accidentally watched a clip of Supernatural! Now smug heroes are so far beyond 'not my thing' it's a little alarming.

bleurgh, Dean Winchester, why such a misogynistic sack of shit

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Wow I actually cannot believe Joss Whedon ever had the sheer gall to call himself a feminist. GUESS WHAT. YOU'RE NOT. END OF STORY.

Spoilers within, but they're warned for before they're reached.


I was remembering Nalini Singh's novella in her Angel's Blood series, one about Ashwini and the vampire she hunts on and off. In this, the angel--who is pretty much a carbon copy of Raphael--is treated the way a sane person would treat them. She's creeped out by his come-on, spooked, and hopes to interact with him as little as possible. At the time I didn't put much thought into it, but the only difference I can really come up with between the angel and archangel is that one--the one acknowledged as negative--is black.

Mm. Well.

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I was thinking about white privilege, and racism and all the -isms and the baggage that goes with it. On top of what I have as a white person, even as a girl and a feminist there have been and probably still are sexist views that I've subconsciously absorbed and not yet unearthed or examined.

A while back I was reading Anne Bishop and she made a remark about 'feminine' in her books. The quote is on my profile, I liked it so much, and it goes like this: "....the gist of it being whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and whatever she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't.""

And I had to reevaluate what I, a girl, thought of as feminine. I mean, what does feminine mean?

1. pertaining to a woman or girl: feminine beauty; feminine dress
....
4. belonging to the female sex; female

(I deleted the two between because, to be frank, they very demonstrably displayed the very cultural manipulation of roles that I'm complaining about.)

And what is our cultural view of 'feminine', especially in regards to clothing? Delicate. Pink. Satin. Lace. Frivolous. And what cultural image does all that feed into? The 'fragile' woman. The one that needs to be protected. She can't run in it, and it sure as hell isn't going to offer her any protection against the world. The one that needs the man to make decisions for her (frivolous, clothes as too important) and, for example, control her money.

So when you're talking about theoreticals, and societal views, and stereotypes and archetypes and tropes, fine. You can use feminine in that manner all you like. But what 'feminine' really means is 'female.'

And we can be whatever we damn well want to be.

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Wow, I'm crossing 'Warehouse 13' off of my viewing list.

Warehouse 13 also treats the idea of history being powerful, dangerous, and relevant today as a crazy, fantastical notion. "Who would think that? Doesn't everyone know that the past is something we tear down and lock away in the attic to make room for the new?" Well, it turns out that not everybody does think that way. Especially people, like indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and other victims of imperialism throughout the world, who had their language and/or history and/or culture and/or lives forcibly removed by colonizing powers. A power like, say, the United States government.

An assessment of the artifacts shown therein.

Twilight vs Quileute legends: Where it points out that despite Meyer stating she was telling the truth, she just appropriated the name and lied her ass off. It describes the actual legends.

Pocahontas. Ohhh, Pocahontas. Too many issues with Disney's story to count, but this one does a pretty good job. And an analysis of the second movie, too. It's like The Other Boleyn Girl for racism.

Here is the Powhatan response to the Pocahontas myth.

We of the Powhatan Nation disagree. The film distorts history beyond recognition. Our offers to assist Disney with cultural and historical accuracy were rejected. Our efforts urging him to reconsider his misguided mission were spurred.

"Pocahontas" was a nickname, meaning "the naughty one" or "spoiled child". Her real name was Matoaka. ....The truth of the matter is that the first time John Smith told the story about this rescue was 17 years after it happened, and it was but one of three reported by the pretentious Smith that he was saved from death by a prominent woman.

Yet in an account Smith wrote after his winter stay with Powhatan's people, he never mentioned such an incident. In fact, the starving adventurer reported he had been kept comfortable and treated in a friendly fashion as an honored guest of Powhatan and Powhatan's brothers. Most scholars think the "Pocahontas incident" would have been highly unlikely, especially since it was part of a longer account used as justification to wage war on Powhatan's Nation.

Euro-Americans must ask themselves why it has been so important to elevate Smith's fibbing to status as a national myth worthy of being recycled again by Disney. Disney even improves upon it by changing Pocahontas from a little girl into a young woman.

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On one hand: very pretty.

On the other: ooh, white men go into space, land on alien planet, either do a full-body 'blueface' or steal a native's body so they can gather intel on natives, and then make war. Oh, and a beautiful ~exotic~ native woman is involved in a starcrossed romance! Oh, and by doing this they 'fix' a disabled person.

I am feeling sour over this.

Especially after reading that this twit:



...is bragging about getting to use a whitewashed film about a Chinese-American martial artist and inventor as his vehicle. Here's what Tommy Zhou should actually look like:



FAIL DETECTED. If anyone's curious, it looks like the entire four-issue comic is online, completely legit at Drunkduck.com

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Y HALO THERE

Halloween was fun. I went trick or treating with three largely obnoxious boys, one of whom actually minded his behavior when asked to, and brought home about a truckload of candy. I wore fabulous facepaint--my mother drew it on--and wore a black velvet cape, so.

Fun.

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Worst Sexy Halloween Costumes

urgh urgh urgh


And the litany of people blaming a fifteen year old girl for being brutally assaulted while intoxicated has begun. I honestly didn't expect it in this particular case, which makes me too fucking stupid and idealistic for words.

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Oh good god.

The Demise of Off Our Backs

An examination--brief--of classism and racism--extensive--within a 'radical' feminist organization. The racism is awe inspiring to behold, fountaining up in a mess of hot, frothing entitlement, malice and prejudice.

Basically, a WOC calls the racist white women on their racism, and one explodes in messy rage, spiteful, appalling and horrifically racist and sexist language, and apparently is now seeking to bring charges against her. (Excerpts in the first link.)

I'm ashamed to know they call themselves feminists.

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One of--actually, a couple of--my female classmates today informed me that sexist romance novels were actually sexist against men, because they're portrayed as thinking with their dick.

Oh, yeah. Being portrayed as stronger, smarter, more capable, more important, more justified in all things and more deserving--and hey, not being portrayed as if only one of your gender (the one the man is interested in) is not evil!--and completely essential to any woman's happiness or feeling of completion in her life is so sexist! Gee, thanks for educating little ol' me.

(And yes, I know that--presumably--not all romance novels are that bad. But a frighteningly high percentage of them are jaw droppingly sexist.)

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A fifteen year old girl was sent to the hospital in critical condition after being gang-raped for two and a half hours. Fifteen people stood around, watched, and did nothing. Some joined in. She was only found--her life was only saved--because someone heard people bragging about it.

"As people announced over time that this was going on, more people came to see, and some actually participated," Gagan said.....The victim was found unconscious and "brutally assaulted" under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene "reminiscing about the incident."

...."This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it," Gagan said. "It was like a horror movie after looking at the evidence. I can't believe not one person felt compelled to help her."

I don't have any commentary for this. I'm just full of pure hatred; rage and terror and concern.

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