Crystalmir

ninjaboots: neil-gaiman: London in 1927. Early colour film,...

Sun, 26 May 2013 01:21:40 -0400

neil-gaiman:

London in 1927.

Early colour film, and I watch this as if I’ve been given a window back into time. The women wear hats. Everyone wears hats. The police. The busses. The skyline…

If I could draw, I would be frantically sketching London busses wearing hats right now.

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment: serotonical: How to break out of...

Sun, 26 May 2013 01:15:28 -0400

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment:

serotonical:

How to break out of a zip-tie- potentially life-saving information

I’m not sure how exactly this is relevant, but I just feel like this is good info for all of you, should your characters be abducted within the narrative or something.

seriouslyamerica: New favorite meme: Old Economy Steven

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:54:31 -0400

seriouslyamerica:

New favorite meme: Old Economy Steven

framesjanco: IT ANNOYS ME TO NO END THAT PEOPLE GET ALL UP IN ARMS WHEN SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:48:21 -0400

framesjanco:

IT ANNOYS ME TO NO END THAT PEOPLE GET ALL UP IN ARMS WHEN SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT FEMINISM AND THEY GET THAT LOOK IN THEIR EYE LIKE “OH GOD HERE WE GO AGAIN” YEAH HERE WE FUCKING GO AGAIN I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU WITH A BOX OF TAMPONS AND SOME BRAS IF YOU KEEP PATRONIZING A MOVEMENT THAT EXISTS BECAUSE YOU ROLL YOUR EYES WHEN I TALK ABOUT EQUALITY

steffalopod: Taking A Stand Against Radical Feminism ah yes. the radical feminists. the rulers of...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:48:09 -0400

steffalopod:

Taking A Stand Against Radical Feminism ah yes. the radical feminists. the rulers of the earth. the majority of the house and senate, radical feminists. these radical feminists which hold positions of influence in the corporate sphere, the radical feminists that run our media. they are everywhere. these radical feminist overlords

wrestleforgold: greenteaandgreatworkouts: descroissants: In...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:33:58 -0400

wrestleforgold:

greenteaandgreatworkouts:

descroissants:

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon.The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29. [Wiki]

Awesome women in history.

The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys' by Soraya Chemaly

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:28:57 -0400

The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys' by Soraya Chemaly:

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!”

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement

from “The Problem with ‘Boys Will Be Boys’” by Sorya Chemaly

luckynote: jubilee-pageant-master: g-erti: i dreamed a dream in time gone by when hope was high...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:27:38 -0400

luckynote:

jubilee-pageant-master:

g-erti:

i dreamed a dream in time gone by

when hope was high and life worth living

i dreamed that love would never die

i dreamed the god would be forgiving

but the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder

as they tear your hope apart

as they turn your dream to shaaaaaaame

and still i dream she’ll come to me

and we will live the years together

but there are dreams that cannot be

and there are storms we cannot weather

it got better

blusherlock: “Even when the console’s turned off, users can simply say “Xbox On” to power up —...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:22:48 -0400

blusherlock:

“Even when the console’s turned off, users can simply say “Xbox On” to power up — which means the new Kinect will be listening to you in your living room at all times.”

shesdonejim: kicks down your door at 3 am and backs you into a wall I heard you were talkin...

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:14:15 -0400

shesdonejim:

*kicks down your door at 3 am and backs you into a wall* I heard you were talkin shit about jj abrams

*walks to your kitchen and pours myself a drink* allow me to join you

5 Reasons I Switched to Scrivener for All My Writing

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:16:44 -0400

5 Reasons I Switched to Scrivener for All My Writing:

dduane:

journeyers-scrapbook:

chronicwriter:

Recently, I switched to Scrivener. Though itâs advertised as a manuscript and script-writing tool, it works beautifully for all kinds of writing.

I’m downloading the free trial now. I’ll report on it on my Livejournal.

I just downloaded the free trial of Scrivener, and installed Evernote on all my devices!

Total agreement with the reasons to change. The learning curve is steep, but it’s worth it. I’ve been transitioning for some months now and love iScrivener more all the time as I learn its tricks.

I have this software and I love it. It takes a bit to learn your way around the features but once you have it down it has a very smooth interface. It’s also for both Mac and Windows which is nice.

omgthatdress: Ensemble Rei Kawabuko for Comme des Garçons,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:50:24 -0400

omgthatdress:

Ensemble

Rei Kawabuko for Comme des Garçons, 2001

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

luckynote: misandrwitch: wing fic is this weird thing im into but im sssssuper picky about it like...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:47:15 -0400

luckynote:

misandrwitch:

wing fic is this weird thing im into but im sssssuper picky about it like wow you woldnt think someone can make wing fic wrong but no they can

wrong

v wrong

u did not write this to my exact feelings specifications u dun goofed

please tell me there is star trek wing fic somewhere

i have looked and come up empty handed

There is some but not that much actually. It’s also all reboot stuff I’m pretty sure. I’m think it’s been put on Delicious so that would be the best place to find it.

omgthatdress: Dress Junya Watanabe for Comme des Garçons,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:00:28 -0400

omgthatdress:

Dress

Junya Watanabe for Comme des Garçons, 2002-2003

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

captain-rachel: allurious: some of excentrique’s summer ‘11...

Sat, 25 May 2013 06:30:20 -0400

captain-rachel:

allurious:

some of excentrique’s summer ‘11 collection; the librarian.

I really really want the top two rows, especially middle on 2nd row and the top one.

Ugh I just really want all of these.

publius-esquire: Founding Father Pin-Ups, 2nd Ed.: Tread on Me

Sat, 25 May 2013 02:40:36 -0400

How about a little XYZ Affair?

President Booty reporting for duty

Virginia is for lovers mmm

Raid my treasury

Ratify /this/

umff

publius-esquire:

Founding Father Pin-Ups, 2nd Ed.: Tread on Me

thesecretmichan: ussawesome: what if for the next star trek movie they hire a writer who is (GASP)...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:48:47 -0400

thesecretmichan:

ussawesome:

what if for the next star trek movie they hire a writer who is (GASP) A WOMAN

#[horrifed male gasp in the distance]

gothiccharmschool: Yes, I’ll take one of each, thanks. ::waits...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:47:09 -0400

gothiccharmschool:

Yes, I’ll take one of each, thanks. ::waits for them to materialize out of thin air::

shannagins:

Excentrique

ethicalbutchering: you know once hannibal gets caught and they all realize he’s a cannibal most...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:46:20 -0400

ethicalbutchering:

you know once hannibal gets caught and they all realize he’s a cannibal most people are going to be super traumatized. but there will be this one person who just starts laughing hysterically because they finally got all of hannibal’s jokes

ikenbot: Star Trek: Into Whiteness If there’s one thing that...

Fri, 24 May 2013 22:43:31 -0400

ikenbot:

Star Trek: Into Whiteness

If there’s one thing that most fans of Star Trek will agree on, it’s the fact that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the show — and, more optimistically, for human society — was predicated on the idea that all life is valuable, and that the worth of a person should not be judged by their appearance. Much of this was done through the old sci-fi trope of using aliens to stand in for oppressed groups, but Star Trek didn’t rely on the metaphor; it had characters who were part of the ensemble, important and beloved members of the Enterprise crew, who were people of colour. It had background characters who were people of colour. And, here and there, it had anti-heroes and villains who were people of colour … one of whom, Khan Noonian Singh, became well-nigh iconic.

Image 1: “Who is your favorite villain?” ; Actor John Cho (Lt Sulu) answers.

Image 2: TOS Khan looking at a watercolor of himself. Yes, he’s wearing a dastar (Sikh turban)

Image 3: Cumberbatch and Montalbán (as Khan)

And who is now being played by white actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the new JJ Abrams reboot movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness.

We’re all cynical and jaded enough to know the standard dismissal when it comes to matters of media representation: Paramount Pictures and most film studios are not interested in diversity or visibility, they only care about the bottom dollar. Star Trek as a franchise is too much of a juggernaut to affect with boycotts. There are too many people who love it, who love those characters and that world, and will go to see the movie. And for some of these people, this devotion to the idea of a future where even South and East Asian men get to pilot a starship and love swashbuckling, where Black women make Lieutenant on the Enterprise and actually get the boy, will be trivialized and eroded and whitewashed when the most formidable and complex Star Trek baddie becomes a white man named Khan.

It wasn’t perfect in the 60s when Ricardo Montalbán was cast to play Khan (a character explicitly described in the episode script of Space Seed as being Sikh, from the Northern regions of India). But considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory. It’s disappointing and demoralizing that with the commercial power of Star Trek in his hands, JJ Abrams chose not to honour the original spirit of the show, or the symbolic heft of the Khan character, but to wield the whitewash brush for … what? The hopes that casting Benedict Cumberbatch would draw in a few more box office returns? It’s doubly disappointing when you consider that Abrams was a creator of the television show Lost, which had so many well-rounded and beloved characters of colour in it.

Add to this the secrecy prior to release around Cumberbatch’s role in the film, and what seems like a casting move that would typically be defended by cries of “best actor for the job, not racism” becomes something more cunning, more malicious. Yes, the obfuscation creates intrigue around and interest in the role, but it also prevents advocacy groups like Racebending.com from building campaigns to protest the whitewashing. This happened with the character of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, as well as ‘Miranda Tate’ in The Dark Knight Rises, who ended up being Talia al Ghul but played by French actress Marion Cotillard. This practice is well in effect in Hollywood; and after the negative press that was generated by angry anti-oppression activists and fans when Paramount had The Last Airbender in the works, studios are wising up. They don’t want their racist practices to be called out, pointed at, and exposed before their movies are released — Airbender proved that these protests create enough bad feeling to affect their bottom line.

So the studio has now found a way to keep it secret and underhanded. Racebending.com was there for most of the production of The Last Airbender, and were even able to correspond with Paramount Pictures about it. This time, for Star Trek: Into Darkness, their hiding and opaque practices has managed to silence media watchdogs until the movie’s premiere.

As I said, this racist whitewashing of the character of Khan won’t affect how much money this Trek movie makes. And I’m happy that the franchise is popular, still popular enough to warrant not only a big-budget reboot with fantastic actors but also a sequel with that cast. I’m happy that actors I enjoy like Zoë Saldaña and John Cho are playing characters who mean so much to me, and that they, in respect for the groundbreaking contributions by Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in these roles, have paid homage to that past.

But all of that will be marred by having my own skin edited out, rendered worthless and silent and invisible when a South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.

And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.

What an enormous and horribly ironic step backwards. For Star Trek, for media representation, and for the vision of a future where we have transcended systemic, racist erasure.

(via RaceBending)