Links of Awesome, Links of Angst
(via coffeeandink) trouble has a great post up about social justice blogs that have been silenced by extreme personal attacks. One of the ones she lists (still posting, but permanently closed to comments) is this ain't livin'.
To which I can only say, where has this blog been all my life? It's beyond fabulous.
s.e. smith, the blogger, posts brilliant thoughts on disability, genderqueer politics, and pop culture. I find it sad and infuriating and sadly-infuriatingly-not-surprising that intelligent posts on Joss Whedon seem to have prompted the firestorm of violent threats that forced smith to close the blog down to comments.
But please go read! smith is amazing. I devoured the posts on disability on Angel, and I've never even seen the show. I think those of you who are watching Glee or Lost would enjoy the perspective.
In other news, Tami of What Tami Said has done a post on race, gender, and sexuality in urban fantasy/paranormal romance; the Racialicious post has a lot of recommendations for good (and take-downs of bad) examples of the genre that include characters of color.
A must-read by impertinence :
It's not that I'm blaming you, it's just that it's your fault (trigger warning for non-explicit discussion of sexual violence)
To which I would like to add: what if you lived in a community in which the police were historically agents of oppression--in which you had added incentives not to trust them? In the area in which I live, black, immigrant, and LGBT communities all have long histories of being killed, raided, harassed, and humiliated by the cops, and it really does matter when people decide when or whether to dial.
And another, because it is made of awesome: Fannish spaces, girls, and the culture of silence bybookshop An excerpt:
We, as part of fannish culture, teach girls to stop writing about themselves and start writing guys doing things with guys. We dress it up so it feels empowering, and on the level of sexual and personal exploration, yes, it is and can be very empowering; but we're still silencing ourselves, and we are doing it constantly and systematically.
selenak has started an interesting discussion on point of view in fanfiction, and different ways the tension between what the character, the author, the show, and the fandom believe to be right affect our readings: From a certain point of view...
And tielan has both a poll and some very interesting thoughts for those of you in Merlin fandom, especially if you ship Gwen/Arthur.
To which I can only say, where has this blog been all my life? It's beyond fabulous.
s.e. smith, the blogger, posts brilliant thoughts on disability, genderqueer politics, and pop culture. I find it sad and infuriating and sadly-infuriatingly-not-surprising that intelligent posts on Joss Whedon seem to have prompted the firestorm of violent threats that forced smith to close the blog down to comments.
But please go read! smith is amazing. I devoured the posts on disability on Angel, and I've never even seen the show. I think those of you who are watching Glee or Lost would enjoy the perspective.
In other news, Tami of What Tami Said has done a post on race, gender, and sexuality in urban fantasy/paranormal romance; the Racialicious post has a lot of recommendations for good (and take-downs of bad) examples of the genre that include characters of color.
A must-read by impertinence :
It's not that I'm blaming you, it's just that it's your fault (trigger warning for non-explicit discussion of sexual violence)
To which I would like to add: what if you lived in a community in which the police were historically agents of oppression--in which you had added incentives not to trust them? In the area in which I live, black, immigrant, and LGBT communities all have long histories of being killed, raided, harassed, and humiliated by the cops, and it really does matter when people decide when or whether to dial.
And another, because it is made of awesome: Fannish spaces, girls, and the culture of silence bybookshop An excerpt:
We, as part of fannish culture, teach girls to stop writing about themselves and start writing guys doing things with guys. We dress it up so it feels empowering, and on the level of sexual and personal exploration, yes, it is and can be very empowering; but we're still silencing ourselves, and we are doing it constantly and systematically.
selenak has started an interesting discussion on point of view in fanfiction, and different ways the tension between what the character, the author, the show, and the fandom believe to be right affect our readings: From a certain point of view...
And tielan has both a poll and some very interesting thoughts for those of you in Merlin fandom, especially if you ship Gwen/Arthur.