Three things on romance, because three is enough to put random topics in one post.

1. thelittlebang, a challenge comm for femslash fanfic with complementary art and vids, now has submissions rolling in. Check the fanworks masterlist on the profile page for things you might be interested in. There's fic for things you only need a general familiarity with like fairytales and Arthurian legend.


2. (Hetero) Male Romance in Avatar: the Last Airbender :
   I thought my first post on AtLA would be a rant about the series finale, a mention of race and the casting fail of the movie, a general squee post, or about Katara. But it ends up being about romance, because it's a shorter topic to cover. Okay, it makes me skeptical whenever I hear that romance is for women, and action is for men, and that the romance plot in action movies is for the girlfriends of the presumed straight male audience. I always had a suspicion that there are romances for men/boys, but it would look different than romances for women/girls. I couldn't think of any examples off the top of my head. But watching AtLA, Aang/Katara is like a textbook case of what hetero male romance looks like. One form of hetero male romance is about earning the girl's love/first date/hand in marriage/etc, trying to impress the girl and get her attention.
   
   Avatar's AU Short, School Time Shipping, is an example of what I mean. (It's non-spoilery.)


3. Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, Love is Not All, is the most romantic thing ever. It spans mundane and epic sentiments; a dry sense of humor threads together cynicism and idealism; it's sublimely bittersweet. It's, guh.
   
   ( Millay's poem behind the cut. )

AfterEllen, a website geared towards lesbian/bi content in Western (primarily United Statesian) media, is streaming Aoi Hana, a yuri anime. I never thought I'd see streaming anime be offered to a non-anime audience, let alone have niche yuri anime make the crossover.

Aoi Hana, a.k.a. Sweet Blue Flowers, is a slice-of-life drama about schoolgirls with a more realistic handling of girls' relationships, both friendships and romances. The manga art and paneling is gorgeous.

AfterEllen currently has the first episode up, and a review of the anime that explains yuri to newbies. You can get new episodes faster if you register on Crunchy Roll. There may be regional issues to viewing the anime, but I'm sure a google would turn up alternate ways to view it.

Lililicious has four volumes of the manga available free to download. Or you can go to Manga Fox to read the manga online.

Personally I prefer this kind of story in a manga format, but wanted to point out the availability of the anime.

Sometimes it's easier to talk about things that you don't have much to say. I can talk about my opinion about Merlin, but I have a hard time blogging about Avatar: the Last Airbender because it ate my brain.

1. Merlin:
Hearing all the Merlin squee and watching a few fanvids got me to check out 3.5 episodes. It helps that NBC is showing the eps in the U.S. So when does the cracktastic goodness, and/or femslashy vibes kick in? I also heard that there's lots of m/m slashy vibes, but so far Arthur makes me roll my eyes.

2. On Sampling Michael Jackson:
Yeah, I know it's been two weeks since his death. During the week following Jackson's death, a lot of blog posts went up about him, which led me to watching his music vids on YouTube. I knew some of his work, knew some stuff about him via cultural osmosis, wasn't a fan of his, but was still struck by how familiar some of his songs were. I finally figured out why-- a lot of musicians, especially hip hop artists, sampled Michael Jackson's songs. Oh, and his stuff in the Jackson 5.

3. Queerly Gen is a fic comm on DreamWidth that:

This community will be hosting a festival of gen fanworks featuring sexual and gender minority characters of all tasty flavors -- queer, trans, gay, lesbian, intersex, bisexual, genderqueer, questioning, flamingly ambiguous. Because when you get kicked out of one party, sometimes the best response is to go throw your own.

A cursory skim of the comm shows some interesting meta. Livejournal's lgbtfest has some genfic offerings featuring queer characters.

I haven't posted for a while, haven't looked at my f-list in a while. But while I was playing catch up, I came across redbrickrose's link to Buffy vs. Edward (Twilight Remixed), read her comments section, and wrote a reply that became a tl;dr about teenage girls and creepy vampire boyfriends, and meta I keep coming across that's started to bother me. And it's not just the vampire lover thing, I've also seen the creepy obsessive romance played out without the vampire boyfriend, with characters older than teenagers, in fanfic and original works, and in non-hetero romances. (I've seen it in m/m slash fanfic and yaoi/BL in shoujo manga and what little yaoi manga I've read, and run across it in some f/f works like yuri.)

What I wanted to expand upon was what redbrickrose wrote here:

Twilight is super creepy. There are things about Buffy that I feel like this video doesn't address - mostly her relationships with Spike and Angel and those were arguably kind of creepy at points, but Buffy is such a strong character and I do feel like this video just highlighted everything that was creepy about Edward/Bella because so much of it did read, to me, as the early stages of an abusive relationship.

You make good points, but the way I see it, Buffy's strength and Bella's weakness doesn't make much of a difference in how creepy the relationship is. Both stories contain teenage girls getting into relationships with stalkery vampire boyfriends, but in BtVS the power imbalance in the relationship isn't so big so the creepy stuff doesn't come off as so bad. Buffy's a superpowered fighter, Buffy sets boundaries, Angel and Spike eventually take steps to stop or make up for their behavior.

But the problems in the relationship are still there no matter how strong/confident/whatever Buffy (or any person) is, because one partner is still engaging in creepy stalking mofo behavior. My thing is that Buffy shouldn't have to happen to be a superpowered fighter, or set boundaries such as, "Don't hurt me or my friends, don't stalk me, don't try to control me with threats/violence/intimidation/head games," or assume responsibility for making sure Angel and Spike treat her with a minimum of decent behavior. The creepiness comes from the vampire boyfriends' problematic behavior, not how their girlfriends' react to it or whether the girl is strong or weak.

( This may have started as a lengthy comment, but took on a life of its own when I decided to post this on my LJ. Here lies some serious tl;dr. )

RaceFail 2009 is like a circle of hell where you end up going round and round and getting nowhere. This could be because it's so big, it's hard to keep up with what's been going on. Thus, this post.

Previously... ( Read more... )

Currently...

In the March edition of RaceFail 2009, we have Will S.[1] and Kathryn Cramer outing coffeeandink by linking her online alias to her legal name. They also made wild speculations about vom_marlowe and others.

vom_marlowe responds to Will S. here on her real background: Fucking Will Shetterly Insults Me and My Family.

coffeeandink wrote in RaceFail: Once More, with Misdirection:

Kathryn Cramer has been linking my LJ to my full name on wikis and in other people's blog comments and has repeatedly stated that my participation in RaceFail debates was an attempt to smear the Nielsen Haydens in grudgewank, even though I was involved in that discussion long before the Nielsen Haydens joined in, as is proved in numerous places, such as the dated entries in our own livejournals and in the well-documented and widely linked timeline of posts. Will Shetterly has been posting speculations about my family, my class, my history, and my political and personal beliefs that he has presented as fact, as well as repeatedly misrepresenting what I've said about him, failing to provide context to or links to what I've said, and claiming that I have taken his words out of context and not allowed him to represent himself, even though I have included links to his original words and to his later defense. He has also posted speculation about [info]deepad (even after apologizing and retracting his first statement), [info]veejane, [info]ithiliana, [info]vom_marlowe, and [info]icecreamempress. He posted my full name and LJ on his blog, even though I deliberately do not list my last name on my LJ.

coffeeandinkdescribes how she wants things NOT to be handled.

Links to evidence:

Since Cramer has been moving the links around, and redirecting the links to different sites, here are the posts that have taken screencaps, saved the evidence, and give a timeline or summary of the events. ( Read more... )

On Blogging Safely: ( Read more... )

Discussion links: ( Read more... )

My reaction: ( Read more... )

---

[1] Will S. has a tendency to google his own name, and respond to the posters. I do not want to engage with him, thus the altered name.

[2] Yes, I know that some SF/science-fiction fans' heads explode if you use scifi. I like the term because it's short, and isn't confused with other abbreviations. Deal with it.

rydra_wong has a links roundup on how W**l Sh*****ly and Kathryn Cramer have misrepresented, and outed some of the participants in RaceFail 2009.

For greater context, there's rydra_wong's Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom 2009 tag.

. . .

One month is not long enough of a break to recover from RaceFail 2009 in January. February was a very short month. I was starting to look forward to March.

In episode 6, a man is murdered. This spurs Usagi to find out more about the case involving Mariya from five years ago, and about her past. It's angsty backstory time!

( *MASSIVE SPOILERS* hit the bulls-eye every time. )

In episode 5, a rich teenage boy is kidnapped by his teacher. There's also backstory on Usagi's past, and what it might have to do with the psycho killer a.k.a. Mariya.


( In Koshonin, laughing is a sign of a disturbed *MAJOR SPOILERS*. )

I found out that Koshonin translates to "The Negotiator" in English. Previous posts on Koshonin are under the dorama::koshonin tag.

Episodes 3 and 4 are two parts of a story. A motion-sensing and activated bomb is planted in a cafe. I'm personally impressed at how the show gets around a low budget to make an action/suspense story. (Or maybe it's low budget compared to U.S.A. productions.)

( Ep 3: Spoilers have staring matches with lions for lunch. )

( Episode 4, or part two of the bomb plot. )

I posted an introduction to Koshonin. I also plan on writing up the episodes when I watch it, so check the tags.

In episode 2, a man holds up factory employees working on the weekend, in what SIT thinks is a copycat of the first episode's hostage situation. The hostage taker singles out Usagi to be the negotatior. Some plot twists follow. (I'm not sure why my summaries make this series sound like Srs Bizness. It's more in the ballpark of Alias, or Xena: Warrior Princess, or what you'd get if Silence of the Lambs was less violent, more low budget TV serial, and didn't take itself seriously.)

Highlights: Usagi is a combo of keen insight, blunt diplomacy, good observation skills, quick thinking with dedicated training, and combat skills. Her last name also means rabbit in Japanese.

( Spoilers warn: Bunny has a gun. )

It takes some juggling to watch, pause in the middle, jot something down, and then keep watching. (I went back and fleshed out some of my points.)

Gotten from ranalore.

Comment on this post, and I'll tell you five things I associate with you. Then you can elaborate on your blog. If you want, you can also tell me five things you associate with me.

1. Queer as Folk
2. The ducks!
3. Chewy meta
4. The Hisoka drabbles
5. Kickass women

( Ramble here, ramble there, ramble everywhere. )

Koshonin is an 8 episode Japanese drama about Usagi Reiko, Japan's first female negotiator assigned to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), an elite police hostage negotiation force. Ep. 1 is an introduction to Usagi: her first days on the job and the way her co-workers don't want her there, her first assignment, her social life, the expectations on Japan's female workers, her weekly visits to a psycho killer she helped put in jail, and her motives for doing the job.

Her first assignment deals with a man with a gun holding his ex-wife's mother hostage. Since Usagi's a rookie and a woman, she's expected to hang in the background. Usagi has an insight on the case based on knowing about similar cases in the past. Her insight contradicts the chief's assessment of the situation, and he violently takes issue with it. Hostile work environment doesn't quite cover how badly the team treats her.

It's a good thing she's a badass. She's also talented in that "twice as good, for half the results" way. She carries herself as a hardboiled, steely, near misanthropic person. But she's driven by the conviction that no one should die, and every life counts even if they don't want it. She's an intersting mix of icy hardness, and passion.

rainscene has a picspam post, and even more reasons to watch the jdrama.

( Okay, the time for coherent sentences is over. Say hello to exclamation point abuse, run on sentences, and keyboard smash. )

Dear Joss Whedon,

Your white boy Orientalism fetish needs to get looked at. I can sort of live with your mishmash of Asian culture and Chinese language in Firefly/Serenity without having any actual Asians in the show. (It helps that the show was canceled before its time. I can pretend the uncanceled show would have had Actual Asians TM in it.) However, I take bigger issue with it when you have a show that has violation and exploitation built into the premise, then appropriate Asian objects and backgrounds, and then have two actual Asian characters in your pilot that: ( ... )

Ep 1.01

I did not like the pilot.

The pilot was oddly anemic, and washed out ( ... )

Ep. 1.02

I liked this ep much better than the pilot, and thought it had potential. ( Read more... )

In summary, I'm sticking around because I think there's potential, even if it's in the hope that the fandom could end up doing it better than the canon. Also, the series comes close to pushing my narrative buttons.

Venus Versus Virus is the Goth Lolita version of the teens fight against energy/soul sucking spirits/monsters/youma manga trope. In this series the monsters are called viruses; Venus Vanguard is an antique and jewelry shop that also doubles as a virus fighting agency; Sumire is the schoolgirl who's got latent psychic powers, is appealing to viruses, and needs training and protection; and Lucia is the eyepatch-wearing, gun toting fighter who initially rescues Sumire and introduces her to the supernatural world. If you've read supernatural fighting manga before, then you can see where this is all going. The first couple of volumes deals with the introduction of the setup, and standalone episodes involving the rescue of guest characters from the supernatural baddies. Somewhere around Volume 3 or 4, the longer plot arc is kicked off and the cast starts expanding. Volume 5 introduces the Big Bad, fleshes out the bad guys, and includes back story.

What distinguishes this manga from others is the Goth Lolita variety pack bishoujo spin to it, and the homosocial buddy bonding a.k.a. shoujo-ai/yuri fanservice between Lucia and Sumire. The artwork's pretty. The series has a nice mixture of action, relationships (friendship, familial, romantic), and slice of life. In English it's currently licensed by Seven Seas.

Check the series out if you like action heroines; magical girl adventure shoujo; supernatural fighting shounen; the seinen moe genre; Lolita fashion; partnerships; and/or yuri a.k.a. femslash subtext.

( Spoilers on Volume 5 starts here. )

Right after the new year, my old computer died. It wasn't a complete surprise, since I had hardware problems with it. I did manage to save all my data beforehand.

I've found that when you don't have a main computer to call your own, portable apps are made of win. Portable apps (applications) are computer programs you can run off a USB drive or external hard drive. It's great when you don't feel comfortable changing too many things around on someone else's computer. It's primarily meant as an easy, convenient way to carry particular computer programs around. Or a way to do stuff on a computer and not leave any personal data on it.

For instance, you can save the portable version of Firefox on a USB drive, customize it to your liking, and then run it on another computer. That's what I did.

I got most of my portable apps off of Portable Apps. They're all free to download.

---

On another note, I've just got caught up with reading the personal LJs on my f-list since December 30, but I haven't looked at the comms. So anything major happen in fandom since late December to now? It looks like I got caught up just in time to see the kerfuffle about Elizabeth Bear's post, and deepad's post about sf/f and post-colonialism. I have thoughts, but I'm not sure if I can articulate them. I don't know if I have the time or spare mental energy.