Okay, I have chocolate (thanks to B) and fresh iced tea and menthol cloves because I randomly found them at the gas station Friday, for the first time in almost a year. (I don't smoke regularly, but menthol cloves are my weakness. And now everyone who's reading the marching band au is smirking at me knowingly.) On the way home from a late day at work, I was flipping stations and caught "Born This Way" on the radio. (Still not a fan of the faily lyrics.)

Let's do this.

( Glee  )

Sporadic, exhausted commentary, but I think I liked more than I didn't. (What I didn't like, though, caused great rage. GREAT RAGE.)

What the title says: more links.

mardia throw my head back and shout, come on now

Quote: I deal with racism all the time, and I very rarely--if ever--have a choice about when I have to deal with it. So the oh-so-common trope of "White Person Opens Their Eyes To Racism In Their Society" doesn't really appeal to me. In fact, it does nothing except piss me off.

Yay for you, you've noticed that the world is fucking racist. Would you like a medal? A pat on the back? An acknowledgment of the fact that you have deigned to notice a part of my reality, my world, that I have to deal with all the fucking time? Should I be happy that you're supposedly bothering to give a fuck?

Should I feel bad for how much racism sucks for you?

The answer is no. I do not feel bad for your rose-colored glasses being snatched off your face. I do not bad because you are weeping tears because oh noes, slavery happened and segregation happened and people still use racial slurs and oh noes, people are still being oppressed! I do not feel bad because you have decided to take all that oppression and all that tragedy and all those real-world problems with no easy answers or solutions and make them all about you.

ephemere Itys

Quote: Rather, my primary concern is the system. Because it is wrong, and it remains powerful and pervasive, and allowing it to go unchallenged only makes it stronger. How can anyone who truly knows how terrible the system is as it crushes people's rights wonder that people are angry? How can anyone dismiss that anger without at the same time undermining the reasons for this anger? Is stemming the tide of anger, is attempting to reduce the force of the backlash, in any way just? I ask you: you have dammed a river for centuries; when it breaks through its bounds do you expect it in any way to be kind? Say that anger can only result in defensiveness; say that numbers merely mean a mob -- I will say that sometimes only the shock of an impact can break a wall; that numbers speak of the greatness of the injustice.

I am weary of people speaking of anger as if it were a chosen, controllable thing. It is so tiring, this anger, and I would will it away from me if I could. It exhausts me to go into arguments with the full expectation that I will have to defend myself from accusations simply because I am angry. I don't even have to wonder about the lines of thought that lead to these statements -- why should I, when I'm surrounded by the same system that has taught us to suffer in silence, to be patient, to work hard, to deserve the voices and the rights to be regarded as equal with those who have taken these very things away? I know (because I have been told, over and over) that one shouldn't blame anyone else for ignorance, that one should value intention, that one shouldn't deride those who mean well because eventually they'll learn.

Maybe they'll learn. Maybe they won't. But I refuse to stay silent in the meantime. An act that perpetuates oppression, if unchallenged, only serves to reinforce oppression. The more people that choose to recuse themselves from speaking out, due to fear of giving offense, the less there will be to join the struggle against these wrongs. Speak to me of the hue and the cry. Speak to me of it, again and again, because it is still necessary, and it is still not enough, and the fact that we have to raise these issues, over and over, is an outrage in and of itself.

medie I'm sorry, what with the where with the fucking what?

Quote: I can't ask myself how someone could do this. We live in a culture where filmmakers can produce racist, misogynistic bullshit and get held up as visionaries. Fandom, surprisingly, is actually a place where racism, homophobia, and misogyny are more visible and more likely to be called out (and generate reaction like this) whereas offline, not so much. It takes more, longer, and is forgotten much more quickly in the 24-hour news cycle.

I make an ableist comment in my DW/LJ, it's quickly and rightly called out. I make a similar comment in every day conversation and no one but me notices (bless fandom and the people I've met in it for that. I might not catch every comment before I make it, but damn do I censure the hell out of myself afterward because I know better).

AND

But then again, how can anyone live through the history we have and still produce Centurion? Avatar? Sex and the City 2?

How could it happen? How could it not?

One of the first fannish steps to doing it? Blame the fandom it occurred in.

I've seen so much "oh, of course, SPN/J2" in the course of this and, seriously, no. SPN is, by in large, no saint. Neither the show (*facepalms*) or the fandom (*epic facepalm*) but that's not isolated to that one.

Gateverse? Trek? DCU? Marvel? Some obscure fandom so teeny Yuletide couldn't even nominate it? Yep, there too.

That's the thing of this. The best way to all but guarantee it happens in 'your' (and I include me here) fandom is to say that. Worse than that, it all but guarantees 'you' (same here, hi medie) will be the one doing it.

So do you know why people keep linking you things they think you'll enjoy but which you've already posted about? Why, it's because you managed to post it privately. Smooth.

1) Good Fourth Walls Make Good Neighbors

In responses to this piece of artwork, I keep seeing one thing and not seeing another thing which I want to address, even beyond whether Supernatural outed fans. The thing I keep seeing is that this is obviously an unhealthy, abusive relationship because the wife has to rub her husband's feet to get him to watch the show with her. That's not what I took away from it at all; instead, I took away a loving, teasing exchange where they give each other things each like, not that the husband was forcing the wife to rub his feet in order for him to watch the show. (I'm not sure I'm being clear describing this, but I saw it much more as one of those private jokes, a Sure I'll do this but you owe me type of joke which my friends and family and I do all the time in a loving, fun way.)

The thing I don't see (and would love to read about if anyone has seen it) is the idea that maybe the husband isn't mad so much because the wife is writing queer incest on the internet but is upset because she's been lying to him (and possibly all their family and friends) about it. And yes, I know there are people who don't share their fannish activities with their friends and family and coworkers, etc., because they can't or won't or other things or combinations of reasons, but I do think that the husband finding out that his wife has been lying to him about something that (we can assume) brings her such great joy would be a shock to him.

I'm not sure why it bothers me so much that all the analysis I've seen paints the husband as this evil, dominating person who is forbidding her to do what she wants and that's not what I took away from it at all. I understand what the piece was trying to do (comment on what Supernatural did) but I am bothered by the way only one analysis is really being addressed.

2) Chromatic casting

Most of what's below I wrote before, but this part in particular is new and very important. crossedwires has an excellent post in defense of the chromatic casting meme.

Some awesome people have been doing some awesome chromatic casting for various things. I want these so badly I don't even have words.

My favorite one ever is, of course, st-aurafina casting Michelle Rodriguez as Wolverine because yes, yes, goddamn yes.

handyhunter's Chromatic Marvel casting picspam (I particularly love Gina Torres as Emma Frost, because I think Gina could do amazing things with that role.)

bossymarmalade's Chromatic Marvel casting picspam (I stopped breathing for a second when I saw the suggestion of America Ferrera as Wolfsbane, because it is so very perfect. <3 Wolfsbane.)

liviapenn's Chromatic Marvel casting picspam (Which has Vin Diesel as Ben Grimm, a casting choice I am completely, utterly, absolutely behind. I was left speechless with glee and also the hotness. UNF.)

entwashian's Chromatic Buffy casting picspam

trascendenza's Chromatic Star Trek and DC casting picspam

And since I posted this privately, there has been more talk about it:

Chromatic Comics at Fantastic Fangirls

Chromatic Casting DC

Chromatic DCU casting

National Treasure chromatic casting

3) Marvel comics: Pietro and Scott write letters to each other

This is awesome. Dear Pietro

4) Pirates of the Caribbean

This piece is a couple years old, and I may have linked it before, but I really enjoy it, so I'm linking it here either way.

The Tia Dalma conflict

I'm starting to think I'm allergic to my apartment building. Maybe the cleaning materials they use in the hallway? I would like to stop being sick any time now. So, from my sickbed (which looks a lot like my couch), television.

Sons of Anarchy "Gilead"

( spoilers )

And now, Glee's one last chance to stop sucking.

"Vitamin D"

( Spoilers )

Glee links:

I really like what Zvi says here:

Okay, here's the problem with Glee. Every single week, I watch and I feel hoodwinked. Per the promo and the pilot, I really thought I was going to get what amounted to Revenge of the Nerds for a contemporary TV audience: a multicultural group of misfits takes on the social hierarchy and uses their misfit powers to destroy it. Although Rachel was the student featured most heavily in the pilot, I figured that we would rotate our way through a large ensemble, and that we would get plenty of time for Mercedes, Tina, Kurt, and Artie to tell their stories as completely as Rachel told hers.

Instead, every week I'm watching the shenanigans of a self-centered Spanish teacher and his unhealthy relationships with every woman he knows over the age of twenty, plus the quarterback and the head cheerleader, plus the "best" singer in Glee club. (And, seriously, it's actually really disheartening to me that everyone accepts her assertion that she's the best singer in Glee, since it's clear that Mercedes is Rachel's vocal equal, if not superior, and the ¿two? times we've heard Tina solo, her voice seemed like it might be as good, too. Quinn is not in Rachel's league, but she's the only female soloist we've heard so far who clearly is not. It's also really, er, bizarre to me that Finn was recruited as a saving male voice and has gotten 90% of the male solos, and he just doesn't have a professional quality voice. I mean, for an actor, he sings quite nicely, but he's theoretically playing a singer, and he really doesn't cut it.)

I also love what handyhunter says about Mercedes here:

So, there's a line in Glee that Mercedes says: "I don't like this minority business. I may be a strong, proud black woman, but I'm a lot more than that." I initially interpreted/heard that as "I'm more than a token minority." But what she actually says is, "I may be a strong, proud black woman, but I'm a lot more than that." A lot more than being a black woman. More than her race. Which is another way of saying acting more white, because that's what acting more than your race means. When was the last time white people had to transcend their whiteness, after all. It also probably says something that I had to think about this to see the wrongness in it.

Finally, I keep seeing previews for Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant and it looks like fun, but I'm always left thinking, Why isn't Darren a girl? By which I mean, of course the author of these books has every right to write about a boy, but where are the adventure stories about girls becoming vampires for the adventure and not for love? Or the movies based on these stories?