Wake the Sun

First off, a question: Do y'all think there'd be any interest in a Sci-fi fic fest? One open to any fandom, sci-fi or not, as long as the story explored sci-fi elements.

There is some cool fannish stuff this week:

*Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V mangas have been licensed for rerelease (or just plain release, in Sailor V's case) in the US! EEEEEEEEEEEE! We get the shiny anniversary editions and new translations and everything, it's a goddamn miracle. If you're only familiar with the US dub of the Sailor Moon anime, check out nevermore999's essay on why the manga is awesome.

* Showtime's picked up the script for a TV adaption of Chew! I don't know if I'd be able to watch it - I have a hard time just reading the comic - but I'm excited anyway.

* To go along with the maybe-someday Good Omens TV show, there's apparently a series about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch in the works. CSI/Cop show style which, while potentially disastrous, is one of the coolest/geekiest TV show ideas ever.

And some not-cool fannish news: “AKIRA” adaptation courts white actors. And while we're at it: The Hunger Games: Racially Ambiguous? Perhaps Not. Fuck you, Hollywood.

Also:

* keeperofqkeys has some links re: the ongoing reactor situation at Fukushima. Zie says they're 'free of media bias, though somewhat heavy in technical jargon', which seems accurate.

* How people really behave during disasters

* The Republican Attack on Women’s Health Goes Global

* Backgrounder: Behind the Battle Over Hidden Debit Card Fees. Dry title but interesting reading. I remember my bank encouraging me to not use my pin # because it wasn't 'safe' and thinking it was about as stupid as the encouraging overdraft thing, now I know the reasoning. Hint: it wasn't to protect users.

* When “Big Pharma” Makes It Tough to be a Skeptic

* How to Do Space Science at Home: Q&A With Space Geek Ariel Waldman

* politics. Seriously, everybody should be following this comm (does this count as a Follow Friday post? We'll say yes.)

* Yesterday, Lt. Dan Choi and former Army infrantryman James Pietrangelo chained themselves to the White House fence in protest of DADT. They were arrested and are currently in jail with no phone call and Park Police will not release them on bail. Pam's got a brief update here, you can read up on Dan Choi and the events that led up to this over on Joe.My.God.

* The New York Times has an article (in the Fashion section, the hell?) on Photographer Jeff Sheng's work photographing queer people in the US military.
you can visit his website to see more of this and other projects.

* I missed this when it got posted - a Reproductive Justice linkspam over on The Angry Black Woman.

* Another Gaga link - bookshop has an epic pic/link/essayspam up.

* bossymarmalade has a response to the Feministe article (guestblogged by Sady Doyle) on the Telephone vid. Lots of discussion in the comments.

* On Boingboing: What's more awesome than discovering a temperate planet outside our solar system?

* On Wired: The Oldest Trees on the Planet

* Exclusive: Al Gore is Coming to Comic-Con! Sort of. Also holy shit - I've been to Comic-Con, they are not exaggerating how much this will mess things up. The whole city shuts down for that convention.

* poisonivory:

* ( Music )

edit: ALMOST FORGOT FOLLOW FRIDAY, whoops.

* glockgal: Amazing artist, writer of thinky things and founder of Racebending.com

* redroanchronicles: Just started following her via the Non-Fandom Friending Meme and am glad I did - lots of (horse!) photography, writing, and bio!linkspams. Good times!

Internet readalong (is a little late tonight)

* This week in plagiarism: Gene Simmon's son rips off Bleach, Hellsing, and a bunch of other manga for his own 'original' comic. Really, really obviously. Also there were shenanigans that went down with Hot Topic (surprise!), a band tshirt, and a ripped off author on Twitter. There's no writeup that I can find about it, but the main players were Verabee (the artist), Poisonrational (the one who got shit sorted out), and Pierce The Veil (the band).

* thingswithwings writes a gorgeous piece on fat shaming, sin eating, and US capitalistic society: The issue... it's that I'm taking up too much fucking space. I'm the consumer you can blame; you can tell I'm a wanton consumer by my waist size; if it weren't for me, there would be plenty of health care to go around! Plenty of food for starving waifs, plenty of fuel for thin active soccer moms to gas up their SUVs, plenty of resources. It's not that we need to fix the infrastructure or that there's anything wrong with the way the average American uses food or fuel; it's not that there's anything wrong with giant corporations that will happily trade away resources, dignity, public health, and human life for a profit. None of that stuff is the problem; I am the problem. If I would just fucking go away, there'd be enough food, and fuel, and health care for EVERYONE.

* Anti-Theist Angie has been livetweeting her abortion (fb induced) and also has a bunch of youtube vids up on all kinds of topics. See this factsheet for more information on FB induced abortion.

* Racebending.com has a short vid up about the history of yellowface as well as an analysis of the extended version of the Airbender trailer.

* A couple days ago, the_future_modernes expressed an interest in seeing the US atheist movement critiqued from a social justice perspective. I immedietly thought of Towards an Intersectionality of Atheism and Race by sanguinity but, uh. Since the_future_modernes is the first commenter there, she's probably already read it. Still, it's a good read and an important topic.

* Another oldie-but-goodie - shadowfae's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Tia Dalma conflict: What are my issues with Tia Dalma as a character? Presentation. In this trilogy, Disney's writers felt it was okay to tastefully weave history in the plots and portrayals of their white fictional characters, but decided to rely on stereotypes when it came to the stories of the people of color in these films - Tia Dalma in particular, and African spirituality and Black folk practices specifically.


* Via Racialicious - Blanco: In Solidarity with 1.3% of UCSD: Dr. Blanco was an inspiration for many of us, student of color organizers, while attending UCSD. In the letter, he contextualizes the “private party”, discussing why outrage is justified and why Filipino American students should stand as allies with our African American brothers and sisters.

* On TNC, Adam Serwer talks about the American Takfiris: The American conscience is often slow to action, but not because it cannot recognize evil--but because our view of ourselves as a people guided by justice is so important to who we are that when confronted with proof of our own shortcomings, we recoil in shame and precious vanity.

* seperis put up a quick link roundup about the end times (aka scary social justice shit that is going on right now).

* There's a new That's Gay episode, hurray!



* Although it looks like there won't be any more Target Women with the amazing Sarah Haskins. But we'll be getting movies from her, so it's not all bad.

* So I've lived in Dallas for a year and a half now. And the thing about Dallas is that there are these red pegasi everywhere. Like, life size statues in random lobbies and parks and things. It was surreal. So I finally googled the thing and it turns out the winged red horse is the symbol of Dallas. I'm having an interesting time incorporating this into my view of the city.

* For Follow Friday: If you're looking for interesting, intelligent women who write about interesting, intelligent things, you should check out the journals of rydra_wong, elspethdixon, jonquil, the_future_modernes, and ciderpress.

* ( Music! Ciara, The Cat Empire, and Patrick Wolf. )

* I haven't had a chance to watch this yet, but the TEDTalks website is featuring Edwidge Danticat: Stories of Haiti: In the midst of an earlier crisis, Haitian author Edwidge Danticat reminds us of the contributions of Haiti's vibrant culture and people. This reading offers a timely message for today -- as the nation struggles in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake (filmed Oct. 2004).

* On Newsweek - The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Why same-sex marriage is an American value by Theodore B. Olson (link via rm)

* Adam Lambert's Whataya Want From Me music video is up (via the entire internet)! *________________________* ETA: And bexless has a loving and hilarious review here.

( * More music under the cut )

* And some fine folks for Follow Friday: help_haiti, the fannish charity auction that you've seen a thousand times already. Go! Look! Donate! Also kaigou, for really excellent writing meta.

* Jay Smooth has a video up on Haiti: ...that we need to act not because Haiti is some nation of perennial victims that we need to have pity on; we need to act because Haiti is a nation of heroes and we need to repay them for what they've given us. That is what our responsibility is.

* Apparently there's a guest post up on FiveThrityEight that's a tentative defense of Pat Robertson's comments on Haiti (wtf?). Ta-Nehisi Coates takes it apart.

* And the NYTimes has a piece on why the Haitians had it coming, really (seriously, wtf?). jonquil responds here and here (same post, different comments).

Oh man, this is pretty awesome - synecdochic (ETA: who stole the idea from damned_colonial) is trying to start up Follow Friday (ala Twitter) here on DW:

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die". Just introduce us to some new things to read.

Mine:

cofax7: Best multiweekly linkspam on the intertubes. Also a great gen!fic author.

deepad: Wonderful essays and links on social justice, racial, cultural, and international issues.

copperbadge: Fanfic, originalfic, essays, links, and really entertaining day-in-the-life posts.


And honking my own horn:

dallas_fortworth: A locality comm for all your DFW needs.