In case you missed it (or aren't on Twitter), I wrote a Muppet Dystopia movie because I'm sad of the Muppets being misused and mishandled into a bunch of out-of-character abusive MRA fever dreams. (Tell us how you really feel, Ana!)
All thanks to Jack for Storifying for me. <3
Showing posts with label recommends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recommends. Show all posts
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Recommends: Muppet Dystopia |
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Recommends: Beyond Shame |
I'm trying to get a Narnia post up today, but in the meantime may I recommend a free erotica/romance novel co-written by a friend of mine? Beyond Shame is consent-friendly and smoking hot and also Bree is the sweetest lady you ever met. (Be warned that this is a full length book, with a dystopia world-building that hooked me and kept me up all night reading under the covers.)
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Recommends: Women In Practical Armor |
You guys, I totally intend to do a longer post on this, but the good rewards are flying off the shelf: Go kickstart Women In Practical Armor if you like that sort of thing and can afford a good short story anthology for yourself, etc. Kristy has a story in it and I've read it and it's so, so, so good.
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Recommends: Mallory on Many Waters |
THIS.
I still plan to do these books someday, in my ongoing plan to ruin everyone's childhood, but in the meantime please enjoy these. Mallory is the best and The Toast is basically my personal version of heaven.
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Recommends: More Susan Fic |
Read this and cry. You have been warned.
"Elegant and Fine" is by the always-wonderful Ursula Vernon, and I think this is the best Susan fic I have ever read. It's beautiful and perfect and I sobbed for a good five minutes straight. This is now headcanon for me.
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Recommends: Cute Demon Crashers |
[Note: Links are Not Safe For Work.]
Hat-tip Amy Dentata.
You guys. This visual novel game, Cute Demon Crashers, is literally the most adorable thing ever. It's super short and only two of the four "romances" work (it's a NaNoRenO game, and unfinished) but it is VERY consent-friendly and also has an option for dyslexia-friendly text. The sex scenes are all about consent and communication and there is a stop-at-any-time button, I just.
I'm crying. From happy, but crying. It's... it's not even the game, even. Just. Seeing something, anything, take consent this seriously. It's just amazing. This shouldn't be unusual or special, but it is.
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Recommends: Wendy Believed In Fairies |
Sent to me from Kristycat, because she is awesome: Wendy Darling believed in fairies all her life.
This gave me ALL the blubs, and I think those of you who like post-Narnia Susan fic will like it too. I'm especially impressed at how the author has explored some of the questions we've recently talked about with regards to Lucy Pevensie and the difficulties involved in making friends with "normal" girls after coming back from a fairytale world. (I love-love-love the resolution to this question.)
And my favorite line in this, possibly my favorite line in anything ever, is here:
Wendy wondered what the mermaids would have said, if she had ever learned their tongue. She wondered what stories Tinkerbell could have told her. She wondered if Tiger Lily would have taught her how to dance.
She wondered why none of the women in Neverland had been able to speak to her. She wondered why she hadn’t tried.
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Recommends: A Worried Princess |
Kristycat sent this to me, because she is awesome, and it gets all my blubs: a lovely story about a worried princess, illustrated in comic form, and shared on Will and Erika's Something Short and Snappy tumblr.
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Recommends: Deep Down The Rabbit Hole |
Have you read Brenna Hillier's post about ingrained sexism in the game industry? I liked it. A lot. I very heartily recommend sticking to the end in order to read the wonderful made-up dialogue. Snippet:
Female: *bursts into conference room* Wait! I propose a solution!
Developer and Publisher: *express confusion and dismay at discovering a female in their midst, but can’t find their cans of mace fast enough*
Female: Why not make 12 male characters and 12 female characters, dividing the budget between them? $3 squillion each?
Publisher: Good lord, I did not know women could do maths!
Developer: I did, but then again, I have met several women. My mother was one, as is my sister.
Publisher: Goodness me, does your father know?
Female: Still in the room.
[much later]
Publisher: Come to think of it, I’m actually deeply personally ashamed that it took a financial argument to convince me of this, given the inherent, objective immorality of exclusion and oppression.
YESSS. LOVE. Hat-tip to Louisa.
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Recommends: Eowyn, on Breaking vs. Withering |
Because she is more awesome than words can tell, Kristy sent me this. My favorite part:
Your uncle forbids you to ride with them. Aragorn denies you, and what more, he pities you. It is obvious. You remind yourself that you will never wither, not even under that pity. You will break and it will not be by this kingling’s hand.
Your brother laughs at you. You fume off into the night, like into a field when you were seven, and make bloody oaths to the dark. Eomer’s laugh [...] cuts through the night again. You circle back and see the subject—a Halfling, the quieter one, Meriadoc Brandybuck. Merry looks like a child. His chin juts out, stubborn, fierce. He looks like you at seven.
You choose the name Dernhelm that night. When you pick out a fierce mare for yourself the next morning, you find yourself making sure she’s strong enough to carry two.
blublublub.
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Recommends: An Update on the Problem of Maria |
Here.
Relevant to the #SoundofMusic : AN UPDATE ON THE PROBLEM OF MARIA.
http://t.co/eu4BG0qeCY
— Lady Snowsalot (@LadySnarksalot) December 6, 2013
My favorite part:
Nuns have described Maria as “a headache,” “a demon,” and “capable of outpestering any pest.” Yet, when I put out a box to collect anonymous Maria-related complaints, many of them seemed relatively minor:
• “She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee.” We are not Franciscans, but surely we can agree that a youthful heart often expresses its love of the Almighty through delight in nature. Besides, it’s spring; it’s like the hills are alive!
• “She’s always late for everything except for every meal.” As a novice, Maria may simply be unaccustomed to the regimented life the convent demands. [...]
•“Underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair.” Sisters, we all know that Maria sports a rather unflattering pageboy bob, with nothing resembling a curl upon her head. Whoever submitted this slander must search her soul.
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Recommends: Twilight and Harry Potter Cross-Over Perfection |
[Content Note: Brief mention of mental illness and drug addiction.]
Please, please, please check this out if you have the chance: Edward Cullen at Hogwarts. I laughed forever and ever and ever.
Hat-tip to our always-wonderful Ian.
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Recommends: Tropes vs. Women |
Several of you have asked when this will be available, and it's available now!
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Recommends: Amadi Talks |
I'm pretty sure that this is my Most Retweeted Tweet ever, and it is in response to this article.
@jillfilipovic @kristinrawls @jamilsmith @scatx I want to know why we're evaluating women's choices at all rather than social pressures?
— Ana Mardoll (@anamardoll) March 7, 2013
I feel pretty okay with that.
I am a woman who changed her name at marriage -- twice! -- for complex social reasons that I would like to see meaningfully discussed and addressed rather than being told that my reasons were nonsense and that part of feminism is being "fundamentally opposed" to a choice that I and many other women knowingly make for their own protection in a misogynist society. I think we can have that discussion about society without judging women for making that potentially very painful choice.
Nor do I think it is valuable to approach this conversation without acknowledgement of the fact that many men do attempt to take their wives' names in marriage -- and have been legally discriminated against for doing so. It is not helpful to obscure that context or to invisible those men who are being discriminated against by the kyriarchy by removing them from the discussion and framing the issue of name changing as nothing more than a choice that either party in a mixed-gender marriage can make with equal social pressures and legal tools on either side.
Nor do I think it in any way appropriate to insist that one's name is one's identity, or that it "situates [one] in the world" for eternity. That sort of thing should be confined to I-statements, and does not mesh with ally-intersectionality for a number of different groups: trans* persons who do not believe their name reflects their self, people from abusive families who do not wish to be tied to that family through a shared name, and numerous other marginalized groups who have the right to reject any framing that insists that the name given them at birth is part of their intrinsic identity.
On a related subject, you need to go read this from Amadi at Amadi Talks because it is amazing.
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Recommends: Conan the Barbarian Deconstruction |
(Promoted from comments.)
This deconstruction of Conan the Barbarian is all kinds of awesome, and I heartily recommend it as amazing reading. It's 22,000 words long and each and every word is splendiferous.
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Recommends: Liking Women |
I really, really, really, really, really recommend everyone go read this.
Even most feminist women have to make a habit of liking women, of rewriting that entrainment to reflexively see other women in negative terms, and replacing it with a spirit of sisterhood. A lot of women exceptionalize the women in their lives in the same way men do. My group of female friends having fun at this bar is awesome; that other group of female friends having fun at this bar is a bunch of skanks. That is the way we are all socialized to view women—their individual value determined by proximity and affiliation, rather than merit.
I have been feminist for a long time, but it wasn't until I found fat acceptance that it really clicked for me that feminism requires Liking Women and Trusting Women, and that anything less is just another packaged form of patriarchy.
I like women. I don't judge them for being thin or fat, for being pretty or plain, for dressing up or down, for sharing my tastes or not, regardless of their religion, their political affiliation, their culture, their country, their family dynamics. I don't fantasize about about being exceptional or better or above all those other women, and I don't enjoy fantasies about women being put in their place while I rise to the top like the creme de la creme.
But thanks to the patriarchal narratives I grew up with, it took me a long time to get to this place.
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Recommends: Helping Xavier |
[Content Note: Cerebral Palsy]
If you haven't seen this post by Kit Whitfield, and if you have the spoons, please read it here. An important person in my life has cerebral palsy, and it's a hard condition to live with. I will quote Kit here:
First, if you can donate even a small amount, please do: every penny helps. If you can spread the word on your own blog, Facebook, Twitter, or around your friends and colleagues, please do that too.
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Recommends: The Difference |
Here’s the difference. And pay attention, because while it is not a particularly complex concept, some people just can’t seem to wrap their heads around it.
Say that my entire family is eaten by wolves. In my grief, I insist, “I’m not grieving, I’m happy, because it’s all part of God’s plan. The Lord wanted this to happen. My family is in heaven now, eating ice cream.”
Everyone nods, no decent person would argue. It’s my right to spin my tragedy however I like, however brings me solace.
Now change the premise. My family is fine. The wolves rush past them to your family and eats your family instead. While you are grieving, I stroll over, drape my arm around your shoulder and say, “Don’t grieve. Be happy, because it’s part of God’s plan. The Lord wanted this to happen. Your family is in heaven now, eating ice cream.”
I’m a jerk to say that, right? Because I’m using my religious outlook to dismiss the tragedy that has torn your life apart. It’s not my place. We have the right to interpret the universe in a way that makes sense to us. What we don’t have a right to do is expect — never mind demand — that other people share our worldview.