Wake the Sun

The claims post for scifi_fest is up! I'm pretty excited about the prompts I picked. And about maybe getting some actual writing done.

Now that's out of the way...

( Puppies! )

( And a kitten for the road. )

* Janelle Monae was amazing last night. SO AMAZING. And Bruno Mars is adorable.

* NPR's Monkey See blog has rundowns of the new shows airing in the fall: ABC, FOX, NBC Dramas, and NBC Comedies. CBS and the CW haven't put theirs up yet.

Awake (NBC), Grimm (NBC), Alcatraz (FOX), and Terra Nova (FOX) all have interesting premises (not that I'm predictable in my SFF love or anything) but the only one I have any hope for is Alcatraz (even though the premise is pretty silly) - Fringe has convinced me Abrams doesn't always disappoint.

...I'll probably try the Charlie's Angels (ABC) reboot, too. And Scandal (ABC).

* The Disappearing Face of New York - beautiful old store signs

* Silent Choices, a film that 'explores not only black women’s personal and political struggles around reproductive freedom, but also the complexities of abortion too often ignored by the mainstream media', is streaming free for today only. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but it looks good.

* This has been making the rounds, which makes sense because it's fantastic - Rosanne Barr on the Lack of Change in the TV Industry

* Super Obvious Secrets That I Wish They’d Teach In Art School. I need to print this out and put it by my desk. Maybe tattoo 'Draw Every Day' somewhere.

* Fannish fests about ladies: thelittlebang is open for prompts, the fandom poll for femslash11 is also open, and the Female Character Trope Fest is indefinitely open for fanworks.

* The OTW is looking for anime/manga/manhua/manwha fans to help organize the Fanlore wiki

* scifi_fest is still taking prompts (and will until the 29th)! The turn out's been great so far (so much better than I was expecting!) and the existing prompts are hella fun, you should come join us :D

Things I'm reading:

I'm still working on my To-Read pile - I finished Charitable Getting, but the review wants to be either one sentence ('I love this book but it's really, really white') or a multi-page academic analysis, so I'm sitting on it until it settles. I'm currently on A Princess of Roumania.

I've also recently finished the first volumes of Chew, The Invisibles, iZombie, and Persepolis, along with American Born Chinese, Skim, and The Vesuvius Club. Yay, comics!

I may or may not have bought another three books at Half Price over the weekend.


Things I'm Watching:

Fringe! Roommate D is a big fan and watching season 3 with her has finally convinced me to go back and watch season 1 (Abrams has burned me before). I'm on episode 14 and it's fantastic. All of the love for this bizarre little gem of a show <3.

Doctor Who, obviously. The new season has been awesome and creepy and awesome and creepy so far, I'm so glad my show is back on my TV.

Tiger & Bunny, which is an anime about a reality TV show about superheroes. It's like someone made a list of my favorite things and checked them off one by one - reluctant partners with homoerotic subtext, a diverse cast, explicitly queer characters, well rounded women, wacky hijinks, commentary on the media, celebrity, and the shaping of identity, and general ridiculousness.

It's not perfect - it's barely passed the bechdel test, dispute having four women in the main cast, and I'm still waiting to see if Fire Emblem (a queer black man) will allowed to be more than 'the flamboyant gay one'. There's hints that he's 'the one who owns his own company and sponsors himself and can do whatever the fuck he wants, including being flamboyantly gay and a respected superhero' and I hope they continue in that direction.

Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi - there's a fun story here, buried under the stupid tropes and sexual assault, and I enjoy the look inside the manga industry. Unfortunately it's... buried under stupid tropes and sexual assault. I'm kind of rewriting it in my head while I watch, we'll see how long I can keep it up.

I'm way behind on Community, Wandering Son and Sanctuary, woe.


Three Weeks for Dreamwidth:

I want to do something but I don't have any ideas. If there's anything you've ever wanted me to talk about - food, books, movies, Dallas, college, miniature horses, art, religion, whales, doujinshi, music, queerness, whatever - let me know!


SciFi Fest

The resource post for scifi_fest went up yesterday, chock full of science blogs, articles about space battles and examples of science fiction in fanfic. Only 10 days until prompting starts, I am excite.

My personal life has been overwhelming lately, you guys, it sucked. But things seem to have finally blown over and we can return to our regularly scheduled programming. The programming where I spam you with COOL STUFF.

For example:



The dates are finalized and the rules are up, scifi_fest is ready for action. Or it will be on May 15th, when prompting opens.

In the meantime, take a look at the rules post! Ask questions! Watch the comm! Tell your friends! Tell me if you're interested in co-modding!

I'll be putting up a resource post between now and prompting, so there'll even be content to look forward to. Shiny, shiny content.

(Is the banner sparkly enough now, cimorene? I think it'll explode if I add any more. Explode of awesome, but still.)

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.)