seekingwillow:

lessonsinthecorner:

freshmouthgoddess:

sourcedumal:

bankuei:

seekingwillow:

bankuei:

So many times have I watched sci-fi, especially when it’s supposed to be utopian, and ask, “So, that whole part where 80-90% of humanity was wiped out in targeted ethnic violence or a mass eugenics program that CLEARLY must have happened for this group to be so white?  Can we talk about that?”

Or flip-side, the dystopias where the BIG CRIME is that white people are being treated poorly, but no one mentions what happened to the POC… (still wondering what happened to the Latino folks in Hunger Games movie, and shudders with horror at their absence…)

___

Am I the only one who thinks the reason that the society is represented as utopian is because they somehow got rid of all the people of colour? And the author never seems to realize this is what is coming out of their minds? This scrubbed whitewashed superiority etc wish?

I haven’t seen the dystopian ones though. Or at least, the distopian ones I have seen? There are white ppl being treated badly, dealing with poverty. And then there are MUTANTS or ALIENS trapped on earth or some such, and STILL no human people of colour. And it’s all the corrupt government megaconglormate’s fault; which is run by rich greedy white people.

And then I end up wondering if the poverty etc happened cause none of the poor white people want to be janitors or maids or gardeners or assembly line workers etc.

Occasionally? I have the horrible thought that all the PoC are actually the servant class robots. That there was a mass ethnic cyborgizing, cause it was easier to re-enslave electronically than create actual complex AI. And of course the cyborg/android servants just take it.

Hell even though the Matrix had PoC? I can’t get over the Animatrix explaining how the machines set up their own civilization in a desert and the humans declared war cause they just couldn’t stand having that civilization exist and be more advanced than them and create advanced products etc. And all those peeps in power declaring war and sending the world to hell? White.

It’s all damn telling.

Just like the enemies in fantasy always being brown; while white people walk around in kimonos and faux Egypt, and ride the plains like Mongolians and some NDN tribes.

Am I the only one who thinks the reason that the society is represented as utopian is because they somehow got rid of all the people of colour?

Or at least, the people of color who are present are a few tokens who never shake the system… The utopia is either our complete absence or our obedience, because POC having their own in any way or form is too dangerous.

In a lot of ways, where I see the all white cast + robots, I figure they made the robots and got rid of the POC, much in the same way they constantly shifted cheap labor based on who they could get to work the hardest and survive under the worst conditions.

Reminds me of the short story “Space Traders”

Because if it really came down to it, this shit would most definitely come true. 

scariest fuckers on earth

How many then went to go see “AfterEarth” in the theaters because if you didn’t then you comments are useless. If you will not support a film with us not only in the future but with a leading role then why make/reblog posts like these?

_____

Just for the records; cause this level of ignorance (the above post by - I believe it is ‘lessonsinthecorner’, needs speaking on.

When there are SO FEW media products out there that contain PoC in leading roles, far less leading roles in SFF, that the PoC media consuming public has to be treated like a monolith; is treated like a monolith in that their personal likes and dislikes; their personal appreciation for actor and director doesn’t settle into it because SOMEHOW revolution will come from purchasing power directly and only and not from change higher up the line; not from cultural wake up calls and realizations, not from a lack of ethnocentric focus in the creators, not from a pigeon holing of WHO gets to act and direct in those few few media products?

THERE IS STILL A FUCKING PROBLEM.

People swarmed to see the first and even the second Men in Black. Do you know what that told the film companies? Make more of the same. Exactly The Same! NOT - there’s a hunger for SCIFI / Urban SCiFI with PoC possibilities.

PEOPLE SWARMED (who were in the know to hear about) ATTACK THE BLOCK. That shit has FANS. DIE HARD FANS.  Have YOU heard about a follow up? If we’ll ever get a continuing story of if there are more of the aliens, of Moses’ treatment by the police once he was out of the spotlight of his neighbourhood? If there were other attacks in other parts of the world?

Did you watch Silver Hawk? I can ask you. Did you watch The Touch?

And it’d mean nothing. Because the promotion of those films was minimal in the US. And individuals may not personally have liked the actors or the style. Whereas white audiences? They get such a mixture of things. They get Galaxy Quest AND Gattica AND Solaris and Dark City AND Aliens AND The Matrix AND Cloverfield and so many many more; different styles and contexts and approaches in SciFi, so many different actors and directors and editing styles.

When PoC are still being treated as a blank single block of monolithic viewing possibilities and ALL must go and watch a SINGLE film or they ‘aren’t doing anything’ about the RAMPANT MULTI-TIERED GENERATIONALLY INSTITUTIONAL RACISM in the movie making business?

That is a fucking problem.

Also for the fucking records: Talking about it, having conversations, bringing LANGUAGE into it - that powerful thing, language; sharing information, creating, forming and maintaining COMMUNITY? Bully shit for you you find it so fucking scary you want to downplay it. BUT IT IS DOING SOMETHING.

The communication of ideas, ideology, philosophy and life NEVER HAPPENS IN A FUCKING VACUUM. The communication of the revolution? IS ALWAYS AN ACTIVE PART OF THE REVOLUTION.

melaniehopes:

In honor of All Hallow’s Read, this week’s science fiction/fantasy short story rec list has a very particular theme…

Fuck, these are some good stories with HORROR in.

Armless Maidens of the American West by Genevieve Valentine. A modern-day ghost story. 

each thing i show you is a piece of my death by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer. Haunted movie trope done so, so, so right. A fantastically executed, phenomenally creepy epistolary piece. tw: suicide

Ironheart by Alec Austin. War was hell even before the zombies. tw: gore

So Glad we had this Time Together by Cat Rambo. Introducing Unreality TV, starring the monsters of lore as your less-than-lovable leads.

Specimen 313 by Jeff Strand. Blame my childhood fondness for Little Shop of Horrors, but I like this story a lot. Mad scientist, flesh-eating creations, a bit of friendship, what’s not to love?

The House of Aunts by Zen Cho. A fun, flirty story starring a not-quite-vampire girl, a human boy, and a gaggle of disapproving undead aunts played out over a rich Malay landscape. 

The Least of the Deathly Arts by Kat Howard. Death and sestinas.

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss. Lady monsters rooming together in Victorian London. Brush up on your classic horror…

The Only Friend You Ever Need by M. Shaw. The malak — inhuman, violent, unpredictable — live in almost every town in America. So I guess it was only a matter of time before someone fell in love with one.

Click-Clack the Rattlebag by Neil Gaiman. Here’s something different. Neil Gaiman wrote and recorded a new horror story for All Hallow’s Read (read about it here). Download the audible file. It’s free! Totally free Neil Gaiman story! Each download before Halloween counts for more dollars to charity, so go, go, go! 

(If you enjoyed these stories, I have rec lists for dystopias, YA, and LGBTQ characters. Check back next Monday for a new list!)

late but still good

continuumcon:

An interview with Karen Miller at tor.com, where she talks about feminism, writing for established universes, and Australian epic fantasy. 

The fact that there are men today, in supposedly civilised Western societies, who proudly proclaim that they will not read a book written by a woman, for no other reason than it was written by a woman—what does that say about the kind of blind bigotry that still prevails in our lives? Women are expected to fully participate in stories written by men and about men—but men are often made to feel inferior if they engage in stories written by women about women, or about men and women. This isn’t to say that stories should never be written with just men or just women in mind. I don’t believe that at all. But to dismiss the books written by women fantasy writers solely because they’re written by women? Really? Everyone’s okay with that?

Sleeps With Monsters: Australian Author Karen Miller Answers Five Questions 

are YOU an australian fan? have you read or seen a piece of work by a victorian, published in 2011, that you thought was pretty awesome? then maybe you should consider nominating them for a chronos award! the nominations period for the chronos awards closes on march 18th! (FULL DISCLOSURE: i am eligible!) the awards will be presented at continuum 8: craftinomicon, which is going to be awesome and you should go to it, if you can! i am very upset to be missing it. (and also really upset to be missing swancon. SWANCON MY LOVELY)

the chronos awards recognise excellence in science fiction, horror and fantasy by victorians. that’s victorians the residents of victoria, australia, not victorians from any other time or place. 

if you have read or seen something awesome by a victorian in 2011, please nominate them! more details on nomination can be found at this post (and you can even nominate there!).

‘one last interruption before we begin,’ which can be found in steampowered ii: more steampunk lesbian stories, published by torquere books and edited by joselle vanderhoft, and written by stephanie (penguinface) lai, is eligible for nomination! if you haven’t read my story and are interested in doing so, let me know and something can absolutely be arranged. you should do it, i write a pretty great story, you know. this one is about a chinese-malaysian shipping clerk in a steampunked malaysia just after merdeka. I KNOW YOU WANT TO READ IT (and love it). 

jhameia:

“Mixed Race 2.0: Mixing Race, Risk, and Reward in the Digital Age” is a project dedicated to examining the intersections of multiracial identities that lurk behind the scenes of everyday life in an increasingly networked world. In recent years, multiracial identities have seen increased representation in media, politics, art and activism. To explore these exciting transitions, Mixed Race 2.0 will pose questions and provide analyses that strike the core of what multiracial identities have meant, currently mean, and will mean to generations across the globe.

The primary question is: What does mixed race 2.0 mean to you?
Potential themes with which to address this question include, but are not limited to:

2010 v. 2000 US Census
Digital v. Analog
“Hapa” v. “Mulatto”
Book v. e-Media
One Box v. Check All that Apply
Consumers and Marketing
The Ivory Tower v. The Real World
America v. The World
History v. Future

Target Audience
There is a significant market for a contemporary and analytically engaged, yet very accessible, book and media project on the meanings of multiracial identities in the digital age. The target audiences are both popular and academic consumers. The general consumer interested in race, identity, politics, demographic shifts, popular culture and media subject matter will find Mixed Race 2.0 interesting and engaging. The academic consumer will find this text to be multi-disciplinary, and suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers and practitioners in the fields of communication studies, journalism, critical cultural studies, racial/ethnic studies, popular culture studies, mass communication and media studies, media literacy, sociology, and education.

Submission Procedure 
We welcome the following formats of submission: essays, high-resolution images of artwork, short films no longer than 3 minutes, and music in mp3 form no longer than 3 minutes. Essay contributions should be approximately 2000 words, Chicago formatted, in 12-pt Times New Roman font. All submissions are due on or before Monday, April 16, 2012. Submissions should include contact information and a brief 50-word bio for each author. Authors of accepted projects will be notified no later than Tuesday, May 15, 2012.

All inquiries and submissions should be sent to the editors below:

Marcia Alesan Dawkins (mixedrace2.0@gmail.com)

Ulli K. Ryder (mixedrace2.0@gmail.com)

Alexandrina Agloro (mixedrace2.0@gmail.com)

h/t @a_game

Please reblog widely, especially if you have many mixie followers!!

I know it says ‘across the globe’ but the potential themes make me wonder how interested they are in submissions from outside North America. 

karnythia:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

But my pals still need someone to help out with making a simplistic website/looking up hosting. Is anyone good at this and wants to help a small group who makes artwork/stories/stuff for sale and stuff for specifically marginalized groups (currently they’re focusing on queer people of all kinds, their next project will be non-white people of all kinds)?

Reblooooooog and signal boost pleeeeeeeeeease.

Reblorging myself again.

Also, if you are a fantasy writer who isn’t white (ideally, you’re African/Arabic/Latin@/Indian/Indigenous and non-passing since the focus is on brown people and their experiences with being obviously brown) and you want to work on a super big awesome writing project that focuses on brown-ness and high-fantasy/mixed-fantasy/modern-fantasy type deals, please contact me ASAP!

Oh hey, this is relevant to my interests if you want American black fantasy writers too.

crossedwires:

wildunicornherd:

Aliette de Bodard » On the prevalence of US tropes in storytelling

In short, I’m tired of being invaded by US culture. I’m tired of US tropes being cited as the norm (even when it’s obvious that the rest of the world doesn’t follow such tropes), of bookshelves featuring translations from US writers and movies following standard Hollywood fare–of the one-way street which means the US sets the tune for the rest of the world, and that anything that looks remotely worthy from non-US countries is given a local remake for those who can’t stand to watch dubbed or subtitled movies (guess what–we watch dubbed/subtitled US movies all the time in France). I’m tired of the way US culture and tropes have so pervaded popular culture that we no longer even question them, or even recognise them–and, worse, that people outside the US are actively aping them in search of the so-called “universal stories”.

*massive standing ovation* Do read the whole thing, it’s wonderful, and she goes into great detail. From a French perspective but will strike a chord with anyone outside the U. S. (says this Canadian who has inherited deep resentment for U. S. cultural imperialism).

I did get tripped up by

just like not all French books feature, say, bumbling bosses or people going on strike

…We’re not allowed to have stories about people going on strike! :P

Yes. Also, this is relevant to my fandoms (esp superhero movies):

I’m tired of plots that value individualism and egotism above all else; of heroes that always have to be the masters of their own fates, to be active and not take anything that life deals at them lying down (whereas most of the time, we lie down, we accept, we deal with what we have been given); of heroes that have to be strong and only take marginal help from others to solve their own problems; of heroes that have a destiny, and of movies and books in which breaking up with all traditions is good so long as one finds and follow one’s own path (there are a lot of cultures where breaking up with traditions isn’t necessarily a good thing, and no, this doesn’t mean that they’re evil and backward). I’m tired of how genre(s) put(s) a disproportionate value on heroes who are active and not passive (and, by extension, belittles and dismisses every use of passive voice, and always asks for sentences to be frenetically punchy); of how the most important thing that can happen to a person is to be “given their own story”, as stories weren’t made up of a mosaic of people all interacting together; of how teams exist only either as a background and foil for a single hero, or as a compendium of individuals, each fighting to be outdo each other in stupid displays of heroism (yes, X-men, I’m looking at you).

jhameia:

findingsherlock:

The Radish Wore Goggles

by Ursula Vernon

(her caption reads:

“Fleeing from an arranged marriage to an elderly kohlrabi three times her age, the sheltered young radish found herself adrift in a world she never expected. A chance encounter with a villainous-looking eggplant led to her fleeing from the Watch and stowing away on the lightning-powered airship Golden Colander. Ignorant of the wider world of vegetable politics and peril, the spunky radish would have to learn quickly as she was swept up in adventure and terror among airship privateers, legions of ghoulishly re-animated potatoes, clockwork pollinators, warring empires, and of course, finding love in the stems of the handsome airship captain who had stolen her heart.
Glory awaits the victorious, but for the losers, there is only….salad.”)

 

(Don’t forget to check out her stunning webcomic epic Digger)

Oh man, this is gonna be good.

8 different cursive representations of the character 龍 (dragon), from Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty. The artists are: 1 Sun Guoting; 2, 3 Huai Su; 4 Yan Zhenqing; 5 Zhao Mengfu; 6, 7 Zhu Zhishan; 8 anonymous.

imissedtumblr:

therotund:

expatriate games: Oh ffs Mercedes Lackey! (trigger warning)

thesadnessofpencils:

Emphasis mine:

While I never say “never,” the likelihood of a transgendered lead character is so slim as to be invisible.

Here is why. I support myself with my writing; I do not have the luxury of writing books for special-interest audiences. In my limited experience,

This sort of thing always pisses me off from a social justice perspective but it also INSULTS ME AS A READER. I mean, seriously, Lackey is assuming a lot when she assumes that cis readers would BE BORED by a trans narrative. What the hell is that? If it’s a boring read, it ain’t because trans characters are by default boring - it’s because she tends, magical sparkleponies aside, to write really whiney characters. Vanyel isn’t whiney because he’s gay - he’s whiney because HE IS A WHINEY PERSON.

Oh, Mercedes Lackey, this is fail.

Man, I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy since I learned how to read. I’ve been relating to characters who were not at all like myself for just that long. I think pretty much everyone else who isn’t a white male has been doing the same because, you know, science fiction and fantasy have been written from one perspective for a really long time. CHANGE IT UP. I’m tired of reading the same damn story.

I gave up on Lackey when she published a short story about how, in the future, the PC police would come and take away authors who didn’t make all the queer characters happy.  (The character really explicitly is supposed to be a stand-in for Lackey.  It describes how her character who was gay was praised and then later reviled for being suicidal, and then her books were burned and creativity was outlawed.)

*sigh*

I’m really excited to (belatedly) announce that my story ‘The Last Rickshaw’ is going to be in Crossed Genres Year Two! You can find the table of contents at the announcement post.

It’s released December 7, and is available for preorder now! I’m excited!

 My short story, The Last Rickshaw, is up at Crossed Genres. It’s Malaysian Steampunk, HERE IS AN EXCERPT:

Yu drops his passenger off at McCallum Dua and slips the ringgit into his pocket. It’s late, and this far out he’s not sure he can get another fare, and he thinks about going home. It starts to drizzle, and that decides him; he hates riding in the rain. He crosses the road and swerves to avoid a woman who suddenly appears out of the darkness.

Well, one last fare, he decides, pulling over. She clambers onto the rickshaw, coughing as she breathes in the smoke, doing battle with the pipes as she climbs up over the front wheel. She uses one as a step into the seat; ducks beneath another. He worries her headscarf is going to catch in the pipes. He really should tie them together, but she manages okay. “KOMTAR,” she says, and he thinks it odd that she’s not bothering to barter, but he doesn’t question it, just fiddles with the buttons and heads towards the tower in the distance.

Overhead, the airships float lazily by, and the hooks fly across the sky to wrap around the poles protruding from the KOMTAR.

“The airships are flying low tonight,” she says, once, and he hums his agreement. He’s not much of a talker.

I’m really excited to be published by Crossed Genres. I really like this story, and you should GO READ ME AND LOVE ME ETC.

glamaphonic:

memslice:

vega-ofthe-lyre | machinery- | mrtumnus | thedecisivemoment | empair:

my mind is blown

This is a life-changer right here.

Don’t tell my supervisor I’m using Wikipedia as a reference:

The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that “humpty dumpty” was also eighteenth-century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person.