(no subject)

[sofiaviolet]

OH GOD FINALLY I AM CAUGHT UP. I only had to go to skip=620 to do it.

Apologies for my epic failure at updating; I don't like to post when I'm behind on my reading. And speaking of my dreamroll... I am having to cut down on my subscriptions because I am overwhelmed. Bleh full-time job. I love my work, but I also love my internets. It is a sad time for me.

Important things:

• Every year, shadesong does Blogathon for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Her fundraising includes a charity auction; I have three pieces in the mix this year: Chains and Crippling Shoes, We Met in February, and The Awful Feeling of Knowing You Don't Remember No. Plus lots of other really lovely things that you should go and bid on!
• I am going to Grand Forks! I'll be staying with C. and will also take the opportunity to hang out with Ellen and Greg, since I missed them in New Orleans this year. I am not sure what that will do to my internet time: on the one hand, C. and I will probably be very occupied with each other, but on the other hand, I can easily see us just chilling together with our laptops for a little while every day. At any rate, I will be out of Boston from August 14th to August 21st.
• Speaking of C., we are now officially in a relationship! We put it on Facebook and everything. Current relationship status is "open" although there's an unspoken expectation that we'll be functionally monogamous at least until we can talk about it in person. There will be a more *ahem* detailed update later - hooray for filters.

Links

• Transactivist: Trans/queer rock music (Part 2)

  In my first entry about trans themes in rock music, I concentrated on music created by cis bands and artists. In this post I’m going to be exploring the work of a some trans musicians, and comparing the themes explored in music by trans as opposed to cis rockers.

• oursin: Archive geekery grouchies

  Am having a bit of a grump on at people who don't want to give their papers to an archive because there be sensitive &/or controversial stuff in there.

• via twistedchick: Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements

  Maybe it isn’t that informants are difficult to spot but rather that we have collectively ignored the signs that give them away. To save our movements, we need to come to terms with the connections between gender violence, male privilege, and the strategies that informants (and people who just act like them) use to destabilize radical movements. Time and again heterosexual men in radical movements have been allowed to assert their privilege and subordinate others. Despite all that we say to the contrary, the fact is that radical social movements and organizations in the United States have refused to seriously address gender violence [1] as a threat to the survival of our struggles. We’ve treated misogyny, homophobia, and heterosexism as lesser evils—secondary issues—that will eventually take care of themselves or fade into the background once the “real” issues—racism, the police, class inequality, U.S. wars of aggression—are resolved. There are serious consequences for choosing ignorance. Misogyny and homophobia are central to the reproduction of violence in radical activist communities. Scratch a misogynist and you’ll find a homophobe. Scratch a little deeper and you might find the makings of a future informant (or someone who just destabilizes movements like informants do).

• paperwhite - A Conservation Portfolio
• tim: Derailing tactic #87, debunked

  Saying that "making fun of everyone" is egalitarian is like saying that a flat tax is fair. Tax rates are based on income because $1000 is a different percentage of your livelihood if you make $5000 a year than if you make $500,000 a year. Likewise, what seems to be the same joke costs a group that's already hated and marginalized more than a group whose privileged status is secure.

• via marina: My Fault, I'm Female

  Basically it's FML, but with sexist bosses, stone age attitudes, pay gap stories, and plenty of ranting.

• academia: Assignments...

  How much do you think it's reasonable to have undergrads spend on books for a class? As a student and/or as a professor?

• via Racialicious: New Orleans’s Gender-Bending Rap

  Some part of this subgenre’s popularity is surely due to the catchily discordant name by which it has become known: sissy bounce. The term is problematic, because the artists themselves do not care for it at all — not because they object to the word “sissy” but because they consider it disrespectful to bounce music. Even when their lyrics are at their frankest (“I’m a punk under pressure/When we finish, put my money on the dresser”), they rush to point out, correctly, that they’re just drawing from the life at hand in the same way virtually every rapper does. They have no desire to be typed within, or set apart from, bounce culture; and indeed, within New Orleans itself, they mostly are not — even as their bookings elsewhere in the country are founded increasingly on the novelty of their sexual identities.

• The Pervocracy: Saw.

  I always think that being pregnant must be like the Saw movies.
  
  "Hello Holly. I want to play a game. In your life you have sought larger and larger things to insert inside your body, but can you handle the truly large? Let's find out. Implanted inside your body there is a living organism. It will steadily grow larger inside you. You have nine months to find a way to get it out. Every option is painful, but you must choose. How much blood will you spill to stay alive?"

• trouble: "My gosh, Miss Smith, you're beautiful!"

  So what does this have to do with anything? Well, glasses are assistive tech that is very normalized, and yet doesn't appear very often in our media. When it does appear in our media, it's often a code for something. This person is Smart. This person is Studious. This person in Playing A Role. This person is Elliot and his glasses make him really really hot omg. And if we can't see this incredibly common type of assistive tech in our media being used as just a Thing That People Wear, it's no wonder we so rarely see people using assistive tech in our media just because Some People Are Blind or Some People Uses Arm Crutches or whatever.

• naraht: Dealing with having caused offense: a poll

  It seems to me that I've noticed a difference in how people get advised to deal with having caused offense, depending on whether the offensive work was fiction or non-fiction. Taking down a non-fiction post can often be seen as an attempt to stifle discussion/cover the evidence/etc. Yet I've not seen those criticisms made so much when a piece of fiction is under discussion. It seems more likely that people will get criticized for not taking down a problematic piece of fiction... possibly because it's likely that readers will still come across and enjoy the piece without grasping the problems that it has?

• via fizzyblogic: Unbeatable

  I'm extremely excited for the release of [Scott Pilgrim vs the World], so with the sixth book coming out and screenings taking place at Comic-Con, I decided to make a vidlet to the Pokemon Advanced theme song, because why not?

• heresluck: new vid: "All We Have" (Treme)

  summary: Prayers for New Orleans. Ensemble, focused on the main female characters.

• strina: (no subject)

  I want to read an unequal open relationship, where one partner is allowed to see other people and the other partner very much isn't, because Person A is jealous and Person B just isn't, and there is no value judgment attached to that. People are different and that's okay! People who are different can be in a relationship without having to compromise or agree on everything! They can have two sets of rules without it being unfair! Sometimes, two sets of rules is the MOST FAIR YOU CAN BE.

• mecurtin: Blogcomment record: Call it privilege

  But what is a good word or short phrase for "you're used to having basic rights but other people aren't"? *Complacency* is the best I can come up with offhand.

• shadesong: On types

  My type is smart, funny, intellectually curious. My type defaults to doing the right thing and giving a shit about the world around them. My type is geeky - I talk in loops of SF and comic book references, and if you speak my language, that gives us a head start! My type can hold their own in a conversation with me. My type doesn't take any shit from me and isn't afraid to disagree with me.

• The Pervocracy: Fucking While Feminist.

  Ultimately, what makes a date "feminist"? To me, it's not politics or labels. It's the simple ability to treat women (and men!) like they're people. People who have their own thoughts, live their own lives, make their own choices, set their own limits, and deserve respect even when you don't understand or agree. If a guy can do that, I think it shows in a lot of what he says and does, and it makes him so fucking sexy.

Comments

[cxcvi]

I have almost the opposite problem. I don't like to post when I'm behind on my writing...

I have a post that I've been trying to write for 3 weeks now, and it's still nowhere near finished. Apart from the one that's chronologically after it (the day after, in fact), I've pretty much had to abandon my plans for any other posts after that. And it sucks...

I really hope NaNoWriMo won't be as bad as this...

[sofiaviolet]

:( Oh man.

[dingsi]

I love your link roundups.

[sofiaviolet]

:) Thanks! They're not something I ever envisioned myself doing (and I don't remember how I got started), but I'm getting used to doing them.