all my keysmash are belong to you

1) Do you guys have that picture of Dean that's taken from the side and it looks like he's clasping his hands above his head in prayer or something, and his arms are big and sexy all over the place? You know what I'm talking about. Or do you know what episode that's from?

2) Important question: WHAT THE HELL WAS CAS DOING ALL HIATUS? Post your speculation here:

THE BETWEEN SEASON CASPARTY


3) santapocalypse: A STONEHENGE APOCALYPSE SECRET SANTA. I always feel like I'm doing Stongepocalypse fandom wrong, the same way I'm doing Sassy wrong, because everyone seems to be like, "Ey, it's all for the crack! Bring on the lulz." But I would love to see srs bsns Sam/Cas and Jacob/Joseph erudite darkfic, and Jacob/Jimmy twincestuous angstfests.

4) SPN 4x17verse commentfic meme

5) ( Vampire Diaries 2x02, 2x03 )
( Hawaii 5-0 1x02 )

6) This is an interesting slide show about the Bajau, who are sea nomads in Southeast Asian waters. The lifestyle's dying out, though; there are only a handful of Bajau now who have spent most of their lives out on boats. Check out the picture of the boy who is playing with HIS PET SHARK, OMFG. I am also very *_____* at this: "Traditional Bajau cosmology – a combination of animism and Islam – reveals a complex relationship with the ocean, which for them is a multifarious and living entity. There are spirits in currents and tides, in coral reefs and mangroves. Such reverence and knowledge could be used to conserve rather than destroy."

I am, however, rather :-/ at the article byline: "Now these marine nomads risk destroying the reefs that sustain them." Most of the damage done to coral reefs in Southeast Asia is inflicted by commercial fishers and illegal trawlers. Communities that directly rely on the the sea to survive, like the Bajau, too often get scapegoated for it. This isn't to say that subsistence fishers never resort to destructive fishing practices (dynamite, cyanide, etc.). Quite often these days they do, out of desperation and perceived necessity, because the Coral Triangle's fish yield ain't what it used to be. I'm just saying that to finger one culture for ecosystem destruction without also accounting for the economic and political systems to which it is subject seems pretty sloppy and insensitive.

[originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/35862.html | comments]

The following might also be an interesting topic for my anthro final paper. (Oh god, I gotta choose a topic and send an outline to my prof before the week is out.)

The Sociological Images blog recently posted about the relativity of feminist liberation that touches on some of the problems with how feminism is discussed and articulated. The post is specifically about women-only taxi services that have begun popping up in Dubai, Mexico, Moscow, and, weirdly, the UK. In Manila, the MRT (our El/subway) has a women-only train car. I heard (...but can't find online confirmation) that it was women passengers themselves who requested this service because they kept getting groped on the train, especially during rush hour.

On the one hand, the pro-womanness of such a service is superficial. It's still demeaning, and it reinforces gender binaries and perpetuates an unjust system. Well, yes, ideally we would be living in a world where you don't need a women-only taxi service, but on the other hand I'm hesitant to sacrifice the security of these women for the sake of ideology. Just like you can't juxtapose one country's democracy wholesale on another country's, you can't juxtapose one country's feminism wholesale either. It has to grow organically from within (and also a little bit without). But to go back to the one hand, is more segregation really the way to promote this?

The problem with these services is that they're end-of-the-pipe solutions. They treat the symptoms of misogyny instead of the causes. They send a message to the men that they can continue to act like misogynists because we can always remove ourselves from the situation and it's our fault if we don't. But on the OTHER hand, sometimes when people talk about bringing some good ol' women's lib from countries where it's more commonplace to countries where it's less commonplace, it reminds me of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality of economic conservatism: "You don't need special treatment, you just need to be strong!" That's all well and good, but the bootstraps of women in, say, the USA are already pretty high up compared to the bootstraps of women in the Philippines. And these boots, they smell like White Woman's Burden. Equality among women != sameness among women.

I think women should be wary of insisting on solidarity based on what we are not i.e. men. We're not just not-men. However, sometimes the rhetoric of being not-men overpowers the diversity of women's situations around the world, reducing women in quote unquote less liberated countries to the subaltern of the subaltern. And yeah, that's one of the flaws of the women-only taxi service, in that it is totally based on being not-men. If the way women protect themselves in other countries is disagreeable to us, should we take their protection away because it's bad for their feminist agenda? For WHOSE feminist agenda? Can you use 'unfeminist' means like these taxis to further feminism? Or is that too much like fighting for peace and fucking for virginity?

And, I dunno, what if the woman trying to hail a women-only taxi is escorting her ailing grandfather or something?

The Huffington Post offers a stronger stance on why these women-only taxis are questionable indeed. Interestingly, the HuffPost article was written by a man, whereas the Sociological Images post was written by a woman. I have my reservations about these taxis, but I also have my reservations about dismissing the idea outright. At the very least, it provides a safe space. It reminds me of - and I wish I have the link - how some people were trying to make an organization/support group for Hispanic gays, and a non-Hispanic gay was like, "But what for? We're ALL gay!" But what he was really saying is "We're ALL not straight", which isn't the same thing.

Damn, son, I gotta start hanging out at the Camelot Fleet more often, especially if they're going to have a take your fandom home with you AU minifest. I totally would have been all over that and I am sadface that I missed it! Merlin in New York has already been expanded upon here, but Worcester and Manila have not yet been broached. Let us rectify that!

( Merlin, Will, Gwen, and Morgana in Worcester, Massachusetts )

( Arthur, Lancelot, Uther, and Gaius in Manila, Philippines )

I kind of wanna do that meme where, in the zombiepocalypse movie of your life, who would play you and your friends? And I will choose fandom characters instead of actors/actresses. But it's already 3 AM, so maybe another time. To close: THE GREAT GAIUS MEME!!! \o/ <333!

ETA: Oh Christ, I don't need to be tempted by another ficathon, apocabigbang. But my Merlin/Sandman crossover can count for this, and I already have 3000 words.

First things first! zempasuchil and I are erasing each other's fic, and her erasure of my Merlin OT4 fic, The Ink Still Drying, is Then Sing. <3 Prettyyyyyy. HOORAY ERASURES.

My erasure is still in progress, because I spent the past week being TREMENDOUSLY BUSY. The week was equal parts awesome and equal parts stresssssssss. Here are some pictures and a couple of thoughts:



( to the glistening eastern sea )

Original fic: and sometimes you hear the silence speak (Narnia. Edmund, Susan, Jadis. Shades of Pevencest and Edmund/Jadis, but technically gen. PG13.)

Part 1 of DVD commentary
( DVD commentary: 'and sometimes you hear the silence speak' 2/2 )

In which my thesis on food crisis (among other things) almost leaked into my Calormen fic. Okay, so there's this exchange between Edmund and the Calormene grand vizier:

“You were talking about the irrigation infrastructure in the southern reaches,” Edmund reminded him.

“Ah, yes. I fear there will be famine if we are not able to preempt another source of grain.”

“Might I suggest lowering tariffs on crops?”

The conversation went on as such as the two men made their way through the Tisroc’s fertile gardens, politicians politely negotiating the wealth of their nations.

I had to restrain myself from extending their conversation into something like this:
( You made Terebinthia lower tariffs and then you flooded their markets with cheap imports, and look where they are now. )

Edmund Pevensie: ruthless neoliberal.

MY FREE TRADE ANGST LET ME SHOW YOU IT