"The mission of the Carl Brandon Society is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction."

"We envision a world in which speculative fiction, about complex and diverse cultures from writers of all backgrounds, is used to understand the present and model possible futures; and where people of color are full citizens in the community of imagination and progress."

• Journler is a nifty Mac program that does more than it sounds like -- it's really good for organizing all sorts of files and info on your computer.
  
• ffmpegX is a good Mac program for converting just about any audio or video format to any other.
  
• truepenny says profound things about failure.
  

• Bloom County
  
• Lyda Morehouse - Archangel Protocol (series)
  
• Max Headroom
  
• Shadow Unit
  
• Ultraviolet UK (tv)
  
• Watchmen (comic)
  

ellen_fremedon

• Bloom County
  
• Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
  
• Lyda Morehouse - AngeLINK series
  
• Watchmen
  
• Charles de Lint - Newford series
  
• Naomi Novik - Temeraire series
  
• Viking sagas
  
• Norse mythology
  

Cross-posted from LJ, belatedly, as it's been one of those weeks...

Dear humanity (in particular, but not solely, the male portion of it):

You made me ashamed this week, of my species and my gender. You can do better than this. Some of you are, and I think that’s wonderful.

Love,

--x

The Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program is a wonderful response to the stupidity that’s gone down this week. And guys (men), don’t be a dick. I don’t know that there’s a great name for the rest of this post, since it’s sort of covered in Humanity 101. Maybe it’s the Y Chromosome Reserves. Maybe the Don’t Be A Dick Project. Whatever it is, I’m putting it in the public domain, where it darned well should be.

When someone says they hurt, I will stop and listen. I will listen to what they actually say, not what I thought they said. Regardless of what I think, it’s their hurt, and isn’t that enough?

I will pay attention to what I say. Our words, conversations, off-hand comments shape the world, and what we say carries meaning and weight, even how we say it. My words might be completely innocuous in my own head, but they don’t exist solely in my head. They form the patterns with everyone else’s words, and what you hear in the context of that pattern may be more or less than what I mean. I will try to hear what you hear.

I will notice my surroundings. Those of us in positions of power and privilege have been told all our lives that we belong here. That we belong in this seat, walking down this street, standing at this bus stop, behind this counter, in this job. Try to imagine what it might be like for someone who has been told the opposite — that you’re not good enough for this job, that the other person at the bus stop might hurt you, that this street isn’t yours, that no one will believe you. I will try to see through your eyes.

When I don’t know, I will ask, but I will not expect anyone to be an ambassador for any group.

I won’t always be perfect. When I make mistakes, call me out on them, and I will learn. When someone else makes mistakes, I will call them out. Not to hurt them, not to demean them, but to make this world just a little bit better.

Scotch is required for watching BSG.

Hot chocolate seems to be the best for watching Dr. Who.

That is all.

Dr. Who is one of those nice comfortable cozy shows for me. I started watching it in college when I started hanging out with the local Who/Trek club, and we’d watch TNG when it aired Saturday nights, take a break, and then watch some old Who, taped off PBS. I probably fell asleep several times to the Doctor being chased by some menacing swamp thing.

But one of the things that has always struck me about the show is how joyful it is. Even when there are dark moments, even in the recent couple of seasons where we’re left wondering how much the Doctor was scarred by the Time War, what parts of his soul he’s bottled up and put away somewhere in the bowels of the TARDIS — even with that, the show is joyful. And that’s what comes through in a lot of the vids here. Some of them might make you cry, but all of them will bring a smile at some point.

A playlist of the vids that are on iMeem is at http://www.imeem.com/xenacryst/playlist/xdWdOtXK/favorite_vids_dr_who_video_playlist/.

Gacked from, like, everywhere…

So I was adding some new interests to my LJ profile (because I, uh… have some new interests. Yes.) and found myself feeling defensive every time I typed a female name, thinking, basically, FUCK YOU, SHE’S AWESOME, because I felt as if someone somewhere was going to be criticizing my love for them.

So, anyway, then I made a list of women who make me want to say FUCK YOU, SHE’S AWESOME. They are far from the only women who are awesome, or the only women people need to be told to step off of, but they are the top ten I feel that way about, right now, off the top of my head.

If you want to argue with me about the awesomeness of any of these women, I am afraid I will simply be referring you to the subject line. THAT IS ALL.

10 is only the beginning…

1. Susan Ivanova
2. Delenn
3. Lyta Alexander
4. Buffy Summers
5. Ace
6. Sarah Jane Smith
7. Martha Jones
8. Kira Nerys
9. Jadzia Dax
10. Aeryn Sun
11. Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan
12. Dana Scully
13. Zoe Alleyne Washburn
14. Kaylee Frye
15. Inara Serra
16. River Tam
17. Uhura
18. Tasha Yar
19. Gwen Cooper
20. Toshiko Sato
21. Shane Vansen
22. Eowyn
23. Sarah Williams
24. Death
25. Miss Piggy

Well, it’s been a while since I said anything particularly fannish, and I’ve got in mind to talk about some of my favorite vids. I’m going to make a series of posts about my favorites, and see where that gets us.

I’ll start with Firefly and Serenity. One of my favorite shows, and there seems to be a fair number of vids out there (even beyond Here’s Luck’s wonderful contributions). Firefly vids aren’t, by and large, a happy comfy place. There are some pretty gritty vids in here, echoing the gritty nature of the show. But there is still enough in the show to hang your heart on and really get involved.

Vid: New Frontier
Vidder: Here’s Luck
Music: Benefits of Being Paranoid
iMeem: http://heresluck.imeem.com/video/JgyW40Rb/ff_newfrontier/

I think I imprinted on this vid. There’s somethng about the music that Here’s Luck uses, especially for Firefly vids, that really strikes a chord with me. The visuals and music here play off each other so well, and the minutest little cuts have huge meaning or fit with the music. The guitar scratch as the lasers cut through the corridors, the plucked chord as the blood drops off the blade at the end, the build up in the bridge to the explosive dancing of both Serenity and River, in these days of absorbancy echoing the trigger in River’s head, it could be here that’s both the planet and River’s brain. There are too many to list. I think what really catches me and reels me in is the opening — it’s hard to vid just to instrumentals, especially when the rest of the song has words, but the opening here is so perfectly in tune, building the scene, both visually and musically, that you can’t not keep watching the rest of the vid — you get settled in to an awesome vid, and then it just blows you away.

Vid: Thistledown Tears
Vidder: Here’s Luck
Music: Jeffrey Foucault
iMeem: http://heresluck.imeem.com/video/BneVxV_r/ff_thistledowntears/

Even though she’s done a lot more vids in other fandoms, Here’s Luck is my favorite for Firefly vids. This one has the same kind of gritty feel, musically and visually, as New Frontier, though it’s a lot quieter and sedate. Everyone on Serenity has some kind of haunting, and the phrase the time to wrestle with the angel is here keeps floating through the song, playing off the demons that all of the characters have. Everyone has secrets from their past, and Serenity is perhaps as good a place as any to work them through, maybe keep them hidden a bit longer. Just like the show, though, there is no resolution, night is quickly passing.

Vid: Nothing New
Vidder: Here’s Luck, again :)
Music: Blake Thomas and the Downtown Brown
iMeem: http://heresluck.imeem.com/video/alAVdijk/heres_luck_ff_nothingnew_music_video/

Here’s Luck finally does a Firefly shipper vid, and chooses, of course, the most fraught OTP of the bunch: Mal and Inara. Running music in the same vein as her other vids, this one just pours on the Mal/Inara angst like bitter gravelly wine, and I like it that way. As with her other vids, the visuals are flawless, if not as fast paced as some — but everything’s there for a reason. At the end of this, every time, I sigh, “oh, Mal“. Yes, it’s a shipper vid, but we don’t get what we want by virtue of Mal and Inara never getting what they want. And somehow, I think this unresolved tension colors most of Here’s Luck’s Firefly vids, and naturally so — this is one show that any fan will tell you was tragically canceled before we could really dig deep into these characters, where we know they’ve got stories to hide and tell.

Vid: Candleburn
Vidder: Charmax
Music: Dishwalla
iMeem: http://charmax.imeem.com/video/CLGG3K4i/ffcandleburnavi/

Continuing on the Mal/Inara melancholy shipper tone… But it’s not just Mal and Inara — it’s also Mal and Serenity, his ship, and one of the things he cares most about in the ‘verse. It’s almost that there’s this love triangle, and Mal won’t let himself just be with Inara, and maybe he doesn’t know how to do that without feeling like he’s betrayed his ship. One of the things that I love about this vid is that we get the disappearing Inara trick played on us — she’s there, in the scene, and then fades out, like Mal is seeing ghosts, and all that’s left is Serenity with him. Mal and Inara say so much throughout the show to each other only through their eyes, and this vid really captures that. The music also builds on itself, and somewhere a bit more than halfway through the song you realize that it’s completely dragged you in. The scene choices echo that, making more of that unresolved Firefly tension that I just love.

Vid: Ghosts
Vidder: frodolyn
Music: Road to Perdition soundtrack

Warning: this vid kicks. Hard. It’s not light breakfast viewing material. Like Thistledown Tears, we’re reminded that everyone has ghosts, pieces of their past that have gotten them to this frakked up place in the ‘verse. And we’re also treated to the ghosts that are created in the show — Wash, Book. And the little captured moments of cheer that might be lost, might never come to mean anything. This is an entirely instrumental vid (aside from a couple of voice-overs from the show), and the moody music somehow gets under your skin and makes it crawl. Be sure you’re not holding anything breakable as the vid ends.

Vid: Scared
Vidder: sweetestdrain
Music: The Tragically Hip
iMeem: http://profile.imeem.com/3vdbTE/video/x-i3-d0N/ff_scared/

Well, let’s end this on a positive note. This vid is sweet, and it even makes me chuckle in a few places. It’s not very deep, but it says what it says well. Mal puts on this tough facade for the world — he makes you scared. It’s his schtick, the way he keeps up face. But he also cares about his crew, and the way they stand up for him, get his back — well, that touches him, breaks that facade a little bit, and that makes him scared.