Thorns

Watching On the Prowl and reading the comments got me thinking about how vidding fandom (which is mostly female) portrays violence against women. Because while I agree with the people saying that the vid would be much more disturbing if it was all female characters, I do also like a lot of vids with violence against women in them.

So I went through my vids (mostly live action, with a few AMVs) and looked at those that featured significant violence against women, and I ended up with a couple of different categories for the ways it's portrayed. This is only a cross section of the vids I have seen and liked, and may not be representative (especially of people who don't like femslash), if your experience or opinion is different I'd be curious to hear about it.
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This isn't a deep post. just an off topic tangent from this discussion.

So, ones I can think of off the top of my head (my brain has of course gone blank):

• Revolutionary Girl Utena
  
• Card Captor Sakura
  
• Sailor Moon? (I haven't seen it)
  
• Check the comments for many more!
  

It doesn't have to be the main characters, my point was that sometimes in anime (unlike mainstream western tv) you can think "Those two have such good chemistry, wouldn't it be great if they got together!" and they do.

EDIT: Obviously I'm not the best judge of this myself but the aim is stories one can enjoy as representations of queerness not unrealistic yaoi etc, and relatively mainstream anime that a typical sff geek might easily encounter and enjoy.

There's also lots where the subtext never quite becomes text but isn't actively contradicted either, like (as I recall) "Read or Die".

On the whole, as a white Australian, I feel uncomfortable making independent statements about racism which is specific to America. But this rule has been so consistent I feel it's worth noting:

The New Orleans Rule
Any fictional story set in New Orleans will involve witch-doctors/Voodoo/zombies.
There may be some superficial guff about how it's a perfectly respectable religion and maybe you'll meet a nice Voodoo priest or something but in the end it will turn out to be Evil And Scary and chances are the nice non-threatening Voodoo practicing black girl who helps the white protagonist will turn out to be a Dangerous Evil Slut.

Recent stories will mention Hurricane Katrina for regional colour, but really it'll be about the Scary Voodoo.

EDIT: May apply more to movies/tv/games than books.
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Researching for Wedding is Desiny I came across Letters to a Young Lady on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects which basically consists entirely of book recommendations. Since both of my characters read a fair bit, and I start each chapter with a quote, this is a useful resource and I went through and wrote them all down and then added links where (a) I could find something and (b) could be bothered (ie not for the bible). I skipped the Biography, Art, and guides to other countries sections because I just don't care.

Yes, making lists is like a sickness with me.
( Cut because I'm sure noone but me will find this remotely interesting )

So I was thinking about the scifi that doesn't get the love it deserves, and had an idea for a con panel: Hard science fiction for subjects other than physics, maths, and computer science.

Where here by "hard" I mean "Fairly scientifically realistic (given one or two "what-if"s etc), someone with a degree in that field would think it was cool rather than painfully innaccurate". Normal (ie mathsy) examples in this field are people like Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter ("Raft" had me doing 3d intergration to figure out the gravity field of his space ship :)), some Asimov etc.

The problem is: I have a degree in maths and computer science, so what the hell do I know about these other subjects :D On the other hand, nico_wolfwood (who has volunteered to co-panelise it) has the right sort of degree but couldn't think of many examples :)

So, for those of you with a background in one of these other sciences what books do you feel make a genuine effort to explore the ideas of your field in an informed and inventive way? Any objections to our current suggestions?
( What we can think of )
Right. Now both my panel ideas are out there I feel much better. They're both doing ok in the panel voting and I at least feel semi-prepared for it if they do get taken up. And if I'm sick on the day nico_wolfwood etc have my notes to work from, should they feel the need :)

EDIT: More discussion here.

Latest set of movies from Quickflix, most of which were pretty good.
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Ten Truly Underrated Sci-Fi Movies via linkmachinego. Don't forget the follow up post at the bottom.

Those I've seen, all worth watching if you like sf:
Primer: Best movie time travel ever
Tron: Absolutely classic, also has amusing-in-retrospect Sheridan & Londo scene :)
Existenz: Kind of crap, imo, but still really interesting
Gattacca: Awesome, like Primer actually takes it's material seriously
Dark City: Really interesting and effective style, even if it didn't make sense in parts. Borderline fantasy.
Cypher: I found this a bit shallow under it's cleverness, and very much reminiscent of a book I read in primary school (I won't say which for spoiler reasons)
The Quiet Earth: Saw this at Swancon, very strange and slow but unique and interesting. Are there any other NZ sf films?

I've read the story of "A boy and his dog" and it was effectively creepy, don't think I'd like the film.

Added to Quickflix queue: "Enemy Mine", "Silent Running" and "Strange days".

You HAVE to watch the trailer for "Enemy Mine". I can see why it's considered one of the slashiest canons ever "Hatred..turns to love tolerance. Tolerance..turns to love friendship. Friendship..turns to love."

Also, I don't care what they say, it may be cheesy and shallow but I liked Equilibrium :P

As some of you may recall I helped run a panel on the use of "race" as a metaphor in sff at Swancon. Preparing for and doing that panel has made me really aware of just how often this is done, and done badly, and since I'm having a slowish day at work, I've been inspired to organise it all into two lists.

I talk about "aliens" here but it applies just as well to any other non human group. Similarly, I'm mainly thinking about race/ethnicity, but stuff like religion etc works too.

Anything in bold is in both lists and an automatic fail.
( Signs your aliens are probably humans in disguise )( Things you just can't say about human groups )