#in faux feminist gestures.

[hauntedmoors]

wild that ostensibly feminist media always includes that one woman who has a plotline dedicated to mourning her inability to have children. sometimes they bring up a woman’s inability/desire to have children out of left side with no context. this happened to an assassin on something trashy I was watching yesterday btw. have I ever mentioned that I also fucking hate the dutiful housewife who participates in patriarchal social rituals and excels at them while also secretly harbouring skills perceived to be inherently male to prove her competence. it’s apparently imperative that she achieves perfection in every sphere, but especially while making a point about her success in the domestic sphere. outlining that success in her secret double life is not achieved at the cost of her inherent femininity because that is not acceptable. I wish I had the energy to send hate mail to hollywood writers

#tldr #a very obvious pattern is emerging from some of the stuff I’ve been watching lately #text #yes ​infertility is a disability that requires empathy and understanding. but I think what we’re really witnessing is bad writing wrapped u #in faux feminist gestures.

[missmeinyourbones]

PLEASE NOTICE 

cw: noncanon universe, college au, mentions of alcohol and drinking, mutual pining, loosely based on that one tik tok audio of stan and wendy from south park LOL

“But if you come, we could—” 

Megumi cuts Yuuji off before the words can actually leave his mouth, “No.”

You walk through the door just in time to see Nobara’s face turn from a smirk to a scowl at his unexpected interruption. 

“You didn’t even let him finish!” she whines through an irritated pout. 

Megumi is quick to shrug proudly, “Don’t have to. The answer is still no.”

With a quick scan of the room, there’s a lot of different feelings dancing in the cramped space of your dorm. Megumi sits with his back against the couch, blatantly annoyed with whatever question was in the process of being asked. Yuuji sits adjacent to him on his bean bag, arms resting on his knees and persistence eager in his eyes. Nobara stands behind Yuuji, hands on her hips and her face puckered into a sour frown.

With caution, you decide to tread lightly. “...What are we talking about?”

Yuuji’s head whips in your direction, desperate for some encouragement in whatever he’s trying to persuade Megumi of.

“We’re trying to convince The Grim Reaper here to come out with us tonight,” he uses a nod to gesture to where Megumi slumps on his phone, frown covered by the collar of his hoodie.  

Nobara sighs obnoxiously before explaining, “The bartender at that place on the corner has a weird thing for him, which means free drinks on Megumi tonight.”  

You notice Megumi’s eyebrows instantly furrow at her blunt conclusion. 

“She’s some girl from my politics lecture,” his response is muffled, dismissive, through his sweatshirt, “I want nothing to do with her.”

Nobara scurries over to where Megumi wishes the couch could swallow him whole. “But she doesn’t have to know that,” her tone is airy with faux potential.  

Yuuji lets out a dry snort at her claim, “Some feminist you are.”

A smack is heard, and you don’t need to be looking to know its from Nobara’s hand meeting the back of Yuuji’s head. 

“Hey! I love women,” her hands wave in dramatic clarification, “but if Megumi playing dirty gets me a few free tequila sodas, then I’m more than fine enabling this one situation.”

You make yourself comfortable on the opposite end of the couch Megumi sits on. You don’t miss how his eyes quickly flicker over to where he feels the cushion bend beneath your weight. 

You let your sock-clad foot poke at his thigh, and he’s quick to turn his attention to you. 

“Even if you come and don’t smuggle us free drinks, I still think it’ll be fun,” you shoot him a warm smile. The simple action makes his stomach flip in on itself and his palms sweat with a feeling he can only describe as genuine. 

But what follows? Not so much.

“So fun,” Yuuji chimes in, clearly trying to further persuade Megumi into tagging along with them tonight. “Like, the most fun four best friends could ever have.” 

Megumi’s eyes roll when he scoffs, “My definition of fun isn’t watching you get wasted and being your babysitter for the night.”

Yuuji howls behind a boyish grin. 

“You could get drunk, too,” he teases in an airy giggle, “then everybody wins.”

Megumi’s nose crinkles as he thinks about drinking tonight, “You know I’m not big on drinking.”

“One wouldn’t hurt,” Nobara chimes in, “might even get that stick out of your ass.”

The two choose to ignore her smart remark. Yuuji doesn’t take his eyes off Megumi when he continues to push, “Just for a little bit?”

The huff from Megumi’s chest is instant, “I said no.”

Nobara jumps in again, “I’ll pay for the Uber, out of the kindness of my heart—”

Yuuji suddenly shakes your shoulder with a rough and excited hand. 

“Wait—you know that one guy, right?” he beams. 

Your head turns at his sudden touch, “What guy?”

“The one on the lacrosse team,” he eagerly reminds you, “who was flirting with you all night last weekend.”

“Oh yeah,” Nobara points your way as she remembers, “that was painful to watch.” 

You cringe at the memory—a guy from your campus whom you’d met a few weeks ago. He was nice enough, decently looking, and friendly with the rest of his team—but you weren't interested in him like he was in you. His actions were a bit too handsy and his humor was a tad too crude for your taste. Definitely not worth the two free vodka cranberries he bought you. 

You choose to shrug at the insinuation, “Yeah, I mean, I guess I’m friendly with him—”

“Perfect!” Nobara jumps up with excitement. “He’ll definitely be there tonight. You bat your pretty little eyelashes a bit, get a few extra beers for us. And if he tries anything funny, we bash his teeth in.” 

She claps her hands together at the simplicity of her plan, and Megumi absolutely hates the turn of events that's happened in the last thirty seconds. Sure, he didn't want to go and entertain some poor girl who has a crush on him for a few drinks—but now, with the alternative being you doing the same thing, he’s suddenly sick to his stomach.

He nearly lunges out of his seat when he tosses his phone down beside him. “Are you guys really this desperate for a few free drinks?” His tone is a bit too irritated for the light conversation at hand. 

Nobara and Yuuji spare one another a quick glance, before tucking their smiles into their cheeks and doing their best to nod thoughtfully at their aggravated friend. 

“So, you comin’? Or what?”

“Please, Megumi? My favorite stick in the mud?”

Megumi’s head shakes, and he goes to open his mouth to decline rather disrespectfully when your voice cuts him off. 

“Megumi,” you call softly, and he’s immediately burning a bright red, both inside and out. 

Your eyes are glowing with a hopeful shimmer, one that he can read without any words needed. “I won’t wanna go if you don’t come,” you gently whine, ��please?”

Yuuji eagerly hits Nobara’s shoulder a few times as he does his best to whisper, “He’s slipping, he’s slipping.” Nobara grins like a cat, and you swear you can read her lips saying “man down.”

The two of them don’t even try to hide their snickers, but luckily for the two, Megumi isn't focused on them. He’s focused on you—your delicate plea music to his ears as he’s immediately softening and rethinking his whole prior mindset.  All because you so much as smiled and said please. 

With the look you're giving him right now, Megumi could never say no to you. 

“Fine,” he keeps it short and sweet, “but only for a few hours.” 

Nobara slaps his shoulder in victory as she skips towards her room to go get ready, “That’s more than enough time for me, buddy.” 

“You’re still paying for the Uber,” Megumi calls after her down the hallway, and before she descends out of sight, she turns around and salutes him a confirmation. 

With a few giggles, Yuuji isn't far behind her as he too eventually disappears, leaving just you and Megumi on the couch together. 

When he turns to face you, he’s flustered to find that you’re already admiring him. You send him a soft smile, one he knows is saying thank you, so he sends one back and prays to whoever might be listening that you know it's saying far more than you're welcome.

#megumi x you #megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #megumi fushiguro x you #megumi fluff #megumi fushiguro fluff #megumi fic #megumi fushiguro fic

[eastgaysian]

okay here's one post i have to make. Finally racism confirmed real in succession. other people have talked about this before but it is a huge blind spot of the show not to acknowledge the intersection between racism and capitalism, and the excuse that the characters are the 1% and the 1% are vastly white is pretty weak. the fact that the show sidelines its existing characters of color while every now and then broadly gesturing towards race makes this worse, especially as the show more directly focuses on fascism and just Doesn't bring race into it. like i don't even think race is totally absent as a concern of the writers but it's clearly not a priority. i think a lot about how mo's widow is a filipino woman

anyway. ken and rava's conversation in this sense doesn't really qualify as, like, revolutionary in terms of succession's commentary on race esp since it's a discussion between two white parents about their brown daughter without her present. the point of interest to me really is that kendall completely fails to recognize racism as a systemic issue, much less that he works for and is trying to sustain a company that actively works to perpetuate that hegemony. his questions are why was sophie on the street? why wasn't rava there? in the same episode where he calls matsson homophobic for saying the numbers are gay. socially aware king

it's not particularly revelatory to say that a rich white man doesn't grasp the concept of systemic racism LOL but i do think it's more than that for kendall, and i also think this trait is something his siblings don't share. it's like how he doesn't realize he's in a position of power over anna and she was pressured into attending the recny with him, and his adoption of a faux-feminist stance in s3 while continuing to treat women like shit. kendall's whole concept of Everything, including systemic social issues, goes back to logan. there's no system outside of dad. the doj doesn't find the cruises evidence compelling? that's because they're scared of logan. logan's the source of the evil in the world, therefore opposing him is inherently progressive, leaving kendall with even less of a coherent moral framework after his death. and he's completely unable to process the idea that he could be participating in and benefiting from the greater racist or sexist system, because that's fundamentally incompatible with his logan-based idea of his own identity.

i don't think roman or shiv or even connor share this particular nearsightedness. roman 'we do hate speech and roller coasters' roy knows what's going on but he doesn't really care and he doesn't believe it can be changed (or, maybe more accurately, that there's any point in trying). he doesn't buy into fascism on the ideological level, exactly, but the spectacle appeals to him and he does believe it's profitable to align with it, so he's perfectly happy to do so. i think he's the most similar to logan in this regard. and shiv and connor have actual political ideologies, even if they're far from being meaningfully opposed to fascism, which requires a base awareness of the fact that We Live In A Society and That Society Has Systems In It. for kendall it really boils down to logan and logan alone

#chalkboard

[girlweepinginstairwell]

hi! :D i love your blog, so i wanted to ask, why do you think the barbie movie was bleak? i love hearing people's opinions on the film, and i thought that was an interesting adjective to describe it. you don't have to answer if you don't want to, ofc! hope you have a nice day!!! <3

oh you’re so sweet, thanks so much! ❣️ honestly i don’t know how intelligible this will be considering i spent a few days after watching the movie hashing out my thoughts with various friends and have mostly said my piece privately, but i thought it was bleak because it just… was…

like i did have fun because it is spectacularly produced & i guess in some ways it’s like oh, well it’s literally the BARBIE movie, what did you expect, but in other ways i was just like. oh my God, the faux criticism of barbie as a product, mattel as a company, and capitalism as a concept this film presents… i couldn’t stomach it! like how much of this are we supposed to believe is greta gerwig’s genuine artistic vision & how much of it is mattel indulgently financing a tongue-in-cheek critique of its own contributions to consumerism knowing it will only generate MORE of the same? i found myself reminded of a particular excerpt from chapter two of mark fisher’s capitalist realism: is there no alternative?, where he writes:

“…anti-capitalism is widely disseminated in capitalism. Time after time, the villain in Hollywood films will turn out to be the ‘evil corporation’. Far from undermining capitalist realism, this gestural anti-capitalism actually reinforces it… We’re left in no doubt that consumer capitalism and corporations… is responsible for this depredation… The film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity. The role of capitalist ideology is not to make an explicit case for something in the way that propaganda does, but to conceal the fact that the operations of capital do not depend on any sort of subjectively assumed belief… So long as we believe (in our hearts) that capitalism is bad, we are free to continue to participate in capitalist exchange.”

i was so reminded of this passage while watching the film that the first thing i did upon leaving the theater was go through my copy to locate it.

there were also a number of scenes i found, ironically, to convey rather insidious anti-feminist messaging despite the movie’s reputation as (and attempts to live up to the title of) a feminist flick, but i won’t go into those in detail because i’m sure there are people reading this who want to see this film & haven’t yet. in the same vein, i found it to be massively spineless/inauthentic/confused? in the stances it takes because, in an effort to appeal to an audience so broad as to include Basically everyone on the planet, it… doesn’t really commit to any of the stances it presents at all. a lot of the points it tried to make about womanhood, feminism, capitalism, motherhood, and the patriarchy either fell flat or were completely undone by the movie’s end, which is why i found it very funny that some people thought this movie was TOO feminist when i thought it was, frankly, toothlessly feminist.

the sets and costumes were beautiful, the acting was genuinely solid, i liked a lot of the referential pastiche-y moments that cropped up throughout it and i laughed lots at its cleverness because it WAS very witty, but when the credits began to roll i did think, um. maybe we’re in hell. i’m sure some people loved this movie, but sadly i really could not! also mattel now has a Toy cinematic universe planned which is um… great! and doesn’t make me feel a horrible sense of despair or anything

#asks

[ooklet]

I was thinking about how to articulate what I hate about the Barbie movie. Like, there are some fun moments (Ken stepping out of view to scream "SUBLIME!" has forever ingratiated itself in my lexicon) but by and large it left me with an increasing sense of frustration that ultimately culminated into a two-part hate.

The first is easy to cover, and it's Mattel's utter failure to put its money where its mouth is, in the form of the movie's portrayal of a fat Barbie vs. the proportions on the fattest actual Barbie that they sell*:

*For the pedants out there, this statement excludes specific, limited characters, like Disney licensed Ursulas. I'm talking about general Barbies for sale on a given day.

The second was harder. For a while I couldn't put it into words, just vague, angry hand gestures about how nothingburger the resolution was.

And then while I was reading A Glossary of Haunting by Eve Tuck and C. Ree, I saw this sentence:

"Listing terrors is not a form of social justice."

And it clicked not just what angered me about this movie, but about a lot of performative, faux woke (fauxke?) media these days. Acknowledgment alone is not the beginning and end of justice. Acknowledgment alone offers no solutions. Acknowledgement alone is how you get Riverdale's tonal whiplash of every second word out of Veronica's mouth ("Toxic masculinity!") vs. noted underage girl Betty Cooper's dead-eyed gang initiation striptease to Mad World.

(And yeah, I know Riverdale is a special case in that it exists in a mirror funhouse dimension of probably salvia-induced dumbassery, but my point stands.)

In the Barbie movie, Gloria lists terrors to the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies, and that is all that it takes to restore them to their #feminist selves. But the thing is, we the audience already know that patriarchy sucks. This offers us, the people for whom this movie was made, nothing.

Related, second-and-a-half thing that I hated about this movie was the comparison between the Barbies having no defenses against patriarchal thinking and American Indians having no defenses against smallpox. Truly go fuck yourselves Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. The genocide of my ancestors is not a punchline. (But don't even get me started on how often this sort of casual cruelty randomly pops up in media, or this is going to evolve into an essay on why Brendan Urie deserves to have his vocal cords repossessed for that "manifest destiny" line in High Hopes.)

Anyway, I guess my point is that there was never going to be a Barbie movie with anything of substance to say, because it exists to sell toys and facilitate Mattel's recovery from their Ever-After-High-Disney-License-Revoked-Monster-High-Destroyed-Revenue-Vacuum fiasco. And it did do that. That is, in fact, all that it did.

#barbie movie #dolls #ndn #fatphobia #racism #colonialism

[they-them-that]

My conflicted feelings on femininity in Shoujo

I will defend shoujo like my life depends on it, even the ones I don't like, if somone uses it as a slight against girls and women. I am tackling issues within shoujo but this isn't an attack against the genre. Shounen has far more egregious issues with the difference being that shounen sets boys up to expect from women while shoujo sets girls up to meet those expectations for men. Shoujo writers, who are often women, are just products of social grooming that end up passing it on to the next generation of women. They're not the ones who created the problem and it's low hanging fruit to target shoujo just to condemn women's and girls' interests. There's also plenty of shoujo with strong and progressive writing that goes unnoticed or are treated like the exception. Also, as you can guess, I am tackling the CIS hetero-romantic aspects of shoujo but I'm well aware it's far more diverse than that, it's just that within this genre, there's a reoccurring problem I want to get off my chest. Finally, I hope shoujo-fans can interact with this post with an open mind but I understand that we have gone through a treacherous era of vilifying femininity and faux-feminism that's defined by capitalistic and masculinized achievements. It can be hard to critically talk about femininity (and particularly, the idea of "choice-feminism") but this isn't an interrogation on women, it's challenging the subliminal misogyny that permeates female-oriented media.

As someone who craves both feminine and feminist content, the way femininity is written in a lot of shoujo manga and anime can feel like a double edged sword. It's great to see feminine traits being valued and even essentialized but sometimes, there's stories that feel like its preaching to a patriarchal standard of femininity that is more aligned with the male gaze.

The "popular girls" in shoujo frames girls who prioritize their self-interests--like being into fashion, makeup and socialization--as selfish and vapid. There's a blatant vilification of women's confidence and assertiveness when the heroine is modest and insecure in contrast. She doesn't participate in indulgent hobbies unless a boy incentivizes her and even then, she still has to maintain her meekness to not come off as overzealous. One of the largest points I see shoujo fans make is how the feminine protagonist's strongest quality is her empathy which is definitely a good thing to have! But it feels questionable when her nurturing qualities are rooted in patriarchal expectations.

These female characters often talk down on themselves and put others first while still being dependent on others to be their protectors and source of affirmation. There's the well known stereotype of male love interests being pushy and entitled to the point it borders on harassment and even assault. Although it can be used to generalize and degrade shoujo romances (while shounen romances don't get enough vitriol), it is a reoccurring problem worth calling out. Girls should not be normalized to predatory and abusive behaviors from boys and men as gestures of affection, especially when the girls' love languages in the same stories are selfless and maternal.

Our definition of femininity is fuzzy because femininity itself is a social concept that takes on multiple meanings. Being feminine can be empowering but we have to acknowledge that a lot of what shapes our idea of femininity came from the patriarchy to instill gender essentialism for women to be subservient to men. Shoujo is very guilty of assigning heavily gendered roles in relationships--the protector (masculine) and the nurturer (feminine)--that can be problematic at most but just not very vindicating to consume at the least.

Shoujo protagonists tend to embody this level of stereotypical femininity that isn't even relatable or aspirational for girls and feels more like it's trying to convey what a "good, honest girl" is. There can be girls who do connect with those types of heroines but it makes it even more concerning when her ultimate reward for her docility is a man's attention. That doesn't mean I'm calling for more "girl-boss" heroines that puts masculinity on a pedestal but that we should redefine our understanding of femininity that doesn't exist in servitude to others. Femininity isn't a list of traits to begin with, it's a form of expression. We shouldn't shy away from prideful women like that's a "masculine" trait (or disavow masculinity in women at all tbh) and recognize femininity and self-care can and do co-exist.

#shoujo #shoujo manga #shoujo anime #anime and manga #feminism

[marzipanandminutiae]

Also re: mistaking Lucille Sharpe for a vamp/femme fatale, I think people may be getting a little confused by the...*gestures vaguely at all of Jessica Chastain*

Oh, it's completely understandable.

Forget snack- Jessica Chastain in Natural Form is an entire high tea.

It interests me most when the "femme fatale" thing comes up as a criticism of the character, especially from a faux-feminist standpoint. because it reveals just how much the critic is seeing what they want- or at least, expect -to see.

Hot Lady With Dark Secrets? Oh, she definitely uses ~*feminine wiles*~ to get what she wants! Never mind that, not only does she never do that, but if you pay any attention at all, it's impossible to even IMAGINE it.

Lucille is honestly one of the least sexualized female antagonists I've ever seen in a movie. She's not above manipulating people, but sex for her seems to be entirely about comfort and/or personal gratification. We never see her use it as a tool- even her control over Thomas seems to be primarily emotional.

(The same critics often read Edith as the classic damsel-in-distress who saves herself out of left field at the very end. Which is an equally reductive interpretation of the character, and once again shows that their concept of Feminist MediaTM very much relies on a strict good trope/bad trope checklist.)

#ask #thedupshadove #crimson peak

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

Seems as if I must explain patriarchal language to a feminist. Lol, ok, here we go.

@ms-hells-bells

Let me illustrate, with spoken word I’ve previously written, that I hope to get recorded with some background one day.

You, man, call my mouth a “cocksucker”

One more time,

And I will open ten cans of feminist on you

In meter and rhyme.

I guess you’re just jealous

Because of what my mouth can do

You dribble and drool

In clumsy phrases

And uninspired sex jokes

And tired old cliches

Like a weary aged blind man

groping for a lightswitch

Or maybe a middle schooler

groping for a boob

While my imagination runs wild

And far-reaching

And squeaky clean.

(Most of the time.)

I’ll use metaphors that will leave your skin tingling

Tone and tempo that will have your heart singing.

Maybe one day you’ll get in on it

So I won’t have to take your shit

And flip it

inside out, throw it back, and watch it hit.

I would flip you off,

but as we all should know

That’s supposed

To represent a penis

That gesture’s wide history varies from culture to culture

Sometimes a whole arm gets involved

But they all hinge

On an erect

gesture

Sometimes thrust at or up

For good measure.

So hell if I am going to invoke

“Male power” to get on top of my opponent.

There are obscene gestures that could be reclaimed for feminism if we so chose

The thumb in between the first two fingers closed

Why don’t you

‘Lick my clit,’

Instead of

‘Suck my dick,’

Because that is what’s so often neglected

‘Fuck you,’

Used

To be openly tied directly to the faux phallus gesture

Meaning, very literally, ‘I want to rape you’

Or feigning

And for a good portion of the population,

especially men, it still does.

If you’ve never heard phrases like ‘dude, that math test fucked me in the ass’

You either probably pretty privileged

Or socialize primarily with women.

So, that is why you will never see a middle finger from me

I’ll instead write with my furiously

moving fingers

Humor

and zingers

I can’t even say “fuck you”

Because see, that’s a representation

Of gendered domination

And why I don’t even like the f-word generally

And try to avoid when possible, except when it’s really needed

Or when I’m too pissed off

To keep my mouth from rape-adjacent clean

If you’re going to insist that “sex” IS “love”

Which I don’t believe either

For aces nor allos not any other non or queer

You can fuck someone you hate

In real life just as easily as words on a slate

And you can love someone you don’t want to nail

Or is your idea of love so shallow and pale?

Associations and connotations

Run deep in our unconsciousness

What are we reinforcing?

I imagine two people going at it

Like rabbits

And using the same term to describe what they’re doing

And a person they hate. ‘Fucker.’

That’s some mighty oxymoronic

Cognitive

Dissonance.

Ever notice how, when people refer to it on other ways, don’t say they “fuck” their partners,

there’s almost always more respect and caring there?

Words are powerful.

Again, if “sex” is “love,”

Then why don’t our vocabulary show it?

If “fuck you” meant to make someone feel good,

You know, what an erect, thrusting penis is supposed to do,

Instead of implying rape,

I wonder how much different our world would be

Would we have more true sex positivity?

So NO, I don’t want you to go get raped, ‘get screwed’ ‘screw you’

All I want to do

is grind you into the enlightening dust

With words, ideas, and spiked pixie dust.

#feminism #sex repulsion #sex repulsion tw #swearing #tw swearing #rape #rape tw #poetry #spoken word #lgbt #asexual #linguistics #sociolinguistics #sex ed #sexism #patriarchy #afab #gender roles #transmasculine

[trailercourt-blog]

TRAILER COURT 11/5/17 - TOMB RAIDER (2018)

At the risk of alienating some readers, I’m not what most people think of today as a “feminist.” Oh, I’m a passionate advocate of equal rights, opportunity, and pay for women, and I’m very much looking forward to the day when the United States elects its first female President. I consider women not only equal to men in most ways, but superior to them in many. I’m not, however, the sort of guy who feels at all guilty for being a guy, or who thinks every movie must feature a strong, intelligent woman protagonist who routinely bests all the male characters or else it is inherently sexist. That sort of thinking is neither progressive nor pragmatic, and I’ve seen it ruin more than a few otherwise promising films.

But when comes to Lara Croft, I’m all about girl power.

With apologies to Gal Gadot and her fantastic Wonder Woman (easily the strongest character in the current DC cinematic universe), the Lady Croft is, in my humble opinion, the ultimate action heroine. Tough, resourceful, brilliant, sexy, and fiercely independent, Lara is the real deal. She is the female James Bond that filmmakers are forever expressing a desire to create. Screenwriters don’t have to “toughen” her up to even the playing field, because if they aren’t already writing her stronger and smarter than her male costars, they don’t really know the character anyway. Lara is legit.

Obviously, this point of view betrays a certain predisposition toward loving this trailer. I can’t lie and pretend that the mere thought of Lara returning to the big screen doesn’t make me a little doe-eyed and instantly smitten with the new Tomb Raider, Alicia Vikander. Feigning impartiality would be a foolish gesture here.

Still, this is a pretty damn effective preview, even if you aren’t already a card-carrying Croft fanatic - in large part because it looks very much like the 2013 video game upon which it’s directly based. That reboot worked because it dared to do something no TOMB RAIDER game had done before, which is tell the story of Lara Croft in a gritty, realistic fashion. Rendering its protagonist with greater emotional depth and a far more credible physique, it added layers to both a heroine and a mythology which were already tailor-made for the Silver Screen.

This trailer reveals that the new film, though replete with white-knuckle action, foregoes the CGI sharks and comic book cheekiness of the Angelina Jolie films, in favor of slightly more plausible set pieces, and a much more believable, fallible lead. Lara is still 100% badass (and there is still a sense of fun evident), but we also get the distinct impression that she isn’t going to come out of this adventure unscathed. A lot of it comes down to Vikander’s performance, which is well showcased throughout the 2:09 run time. She doesn’t come across as some manufactured, faux-feminist caricature, but rather as a real, flesh-and-blood young woman who also happens to be exceptionally intelligent and fully capable or taking care of herself. Or, to put it more succinctly, she is Lara Croft. And that’s really the whole point here.

At this point, audiences know what action movies look like. They’ve seen plenty of breathtaking stunts and colorful CG before. The success or failure of this particular film hinges not upon how big or visually stunning it is, but on how readily the viewer accepts Vikander in the lead role. Like casting a new 007 or Batman, casting the right Lara is 95% of making a successful TOMB RAIDER adaptation. This trailer exists primarily to dispel any and all doubts that Jolie’s replacement is up to the task, and it succeeds because Vikander quite clearly is, and then some.

- Don Jeffrey Krouskop

#tomb raider #tomb raider 2018 #movie trailer #action movie #video game #video game movie #lara croft #alicia vikander #angelina jolie #feminism #heroine #female lead #wonder woman #gal gadot #nick frost #girl power

[artificialqueens]

We'll Show Them: Chapter Six- Luci

a/n: I’ve finally come home so I can write much faster now, so here’s chapter six! Big thanks to grandma for the beta-ing, and all the other Brits of course.

summary: Shea takes Sasha on her mystery date the day before her public meeting, which leads to confessions, even more emotions, and a problematic photographer.

In Sasha’s opinion, the best part of her workplace was the dress code. Blazers, pencil skirts and shirts were definitely to her fashion sense, and she loved the thrifting opportunities that a mandatory smart jacket provided.

Her endless supply of artsy blazers paired perfectly with her work. However, this presented one problem; there was a blurred line between her casual and work clothes, meaning she had little to wear for a date.

She’d picked out a number of contenders, including a red cocktail dress she’d reluctantly bought for a wedding, and a dark blue strapless dress from last year’s office Christmas party. However, she’d deemed them all unacceptable, and she’d collapsed on her bed. Her eyes shifted to her wardrobe and she spotted a dress hidden behind one of her jumpers. Sasha tried on the deep red collared wrap dress, spinning in front of the mirror once satisfied.

She didn’t know where she was going, and Shea had found immense delight in keeping it a secret from her.

Sasha had been fussing around for hours now, pacing around her bedroom since she’d gotten home from work. Shea was due any moment, and Sasha took a deep breath. She’d barely spent any time with Shea outside of work, especially not alone.

Her brain had only just begun to process the possible change in dynamic as the doorbell rang out, and she heard Shea shout a greeting. Sasha stared at the door for a moment, smiling as she saw Shea tapping her foot under the gap. Sasha wondered if she was just as nervous as she was.

Sasha’s hands shook as she reached over to open the door, and she couldn’t decide if it was from nerves or excitement. She decided, judging by the butterflies dancing in her stomach, that it was a bit of both.

Shea wore a tight white dress that cut off at her thigh, a flannel shirt the colour of butterscotch tied around her waist.

Her glossy ebony hair hung over her shoulders, framing her face. Shea’s makeup was more dramatic than Sasha was used to; thick eyeliner and dark red lips. She smiled widely as Sasha moved aside to let her in, mouth agape, blushing slightly. Sasha’s bewildered expression mirrored Shea’s as they looked each other up and down, taking in each other’s appearances.

“You look,” Shea cleared her throat, “amazing.” Sasha struggled to find the words to describe Shea, and settled with a soft, “you too.”

Shea was romantic. She was like a poet with her words, and it often left Sasha pathetically lost in wonder when she spoke. Shea was softer than she liked to show, she was gentle and careful, but now she stumbled through their greeting almost as clumsily as Sasha.

Sasha decided that Shea’s speechlessness was a compliment, and one she was easily able to return as she stared in Shea’s direction.

“You ready to tell me where we’re going yet?” Sasha asked as she picked up her bag from where she’d hung it over a dining chair, before walking back over to where Shea was waiting for her. Shea tapped the side of her nose teasingly, a playful gleam in her dark eyes. Sasha sighed, exasperated.

“God, you’re so impatient. It’s a short car ride, half an hour at most. Let’s go, or we’ll be late.” Shea gestured to the door, laughing when Sasha narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out clues from her words.

“So it’s something you have to book? Is it a show or a concert?” Sasha asked, weakly attempting to unravel Shea. The other woman just shook her head with a light laugh, walking out the door Sasha was holding open for her. Sasha locked it after she’d walked out, allowing Shea to lead the way down the building’s corridor.

Sasha was grateful that her apartment was on the ground floor. She didn’t appreciate the noise of the people walking past her window late in the evening, or howling cats sat on the brick walls surrounding her side of the building, but it meant she got to avoid all the painful stairs in the morning. Plus, it was easy to navigate after drunken mishaps in the dead of night.

A small staircase outside the building led to the car park where Shea had left her car. Sasha climbed into the passenger seat as she had many times before, leaning back into the comfortable faux leather seat. Shea hummed along to the radio as she drove out of the car park and onto the busy Brooklyn streets. Sasha laughed along to Shea’s loud rapping, messing up almost all of the lyrics.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this side of Brooklyn.” Sasha mused aloud as she glanced at the rows of shops lining each side of the street. She’d never heard of any of them before, aside from the odd popular clothes shop flooded with teenagers. Shea huffed with laughter.

“Jesus, have you ever even left your house?” She teased, taking one hand off the steering wheel to poke Sasha.

“Excuse me; I just need someone cool like you to show me the night life.” Sasha retorted with a huff, the subtle invitation hanging in the air. Shea smiled widely, turning the car suddenly into a narrow road. She parked the car smoothly in the only available gap, punching the air triumphantly as the car behind them cursed the lack of spaces.

“Are you ready?” Shea asked before they turned the corner. Sasha felt a warm feeling as she watched Shea, who seemed overly excited to show Sasha where they were.

“As I’ll ever be darling.” Sasha grinned, taking Shea’s hand in her own. Shea pulled Sasha around to the other side of the tall wall, into the big square ahead of them.

“Is there anywhere else I could’ve taken you?” Shea said fondly, watching in amusement as Sasha’s eyes lit up in excitement.

The building, the Brooklyn museum, looked like art itself, statues and gargoyles carved into the stone. Six great pillars stood guarding the front of the building, with flags hanging from each one, advertising the art on display.

Sasha glanced up from the steps they were stood on, eyes shooting from one window to the next, taking in the sight in front of her. Shea laughed as she tugged on Sasha’s arm to get her attention, pulling her from her trance.

Sasha skipped through the glass doors that separated her from the museum, her eyes instantly drawn to the tall, grand ceiling decorated by paintings and carvings. Shea nudged her away from the entrance of the door after people muttered complaints about her being in the way.

“Shea,” Sasha called to get her attention as she placed her finger on the leaflet in her hand to trace the words as she read them, “Black Radical Women 1965-85, feminist art on the 4th floor.”

“Oh god, feminism and art, it’s a Sasha Velour wet dream.” Shea teased, allowing herself to be led towards the stairs by Sasha. Of course, the inspiration of the date had been Sasha’s love for art. She’d talk wishfully about visiting the museum, and when Shea had asked, she’d simply said she’d never found the time nor the person to go with. Shea knew she could fix that.

But now, seeing how Sasha’s face lit up and how her eyes gleamed, she wondered why she’d never taken the woman to the museum before. Sasha’s hands reached out for Shea’s arm, and she linked with her, one hand placed gently on Shea’s arm.

They walked up the marble stairs, heels echoing around the large hall they had walked in. Sasha’s heels clicked against the marble, and they were already starting to hurt her feet. They were taller than the heels she normally wore to work, as she’d wanted to give the impression that her legs were as long as Shea’s.

Shea still had a slight height advantage, even though her own heels were small enough to barely affect her height. But Sasha forgot her pain when her eyes caught sight of the exhibit at the top of the stairs.

“That piece is Camille Billops,” Sasha exclaimed as she pointed to the first painting they walked past. It was black and white abstract shapes of women, trees and animals painted into the beige background. Shea’s attention was drawn to the next artist beside the one Sasha was viewing.

It contrasted with the previous art, people dancing and playing instruments painted in bold, bright colours. The background contained the same message in different colours: ‘black children keep your spirits free’. Sasha skipped up to Shea to see what caught her interest. “I know this one, it’s Carolyn Lawrence.” Shea pointed to it, laughing when Sasha beamed proudly.

“I knew you’d fall in love with art too. You can’t help it here.” Sasha grinned, squeezing Shea’s hand.

Shea rolled her eyes, muttering something about Sasha being a dork before she was dragged over to the next collection of art. Sasha described each piece she recognised, sparing Shea no detail about its origin or artist. Shea pretended that her heart didn’t speed up whenever she saw the enthusiastic sparkle in Sasha’s eyes, and she acted as if she didn’t want to kiss Sasha whenever she rambled on about her favourite part of each artwork.

They slowly made their way to the other side of the museum, spending hours at each exhibit along the way. Even Sasha was starting to slow down now, her shoulders slumping tiredly as she launched into another artistic ramble.

“Let’s go grab some coffee, you’ve nerded out enough for one day.” Shea encouraged Sasha to walk away from the exhibit ahead of her. Sasha looked through the large window longingly to the coffee shop across the park and allowed Shea to drag her out of the museum.

The coffee shop was narrow and warm, with brick walls inside and plants in glass pots. There were only two people remaining in the shop, both sipping coffees absentmindedly as they typed away on computers. Shea took Sasha over to a booth opposite them. There were small paintings hung inside the booth, which looked natural considering the art collection across the street. Sasha was glad to see the whole street seemed to share her love of art, not just the museum it was kept in.

Sasha swirled the chocolate powder into her mocha, complaining that it tasted bitter on its own. She watched Shea as she leaned forward to take her latte from the hands of the barista who had brought it to their table. The barista offered both women a smile, shyly complimenting them on their work as news anchors and their show. Sasha smiled to herself when she saw a rainbow badge pinned to the young girl’s apron, before she left them to wait another table.

“You know, today was actually perfect,” Sasha announced, the nervous feeling fleeting away as soon as conversation with Shea began.

“If I thought you were a dork at work, you sure outdid yourself today,” Shea teased, “seriously though; I loved spending time with you.”

“I wonder what Alexis would say if she saw us now.” Sasha laughed, hiding her smirk behind her mug as she took a sip of coffee.

“She’d smack me for what I’m about to say. But I like you,” Shea mumbled, “like, I-don’t-care-about-my-job like you.”

Sasha looked into Shea’s eyes and found a raw honesty there that frightened her.

“This job is everything to you Shea. You’ve worked so hard for this. Who the hell am I to take it away from you?” Sasha sighed, breaking the eye contact nervously.

“Everyone is fighting in your corner, now, tomorrow, and forever. I know you’re scared about tomorrow, I am too. But I don’t want a job if I’m not allowed to fall in love with you.” Shea’s jaw was set and her eyes showed determination.

“I like you Shea, but I’ll be damned if you lose your job before me,” Sasha smiled weakly.

“Come on, I’ll take you home. It’s getting pretty late and you’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Shea offered; placing her hand on the small of Sasha’s back as she guided her out of the coffee shop.

“Or, I could take you home?” Sasha countered, biting her lip nervously as she looked up.

Shea placed her free hand on Sasha’s cheek and tilted her face upwards. Shea moved her own face until her nose brushed Sasha’s, and she pulled her into a kiss. Sasha wound her body around Shea as she deepened the kiss. The pair managed to stumble over to where they’d left Shea’s car.

Leaning against her car, the two women only broke their kiss to breathe. Shea whined when Sasha opened the door to her side of the car, muttering to herself about blue balls. Sasha laughed loudly, leaning across to the driver’s seat to kiss Shea again, this time more passionate than before.

Neither woman heard the footsteps outside the car, or the fumble for a camera. They missed the click of a camera, and the footsteps as the body attached to them ran away excitedly.

#we'll show them #luci #sashea #sasha velour #shea coulee #rpdr fanfiction #submission #wst by luci #lesbian au

[ladydragon1316]

Some of the DA Inquisition Crew discuss Assassin’s Creed

(Modern-ish AU. Just something that came out of my brain while both Fandoms were knocking around in there at the same time. Enjoy!)

Aurora threw back the last of her rum and coke and lurched forward over the table. “I just don’t get the whole Connor thing. I mean, apparently so many of those ‘confessions’ are about him pinning them to a tree, but I just don’t see the appeal. I mean, he’s an idiot. He spends the whole game fighting Western Progress only for it to steamroll his own tribe anyway. He strives for freedom - kills the entire Templar chapter to do it - but completely overlooks the fact that freedom does not equal security. And his people pay for it.” She looked desperately up and down the table for support. “Tell me I’m not the only one who sees that. Please.”

Dorian took a sip of his mojito, shamelessly toying with the little umbrella under his pinky, “It’s not that we don’t see it, my dear. It’s that that isn’t the point.”

The woman across from him slammed the heel of her cup onto the table, demanding, “Then what is the point, then?!”

“The point,” he stated, extending his pinky finger in her direction, “is those broad shoulders and that Native American motif.” His hand swayed just slightly atop his resting elbow, evidence of the previous three drinks he’d imbibed in rapid succession.

“It’s not a motif; it’s his culture!”

A dismissive gesture from the Vint. “When it comes to kinks, the difference is negligible.”

“No, it’s not!” Aurora yelled, slamming her cup down a second time. She was far too worked up about this topic for a Friday night.

Blackwall avoided eye-contact, strategically excusing himself to get another drink. Which gave The Iron Bull a few seconds to lean in and ask, “So you want me to wear some war-paint next time?”

Down the table, Sera blew a massive raspberry at the debate. “Ass-in-creed don’t have near enough of the right ass. Needs more tits.”

“It has tits, darling,” Dorian pointed out. “Did you even play Ezio’s first game?”

“Not tha’ rite tits! I mean ass’kickin’ tits. Evie tits! I want ta’ see Evie’s tits!” More than a few heads turned in the direction of Sera’s shrieking. Not all of them at the group’s actual table.

Dorian took a breath...and found his original thought veering off on faulty evidence. “Alright, I’ll give you that. Not nearly enough female protagonists for the series. But that’s the fault of the medium at large. You can hardly single out the Creed as the ur-example.” His hand shot up to cut off Aurora’s tirade before it could start. If he let her start off on Feminist representation or equal opportunity depictions, they would be here all night. “We’re getting off topic. This is not about fatal character flaws. This is about white-hot-sex-appeal. Which of these darling creatures you feel compelled to seize by their sculpted packages and posteriors, and have your way with.”

Another violent raspberry from down the table, as Sera slid down off the front of her seat, landing somewhere at their feet. They’d need to remember to pick her up later before they left.

“And you think character flaws don’t factor into that?” Aurora demanded. She made to take another drag from her glass - only to find it empty. Right; that had happened. “Varric, help me out here,” she pleaded. He was their resident author. This was practically his job.

“Sorry, Bright Eyes. I don’t do Sci-Fi.” Apparently not.

“It’s not Sci-Fi!”

The man cocked a well-practiced eyebrow at her. “A machine allowed people to explore memories stored in their DNA, which reveals the existence of ancient, highly advanced beings who created humans and whose remnants gave rise to biblical depictions of god and miracles, which actually turn out to be technological artifacts that survived the disaster that wiped out the race in the first place.” He snorted softly. “Yeah, that’s Sci-Fi.”

Aurora scowled at him, “Traitor.”

Blackwall reappeared with drinks in hand: two beers - the one for Bull in a pint-sized glass -, and another rum and coke. Which Dorian snatched up before Aurora could get her hands on it.

“Dorian!”

“Ah-ah,” he teased, holding it above his head and well out of her reach. “I’ll have your prefered Assassin ass, and I’ll have it now.”

“You’re an ass!” she yelled, climbing half onto the table after her drink. Dorian only leaned further back, grinning like a jackal.

“And a fine one. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Dorian.”

“Spill it.”

“Give! It!” She flailed forward, and the kick he was getting out of this was obvious.

“Ass! Whose!”

“Shay Cormac!” Dorian gave a faux gasp of shock, but with enough dramatic zeel that his companion managed to snatch her drink from his hand, splashing soda and rum on his cuff in the process.

“Well, well, well,” Dorian schmoozed, shaking off what drops he could. “A Templar? You naughty girl.”

“Shut up!” He wasn’t even phased by the accompanying death glare.

“Now Haytham I could understand. I always suspected you might have a ‘daddy’ kink-” He narrowly avoided the spray as Aurora choked on her drink and continued on, undeterred. “-But a traitor?” He tutted, gazing off at a far wall while smoothing out his mustache. “I’m not sure we can remain friends. Disparaging Connor and fantasizing after a turn-coat. Your allegiance is clear as day. Am I to suspect a dagger in the back? Are you hiding a red cross somewhere on your person?”

Aurora clutched her drink with both hands and wailed plaintively, “He’s hot!”

And there it was.

Dorian practically squealed - how did he make even that seem suave? - and surged up onto the table, leaning heavily on his elbows, all up in Aurora’s personal space and absolutely latching onto her admission. “So there is some sexual desire buried under all that character analysis mumbo-jumbo.”

Aurora cast around. “Varric?” she whined, pleading for some kind of support.

He snickered, “Did you notice she said ‘Shay Cormac’. Not just ‘Shay’.”

“Oo!” Dorian’s glee surmounted itself. “First and last name on an impulse declaration. There is something here.”

Aurora shot a glare at Varric before zeroing it in on Dorian. “You’re a menace.”

“Ah-ah. Back on track. Shay. Hot. Explain.” This man was not going to be deterred.

And with no visible means of avoidance, “Well, he’s a good man.” When Dorian’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, she redoubled, “That’s important! He’s principled. Honorable.”

“Aurora, darling, honorable assassins make up over half the cast -”

“But how many of the Assassins put their morals above the Order?”

Dorian gave her a long, level look, followed by an elegant cocking of eyebrow.

Aurora’s brain caught up with her statement and she flapped her hand around dismissively, “Okay, okay. Evie and Jacob and Arno do, fine. But the Fryes go behind the Council’s back and go to London, and Arno pursues missions getting clearance first. But those are both still within the Order. And, yeah, Arno gets kicked out. But the Fryes don’t receive any negative repercussions within the Order for going off on their own. At least not that we see. Shay straight up turns his back on the Order when they’re methods go against his own moral code. With full knowledge of what he’s doing. He knows it will turn the Order completely against him. And he does it anyway. Because it’s what he believes is right. Even if it means betraying the organization he’s been apart of and loyal to for years.”

Her best friend blinked at her from across the table. He gave his head a sharp shake. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I heard the world ‘hot’ even once during that whole monologue.”

“Dorian!”

He threw his arms out, dramatically, “Is it really so hard to discuss attractive physical attributes of fictional characters in public? Truly?”

Aurora jabbed a finger at him. “The character of a character is what makes them attractive.”

“But give me something!” Dorian pleaded. “Some indication that my best friend has a sex drive!”

She rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. “Fine. His haircut.”

Dorian’s head cocked like a confused dog. “Scruffy? Maker, I think that’s worse than the ‘daddy’ kink.”

“Post-Lisbon,” she clarified sharply, at last lifting her glass to her lips. “After his make-over.”

Dorian got a wistful look, completely with a dreamy ‘into the distance’ gaze. “Ah yes, that’s more like it. Proof-positive a good haircut can take you from ‘meh’ to ‘fuck me, please’. And those shoulders!”

Aurora swallowed a mouthful quickly to agree, “Oh yeah. That coat does wonders for his physique. He’s all sharp angles and broad. And that accent…” Aurora let a pleasant shudder run visibly up her spine for effect, making most of those still listening laugh.

Bull took a swig from his own mug, getting a gleam in his eye. “So you like the moral pillar, tall with broad shoulders, a smooth accent, good hair and a choice coat.” His grin broadened and he didn’t even bother hiding it. “Add some survivor’s guilt, and a military history with the organization he dumps on principle, and I’d say we’ve found your type, Boss.”

This time it was Aurora cocking her head in confusion. That was a little on the nose for Shay’s ‘type’. “I guess.”

Then The Iron Bull’s eyes ticked up over her head, the gleam in his eye turning at once innocent and diabolical. “Hey, Cullen.”

Aurora swiveled around to see the man take the last few steps to reach them. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, no,” Dorian assured him. “Just discussing our sexual preferences as applied to the cast of a fictional setting based around assassination.

Cullen froze halfway down onto Sera’s former seat, looking like a deer in the headlamps. Aurora grabbed a handful of his fur collar and gave him a good tug. “We can change the subject.” The relief on his face was near-comical. “Watch your feet. Sera’s still under there.”

He had a couple minutes to arrange himself while Bull made the next run for drinks, getting one for Cullen and refilling his own mug. Aurora settled comfortably in place. Sera’s seat stayed where it was. But with Cullen having a wider frame than her, that meant Aurora and Cullen sat close enough together their shoulders brushed occasionally when they shifted. She made a point to pick a position and get comfortable. Which was, in fact, quite easy with the given company.

Dorian gave them about fifteen seconds of said comfort. Long enough for Cullen to take a drink from his cup before the other man picked things back up with, “I can’t remember: did we actually establish you have a ‘daddy’ kink, or not?”

Cullen sent a spray of beer across the table and proceeded to start choking. Aurora pounded on his back while yelling across the table at Dorian, who had burst out laughing alongside The Iron Bull. Even Blackwall had a hand curled over his mouth, trying desperately not to give his chuckle away. Sera kicked the underside of the table, demanding they ‘keep it down up there’ so she could sleep. And Varric scribbled hurriedly in his notebook with tears in his eyes, and the declaration that ‘You can’t make this shit up’.

#dadrunkwriting #dorian #blackwall #the iron bull #sera #varric #assassin's creed #modernish au

[nianeyna]

not to be That Feminist but Comey playing like bringing up the email investigation a week before the election was some kind of Grand Apolitical Gesture is such a typical example of white male faux-rationalism. I mean, god, I don't even doubt (much) that he genuinely thinks that stacking the deck against Clinton like that was "fair" because people like that have so thoroughly internalized their own double standards that they don't even see them. - can't talk about the Trump investigation, because people might vote differently if they know about it - can't NOT talk about the Clinton investigation, because people might vote differently if they don't know about it Totally fair and balanced, you guys!

#politics #so he (maybe) wasn't deliberately conspiring to help Trump win - so what? #that's even worse! all that means is that he was just THAT arrogant and blind to the consequences of his own actions! #as the DIRECTOR OF THE F-B-FUCKIN-I! #wow what a martyr my heart BLEEDS #just kidding I hate him and I hope he never works again and dies in obscurity

[animationforce]

Oscar Nominated Shorts 2017: Blind Vaysha

Every year, you can use the term “obligatory” for a film or two in the Oscars, regardless of category. In the animated shorts, it’s the “obligatory foreign film” since the US tends to dominate that category.

That’s Blind Vaysha. And normally, I would argue that such a label is harmful, and in past years I think pretty inaccurate, but this year I’m afraid I can’t make that argument. If you watch these films via a showing of ShortsHD’s yearly collection, you’ll come across a couple other foreign films that I think were a lot more suited to the Oscar race in a “foreign film” capacity, but this one said something that really appeals to a lot of the country right now.

In the final moments of the film, the narrator discusses the merits and downfalls of living solely in the future or solely in the past and, given the current political climate, pretty explicitly warns against folks doing either one of those, living with their sight on one part of life. And the warning is fair, but I really think that it’s the only reason Blind Vaysha was nominated at all. It’s no secret Hollywood has been getting very heavy handed in the political game these days, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but something about this film smelled of a tacked on Aesop-as-politico chaser that the Academy just really wanted to push through.

I’m not saying animated films, shorts or feature length, shouldn’t say something, political or otherwise. I’m an apologist of animation being just as legitimate a form of cinema as live-action. We haven’t yet reached a time when animation is as universally accepted as live-action. It’s obvious that we’re getting close, though. There are more and more animators our age, getting close to or already raising children, encouraging that universal acceptance, and the demographic that considers anything animated to be a “kid-movie” is slowly moving out. Unfortunately, that demographic, for the most part, still runs the Academy. 

There’s an interesting phenomenon whereby a person can claim progression, cite their specific demonstrative actions, and still live and think generally at a lower level of progression than the average person, who doesn’t make a similar claim, lives and thinks. That sounds complicated, but basically it boils down to someone claiming something like “I’m a feminist because...” or “I don’t see color because...” and prove it well, with a political stance, a protest, supporting business that align with that sentiment, etc. They’re able to say, “Public! Look at how progressive I am! See how I prove what I say with this grand obvious gesture!” But then when questioned about seemingly innocuous scenarios in the same issue, you find they still have some deep seated opinions to the contrary. That’s not to say that all people are awful liars, malevolent and rotten without a single good egg in the bunch. That is to say that it’s entirely common, and very likely, that the Academy including this piece in this year’s ceremony, political and avant garde, elitist and experimental, is a gesture to say, “We’re letting animation be something deep and meaningful and say important things!” but they’ve backed a horse they know can fail. Ultimately, their nomination will result in nothing. Nothing! In fact, it might even do some harm, because it’ll allow them to ignore other qualified pieces with real messages, saying, “Hey, we gave that one a chance, and it didn’t make it. That’s not our fault. We’re progressive.” This is, admittedly, an exceptionally bleak view of the world, due in no small part to my undoubtedly confusing explanation, but it’s nevertheless accurate. Until the new generation of young guns takes the leadership role in the Academy, we aren’t likely at all to see much change at all. That makes me sad, but also really, really excited for the future of animation at the Academy Awards. If you follow this site at all, you know just how vast the pool of stellar animated work is becoming. There’s a Renaissance coming. Mark my words, there will be a day where we start regularly seeing animated films showing up in multiple categories, competing and winning against live-action, and potentially even dictating the course of film as much as the advent of sound, color film, more mobile cameras, and the digital recording and and distribution medium did.

In the spirit of a digital Renaissance, thuis whole piece was drawn on a Cintiq tablet in a faux linocut style; that is, the creator, Theodore Ushev, never used the undo function, citing the idea that if you make a wrong move in a physical linocut, you’re stuck with that mistake. He also says with this style, you are animating the color more than the character, and he only used about 5 colors to make the whole thing, attempting to make the digital medium mimicked layering paint on wood. If I’m honest, it made a mess. I appreciate the frames and the adherence to a digital representation of a physical, and physically demanding, medium, but there were times when the screen was so full of splotches of color and vast swathes of black, all violently changing and adjusting to find the right image that it was truly distracting. If you’re familiar with the director’s work, it may be more tolerable to you (he previously released a film called Blood Manifest, which he created using...his own blood. So.) but for me, it was a bit too much.

On top of that, there wasn’t any resolution. I don’t need a happy ending, but I would have liked something more than a pointed finger. “Hey you,” it said.”You’re doing your life wrong.” And as I mentioned earlier, it couldn’t have come at a more charged time in the political climate, and I wonder if the director ever really intended for it to be potentially co-opted, likely by both sides, as an admonishment of the other.

The story was adapted from a short story by Georgi Gospodinov, who is evidently as experimental as Ushev, so I can’t fault the director entirely, but as far as a film in the Oscars go, I just don’t see this one going all the way. I’ve read a good number of reviews that think it’s the biggest opponent to Pixar’s Piper, which I’ll review later, but I rate this one eye (brown or green, you pick) out of five.

- Jackson, @crewmannumber5

Addendum: Evidently this film was originally 3D, which may be a first for an animated short nominee, I don’t know, but I do know that had I seen it in 3D, I would have thrown up. I’m pretty prone to motion sickness at the best of times, but this was another level of motion entirely.

#Academy Awards #oscars 2017 #animation #Blind Vaysha #Theodore Ushev #linocut #digital animation #Cintiq

[biofunmy]

The Death of Fashion Diplomacy

So the Trump state visit to the United Kingdom, with its Irish interlude and European D-Day sojourn, full of carefully choreographed, performative posturing, has come to an end.

We know only some details of what was discussed — Brexit! Trade! Tiffany brooches! — but visual souvenirs of the Trumps’ attire abound on the digisphere. In the absence of further information about what went on behind closed doors, we are left to mine the formal photo ops for clues; to parse the hats, formal wear and coats.

After all, this is a White House that prizes pageantry and theater, and embraces them as strategic tools — costume included. The trip was predicated on symbolism, and in such context, all public choices have import. Yet we still can’t agree on what it all meant.

Just as the endless stream of name-calling and off-the-cuff remarks from the president has served to numb us to their content, so too has the elaborate stream of obfuscating outfits. Each one opened itself to multiple interpretations from critics and armchair observers around the world, tempting division and dissent through speculation.

For example: The first lady must have been paying homage to her host country when she wore a Gucci dress covered in London landmarks — Big Ben, double-decker bus and all — to board the plane from D.C. (or so claimed Breitbart). But the Hollywood Reporter begged to differ: No, by wearing that dress she was trolling her husband, because Gucci had just held a show that argued emphatically for abortion rights.

Or maybe Mrs. Trump was being diplomatic by arriving and departing in the British heritage brand Burberry (a pussy-bow-print blouse splashed with the word “society” on the way in, and a trench coat as she left). Or no, she was ignoring all that by wearing the French brand Dior to the formal state dinner.

Perhaps she represented the United States by wearing a white coat from The Row to the British D-Day ceremony. Whoops, maybe not, because the day before she wore a belted-up trench dress from another European brand, Celine. (Then again, it was old Celine, from the Phoebe Philo years, so it could have been a feminist gesture.)

And, too, she looked utterly appropriate at the Normandy D-Day celebration in a somber Dior coat and Roger Vivier shoes — both French brands, to salute the French. But she didn’t carry the gesture through by nodding to Irish designers when she was in Ireland. (And who knows? Maybe that was the plan: She had been wearing a Philip Treacy flying saucer hat with the white coat, but when she disembarked in Shannon she had divested herself of the topper.)

The tea leaves were even cloudier on the day she met the queen. The first lady was channeling “My Fair Lady” (the Cecil Beaton/Audrey Hepburn version) when she appeared in her white-and-navy-trimmed Dolce & Gabbana outfit and matching Hervé Pierre hat on her first day abroad, to meet the queen. Or, no, it was Princess Diana. Then again, it could have been “Dynasty” and Alexis Carrington.

Au contraire — she was actually wearing white in order to throw shade at Camilla; everyone knows white is the Duchess of Cornwall’s favorite color, mused the L.A. Times. Actually, she was slighting the Duchess of Sussex, the former Meghan Markle, by choosing a red Givenchy gown for the dinner the Trumps hosted at the American embassy, went another take. (Clare Waight Keller, the Givenchy designer, also made Ms. Markle’s wedding dress.)

Gosh, it was confusing.

The only thing not in dispute is how expensive much of it was. Because the Trumps actually buy their clothes off the rack, it is possible to find and price them all (except the Dior couture gown worn to the state dinner, which is made to order and priced on application): the Burberry blouse costing £650 ($825), the Gucci a cool £2,615 ($3,319), the Givenchy, $8,340. When it came to the Celine trench and the white coat from The Row, she shopped her closet.

Either way, no one blinked an eye, unlike when Mrs. Trump wore a $51,500 Dolce & Gabbana coat to the G7 in Sicily during Mr. Trump’s first European tour, back when everyone was still applying old rules and expectations to the behavior of the administration. Indeed, no one blinked an eye this time at the fact that Mrs. Trump was again wearing Dolce, a brand most recently in the news for cultural missteps in China so egregious that citizens posted videos of themselves burning their bags.

Maybe the choice was part of the trade war posturing. Whatever!

So it was expensive. Whatever!

So it wasn’t American or British or consistently diplomatic. Whatever.

She looked good, if a little like she had just stepped off a film set — buttoned-up, contained and opaque as usual.

What really got people worked up in regards to the Trumps’ wardrobe was the president’s white-tie faux pas: a too-long vest under his tailcoat at the state dinner. Why that sort of excess should have been a surprise is unclear. As his penchant for oversize ties and suits (and crowds) shows, the president clearly believes in exaggeration of all kinds. And given his absolute surety that his way is the right way and the current let-Trump-be-Trump attitude of his White House, who would tell him otherwise? Not the secretary of treasury (and appropriately vested) Steven Mnuchin.

The true revelation of this particular sartorial parade has been how fast our expectations for executive-branch appearance, honed over multiple administrations and historical examples from the Kennedys on, have evaporated — in this as in so much else.

Two years ago, when Mr. Trump first took office, there was a presumption that Mrs. Trump, reluctant as she was to play the first lady game, would nevertheless be canny with her clothes: she had been a model, after all. She wore all-American to the inauguration. She understood what could be read into a photograph (and if she didn’t, or her team didn’t, that “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” coat brouhaha would have been all the learning experience needed).

Yet again and again she has chipped away at the practice, previously considered a real tool of soft power, a way to subtly support local industry or suggest outreach to a host country. It’s clear she understands the precedent — she wore Chanel to the French state dinner last year (because why? Accident? Doubtful!) — but not how she decides when to break it.

It’s gotten so confusing that in London, when her stepdaughter Ivanka wore a fussy white peplum jacket and pleated skirt by Alessandra Rich on the first day — going so far as to pop on a fascinator à la Ascot — and then opted for Carolina Herrera for the state dinner, followed by Burberry polka dots to meet with Theresa May, a classic British-American-British nod to the special relationship, practically no one noticed.

Now it seems almost quaint, the belief that a first lady should use her wardrobe to advance a recognizable, if subtle, domestic or diplomatic point. Such a charming, old-fashioned relic of a different time. Like when we also expected our leaders to believe when they represent the nation, they represent all people.

And yet that doesn’t mean there is no agenda involved. It’s just not the one we are used to.

In their own specific way, the Trumps actually are doing what their forbearers did: using their clothing to reflect their approach to governance. It’s just that their approach seems to rely on the startling, the eye-catching and the politically incorrect. In dress, it is increasingly apparent, as it is on Twitter.

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[duaneodavila]

Karma Or Just The Realization That Affirmative Consent Never Made Sense?

Forget that Joe Biden is the vessel wherein the problem arises for the moment, but consider the problem itself.

Is Biden a faux-feminist sexual predator? Of course not. Yet under the modern standards he has championed, he would deserve condemnation. His intent doesn’t matter; neither does the fact that many women welcomed his affectionate gestures. (Biden himself has asserted that consent requires an explicit, “Yes, it is okay to touch me,” in which case all of his physicality is non-consensual.) Nor does it matter that some of his accusers took a while to be offended.

I believe Biden’s championship of women is sincere. Daily Beast columnist Danielle Tcholakian dismisses it as “benevolent sexism” more than feminism — chivalry, not equality.

Creepy sex predator or warm, affectionate human being? The reason the question arises with Biden is twofold, that he could end up the Democratic nominee for president and the anti-Trump forces are being somewhat cautious about destroying their last, best hope to oust Trump, and Biden has done yeoman’s time in the trenches pushing their cause, creating at least the facade of a bona fide feminist ally. Eating their own has become a sensitive point, hungry as the forces of wokeness may be.

But as Emily Yoffe notes, this same guy was the point man person pushing the paradigm shift giving rise to this dilemma:

Among the cultural shifts orchestrated by the Obama administration was the assertion that evaluation of campus claims of sexual harassment and assault rest on the subjective feelings of the accuser. That meant it was irrelevant whether the accused had an intention to abuse, harm or offend. This was codified* in 2013, with the joint release by the departments of Education and Justice of what they called “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country to protect students from sexual harassment and assault.” An analysis by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties group, found that the administration had abandoned the principle that claims of harassment should be evaluated based on an “objective” or “reasonable person” standard.

This was a critical change, and one that I would have expected lawyers, at the minimum, to appreciate. Particularly criminal defense lawyers, at least as far as my favorable bias toward my colleagues goes. After all, would they not be the first to argue, properly, that a person cannot be held to account for an offense when they have no notice of what conduct is prohibited, no definition of what the wrong to be prohibited might be?

The simpleton replies, “but don’t rape, but don’t harass, what’s so hard to understand?” At the top level, the question is what does the word “rape,” the word “harass,” mean? As these words once held meanings, at least to some extent, but have since become untethered from any cognizable definitions, they are now reduced to mere conclusory epithets. Of course rape is horrible, because it’s rape. Harassment too. But what are they?

At the next level, the best possible answer is “non-consensual” conduct, whether penetration, touching or, well, other stuff.  Seems easy enough, and it’s the petard upon which Biden falls. His affection was given without his first seeking consent, enthusiastic or otherwise. The point is that people who forgive Biden his trespasses because he’s affectionate rather than grandpa creepy look to his intent, that he meant no harm.

But Emily’s point is that the intent of the actor isn’t relevant anymore. It’s the feelings of the recipient that define whether sex, touching and, well, other stuff, makes the act an offense. Some of the folks Biden touched were fine with it. Others, not. While ulterior motives may play a part in their post-hoc condemnations, the substantive difference is the level of sensitivity of the person being touched. Some are particularly sensitive, and so any touch will be deemed offensive, while others are made of sterner stuff and can tolerate a hand on their shoulder without crying “sexual assault!”

But how was Biden to know the level of sensitivity of the recipient of his affection? How would he know that he could plant a friendly and totally not sexual kiss on Sarah’s cheek but not Lucy’s? The obvious retort is that it’s a kiss. Clearly, a kiss is over the line, even a friendly one.

But then there’s the hand on the shoulder, or the knee. Is that the line, that no person should touch any other person without express consent? That would be an objective line for the actor to use to guide his conduct so as not to violate another person’s physical integrity, if that person was so sensitive as to find the touch offensive.

But we’re not done yet, as Joe Biden was the vice president, and Lucy Flores was a candidate running for office who sought, needed, the veeps endorsement to the extent she wanted to have any chance of winning. So even if Biden had asked for consent, how could she say no? How could she risk offending Biden by responding, “keep your creepy old man hands, and lips, and nose, away from me”?

Had she given express verbal consent at that moment, was it really consent or merely coerced acquiescence? And this assumes she hadn’t imbibed, which would have relieved her of any agency to consent, since everyone knows people who have ingested a substance that could alter one’s thoughts, release one’s inhibitions, is incapable of consenting.

Or would it not have been clearer had the mechanism by which offense would be taken was a simple “no,” clear and timely, thus preventing whatever trauma that might be felt by even the most sensitive soul, no matter how benign or creepy the actor’s purpose might be?

The offense is neither better nor worse because of the availability of a rhetorical excuse for its condemnation or excuse, but it can’t be avoided if no one is clear on what the offense might be or how to ascertain whether ordinary human conduct, inflicted without any purpose to do harm, crosses the line. And even so, whether the line is fixed or in constant motion, even moving days, years, later, based on a perfectly fine excuse, but one that does nothing to alert the actor to the offense at the time, and in fact informs the actor that it’s not an offense at all?

If Biden’s conduct isn’t merely a matter of karma biting him in his woke butt, but a realization that we’ve been playing with an entirely untenable set of rules based on the feelings of the recipient rather than the conduct of the actors, this could prove a worthwhile turning point no matter what becomes of his candidacy. And it might actually help people by providing a viable rule for those who intend no harm and respect others.

Nobody has to be touched by Biden, or anybody else they don’t care to be touched by, but just say “no” if that’s what you want, and then survive the consequences, whether it’s denouement or silence. These are rules we can work with, and if Biden ends up being the means to expose the fallacy of affirmative consent, then he will have finally accomplished something useful.

*The use of the legalish word “codified” is unfortunate, as it suggests that it was lawfully enacted and made a part of the Code. It was not. Memorialized would be more accurate, as some bureaucrats put it into a letter that was never subject to congressional or even regulatory approval.

Karma Or Just The Realization That Affirmative Consent Never Made Sense? republished via Simple Justice

[jordannamatlon]

By Megan Garber 

Beloved, Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, tells the story of Sethe, a woman who was born into slavery and who escaped her plantation—only to be, a mere month after she found freedom, re-captured. Before she was returned, Sethe, rather than subject her 2-year-old daughter to the horrors that awaited them, paid the girl the only mercy she could: She killed her. Years later and, now, “free” once again, Sethe is haunted—by her daughter, by her history, by the history that is all of America’s to bear—and by the general fact that freedom is, in this country, a deeply relative proposition.

Ivanka Trump quotes Beloved in Women Who Work, her new book on Rewriting the Rules for Success. Its title is adapted from a tagline that was adopted in a marketing meeting and that has lived most of its life as a promotional hashtag for the Ivanka Trump brand of clothing, jewelry, and, most recently, feminism. The book makes liberal use of inspirational quotes, of words borrowed from the likes of Oprah and Chopra and Gandhi and Socrates and Cynthia Nixon and Coco Chanel; the sentence Trump borrows from Morrison comes as a preface to Women Who Work’s chapter on Working Smarter, Not Harder. “Bit by bit … she had claimed herself,” writes the one author, quoting the other. “Freeing yourself was one thing: claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”

The line is, in the book, written in the faux-handwritten, Post-It-noted font in which many of Trump’s other bits of borrowed wisdom are rendered; it is punctuated with the book’s other hashtag, #ITWISEWORDS. Later in the chapter on Working Smarter, Trump will revisit the Morrison quote to offer her own interpretation of the concept of “freedom.” “Are you a slave to your time or the master of it?” Trump asks. She anticipates the answer. “Despite your best intentions, it’s easy to be reactive and get caught up in returning calls, attending meetings, answering e-mails, and managing your team, only to realize that it’s 6:30 p.m.—and you haven’t done a single thing that’s of high value … .”

And, with that, Ivanka Trump compares being “a slave to your time” to being an actual slave. With one quote—a line chosen, according to the accompanying hashtag, for its disembodied wisdom—the scion turned businesswoman turned presidential advisor cheerfully ignores history, or, more specifically, she reclaims it for the purpose of selling sheath dresses, work-appropriate stilettos, and herself. Reviews of Women Who Work, at least the ones that have not been written by People magazine, have generally dismissed the book as being by turns “painfully oblivious” and “vapid” and “like eating scented cotton balls,” in part because it relies on chirpy platitudes to send its message of feminine empowerment, and in part because its vision of feminism is not very feminist at all, but also in part because the book, as The New York Times put it, serves up “a strawberry milkshake of inspirational quotes.”

Borrowing the words of the famous and the wise to lend a sheen to one’s own is a time-honored practice, of course, common not only in high school essays that introduce their insights with those gleaned from the great philosopher Merriam-Webster, but also in the self-help genre, and in academia, and in journalism. The technique, at its best, does what any quote, well-deployed, will do: to supplement one’s own wisdom and, indeed, to serve as a gesture of performed humility. I don’t know, but here is someone who does.

But there is very little humility in this book that is premised on the notion that women would be better off if women would be more like Ivanka Trump. And Trump is not simply, in Women Who Work, quoting other people. She is, more strictly, appropriating their words. (The “IT” in #ITWISEWORDS stands for, yes, Ivanka Trump.) Trump is taking those words out of their original contexts, and blithely, if not willfully, misunderstanding them.

Here, Melville House’s Ian Dreiblatt points out, is advice that Maya Angelou’s mother gave her before she moved to New York City—words Angelou recalled in her memoir, The Heart of a Woman:

Take care of yourself. Take care of your son, and remember New York City is just like Fresno. Just more of the same people in bigger buildings. Black folks can’t change because white folks won’t change. Ask for what you want and prepared to pay for what you get.

Here is how Trump reframes that advice in Women Who Work: “Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.” (The asking in this case, NPR’s Annalisa Quinn notes, comes in the context of explaining how women might request a raise.)

And here is a line from Jane Goodall, the primatologist, that Trump quotes in Women Who Work: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Here is how Goodall reacted to being included in Women Who Work, in a statement she provided to CNN: “I sincerely hope she will take the full import of my words to heart. She is in a position to do much good or terrible harm.”

Goodall added:

Legislation that was passed by previous governments to protect wildlife such as the Endangered Species Act, create national monuments and other clean air and water legislation have all been jeopardized by this administration. I hope that Ms. Trump will stand with us to value and cherish our natural world and protect this planet for future generations.

Which is, in one way, reminiscent of the musicians who protest their music being used in the campaign rallies of politicians they disagree with: Do not use my art for your agenda. (Or, in Goodall’s case: I hope your agenda will come around to mine.) The problem is broader, though—not a matter of intellectual property colliding with the frenetic pageantry of the political campaign, but rather a matter of the way words themselves are by turns weaponized and weakened within this chapter of American cultural life. Trump is at her leisure to use others’ insights; the way she is using them, though, is what grates. The words’ histories, their original contexts, their authorial intents—none of that much matters in the breezy world of Women Who Work. It is in that sense a deeply postmodern book; all it’s missing is the irony.  

Women Who Work, as it happens, arrives at a moment that is itself deeply anxious about context and history. It’s hard to read the lines above, and the many others like them—words borrowed from Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Mindy Kaling, and so many others, many of them women of color—and not be reminded of the approach to words and wisdom that is generally taken by Trump’s boss, who is also her father, who is also the U.S. president, who is also the person most directly responsible for bringing terms like “fake news” and “alternative facts” into the American vernacular.

In a week that found President Trump suggesting that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War—in a year that found the president suggesting that Frederick Douglass is still alive—his daughter’s treatment of history is particularly striking. Here, in this book from Trump, the daughter-advisor, is the trend re-exerting itself: Here are words that have been stubbornly disentangled from their original purposes. Even the high school essay that clears its throat with a “Merriam-Webster defines [word] as” shows concern about that word’s history, usage, and culturally agreed-upon meaning. Trump, though, treats the words of others as if they were offerings at a brunch buffet. She merrily appends them to her own bits of wisdom—“I believe that we each get one life and it’s up to us to live it to the fullest”—and then moves on to the next chapter.

Context, though, is not an academic nicety. It is what makes the difference between words that have meaning and words that have none. It is what makes the difference between catchphrases about #WomenWhoWork and a true grappling with the experience that women live every day. It is the difference between “feminism” and feminism. Trump disregards context when she writes that “passion, combined with perseverance, is a great equalizer, more important than education or experience in achieving your version of success.” She disregards context when she talks about the diversity of her “demographic” not in terms of race or income, but in terms of being married or single, of having kids or not. Trump disregards context when she writes a book that ignores the structural forces that weigh on women’s lives, but that advises them simply to DREAM (be Determined, Respectful, Engaged, Ambitious, and Motivated) and to DO (be Dedicated and Optimistic).

And she disregards context, too, when she quotes Toni Morrison in order to make the point that women should try to avoid becoming “slaves to time.” Beloved, after all, is not merely a work of fiction. Morrison based her novel on the experiences of a woman who, just before the Civil War, escaped slavery in Kentucky and fled to Ohio. Her name was Margaret Garner. She is not quoted in Women Who Work.

#women who work #bad writing #ivanka trump #appropriation #megan garber