odd, isn't it?

taijavigilia: I was stuck in the car for about eight hours over...

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:42:38 -0400

I was stuck in the car for about eight hours over the weekend while going to visit the in-laws and my mind was just wandering around. Part of me ships Merida with MacGuffin but part of me is like.. ehh.. it’s more likely she married some complete outsider or no-one at all.

So in one of the alternate versions I came up with Abderrahim. The third son of an Iberian nobleman he chose the life of a scholar and was on his way back from drawing complete map of the Baltic Sea when the vessel he was traveling on capsized in an autumn storm and the few survivors floated to shore not far from Castle Dunbroch. With her father’s health starting to fail Merida took to looking after the injured and before long the adventurous duo were inseparable and Abderrahim’s despair over his lost research forgotten as Merida showed him the Highlands. Three years later at her coronation Merida announced that they were to marry. Initially the clansmen disagreed but as Merida’s influence grew and Dunbroch and neighboring clans prospered beyond everyone’s expectations with the new trade routes to south the doubters were silenced. This picture is Queen Merida and King Abderrahim on the tenth birthday of their firstborn twins, crown prince Fergus and crown princess Jamila.

Oh there was a load of other stuff as well but another (story)time.

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Mon, 20 May 2013 04:14:37 -0400

omako: I cant work on this anymore im done with this wow I...

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:46:37 -0400

omako:

I cant work on this anymore im done with this

wow I actually drew asami guys clap for me

ikenbot: Star Trek: Into Whiteness If there’s one thing that...

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:18:12 -0400

ikenbot:

Star Trek: Into Whiteness

If there’s one thing that most fans of Star Trek will agree on, it’s the fact that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the show — and, more optimistically, for human society — was predicated on the idea that all life is valuable, and that the worth of a person should not be judged by their appearance. Much of this was done through the old sci-fi trope of using aliens to stand in for oppressed groups, but Star Trek didn’t rely on the metaphor; it had characters who were part of the ensemble, important and beloved members of the Enterprise crew, who were people of colour. It had background characters who were people of colour. And, here and there, it had anti-heroes and villains who were people of colour … one of whom, Khan Noonian Singh, became well-nigh iconic.

Image 1: “Who is your favorite villain?” ; Actor John Cho (Lt Sulu) answers.

Image 2: TOS Khan looking at a watercolor of himself. Yes, he’s wearing a dastar (Sikh turban)

Image 3: Cumberbatch and Montalbán (as Khan)

And who is now being played by white actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the new JJ Abrams reboot movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness.

We’re all cynical and jaded enough to know the standard dismissal when it comes to matters of media representation: Paramount Pictures and most film studios are not interested in diversity or visibility, they only care about the bottom dollar. Star Trek as a franchise is too much of a juggernaut to affect with boycotts. There are too many people who love it, who love those characters and that world, and will go to see the movie. And for some of these people, this devotion to the idea of a future where even South and East Asian men get to pilot a starship and love swashbuckling, where Black women make Lieutenant on the Enterprise and actually get the boy, will be trivialized and eroded and whitewashed when the most formidable and complex Star Trek baddie becomes a white man named Khan.

It wasn’t perfect in the 60s when Ricardo Montalbán was cast to play Khan (a character explicitly described in the episode script of Space Seed as being Sikh, from the Northern regions of India). But considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory. It’s disappointing and demoralizing that with the commercial power of Star Trek in his hands, JJ Abrams chose not to honour the original spirit of the show, or the symbolic heft of the Khan character, but to wield the whitewash brush for … what? The hopes that casting Benedict Cumberbatch would draw in a few more box office returns? It’s doubly disappointing when you consider that Abrams was a creator of the television show Lost, which had so many well-rounded and beloved characters of colour in it.

Add to this the secrecy prior to release around Cumberbatch’s role in the film, and what seems like a casting move that would typically be defended by cries of “best actor for the job, not racism” becomes something more cunning, more malicious. Yes, the obfuscation creates intrigue around and interest in the role, but it also prevents advocacy groups like Racebending.com from building campaigns to protest the whitewashing. This happened with the character of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, as well as ‘Miranda Tate’ in The Dark Knight Rises, who ended up being Talia al Ghul but played by French actress Marion Cotillard. This practice is well in effect in Hollywood; and after the negative press that was generated by angry anti-oppression activists and fans when Paramount had The Last Airbender in the works, studios are wising up. They don’t want their racist practices to be called out, pointed at, and exposed before their movies are released — Airbender proved that these protests create enough bad feeling to affect their bottom line.

So the studio has now found a way to keep it secret and underhanded. Racebending.com was there for most of the production of The Last Airbender, and were even able to correspond with Paramount Pictures about it. This time, for Star Trek: Into Darkness, their hiding and opaque practices has managed to silence media watchdogs until the movie’s premiere.

As I said, this racist whitewashing of the character of Khan won’t affect how much money this Trek movie makes. And I’m happy that the franchise is popular, still popular enough to warrant not only a big-budget reboot with fantastic actors but also a sequel with that cast. I’m happy that actors I enjoy like Zoë Saldaña and John Cho are playing characters who mean so much to me, and that they, in respect for the groundbreaking contributions by Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in these roles, have paid homage to that past.

But all of that will be marred by having my own skin edited out, rendered worthless and silent and invisible when a South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.

And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.

What an enormous and horribly ironic step backwards. For Star Trek, for media representation, and for the vision of a future where we have transcended systemic, racist erasure.

(via RaceBending)

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Mon, 20 May 2013 02:49:43 -0400

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Mon, 20 May 2013 02:21:42 -0400

marzipanilla: Hannibal kink, everyone.

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:53:39 -0400

marzipanilla:

Hannibal kink, everyone.

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Mon, 20 May 2013 01:25:14 -0400

twogami: if you do not feel comforted or empowered by queer headcanons, i’m sorry to hear that and...

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:57:10 -0400

twogami:

if you do not feel comforted or empowered by queer headcanons, i’m sorry to hear that and i hope you can find inspiration elsewhere. but for many people- the majority of them queer themselves- headcanoning, interpreting, or depicting their favorite characters as queer is how they express themselves and find comfort and positivity in fandoms. and that is something that absolutely deserves to be respected and protected from people that would ruin it for them.

pandatails: “Taking joy in life is a woman’s best cosmetic.”

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:28:40 -0400

pandatails:

“Taking joy in life is a woman’s best cosmetic.”

“I didn’t ask you to protect me. And I did not sign on to work...

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:32:14 -0400

“I didn’t ask you to protect me. And I did not sign on to work with you to be put on the sidelines every time you or Gregson or anyone decides that it’s too dangerous. I want to know that I’m not kidding myself by standing with you.”

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Sun, 19 May 2013 23:04:13 -0400

there’s a whole long list of people that i’m just baffled haven’t unfollowed me...

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:24 -0400

there’s a whole long list of people that i’m just baffled haven’t unfollowed me yet and i keep wanting to send them all asks like “yo u can leave if you want it’s really fine”

xlingeringsentimentx: typette: I would be extremely okay with...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:35:45 -0400

xlingeringsentimentx:

typette:

I would be extremely okay with it if they just went ahead and remade the Lion King as an animated movie but with humans

I dunno, inspired by the broadway or something.

….Don’t think about the logistics. Just do.

also open in this in another tab please

toastbrains: the Hannibal fandom is like those wealthy neighbours who just moved in next door and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:07:43 -0400

toastbrains:

the Hannibal fandom is like those wealthy neighbours who just moved in next door and something just doesn’t seem right about them

elementarystan: British Vogue: Best Dressed of the Week -...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:39:15 -0400

elementarystan:

British Vogue: Best Dressed of the Week - 17/05/13

Lucy Liu wore a Vivienne Westwood strapless gown with a J. Mendel capelet, Lorraine Schwartz jewellery and carried a Ferragamo gold clutch.

Vogue approves! Bow to Queen Lucy..

i just had this really terrifying moment where i hit a key intending to go to tumblr but without...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:12:24 -0400

i just had this really terrifying moment where i hit a key intending to go to tumblr but without realizing it instead of “t” i hit “y” and was immediately sent to the yahoo homepage

Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex,...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:11:13 -0400

Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature and in drama, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize us as either the whore or the angel.

broadwaykelly: frivolouswhim: Sometimes I don’t even get how...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:42:45 -0400

broadwaykelly:

frivolouswhim:

Sometimes I don’t even get how she can play Regina…

Lana Parrilla is perfect. I FREAKING LOVE YOU.

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Sun, 19 May 2013 20:40:15 -0400