It's a magical world

"Political" in the best, very broad sense of the term, that is.

So, most of you have probably heard about the ass-hattery that was Elizabeth Moon's recent post on "assimilation." She's locked the post and/or comments on it, and I refuse to link to her anyway, but more important than her are the constructive responses coming out of this latest...I never know what word to use. Round of fail? That'll do.

Moon is currently slated to be one of the two Guests of Honor at Wiscon 35. The other is Nisi Shawl, and she is thoroughly awesome--who else remembers her doing an a capella rendition of Michael Jackson at the Galactic Marmalade party? That was awesome. I'm going to read her books, and I've created a feed for her blog, which is on LJ, here on DW: nisi_la_feed

Other people worth reading, with their selected responses (though of course, this list is not exhaustive):

coffeeandink also has a post brainstorming ideas for panels at Wiscon 35

yeloson has a post about Hate

shveta_writes has a post called All Right

glass_icarus, on the politics of possession

and on LJ, shweta_narayan has a post on Dissimilation

And to round out this post with happier (fannish) things, eid_ka_chand, a comm for fictional Muslim characters & Islam in fiction. The comm's Eid-al-Fitr 2010 fanworks challenge raised over $1200 to help Pakistan! 

animanga_news is an awesome newsletter on DW that attempts to bring together all the animanga-related posts on the site. The coverage is pretty thorough; it's a great comm. *applause for the maintainer*

cupcake_muffin_feed is my housemate. She is a really good cook and baker, and this is her food blog.

fanhackers_feed is the blog of Transformative Works and Cultures, the peer-reviewed online-only academic journal affiliated with the OTW. If you are interested in fandom as a phenomenon, you should read this blog.

jonquil and cofax7 are the two California linkspammers, fic-writers, and generally conscientious posters I read.

And I can't forget rachelmanija for hilarious, telling-it-like-it-is book reviews.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, all!! You are awesome.

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For Follow Friday, I have to rec monstrous_regiment, a community for military history, fandom, and culture from a female perspective.

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If anyone is interested, I have two extra tickets to see The Arcade Fire + Spoon at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on August 2, 2010 that I need to find a good home for. After fees the face value is $41 each or $82 for the pair, which is all I'm asking.

And now I'm going to go pick up my reg packet for my 8K tomorrow morning, and then make a quiche, and then, damn it, I am going to finish my Holmes Big Bang story. I think it's only another eight thousand words or so. I hope.

runners - A DW community for people who run.

middleman - The DW community for The Middleman, one of the best TV shows to ever be canceled after just one season.

animanga_news - The DW anime & manga newsletter!

helens78 gives us the title for today's post. The post in question, about fandom and copyrights, is here, but the entire journal is awesome.

inkstone gets the nod this week for the Small Fandoms Friending Meme and general awesomeness.

jonquil frequently has interesting things to say (though the crafting posts go over my head, because I am not a crafting person at all); I really liked this essay on science fiction, despite my being at least a generation younger.

damned_colonial on general principles, and also for this post on mixing romance with war stories which is giving me thinky-thoughts about militarism.


I have five million things to do and only time for one or two, augh.

Actually the Shakespeare post comes later, but regardless, Happy Birth- and Death-day, Mr. Shakespeare! And Happy Birthday, recessional!


tenwomen - 10 stories, 10 female characters, 1 year, 1 challenge.

sagarawest - comm co-modded by me, for all your Michelle Sagara West books & fandom needs!

thebainherald - comm modded by me, for all your Garth Nix books & fandom needs!

three_weeks_for_dw - celebrating Dreamwidth's one year anniversary with three weeks of DW-exclusive content. I'm so excited.


Also, on the book fandom front, I've been contemplating the idea of importing youngwizards, and also possibly creating a Megan Whalen Turner comm along the lines of sounis. Thoughts?

Short and sweet today.

snarp  - one of the smartest people on manga I've read. Just today gave us Bleach and power fantasies and Bleach vs. Women.

rachelmanija  - for all your snarky book review needs, with a liberal dose of awesomely bad books, now on DW!

steampunk_nusantara - I think this comm goes with N.K. Jemisin's story "The Effluent Engine" under the heading Steampunk Done Right.

and since I'm about to post about Lord Sunday there, thebainherald - for all your Garth Nix needs on DW! Fanworks, discussion and related posts welcome!

My reading list is full of smart, awesome people.

thefourthvine - I routinely laugh so hard that I cry. Reviews, recs, fun times.

dmp - Steampunk from a chromatic perspective, among other interesting things.

alixtii - Fannishness from a femmeslasher's perspective

damned_colonial - Great writer, fascinating posts

jonquil - dispatches from the Left Coast

cofax7 - linkspams galore: always interesting, frequently crucial

yhlee - Festivids mod, awesome writer, vidder and composer (She just wrote me a poem!)

rydra_wong - No need for an introduction, really.

merrily - light-hearted Sunday linkspams

In haste, as usual.

12in2010 - A community inviting people to pick a writing goal, and then write 12 stories this year in support of it.

copper_street - A community inviting people to commit to a word-count writing goal and fulfill it in 2010. I picked TIer 3 (150K words). Eep.

fandomcalendar - Keep track of events in the fan community.

dw_community_promo - A good way to keep abreast of new DW communities.

and last but not least...

thebainherald - A community for all your Garth Nix fandom interests and needs!