Second Impact

Fandoms alphabetical.
Stories chronological within fandoms.

GK
Promise
One Way Out (Post bridge clusterfuck)
14 Years in St. George's Service
No and Yes
Stolen
Flint and Friction

PoT
Condensation
Oh My Sweet Valentine
Five Things that Never Happened to Monkey
Smug
Double Holidays
Clumsy Returns
Smile Like You Mean It
Light on the Water

Misc.
As Above, So Below (Torchwood)
Storms (FFVII)
Drabbles: Batgirl, Supernatural x2, KAT-TUN

Hello! I am not vanished from the face of the earth and internet!

Work is work is customer service, so there's all the things that go with that. Art is moving along. Got a market show in just under two weeks. In preparation, I have made a jellyfish.

I would add a picture but I forget how to make the url work from instagram.

Am watching things. Mostly Discovery. And have started watching something called "A Discovery of Witches". Apparently discovering is a theme this year. Hope all of you are well, and that this actually posts. My phone is being strange with the website.

Help! I'm stalling and I might be productive! Send prompts!

That feeling when you're outlining a story for the first time in what feels like forever, and you're using a notebook because your computer's in the shop for repairs, and you keep flipping to a new page to brainstorm and wondering if you should just be using sticky notes and a wall to organise the thing, but none of your walls have enough space.

A are you aware of this picture? Because I feel you should be.



You are welcome.

What sort of things might one expect to find at a Goblin Night Market?

I've been sitting on this for a while now. Because I hate confrontation with people who matter to me. Because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Because this is hard to say. Because a lot of things.

I refuse to sit on this anymore. It hurts too much, and it's too important.

So I'll start with this:

You guys mean the world to me. More than people I've known longer and seen more often, and I love you dearly. I know you're good people, and you're great friends.

The point of this is, actually, to "Harsh-your-Suqee!"

It is not the point to hurt your feelings.

It probably will though.


DO NOT SEE Paramount's "The Last Airbender"

DO NOT support Paramount's "The Last Airbender" by purchasing any kind of merchandise.

DO NOT let people you care about see Paramount's "The Last Airbender" without telling them what it really is.

And what it is, is racist, whitewashing bullshit.


Here's why.


I've never really found the words for how grateful I am that you all introduced me to the series "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Maybe it's because the floored, awestruck, joy I felt to see respectful, intelligent, compassionate, full depictions of characters of colour has no words. To see a fantasy series that didn't require a mock-up of feudal England, or a blond princess, but instead gave a view of multiple cultures, each with its own traditions and ways, its own foods and architectural details, its own clothes.

When I went home, and immediately went looking for the box sets it didn't even phase me when one of those sets was more than $60.00 because, for once, here was a series that was worth spending that much money on. The first time I watched it by myself I had to pause it part way through an episode and cry for a few minutes, because holy fuck, how long have I been waiting to see this?

All my life.

All my life I've been watching and reading stories in which nobody looked like me. In which nobody ate what I did, or the way I did, or had a name like mine. Or if by some miracle they were there, they didn't speak, or they were the villains, or they were a joke, or a "Very Special Episode."

And then this. This where people who were mine were everywhere, in every frame. They had magic that was theirs, and they weren't teaching it to some interloper who would somehow be better at it than anyone ever. They had loves, and hates, and fights, and flaws, and skills, and traditions, and ceremonies, and legends, and pasts that were all their own. And none of them were perfect. None of them were impossible saints or untouchable icons, or anything but people. Flawed and virtuous and heroic people.

Who I'd been waiting for, somewhere inside, all my life.

So yes. I hit pause in the middle of an episode, and I cried, because the wait was over.

And I cried because the kids who look like me now, whether they're half-Asian, or First Nations/Native American, or first, second, third generation weren't going to have to wait twenty-seven years to see themselves save the world.

I still don't really have words for that.

My first thoughts on hearing the words "live action Airbender" demonstrated a laughable amount of naïveté because the first thoughts I had went something like this:

They'll have to find and cast young Asian and Inuit actors for this! After shunning them out of every possible lead role in existence, finally here's some that require actors of colour! And for once it won't be a token story about how weird and strange and NOT-US they are. And they'll have to be new, because none of the six actors they're allowing to take roles right now are the correct age! How awesome is it that there's no way they can avoid it.

And then...

Well. I suppose it won't be the last time I get a punch to the face for daring to hope the world has made some fucking progress.

If you're new to this issue, and you've no clue what's up, go here:Racebending.com.

Let's do a list of Shit That Is Fucking Wrong With This Picture.

I'll start:

1: All the leads were originally cast as white.
- ...

2: When they recast after the first wave of screaming, only the villain was cast with an actor of colour.
- ...nice.

3: The actor they cast is Indian, while the character he's playing couldn't be more obviously Chinese if you fucking named him Chau.

4: The casting director.
Quote 1: “We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire. If you’re Korean, wear a kimono. If you’re from Belgium, wear lederhosen.”
quote 2: "It doesn’t mean you’re at a disadvantage if you didn’t come in a big African thing. But guys, even if you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you’ll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever.”
- All projects Deedee Ricketts is involved in after this are hugely suspect.

5: The casting instructions for the leads which read "Caucasian or any other ethnicity."
- but they totally just wanted the best actor for the part, right? Race didn't enter in at all.

6: The casting instructions for the extras which read "NEAR EASTERN, MIDDLE EASTERN, FAR EASTERN, ASIAN, MEDITERRANEAN & LATINO ETHNIC GROUPS….
No experience necessary – Martial Arts & Military Training a PLUS!"
- Don't worry "Authentic Asians" (Deedee Ricketts strikes again) will be included. No experience necessary, 'cause you won't have to talk.
And that way we don't have to worry about the accents.

7: The casting for the rest of the characters from the bad-guy nation. Actors: still Indian, Maori, and Iranian. Characters: STILL CHINESE.
- Evil brown people! Completely interchangeable!

8: The commentary from white-fuck, Jackson Rathbone, cast as an Inuit boy "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan,"

9: That Paramount has been made aware of the wrongness of their actions continuously since the casting was announced, and refused to address it.
- except possibly for the part where they said the casting was ironic, and meant to increase diversity in the main cast.

10: That there have been graphic tie-in novels released in which the characters are depicted based on the white-washed versions in the film, rather than the actual characters of the series.
- because, you know, corrupting the integrity of the franchise the first time was insufficient.

11: Attempts to raise awareness of this racist bullshit - and that is what this is - are being met with handwaving of
"it's just one directors vision"
"the show's so ambiguous anyway"
"Aang was always white"
"why are you even upset, everyone else the cast isn't white."
"it's just a money-making thing, it's not like it's meant to be racist"
"making such a big deal out of the race of the actors just means you're a reverse-racist."
- I am once again out of words for how wrong this shit is. Reverse-racism is apologist claptrap. It's always "a money making thing". The show's not ambiguous, you just can't read visual markers. Aang was never white.

12: They've stolen a story in which nations of people save themselves, and learn to value harmony and balance, and turned into just one more piece of shit where the white guy saves the brown people.

12a: That makes it worse than when it's just the standard conquerors-guilt-fantasy.

13: The writing in the series used actual Chinese calligraphy. The writing in the film is a "nonsense script"
-'cause obviously, if you can't understand it, it's not really language. Even if it predates your written alpahbet by 2000 years.

14: Aang's tattoo has been perverted into an ornate cross.
- totally the same as tracing the path of his chi. Not disrespectful of the source at all.

15: People are going to see it anyway. Some, in full knowledge of the obscene level of racism involved in the production.

Here's the part where delicate feelings get a bit bruised. And by "a bit bruised" I mean black and blue with a blood red centers. Don't worry about it too much though, if your colourblind, you probably won't even notice.

This film is racist. It is in the long tradition of hollywood racism that gave us Mikey Rooney in yellowface in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", a white Monkey King, and Chinese women playing blue-eyed Geisha.

Going to see it supports racism in film and television.

Going to see it supports racism, period.

Going to see it is a racist act.

Going to see it in full knowledge of all these things MEANS YOU ARE RACIST.

There is no way to pull that punch.

I will not apologise for landing it.

Being racist means to hold other people inferior to yourself on the grounds of their race. If your enjoyment of a film means more to you than the harm that film causes people on the grounds of their race, then you are racist.

Dismissing their concerns when those concerns are brought to your attention is racist.

Sometimes people say to me, as I am their One Minority Friend!^TM, "Em, if I am racist, please tell me so I can be better (but not do any of the hard work)."

I usually meet this request with a swift kick in the ass, because it is your fucking job as a decent human being to police your behaviour to ensure you're not hurting anyone, not mine. This time? I'll help you with the heavy lifting.

Going to see this movie is racist.

so, you know,

DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE!

I will not cut this entry. Don't ask me to.

I will not apologise if your feelings are hurt by what is being said here. If you've read this far I want you to try something.

I want you try and imagine finding a story that called to you, as someone special. A story that gave pride to where you came from without making that the only thing you are. A story that did that with respect, and with power, and for the very first time in all your life. After years, and years, and fucking years of being invisible when you went looking for magic and heroes to be, you found a story that said, "Here. Have these heroes. They really are just like you."

Then imagine someone took that same story, and ripped out it's heart, and handed it back, and told you to be grateful.

Then tell me about hurt feelings.

Nickelodeon's "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was feast after famine.

I refuse to let Paramount clear the table.

I refuse to starve any more.

OH MY GOD!!!

Montreal just knocked out the Capitals. The team that stumbled ass-backward into the playoffs on the second to last day of the season has beaten the first seeded team in the league.

OH MY GOD!!!! That's insane!

In the four games Montreal won to take the series Jaroslav Halak allowed 5 goals on nearly 200 shots!

I have no idea how to even start to talk about this.

It's a pipe dream, I know it, but oh to have an all Canadian Stanley Cup final.

Wow. WOW.

ETA:
Cannot watch the postgame stuff. Muppet is too sad.

Free to use for anyone. But shoshannagold gets first call.

( 12 Icons )

Title: 14 Years In St. George's Service
Fandom: Generation Kill
Pairing: Colbert/Fick
Beta: oxoniensis Many many thanks.
Notes: Written for the GK Porn Skirmish for the prompt Colbert/Fick: Outrageous (likely bullshit) stories of 'how I lost my virginity' are being exchanged, when asked, Nate jokes that he's still a virgin. Brad later corners him and offers to pop his cherry.


( 14 Years In St. George's Service )