#fangrrls

[girl4music]

INTERVIEWER: “Renee, what do you think that Gabrielle saw in Xena that made her want to leave everything she knew behind?”

RENEE: “You know, it’s what I still see in Lucy. And she can say she’s not Xena and many ways she’s not.

*to Lucy*

Don’t roll your eyes.

*back to the interviewer*

But she has a leader in her. She’s strong. It’s just a quality that I admire in women, in strong women. So I can definitely see how Gabrielle just said, ‘Oh, that’s my ticket. That is who I want to be like.’ So there’s definitely that quality in me that just says I admire Lucy and all that she does. Especially with the environment.”

LUCY: “I’m a very reluctant leader. I’ll only do it if nobody else will step up. I’ll do whatever. But um, and the other question is, why did Xena take her along? She said ‘I’m an outsider in my own home, take me.’ And it was that being an outsider. We all feel like we’re slightly fraudulent, you know? Yeah, I think that’s part of human nature. So something in her appeal made Xena pull her up on the back of a horse and take her away from her home and everything she ever knew. To a world of adventure and danger. Also, you don’t know what’s going on in the mind of the strong, silent one unless you have the sounding board of the best friend.”

I’ve always said this. I’ve always said it’s the feeling of being an outsider that is what brought them together. I mean obviously, Xena, herself. The origin of her name in Greek is “stranger”. She was seeking a sort of companionship without recognizing that she was. And as for Gabrielle - she just wanted to get away from the boring conservative lifestyle that she led in Potidaea.

But it is them being outsiders that is what made them find that ‘home’ in each other. They’re a found family.

[nerdgirlriot]

once upon a time syfy.com did a weird thing and paid me to write about fannish stuff so please enjoy this essay on why i love One Piece and why I'm always wary about One Piece. Just as a celebration of the story and the influx of new fans thanks to the Netflix series

[indigo-girls-fan-talk]

Riding with my Indigo Girls playlist cranked! Who else does this? #sundayfunnies #indigogirls #amyray #emilysaliers #IGFT #playlist #singersongwriters #georgiaduo #womeninrock #fangrrl #fanlife #GOAT https://www.instagram.com/p/CqQsepdu4or/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[myevilmouse]

Hi,

I always love visiting your blog, and @jedimordsith as well—a nice diversion after stressful real life, and such😜 Thank you for all the posts/fics/etc.

I’m not sure if anyone takes any requests, or if you’d know of any particular fics with scenes/plot-lines of what I wish I could find (short of writing them myself at some point…). 1) I love ‘BrokeBack Mountain’—just wondering if there’s ever been a Thrawn/Luke pairing featuring a similar kind of *enemies to (reluctant) friends/lovers* sort of weave. Ideally, set post RotJ. Maybe set as a spliced-in alternative/additional scene during the original Thrawn trilogy—they’re stuck on a planet, or crash-land, whatever—as Luke is trying to find some sort of gadget/weapon/plot-prop/whatever, before Thrawn/Empire can reach it. In the pursuit of our dashing Jedi, Thrawn ends up stuck on the same planet—a hostile environment (for whatever reason of the author’s conceiving)—requiring both Luke and Thrawn to eventually form an uneasy/ambivalent alliance in order to survive, and escape said planet…and amid the various perils they’re forced to navigate in order to survive, well, you know—stuff goes ‘BrokeBack Mountain’…

2) Additional potential fun-random scene, of little narrative value other than pure imaginative indulgence:

I can never get enough of the dance scene from the movie ‘Freida’/2002 (about the immortal Kahlo, and her relationship DiegoRivera…), where Diego and Antonio Banderas’s character get into some increasingly heated bro-debate on art-crit/socio-political theories, and Ashley Judd’s character basically corks the 2 Males by plopping a bottle of tequila in front of them, and daring whoever can drink the most will get the prize of getting to dance with her. And of course, Salma Hayek’s Freida swaggers on over, ends up out-drinking both the Menz, and proceeds to perform that eye-scorching tango with AshleyJudd’s character, set to Lila Downs’s voice in the background. While the Menz just kinda sit there, jaw-dropped and boon-doggled, the way men (and women) will when 2 incredibly sexy, intelligent, confident Ladies command the space, and the moment, around them, while sensuously diffusing a tense situation. Is there any fic that shows MaraJade with another equally charismatic/kick-A$$ woman, in a similar scenario-set-up, maybe in a dive-bar/tavern, maybe in front of Luke-Lando-TalonKarrde (hell, even Thrawn??—setting of Imperials vs NewRepublics in a scene like Casablanca with the French and Germans—lol)—and for the love of Wookiees, if there’s no fic featuring a scene like that, that you, in your vast repertoire of StarWars knowledge may know of, might anyone of such writing skills as you/JediMordsith embody (and anyone else wanting to try…) indulge this poor, beseeching fanGrrl?? I mean that mostly joking—I know peeps are busy, but just thought I’d inquire, and maybe plant a plot-bunny wish…

thanks for reading this whenever you have a chance, if you’re so inclined—and thanks for all-y’alls awesome blogs🙏😘

Hi!  Thank you so much for this message/ask @chicagosavant! @jedimordsith and I definitely appreciate knowing that our fics/posts bring joy to a stressful day and you are very welcome to come ogle with me and my pervy friends anytime at the wonder that is Luke the smexy Jedi and Thrawn the dashing demagogue.

This is a little long though so follow me below the cut! 

So I crowd-sourced your ideas with some fandom friends so you have the benefit of multiple minds behind this answer 😁

Unfortunately for these great scenarios you have, I don’t really read or write slash (m/m) or femslash (f/f) in general.  Nothing wrong with it, but I’m painfully heterosexual and it just doesn’t melt my butter.  Since fanfic is for fun, I just explore those ships with EXTREMELY limited exceptions (such as my Thranto quadruple drabble or hinting at Luke/dude in random drabbles).

So for your first idea, I think your best bet for the kind of scenario you describe (not really Brokeback Mountain but more like reluctant allies to lovers type thing) would be to explore Ezra/Thrawn fics and Thranto (Eli Vanto/Thrawn) fics.  nu!canon Thrawn is more likely to go on missions than Legends!Thrawn (who would probably just send an underling) so maybe explore post 2017-Thrawndom.  Most of the Luke/Thrawn stuff on AO3 is not really my jam (some mpreg!), but but I can tell you that the best Thrawn/Luke content I’ve read is in the Triumvirate AU series, which you can explore here.

It’s Luke/Mara/Thrawn and sometimes Luke/Mara/Thrawn/Pryce and there is some specific Luke/Thrawn content in the fics that @celinamarniss writes in particular that you will probably enjoy, like this one and this one.

As a totally unrelated aside, I actually did a Trigun dubbed movie trailer to Brokeback Mountain 100 years ago you can watch here.

As for the second idea, regarding a recreation of the dance scene in Frida, it’s unlikely to come from my pen, but it’s definitely a sexy moment/concept for a fic.

There is plenty of Leia/Mara that feature sexy confident intelligent women getting it on, maybe even dancing (tags are great for finding stuff like that…but I only found one dancing tag in my search).  I ALSO found you a Mara/Jyn dancing ficlet.

Since you are putting these plot bunnies out into the world, it’s possible that some awesome talented writer will take these on and write exactly the fic you want to read.  Maybe consider doing a dedicated “plot bunny” post offering them up to a good home?

The reality is most fic writers have full plates and too many ideas and too little time, so you can always do the default option, and tackle these great ideas yourself!  Write the fic you want to see in the world.  You can then keep it private for your own enjoyment or share it with everyone else to spread the sexy, either option is a win!  Thank you again for the ask!  I wish you lots of luck and happy reading (or writing!)!

[always-angelic-aspie-alice]

Yasss!! My newest A List article is out now; I totally fangrrled over Marie from Artisocats!!

P.S: I didn't understand that Artisocats was a play on word from the word Artisocrats, until literally a couple of weeks ago, LOL 😆

https://alisthub.com.au/resource/disney-characters-as-a-special-interest-whos-your-favourite/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0iT0oZIyB_iUmtLYKcxGyH3IowDV0ZhfTPe0ZXGt14z-wibwqiHEQhxlA_aem_x7t9yYeE10bAYX5hTuT_7w

[rosheendubh]

ai-ya…shameless lady-crush fangRRling…

-

Mostly, character-inspires for the SpaceRockOpera AU (of Star Wars combining TTT/HoT/Dark Empire events, with the Keltiad fused with Firefly-Serenity…)—

-Rhyanon ferch Garowen (Daenerys, combined with equal doses of Yelena Belova/Dr Temperance Brennan/and Dr Janet Frasier…), a biokinetically gifted, skilled medic/biologist and her Dathomiri witch-lover, Kalinda (based off Kalinda from ‘The Good Wife’, even in terms of her role as an info-slicker-cybersecurity specialist…private contract—works with the Terran Core Parliament as much as the ImperialRemnant/Empire of the Hand, or The RepublicAlliance…as her profit and proclivities lie…combo’d with Yennefer of Venderberg…)…

—Rhyanon does, of course become involved with both Luke and Thrawn in a complicated game of illicit love-affairs-illicit bio hacking-cloning-super soldier chimaerasizing-awakening Dark Matter entities and nefarious uses of archeogenomes-space-vampires (the Telchines-Coroniad of the Keltiad, inspired by the Coroniad race of the Mabonigion…)-space vampire fathers and aunts (a little Circe and Medea dynamic…it’s s messed up family dynamic for Rhyanon-)-space vampires exploiting other alien species into bio harvesting servitude (my Ka’ali as a the Terran quadrant origins of the Noghri)-Thrawn is a colonialist authoritarian ass-as are the ChissAscendency-Thrawn-who’s basically my version of Rommel meets Napoleon meets Thomas Jefferson-meets Theoderic the Great-meets Julius Caesar—and Tywin Lannister with Spock-aded to swirl of Bronte-esque Heathcliff and Rochester tragic hero complex-breaks the Galaxy in half by collapsing the Wormhole-sacrifices Csilla-and is willing to bring Artor Imperator’s dead ship back from the Maw/The Dead Zone/Sterike Regions of space to recover the 2nd Starflash weapon lost 1000 years before with the Great Cataclysm-develops a complicated BroMance with Luke-(who’s my version of Luke combined with Peter Quill in Luke Skywalker’s original concept as Starkiller…check it out—his original concept Art before A New Hope even looks like Quill’s StarLord…)-snd a threesome with Rhyanon—who really just wants to go home to Caledonia Secunda-and open a clinic for new world emigres and fly her space-capable pegasuses with her Lady love…lol-yes, that Karaoke scene at the renamed Mos Vespa cantina (princess Vespa as a resurrected Arhinda Pryce combined with Space Balls Princess Vespa) set in a revised ‘Tatooine Ghost’ meets ‘SideTrip’ events as Thrawn-disguised as a Mandalorian/JodoKast-gets inveigled into singing ‘Piano Man with Rhyanon’-in order to defuse a potential tavern brawl-whilst Rhyanon-who’s done up treating idiot criminal under lords inhabiting Fett’s most violent parish where no outreach medical staff with any training dare serve…except Rhyanon-who Luke is after-and Thrawn is after-for their own purposes of saving the Galaxy-with tracking Killick Twilight-on a night Rhyanon just wants to chill with a drink amid the newly imported Terran pastime of Karaoke-at the seedy dive bar-in a scene that turns into Pirates of the Caribbean2-tavern brawl-Thrawn/of course-enacting the role of Jack Sparrow navigating his elegant exit (disguised as a Mandalorian still)-while all chaos spews around him-and WAIT-Firefly’s Operative-named Judah-I believe arrives at some point as well-having traced Rhyanon across the Wormhole sent by River Tam and Mal Reynolds-into a street chase scene through MosVespa (formerly MosEisley)-that culminates with Kalinda on Fett’s pet-rancor (she is Dathomiri by origin)-reprimanding all the misbehaving children-and saving her lady-love who-in a Mexican draw-involving the Operative/Judah-suddenly hears the Operative speak in her native tongue-Pretanic(neo-Brythonic-a combo of Welsh and Gaelic rewound to its Celtic-Gaulic lsnguage roots…but evolved into a future linguistic smash-burger)—later revelations that Thrawn discovers of the Operative/Judah having slain JorgCardas-who crossed the Wormhole as Shepherd Book-and gets a little irritated-as Thrawn wields the Dark Saber in this get-up-here we have the Operative facing off with Thrawn—Katana vs DarkSaber…it’s a honorable death for someone-and the inspiration for River Tam’s “2 by 2, hands of Blue…”

[unicornbeck]

Omg commission this jewelry at once you must! (because apparently I’m Yoda now when I fangrrl)

I just woke up from a dream where I was Aziraphale trying to reconcile with Crowley (It was a small part of a bigger scene but this is the only part that matters) and he gave me a bracelet that had two little acrylic beads on them that had the moon and the earth in them. And said something like "Because we revolve around each other" or something. He had a matching one.

One of the charms had a crown for some reason, I think it was the earth. But idk, it was so cute and I don't want to forget it

[mikedeodatojr]

“BAD MOTHER by Christa Faust energizes the tired mom trope.” -Stephanie Williams, SYFY WIRE/FANGRRLS https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/bad-mother-by-christa-faust-energizes-the-tired-mom-trope #syfy #syfywire #fangrrls #comics #femalelead #momtropes #tropes #badmotherbreakingbad #badassmom #women #underestimated #visiblewomen #ncbd https://www.instagram.com/p/CDgfQ-XJ432/?igshid=5wiibnjmq3v

[squeeprojectsllc]

SQUEE PROJECTS AT NYCC19 SIZZLE REEL

[nerdgirlriot]

The plagiarism video and my brain

I need to gather up my thoughts because my brain has done some really heavy lifting with some of my past experiences and it's a wild ride. Not sure how coherent this is going to be, but! I'm going to try and unpack some of it.

Hbomberguy, a video essayist on Youtube, recently released a hefty video (it's, like, 4 hours long) about plagiarism on the platform, focusing on a few other content creators before getting to the bulk of the video, which is about James Somerton, a commentator who does videos about LGBTQ+ representation in media. hbomberguy has come with ALL the RECEIPTS proving without a shadow of a doubt that Somerton stole most of his content from other writers, reading their words and claiming them as his own. It's shitty, but unfortunately not inherently illegal, particularly since Somerton almost always backtracks when accused and then reups those videos with the barest of efforts to credit the original writers.

So, I have no idea who Somerton is. I sort of(?) recall some sort of controversy about a Youtuber who stole from The Celluloid Closet (a famous documentary about homosexuality and Hollywood) but I do remember that the person apologized and pointed out that there was very little research in the way of queer people in American media so of course he HAD to borrow heavily from Celluloid Closet. I sort of shrugged at the time and moved on, never thinking about it again until I watched the hbomberguy video

And hoo boy it's a lot to pack. Somerton apparently never had an original idea in his head. All the great points he's made in his videos were made by other people whom he stole words from, and when he DID have original content in his videos, it was largely misogynist and...rather racist too? Ouch.

So in the middle of the video, hbomberguy points out that Somerton did a video about the fascist themes in the anime Attack on Titan.  And I started to freak out. I, myself, wrote an op-ed for syfy.com about fascism and anime, and I mentioned Attack on Titan. it was originally posted in October of 2018, a full 4 years before Somerton did his video, so i was rather worried that he'd also plagiarised ME (this is how my brain works, and considering the full extent of obscure sources Somerton used for his videos, I don't think my fear was unfounded). The original article doesn't exist on syfy.com anymore, as they decided that Fangrrls as a vertical just wasn't working for their brand and they stripped years of work from female writers from their site. I have a backup of the article here for reference. 

As for whether Somerton plagiarised me, I feel icky but I ended up downloading the transcript for the video in question and perused through it. I don't THINK he stole any of my words, because the bulk of the video is about the anti-semitic elements in Attack on Titan's later seasons. When I wrote my piece, the fascist elements were still fairly subtle and the big reveal about the Eldians being treated as second class citizens, a once great power (given holy gifts by "God" no less) reduced to living in ghettos and wearing armbands and definitely being coded as Jewish people, hadn't come in yet. My op-ed was about fascism in anime in general, and I mentioned more than just Attack on Titan. I imagine that if my article were still widely available, Somerton might've taken from it. But is that my ego talking? It's probably my ego talking. But I know for SURE that this particular piece still sent a ripple through the larger anime community.

I know this because I am a woman who dared share an opinion on the internet and suddenly anime weebs were spreading the article through twitter and facebook and calling me out for writing a shitty take. 

Was my take shitty? IDK, I still got paid for it and I actually wish I'd written more about it but my editor said that it was fine and the article's like 5 years old at this point and waaaaaaay out of date now since AoT's fascist themes have grown so much more blatant. I only scratched the surface, while newer takes on AoT have the benefit of more story to make their arguments more sound. Some of THESE articles, the more recent ones, Somerton definitely stole from because hbomberguy proved it in his video. I'm just watching from the sidelines right now, very bemused and my brain is coming up with what-if's by the truckload.

I'm just unpacking this now because I don't think I ever fully faced the criticisms I received because of my initial op-ed. My editor warned me that my work could be inflammatory and that I should brace myself. I locked down my Twitter account (as my editor suggested) and ignored any messages from people I didn't recognize for about 2 weeks after the article was posted. Sure enough, the article was spread tens of thousands of times on FB and Twitter. Some of the comments I'd seen called me "misinformed" (fair), "ethnocentric" (I suppose), a "dumb bitch," (possibly?), a "woke SJW" (thanks!), and, most horribly, "white", which for some reason offended me more than the ones calling me a dumb bitch.

One big argument against my op-ed boiled down to the fact that I, as an American, am not aware of the subtleties in Japanese media and I didn't understand Japan's own relationship with its past and I put a Western viewpoint on it (ethnocentrism at its finest). Me...a Filipino-American. Me, a descendent of people (Filipinos) who were subjected to Japan's imperialist expansion in Asia. The Philippines became a battleground between Japanese and Allied forces in WWII. Bataan Death March? Hello? I know my history, but I didn't place this in the article. I thought my mentions of Japan's occupation of China and Korea were enough to show that Japan definitely had imperialist and fascist tendencies in its history and MAYBE that might provide a throughline to why Japanese media is still fascinated with this stuff but it wasn't enough, I guess. It is...a puzzle.

Oh and the original idea for "srsly what's up with Nazis and anime?" came from J, my significant other, who is Japanese-American.

Where's my brain going this? I don't know, but I think I'm happy I'm getting this off my chest now?

I'm sorry and if you read this all the way through, I'm grateful to ya'll.

EDIT: and America is as guilty of burying the sins of the past as much as any other country. Think about the historical revisionist movements which claim that African slaves liked working in plantations because we need to tell American kids these lies to feel better about themselves and not hate their own country. When my views were called "ethnocentric", what POV did my critics think I SHOULD have used? Or are we looking at a case of me "interrogating the narrative from the wrong perspective"?

[milana-vayntrub]

Milana interviewed about New Warriors on the red carpet of the Captain Marvel Premiere

[indigo-girls-fan-talk]

#SundayFunnies #indigogirls #amyray #emilysaliers #IGFT #fangrrl #fanlife https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck5wdb5OG5l/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[syfy]

Tatooine is in retrograde.

[startorialist]

Happy Halloween from the BOOniverse, which is a word I just made up in my day job as a science writer. 

But seriously, the Universe is gorgeous as we already know, but it is also freaky as hell when you think about it. I wrote about some of the more terrifying aspects of space for @syfy Fangrrls, where I now have a weekly column called Star Stuff <wink wink>:

Star Stuff is a weekly column by rocket scientist & astrophysicist Summer Ash highlighting some amazing things happening every day on and off the planet, especially great science done by and/or for women. She harnesses her science communication powers to smash the patriarchy and advocate for equality and inclusion across all time and space. Throwdowns with pseudoscience may occur.

As pictured above, the current column’s highlights include: the Ghost Nebula, the Witch Nebula screaming at Rigel, the Hourglass Nebula keeping an eye out for women in astronomy (full story in article), galactic cannibalism, and the gravitational lens that is taunting us about the lack of women being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (also in article). 

I also had to throw in this dark spooky web of dark matter featured on today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. It’s a still taken from the Dark Universe film now playing at the Hayden Planetarium and created by the folks at the American Museum of Natural History. Oh btw, it’s also Dark Matter Day so this counts as a twofer. 

Shameless plug: you can check out all of my columns for @syfy Fangrrls to date here.

- Summer