#or her unqiue role in a story

[joshuamj]

man, some people really do just be making wild assumptions about people's intents huh 😔

(keep on seeing people giving the Side Eye to those who want Zelda to be able to wield a sword, and asking them why they want her to be a "Link clone." Like bro. bro. Wanting her to be able to fight doesn't mean that people want her to be a Link clone. This isn't some hidden misogyny or anything like u think. And letting her fight with a sword and shield doesn't automatically make her "basically" link, or make her being the protagonist pointless. like bro Link is more than just his sword. And even if Zelda's combat was identical to Link's, she's still more than that. I genuinely don't get why people keep on saying stuff like this.)

[thebestusernamepossible]

Literally going insane, might have to write fanfic for the first time in 2 years because the people™️ do not get my favorite female characters like I do and I feel the insurmountable urge to write her. I’m going to bite drywall why don’t ppl see her complexities. PLEASE STOP WRITING HER ETHIER AS DOMICILE MOM OR BITCH (or just for shipping) she is so so cool please guys please.

Also while I’m here, fandoms tendency to shove women in the ‘pure powerful goddess who can do no wrong’ box and then proceed to never give them an actual narrative role other than like ‘supportive’ or ‘took out a few background guys’. Like why DOES this incredibly badass and complex female character just get shunted into doinging some cool flips, getting praised about it (she’s the strongest fighter, so feminist wow) then never getting actnowleged as a 2 dimensional character.

I saw this a lot when I was in the Batman fandom, particularly with Cassandra Cain. She is a highly complex and interesting character, but in fandom she’s kind of shunted to ‘Badass therapy dog who takes care of the men’. Because even on the slight chance her backstory is brought up it’s always never delved into and mostly used to make her etheir more tragic and in need of support on a surface level or to let her be compassionate with the men characters who get their actual problems foucused on. It’s a unqiue kind of frustrating because it’s like almost letting the cool female character be cool, but it’s more like the idea of a badass women is shoved in your face, maybe joked about (or if we’re lucky she gets to beat up a few bad-guys), but ultimately treated like a cardboard cutout. Interestingly this actually isn’t entirely a female character thing, it’s also common with like old grandfather/grandmother characters and the elderly in general. But it’s usually badass women from what I see. :/ Why can’t fandom explore their stories (people do but why is it so much less), why can’t they be the prtags of cool AUs or time-travel fix-its, or crossover events

Idk I think I’m just frustrated, and I typed out more than I thought I would. Also Ive seen what happens to some other posts complaining about fandom misogyny, so please know if you’re a TERF, fuck off you have no place in this discussion. We will never agree, and frankly all of these points apply to canon Trans Women characters. Don’t say shit ill fucking end you.

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: From highly acclaimed, bestselling author Ava Reid comes a gothic horror retelling of The Juniper Tree, set in another time and place within the world of The Wolf and the Woodsman, where a young witch seeks to discover her identity and escape the domination of her abusive wizard father, perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson and Catherynne M. Valente.A gruesome curse.

 A city in upheaval. A monster with unquenchable appetites. Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father in a city shifting from magic to industry. As Oblya’s last true witches, she and her sisters are little more than a tourist trap as they treat their clients with archaic remedies and beguile them with nostalgic charm. Marlinchen spends her days divining secrets in exchange for rubles and trying to placate her tyrannical, xenophobic father, who keeps his daughters sequestered from the outside world. But at night, Marlinchen and her sisters sneak out to enjoy the city’s amenities and revel in its thrills, particularly the recently established ballet theater, where Marlinchen meets a dancer who quickly captures her heart.As Marlinchen’s late-night trysts grow more fervent and frequent, so does the threat of her father’s rage and magic. And while Oblya flourishes with culture and bustles with enterprise, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power. Caught between history and progress and blood and desire, Marlinchen must draw upon her own magic to keep her city safe and find her place within it.

Review:

A gothic horror retelling of the Juniper Tree where a young witch must discover who she truly is and escape her abusive wizard father while falling for a ballet dancer with his own demons. Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father, a father who is cursed to never be satisfied and who is extremely overprotective of them... Marlinchen has been submissive her entire life, silent, obedient, and the daughter who does the most for her father. Marlinchin has the ability to see into people’s minds, read their secrets and memories just by touching them. Her father has kept his daughters separated from society, only letting them tend to clients with their gifts, but after a secret outing Marlinchin meets Sevas, the primary ballerino, playing Ivan. It is an instant want, an instant desire, she wants him like she’s never wanted anything else. But when Sevas turns up at her door as a client her father catches onto her desire and casts a new spell that locks Marlinchen and her sisters in and makes it impossible for them to even go out. Yet mysteriously Marlinchen soon discovers a way out... and a way to Sevas. Sevas has his own demons, tired of playing one role his entire life, of being the hero, and being forced to be beholden to the abuses from his uncle. Soon bodies start dropping and Marlinchen’s father becomes greedier for control of his daughters and soon things well get out of hand. This was such a unqiue gothic horror retelling of the original story and I actually loved the ending of the book so much. This is a story about reclaiming your body, about finding the strength in yourself to get what you want and to fight back against the abuses. The romance was quick but it truly works well in the end, seriously that ending was just magnificent.

*Thanks Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[dupont]

In order to be more impactful in her role that helps feed the world, Marcia Berimbau returned to school to better understand people. This modern-day Renaissance woman shares her unqiue story in her own words. Read more here. 

Marcia Berimbau started her career at DuPont in the traditional way: as a scientist, working in Brazil. A chemical engineer by training, Berimbau was a believer in the fundamentals of science, and in the importance of formal, precise processes and procedures. But several years into her career, she broadened her way of thinking. Although engineering was still vital to her job — and to her — she realized after moving into an “innovation manager” role at Danisco that she needed to know more about business. She promptly enrolled in an MBA program in São Paulo, Brazil.

Berimbau, now the Innovation Director for South America for DuPont Nutrition & Health, is a can-do sort of person. She believes in taking initiative. She also loves to learn. So, when promoted to Innovation Director at Danisco in 2001, she realized that she now needed more knowledge than either her technical or business degrees afforded her. In her new role managing teams of engineers and business workers, she needed to better understand people. That’s when she went back to university — in her spare time, after putting in long days at work — to study literature and language. “As I became more and more involved in leadership, I realized that understanding the human side of people, and how they think, was essential,” she says.

Literature in turn opened the door to philosophy — and to another humanities degree that Berimbau finished in 2011. “This was very important to opening my mind, and understanding some very fundamental things about people,” Berimbau says today. “Although I’m in a technical area, my work is mostly dealing with teams, project groups, and strategies, and that’s what I needed the most help with.”

Think globally, act locally

Berimbau runs DuPont Nutrition & Health “Innovation Lab” for South America. Her group exists because, as she says, “science is global, but food is local.” DuPont R&D groups might come up with the firm’s blockbuster new enzymes, but if they don’t complement diets around the world, then it’s for naught. That’s why DuPont has placed Innovation Labs around the world. “To put a final product in something like ice cream, or a piece of bread, we have to see what that ingredient is bringing to our market in particular,” Berimbau says.

She points to some of the recent food innovations her team has been involved in. Countries in South America — Chile is a prime example — have been worried about their citizens’ health, and have recently passed regulations about food ingredients such as trans fats. In response, Berimbau’s team launched a zero trans-fat, low-saturated-fat campaign. “We’ve presented prototypes of margarine and biscuits using DuPont products to our customers, and are now working on a healthy cake. These are meant to be an inspiration to our customers, for products they can offer to their customers.”

Collaborative leadership style that promotes innovation

Berimbau is known for her participatory leadership style that promotes innovation. “I enjoy being close to my teams, to encourage them to exchange ideas and collaborate,” she says. Although each different industry group works huddled together — Dairy, Ice Cream, Bakery, Beverages and Oils & Fats — Berimbau fosters openness and cross-industry collaboration between the groups. “The ‘zero trans & low sat’ concept was originally an Oils & Fats campaign that moved quickly into Bakery,” she says. “Another example is the cooperation between the Ice Cream and Beverages team in the creation of milk & soy ice cream concept.”

According to Berimbau, innovation is a combination of structured processes and the freedom to create. “We have structured processes that involve deep understanding of customer needs and our capabilities. But I believe innovation can happen anywhere. Some of our best ideas come from talking around the coffee machine.”

It is also important to share beyond the South America lab. Each industry has a global knowledge team, a centralized multi-functional and multi-regional group that regularly meets to solve particular challenges affecting the industry worldwide. “We have systems in place so that local innovation is never lost or buried deep in some regional facility,” she says.

For example, her bakery team recently found an innovative new application for some DuPont™ Danisco® enzymes applied in the milling industry. “We discovered that if you used the enzyme earlier in the process, while the grain is still wet and undergoing what we call ‘conditioning,’ that you end up with whiter flours, and better yield,” she says. “I’m very proud of my team’s innovations. Sharing these innovations globally is the way to understand and realize our full potential.”

Growth Opportunities at DuPont

Berimbau says that DuPont is a good place for women to advance to leadership positions.

“When I started my career 30 years ago, it was very different. I felt I needed to fight to prove my point, that I could do things as well as my male colleagues,” she says. “But as the years have gone by, we see much more women in management roles, both within DuPont, and at our customers.” There is still a gap in the number of women in senior positions, she says. “I enjoy spending time mentoring women and also men on how to grow and be successful. I believe we all have the potential and opportunities to grow at DuPont.”

Looking back, Berimbau says she feels “wonderful” about her career choice, because she knows she’s making a difference. “Feeding the world is a noble challenge,” she says. “It’s a good thing to know that what you are doing benefits the global population.”

[sohannabarberaesque]

Postcards from Snagglepuss: Feline Encounter of the Gatlinburg Kind

So there we were--yours truly, Crazy Claws and the quartet known as the Cattanooga Cats, as in Country, Kitty Jo, Groove and Scoots--in the latter's retreat looking down on Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains, accentuated by a polarised picture window to avoid the glare. Over ham biscuit sandwiches and Royal Crown Cola, even.

And leave it to Kitty Jo, the Cattanooga Cats' female vocal lead and dancer, to explain what led them to Gatlinburg as their retreat: "It just felt rather interesting to imagine ourselves having as a between-tours retreat nothing less than an otherwise campy-looking tourist trap as Gatlinburg. Especially when such was situated out of the way, the better so as not to be too obvious."

To which Country chimed in: "Especially so a certain Chessie the Autograph Hound. She's long been nothing but an annoyance for us, constantly demanding our autographs--"

"--And acting rather obnoxious on the side," Groove remarked, "As if she really wanted to tan our hide!"

(Prompting Crazy Claws to remark that such a fondness for rhyming to express one's sentiments "is almost as weird as imagining just how Wisconsin Dells can survive the winter without its waterpark resorts.")

During which Scoots, the dimunitive one of the Cats, went into a banjo-picking exercise ("Keeps my paws all the more limber," he remarked) as much as coming up with some absurdly wonderful story to relate in his role as the Resident Storyteller for the sake of their act. And when Crazy Claws remarked that he had seen the Cats a few times in Wisconsin Dells, the response among the Cattanooga Cats was sheer and stunned disbelief. Disbelief of the sort that was enough to prompt Kitty Jo to recall the time when Crazy Claws helped her pick up a decent leather vest to improve her looks in the act. And enough to send Kitty Jo to the hall closet wearing that very vest.

Meanwhile, yours truly explained that our presence was but part of a publicity run from Chicago down to Florida promoting Wisconsin Dells, as in passing out brochures for the Waterpark Capital--prompting Groove to remark "Who needs a waterslide when a motel swimming pool/Can be enough to drive us all so cool?!" (Guffaws of laughter all around. And prompting Crazy Claws to ask of Groove if he ever tried diving "cannonball," given his massive girth, which drew further laughs--and plenty of memories about motel swimming pools, good, bad and ugly, they've been to on tour.)

Which led Country to ask what drove Crazy Claws and I to such a quest as this, and this I replied: "The thrill of the open road. And a desire to help an old friend out." Which was cue enough for Teeny Tim--that's Kitty Jo's pet dog and dance partner--to demonstrate his amusing way with the keyboard as much as the old terpsichore. Kitty Jo remarked that such "came about as an idea on a whim to me; besides, his joining me in the dancing, while alright, was getiing hackneyed."

Which was enough to lead to a rather wonderful evening with the Cattanooga Cats along the Parkway in downtown Gatlinburg, encountering plenty of tourists and signing autographs--even on copies of the brochures we were passing out. And we avoided the NASCAR Cafe for supper, tacky as it was in concept, instead looking for someplace more "down home" in the cooking department for a little nightcap. Which, as it happened, was back at the Cattanooga Cats' retreat, only this time looking down on Gatlinburg in her nighttime splendor. Such was the cue for one of their legendary Midnight Biscuits-and-Gravy Breakfasts, which Country explained as "perhaps the best way we've came across some rather creative ideas for our act." Especially when you consider that the sausage gravy uses mild and hot breakfast sausage in the same gravy "to add some balance," as Scoots put it.

All definitely from scratch--and from old recipes from Kitty Jo's branch of the band ("My late mother was rather wonderful herself with the cooking, and taught me much in the process. It's almost like extracurricular activity, in a way") ... for which Scoots "added some spice" by relating in his own unqiue way when some close half-crazy cousins of his from "back in the holler" almost feuded like the Hatfields and McCoys over who made better biscuits and gravy, esepcially considering that the sausage was freshly made back during "butcherin' time" for the family hogs, as was still something of a commonplace. Hence, the older cousin decided to do a "taste off" of their rival recipes when the neighbours' "swapping work" came over to their place over "butcherin' time" ... and just trying to keep up with the demand was rather trying for the women folk. "But, long story short," Scoots concluded, "when all was said and done--it was a tossup between the two. It emerged that they had used the same basic sausage recipe from a University Extension Service pamphlet, and used much the same spices. In any case, the two cousins remained rather close, even swapping biscuits and gravy on occasion." Not to mention Kitty Jo and Country bringing out the photo albums and relating plenty of hilarious misadventures, plenty of stories involving their several tour buses they fondly called "Gashopper," even plenty of test poses for album cover concepts. And in the Gashopper Department, an especially hilarious story was about the time when they found a VW minibus which had been "stretched out" big time ... and in getting things organised in the midst of a major tour, when they were doing small-time auditoriums and "opry houses," they realised that the bunks were probably a little TOO comfortable. Or were they? But at least there wasn't double-bunking to contend with, and a decent little kitchen besides, where many a kettle of their legendary post-concert grits bar grits was cooked up.

Before long, it was time for bed. Crazy Claws and I got an exceptionally weird-looking bedroom as seemed straight out of Scooby-Doo, and in the sky blue and chartreuse so associated even! Not to mention futon mattress as felt somewhat comfortable--a little TOO comfortable for comfort, it seemed.... Well, anyway we all slept in until around 8, when Kitty Jo announced breakfast was ready: Her own very special grits, with choice of toppings galore. And boy, I must've eaten at least three bowls seasoned with cheese, bacon bits and salt-free seasoning ... and Crazy Claws had his fill of such to which he added shredded cheese and cracked black pepper.

And taking our leave of Gatlinburg--but not before a selfie with all the parties involved overlooking Gatlinburg and the Smokies, and also satin jackets emblazoned with the Cattanooga Cats' own logotype--and autographs, even!--we couldn't get over ourselves in such incredible company Hanna-Barberian of the highest order ... and decided to kill time on the Smokies Mountain Coaster (and NOT manage to get sick in the process)!