and there was much rejoicing

[glass_icarus]

First Deadline has been made! *\o/* (Okay, am a bit nervous about PDF previewing failure but I did check the online form about 230947 times, so.) Time for a celebratory linkspam, haha.

» some overdue fanspam
+ Check out the Merlin lexicon, risingsunpub!
+ zahrawithaz wrote some Morgana meta!
+ I have spent shameful amounts of procrastination time devouring Guide Me Home, a gigantor Ursa/Hakoda fic. >.>
+ Also, Disclosure will never stop being hilarious. Mai/Zuko complementary failboats, ahahahahahah! &hearts
+ game on: Mai vs. Iroh in a pai sho showdown! Also Mai/Zuko cuteness, hahaha.
+ rs_small_gifts has begun posting, yay!

» foodspam (now I want a food carnival!)
+ deepad: Doodh se Dhuli
+ vi: gross, weird, inedible
+ Jha's Lunar Year's End! AWESOME. &hearts
+ troisroyaumes: Seven things

» +1: Via deadbro, Keeping Hobbits White since 1937 made me laugh and laugh, but also prodded me into some thoughts regarding racebending.

See, I never expected to have a place in Tolkien's world, or in any white European fantasy land (which isn't always quite the same as generic fantasy land). I'm not saying that chromatic people haven't been erased from these fantasies, just that many mythologies built up around worlds full of elves and dwarves and fairies and goblins and whatnot read to me as specifically white European, intentional or not. I grew up with them, but I grew up knowing that they didn't belong to me, that those worlds were ones in which I had no part.

Part of me wonders whether this is a failure of my imagination, or perhaps a side effect of growing up surrounded by white-dominated media; I've only just started asking "why not?", after all. Racebending something as coded-white as Arthurian legend would never have occurred to me without Angel Coulby as BBC Merlin's Guinevere! But in the end, I personally am less interested in carving out chromatic spaces in white European mythologies. I would rather re/claim the stories that aren't explicitly coded, the blank "universal" narratives (e.g. superheroes or space explorers or cops-and-robbers capers), than expand upon the ones that were never mine to begin with.

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

YAAAAAAY deadline made!!!

[glass_icarus]

:D *\o/*!

re: racebending elves

[suaine]

I have to admit: since somehow the dominant narrative of these stories is so thoroughly white, straight and male (and *English*), I am always, always surprised when I read further about the actual historical facts on which that "European" fantasy is loosely based. Europe, almost any part of actual Europe, is nothing close to that English gentleman fantasy, and was never like it even though those who held the power and told the stories (still do, really) would have us believe otherwise. I actually do believe that changing these stories is important, certainly a good thing. You would not believe how often I have made an :O face as I researched relevant bits and pieces for writing projects in Merlin and my original projects and realized how diverse Europe's past actually was. It's a little sad that all we think of now is Legolas in a blond wig and Strider in a tavern.

I think I actually blame the first post-Tolkien writer generation. Tolkien wrote a story he liked, tailored to his own sensibilities and worldview. The people who began to use his work as template - and there is a clear relationship between anything elf, dwarf or orc as we understand it today and Tolkien's body of work - are the ones I truly blame for taking up the whiteness with it. Because I honestly don't believe it's an integral, immutable part, even of faithful Tolkien hommage.

Re: racebending elves

[glass_icarus]

True; and I would definitely be interested to see people run with the historical multiculturalism! It's just not something I can personally do anymore, because the years I spent consuming Tolkien-derivatives/etc. burned out most of my love for those stories. Now they mostly make me tired. :\

[amai_kaminari]

Thank you for recommending "Disclosure"! While I love A:TLA, I hardly ever read fan fiction for it. That one was awesome! I adore Zuko/Mai! <3 Thank you! :)

[glass_icarus]

You're welcome! :) Mai/Zuko is one of my favorite ships. &hearts

[amai_kaminari]

I love Mai/Zuko as well. I just don't read much A:TLA fan fiction because the fandom intimidates me a bit. I've heard horror stories that the fandom is generally pretty wanky and clique-y, so I'm reluctant to participate in it.

On the other hand, I am really happy when my f-list posts fic recommendations, because that's the best way to cut right to the good stuff! <3

Thank you again!

[yiduiqie]

i too want a food carnival!

[glass_icarus]

LET'S DO IT :D

[yiduiqie]

OKAY

what should the theme be? how shall we do it?

[glass_icarus]

\o/!

HMM. I dunno! Do we wanna get more specific than "food"? (Family-style? Holiday treats? Street food?)

[yiduiqie]

and also, obviously this has grown out of food shame specifically related to cultural imperialism/racism - are we limiting it to that? obviously there's a lot that can be said about food shame from a fat perspective, or an ablism/disability perspective, too. are we limiting it to food shame? or are we celebrating food? in which case it makes sense to specify things like family-style, holidays, etc.

if we wanted to make it ongoing, we could start (short notice, i know) with holidays, given today's close proximity to new year, lny/spring festival, christmas, hannukah, even recently passed holidays like eid al-adha.

[glass_icarus]

Ooh, good point. I think food shame is a topic that needs more discussion, but I would also want to include celebration because food! It's a happy thing!

I would support an ongoing carnival! I like the holidays idea, but maybe given the short notice we could make the first round themeless/general?

[yiduiqie]

i think an ongoing carnival is the way to go. hooray! is it going to be one of those passed around things, or something with a distinct round up area? (errr...great sentence! like, the awc had a separate blog for round ups; versus something that we announce on our blogs and gets passed around and rounded up on someone's personal blog)

i think the first one could still be celebrations! if we announced it this weekend, to go live on the first of jan, that's in the middle of celebrating! though actually on the first of january i will be in japan, at tokyo disney, so you would have to do all the collating on your own so maybe that's not a good idea.

if we had just a general/themeless first round, when would the date be, do you think?

[glass_icarus]

HMM. I do have an alternate DW account that I don't really use, but maybe we should make a new one for roundup purposes? (I have so many codes still!) Although then there's the question of what to name it, and I did like the AWC format of changing hosts.

I wouldn't mind collating, actually! It's just that I might also be away for a few days around 1/1, so perhaps not feasible this time. ;0 I guess a general round could go up sometime after that, though? Mid/late January perhaps?

[yiduiqie]

We could start with rotating hosts - you could be the first one, and I'd be the second host, and then if it grew, we could think about moving it to a separate home?

A mid/late January 'general' theme might work, but I think we'd still need to specify. My concern is that otherwise we're going to end up with 1000 posts about food.

[glass_icarus]

Sounds good to me! :)

Haha, good point. Do we want to stick with the holiday thing, or should we pick something else?

[yiduiqie]

Okay, we need to a) definitely pick a date, and b) definitely pick a theme. I think we go for a short notice holidays theme, and if it's small then it's small. I can guarantee at least five to ten people who will write about food + holidays when I prod them (from a chromatic perspective), so we should be ok.

Not many rules, but I think we should consider 'no posts that are only a recipe, but recipe + theory /thoughts is ok' ?

[glass_icarus]

How does a 1/21 deadline sound? It's a Friday so collating can happen over the weekend.

Agreed on the no recipes only rule. It's probably also a good idea to say something along the lines of "links to be included at the host's discretion", but I can't think of anything else that we need to specify.

[yiduiqie]

That sounds like a good date! It's good because it's before CNY/LNY, therefore technically still in the holiday period. :o)

Agreed on the discretion thing. Otherwise that's probably it. Except for the name. And the announcement. And fetching new icons.

[glass_icarus]

Heh, I can do icons at some point this week/weekend but-- ohshit, names. >.> I have just been thinking of it as Food Carnival, which is... not a great one, ahahahaha.

[yiduiqie]

well, we could be very The Food Carnival...? It makes it sound very official. or the Multicultural Food Blog Carnival? Or Thinky Thoughts About Food: An Ongoing Blog Event.

[glass_icarus]

Heee. Maybe we could call it Potluck?

[yiduiqie]

YES.

[secondsilk]

I would rather re/claim the stories that aren't explicitly coded, the blank "universal" narratives (e.g. superheroes or space explorers or cops-and-robbers capers), than expand upon the ones that were never mine to begin with.

Yes, please.

Also, I'm appalled at how little I know about mythologies/cultural histories/narratives that aren't White British (being white and British myself). I've got to go out and find the other-than-white coded stories as well.

[jhameia]

Oh! Awkward virgin sex! SO CUTE! The bestest type to write and read!

Thanks for the plug <3<3<3

I remember at one point thinking that the LOTR elves were Asian. That's why they were smaller than the human characters. I figured them sailing to the East at the end was them sailing to that world's equivalent of China or Japan. I was disabused of the notion when I noticed how elves in D&D handbooks always looked pretty white.

[nijibug]

West, the elves sailed west. :]

LotR elves never struck me as having an equivalent to any particular race/ethnicity back when I was reading the books, but the costume designs in Jackson's movie adaptations have this pseudo-Greek, pseudo-Chinese look and feel to them, somewhat like a hybrid of chiton and hanfu.

[jhameia]

....

Well, if you sail West long enough you eventually hit East.

I STILL thought they were sailing to some China-equivalent. The idea that orcs = dark-skinned peoples didn't really hit me until much later.

........ Now I'm wondering what I was thinking when I posted that, because dammit, LOTR was my thang, I should have noticed that.

[glass_icarus]

You're welcome! :D And ahahaha, Mai/Zuko are the PINNACLE OF DORKY/AWKWARD. &hearts &hearts &hearts FAVORITES.

Hee! I never thought of them as Asian; it would probably have been more interesting (and confusing) if I had. Although I thought the sailing west bit was some sort of European folklore thing...? 0.o

[crossedwires]

Yay for making the deadline! And the linkspam! I totally want a food carnival too. <3

But in the end, I personally am less interested in carving out chromatic spaces in white European mythologies. I would rather re/claim the stories that aren't explicitly coded, the blank "universal" narratives (e.g. superheroes or space explorers or cops-and-robbers capers), than expand upon the ones that were never mine to begin with.

*nods* I can't quite shake my fascination with white-European fairytales and 'what if' scenarios, but yeah, ITA about 'universal' stories.

[glass_icarus]

&hearts! \o/

Haha, I am still a little bit fascinated by the fairytales! I've just read too many retellings to be as, er, rabidly enthusiastic about most of them as I used to be. xD

[nijibug]

I personally am less interested in carving out chromatic spaces in white European mythologies. I would rather re/claim the stories that aren't explicitly coded, the blank "universal" narratives (e.g. superheroes or space explorers or cops-and-robbers capers), than expand upon the ones that were never mine to begin with.

Hear, hear!

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the link! And massive congratulations on meeting the deadline!

Your thoughts on Tolkien racebending are very interesting. There are so many different things that need to be challenged; I like the way you lay it out as a matter of priorities.

[glass_icarus]

You're welcome! &hearts And thanks! :D

I think a lot of it also has to do with what makes sense to me? Like, because of the coded-whiteness, a Pakistani hobbit or a Chinese leprechaun or whatever would make me boggle and go but why are we here to serve your narratives which have nothing to do with our cultural context? Whereas if someone told me I couldn't racebend a blank-slate character like Jim Kirk, I'd say but why CAN'T a black/Latino man be the captain of the USS Enterprise?

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Very belatedly--

Ah, I think I better understand your point now. It's like when someone says "every culture in the world has had vampires" without regard for the word itself and all the contemporary associations coming out of an intensely European context, and without regard for how that flattens all those other traditions and makes them only visible insofar as they match up to a pre-existing assumed white "norm." Just one more example of inscribing whiteness as a universal norm, even if using bodies of color to do it.

[vi]

Hehehehehehe, I ended up reading all of "Guide Me Home" today. >_> Thank you for the links to those three ATLA fics! I could NOT stop giggling at Iroh in "Disclosure", omg, his comments about flowers.

Also, thank you for linking. &hearts

EDIT: I missed the first line- congratulations on meeting that deadline! =D

[glass_icarus]

Ahaha, you're welcome! :D And thanks! &hearts