This week in The Slacktiverse, May 26/27 2012

The Blogaround

This week, Storiteller contemplated the many ways biking reverberates throughout communities. In National Bike Month, Week 3: Ride of Silence , she describes her participation in a ride meant to honor and remember bicyclists lost to bicycle-car accidents. A few days later, she pedaled her way to work, along with 12,000 other people in the region. Although it was Bike to Work Day, she made an unexpected pit stop on the way home to get a book signed by author John Scalzi.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Painted Waitresses
(Trigger Warning: Rape, Surgery, Cancer, Choice, reference to BDSM)
Bella is sitting in the car with Edward while Edward calms down after rescuing Bella from a situation of possible gang rape.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Hunger Games: A Question of Agency
(Trigger Warning: Death, Agency, Reproductive Rights)
I've decided to run a Hunger Games deconstruction to post on a non-regular basis. This will not be a line-by-line deconstruction like Twilight and will not precisely be a read-a-long like Narnia; it will be a thematic deconstruction by chapter with the assumption that everyone is already familiar with the books. Spoilers lurk herein.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: Savior White, Savior Bright
(Trigger Warning: Genocide, Othering through Romanticization, Nazis)
The Pevensie children have rescued a dwarf.

Kit Whitfield continues her analyses of famous first sentences. This week: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

This week Laiima wrote about pattern complexity in plaids and paying heed to me.

chris the cynic reports: This week I wrote a post [Noninteracting Magisteria and the Bechdel Test] about the way female characters in The Avengers and Firefly have roles that don't bring them into contact, which also touched on how few female characters there were in The Avengers. I returned to .hack//Sign with a post starting on Episode 3 Folklore. I wrote a silly post about the various versions of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a rambling post about Godzilla versus the Sea Monster. I also made an index of what I posted in the month of March.

Nick Kiddle writes: I have a post this week about my return to the joys of blood donation now that a relaxation of rules makes me an eligible donor once more.

Michael Mock reports: This week at Mock Ramblings, there's some big-ish news. At least, I think it's big news. Hope so, anyway. Back in December, I wrote a post aimed at Christian Parents of Atheist or Agnostic Children. In the months since, it has received a modest-but-steady stream of page views and fresh comments. This week, by reader request, I joined with Matt Mikalatos, author of My Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian, to create a Facebook support group for parents whose children had left the faith (or parents who find themselves in comparable situations). The group is here. So far it's still tiny, but if anyone here is interested in joining - or helping out - you'd be very welcome.

Other weekly ramblings include an explanation of The Wombat Massage, the first section of a new fantasy writing project called Into The Game, some thoughts on Music Festivals and Ableism, and the second installment of Pimp My Art Friends.

yamikuronue reports: Last weekend we saw the first post in a new series called Decon Vs, in which my partner Chaos deconstructs two sports anime, comparing the way they handle characters and plot pacing and so forth. A new post in that series will be queued up for this weekend as well.

Monday and Wednesday both saw RSS Quickies posts from Real Simple Magazine's website: one on cleaning and one on children viewing pornography online. There was no TPD this past week, but Easily Amused examined the dark side of Hubert's character.Friday had another Life Lessons, this time on the phrase "everything happens for a reason".

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Appropriating Victims' Experiences
This is serious priority inversion, and it happens all the time in real life and in literature, and it irks me so very much. I have to assume it's a symptom of Privilege; when everything in your entire life has been framed in terms of how you -- Privileged White Male Vampire -- feel, then of course a traumatic experience that happened to someone else should immediately (and only!) be framed in terms of how the Privileged White Male Vampire in the room feels about things! It's just the natural order of things, right? Privileged White Male Vampire feelings come first.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: The Patriarchy Hurts Women, Too
We live in a harmful Patriarchal society where women are frequently judged, insulted, and slandered not by their words or their positions or by their beliefs, but by their gender and sexuality. The intent is to de-personify women who commit the crime of being public figures, who work publicly for political and social change.

In case you missed this

Literata announces that she is now a legally ordained High Priestess. Yay!
Any Slacktiversians in the area of DC/Northern Virginia are invited to come celebrate with her next weekend.

Leum reports: (Trigger Warning: Rape) I've discovered Project Unbreakable. People hold up posters with quotes from their attackers and the people (family members, friends, law enforcement officials) they've told. Very sad, but also very powerful.

Things you can do

From the World Food Programme:
Ongoing drought, combined with rising food prices, is creating an alarming situation in the Sahel region of West Africa. Working together with our partners on the ground, WFP aims to reach more than 9 million people with life-saving food.
...
Will you stand between a woman or child and hunger today? $50 helps us provide food for the next 100 critical days.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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Comments

[MercuryBlue]

Woohoo Literata!

[Literata]

Thank you!

[Amaryllis]

Congratulations, Literata!

[Salzara-tirwen]

So, I know this isn't technically an open thread, but I'm looking for something and hoping you all can help.

There was a piece some time back, that I think was posted on either Slacktiverse or Slacktivist, about setting goals, and how your goals should be things you can do, not things other people can do.

Like, for example, setting a goal to get out more and socialize, not to get married, because finding a partner is dependent on someone else's action, so it's a goal that may never be realized. Or in artistic skills, setting the goal to be some standard you can determine for yourself (number of paintings, a certain quality or technique) rather than awards or recognition.

Does anyone know where to find that? I don't remember any of the specific phrases so google hasn't been any use. I could use it now, though, for a discussion I'm having on FB in which someone is frustrated that she's not considered an instant expert in a certain field in which she hasn't done much work.

[chris the cynic]

Literata, congratulations!

[Literata]

Thanks, Amaryllis and Chris!

[Froborr]

Congrats Literata! I will try my best to be there!