GoodReads updated for February. This was a good month; I'd recommend any of these books! Cut for book chatter, no spoilers:

Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit was one of those 'right book, right time' reads. A short book packed with ideas. Solnit looks at the history of progressive political action, how hope lies in action, how victories should be celebrated - and what victories there have been - without being dismissive because the utopian end goal has not yet been achieved, how political action should be a daily experience rather than reactionary, and how it's always too soon to leave or to measure sucesses and failures. The original focus/context, with the book being written in 2003-2004 during the Bush administration, was the protest against the Iraq War. My edition was updated with a 2015 essay and Afterword, plus additional essays from 2009 and 2014, spotlights new challenges, particularly climate change. That said, in the context of now I still found it all very relevant. There was a lot to digest, but it did leave me feeling hopeful, with a view to what I can do, and it was a moment where I read the right book just when I needed to.

Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly is a history of NACA's (later NASA) road to space travel that puts the Civil Rights movement and women's rights back into the narrative. It challenges the assumed/prevalent history in the best of ways and paints a picture of the many women, and men, who supported each other, worked with each other, raised each other up, and built on what came before. Eye-opening, inspiring, and important.

If you come to this after watching the film, the book focusses a little less on the individual lives of particular women but rather uses their stories as a focus to explore untold history. Possibily a little dry for some, but interesting and it does go past the story of the film to tell you what happened next in their lives. Then if you go back and watch the film again, you have a whole new appreciation.

In A Darkness Absolute Kelley Armstrong showcases her skills in pacing and building tension in this cracking thriller of a sequel that follows on from the excellent City of the Lost. Not quite as good as the first book, but only by a little, this is edge of your seat storytelling, with mystery, interesting characters and relationships, and a driven plot. Absorbing.

Tales From A Midwife by Jennifer Worth is a collected edition of three books about midwifery and district nursing in the 1950s: Call The Midwife, In the Shadow of the Workhouse, and Farewell to the East End. Educational and a slice of history, but Worth's ability to convey emotion elevates her stories to another level. The reader really feels for the people she talks about, she's excellent at capturing the moment and empathy, and in the stranger than fiction tales she delivers the human and the real. As someone who came to this after seeing episodes from the TV show, it was also interesting to find out what happened the main ladies in the end. Interesting, heart-warming, arm yourself with a box of tissues.

The first book/section was well structured, but the latter two sometimes seemed to be stories and essays strung together, a little haphazard. This may be because this is an abridged version, according to GoodReads, which I was unaware of.

And I managed to squeeze a graphic novel in there with Descender, Volume Three: Singularities. I continue to love the gorgeous, water-colour style art and the clever storytelling in this series. For volume three we get backstories for our main cast, including the robots.

I've started this month off with some short World Book Day books and I'm hoping to dig into some fantasy...

Okay, so I vaguely remember things about the original Ghostbusters but I can't actually remember ever watching it? But I have a friend - @TricksyLiesmith - who loves 80s films, so I was prepared to go along with her and thought I'd probably find it fun. Then there were all those noises about having women play the lead characters and the guys being jokes and, ugh, how awful this was and it must be stopped...and I admit in the face of this my brain went: film, take my money. So, disclaimer if needed, that's where I stood when we went to the pictures yesterday.

Folks, this is film is hugely enjoyable. I was not prepared to like it this much. I laughed A LOT. And it's just fun. Yes, there's some feminism in there, but it's average 'this is what all ladies put up with' feminism and some amusing jokes about and around being a woman; no man-hating, in your face, explosive feminism as bemoaned by internet boys. Lots of in your face ghosts and slime though. And jumpy moments, clever moments, comedy. I'd like to watch this again some time, yes please.

And @TricksyLiesmith told me that as a huge fan of the original film she really loved it and thought all the Easter eggs worked really well. So love all 'round.

Also, I know most people on my f-list will have been trained by Marvel, but just in case, if you go to see this do stay until the very end because there's lots of extra credit scenes and amusing credits and an end-end extra credit scene. Like, ALL THE EXTRA CREDIT SCENES. Enjoy :D

Happy International Women's Day! Last year I began a batch of marvelous ladies icons. I still have quite a few films to go, but this year I'm adding to the collection with icons from Iron Man and Iron Man 2.

Part Three
Iron Man: x4 minor characters, x6 Christine Everhart, x23 Pepper Potts, x3 Team Efficiency
Iron Man 2: x3 minor characters, x2 Christine Everhart, x15 Pepper Potts, x15 Natasha Romanoff, x5 Team Redhead

Examples:


( fallaces sunt rerum species )

From last year:

Part One
The Incredible Hulk: x30 Betty Ross, x2 minor characters
Amazing Spider Man: x24 Gwen, x8 Aunt May, x2 Peter’s Mum, x2 Gwen’s Mum, x4 minor characters
Captain America: x27 Peggy Carter, x1 minor characters

Part Two
Thor: x33 Jane Foster, x23 Darcy Lewis, x12 Team Science, x24 Lady Sif, x5 Queen Frigga, x1 Team Asgard, x5 minor characters

I went to the Thought Bubble con in Leeds yesterday cosplaying as Fraction’s Natasha (black dress, gold belt with circles, trench coat, red wig, ace of spades) with franztastisch cosplaying as a genderswitched Hawkeye (H hat, target patches on green coat, fantastic arrow sewing on the back of a black jacket, target t-shirt, purple converse, bandages and plasters) and Laura cosplaying as Lady Loki (amazing fur (fake) cloak, tunic dress, horns, evil boots). There were far less cosplayers than at the Manchester MCM, but notables were a couple cosplaying as The Will and Lying Cat (very wow), a Captain Jack (who swayed around in character), a Red Skull (incredible make up), a Bilbo (hobbit feet!), and a Peggy Carter (eating noodles, heh).

We mostly spent the day queuing up to meet and chat with amazing people. Fiona Staples seems surprised-bemused at the attention, aww. David Aja’s queue didn’t. move. for. ages. Then we realised this was because he was cheerful drawing lots of things for lots of people, and even doodling on things he was just supposed to be signing. Also, he asked for a large, black coffee as if wondering why ‘what type of coffee’ was even a question from one of the organisers lol. It was the first time he’d met Matt Fraction and the pair of them kept laughing at each other’s doodles. Matt Fraction is crazy and lovely, climbing across a table to have a photo with me and franztastisch! He saw us and complimented us on our cosplay when we were coming in and was signing at us across the hall when we were queuing! Kelly Sue DeConnick was chatting away to everyone without a break and is the sweetest person, seriously. I will now never stop admiring and fangirling this woman. My kind of crazy. Unfortunately we didn’t get to speak to Emma Rios, but the prints of the upcoming Pretty Deadly comics look incredible. Amusingly Kieron Gillen’s face is only serious when having his photo taken. He loved Laura’s costume, and she went to a Young Avengers panel with him and all the YA artists in the afternoon. We also spoke to Annie Wu who was sketching away and the lovely creative team of Porcelain.

Lots of shiny things, but I didn’t really buy much. Fiona Staples art, which was a must, some Avengers postcards, and a graphic novel. Me and Laura enabled franztastisch in buying comics though. We are shamelessly evil that way, heehee.

We talked over a picnic lunch in a relaxing room that was set up, and after the event finished at 5pm staked out a coffee shop at the train station for another two hours of chatting. There was the kinda nervous meeting online people offline thing – first time I’ve ever done that – but no one was an axe murderer *grins* and if meeting online people offline is always that fun, wow, let’s do it again!

I’m paying for it today, post-op achey and the cold I caught on top plus chatting yesterday means I’ve pretty much lost my voice, but worth it. So very much worth it.

Pictures up soon!

I'm up to my eyeballs and failed to get those Marvel Ladies icons done for halfamoon. (I have 120 icons so far. IT'S NOT ENOUGH.) I did make a marvel ladies thing here the other day though, because of sugar_fey and Deathless, lar_laughs and comments on Peggy having painted nails in a screenshot where she's shooting at someone, and anuna_81 and all our chats about lipstick at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (original account and some thoughts on it, beware: what you would expect in an account of liberating a concentration camp), makeup, and feminity.

And here is a Valentine's message thing about loving yourself, because I love you all and think you should too:

Ready for halfamoon? It's a celebration of women in fandom that runs from Febrary 1st-14th and I've never yet managed to catch it live. This year I'm working on a batch of Marvel Ladies icons - ladies from the Marvel films, 100 icons so far and I've only covered three films. Um, oops? (I'm having fun. Discovered when iconing screencaps of Peggy in Captain America that when she's being badass with a gun she has red nail polish on, hadn't noticed that before.)

I did do a bunch of Ladies recs for International Woman's Day last year. I feel the urge to do another, either for halfamoon or International Woman's Day again. Because of fics like sugar_fey's Conversation Over Tea and frea_o's The Bechdel Test. And because 'Women Being Awesome' is a tag on AO3 and I love that.

Other ladies things I've spotted recently: there's a multifandom women comment ficathon and a heroinebigbang happening, and I recently read an interesting post from YA author Sarah Rees Brennan on ladies in writing. If that's a bit too rage inducing, try her Real Lady Sleuths post as well or instead - I love that one, and I went back and reread it. Not tempted? Allow me to share two snippets from that:

When World War II started, her friends begged her to come home. Lee Miller instead became a photojournalist and correspondent for Vogue, and thus one of the first female war correspondents of World War II. Her pictures of the concentration camps are famous. In 1945, just after Hitler died and after a long day photographing Dachau, Lee Miller was photographed by the Life magazine correspondent, naked in Hitler’s bathtub, with her combat boots and army uniform beside her.

and

GESTAPO: BRING US NANCY WAKE! THE WHITE MOUSE IS OUR MOST WANTED CRIMINAL! WE WILL GIVE YOU FIVE MILLION FRANCS!
FRANCE: That is like twice as much as you’d pay for any of the dudes.
GESTAPO: Seems about right.

If you don’t know what it is: every year on Joss Whedon’s birthday people worldwide put on screenings of Serenity, a film based on a cancelled TV show that by rights shouldn’t have been made but was, to raise money for Equality Now, who work globally to protect and promote human rights for women and girls.

Joss explains why equality is important, not just for women but for everybody, in his Equality Now award acceptance speech in 2006. ‘Why do you write these strong women characters?’ he keeps being asked and he answers in his own Joss way.

He also wrote When I Speak for Equality Now’s 20th Anniversary Celebrations:



The rest of the celebration, including other works by Joss, can be found HERE.

For the 2011 Can’t Stop The Serenity event Joss had this to say:



Recently I read Past the brink of tacit support: Fan activism and the Whedonverse by T R Cochran (2012), which is an academic article with some interesting thoughts. “Whedon inspires independent critical, thinkers,” according to Cochran, and Whedon fan activists “represent a growing population of grassroots media, cultural, and even sociopolitical reformers.”

Well, we do try. And it’s a beautiful thing to see.

Meta from someone with little comics background. Essentially a look at Black Widow in The Avengers and Iron Man 2 with some comics snippets.

With thanks to workerbee73 with her wonderful meta and discussions, surreallis who asked questions and got me thinking, and everyone who joined in the discussion on the Alphabet wars thread on be_compromised. Meta referred to is from here and here by workerbee73, here by gyzym, and here by marinarusalka. Fics that deal with Natasha being remade and have influenced these thinky thoughts include RED by waldorph and Chrysalis by sugar_fey.

Some Thoughts On Black Widow, Remaking, And Reclaiming

( I’d like to go down the road of saying that, brainwashing or not, Natasha has been ‘remade’ more than once, in different ways, and to take a look at the themes of identity and names. )

It's times like these that I realise I seriously need to either rec as soon as I see/read something, or organise my internet favourites and tags far better! So, after a quick trawl though my links I bring you recs in which women rock. Please do rec me more!

Fics

A Girl Needs A Gun These Days by vialethe (Firefly, PG13, 9000 words)
The ladies shine. Summary: A missing rich kid, a kidnapped Captain, a houseful of fake Companions, and one redhead con-artist - it's all in a day's work for the ladies of Serenity.

One Chrysalis at a Time by igrockspock (Torchwood, PG, 5300 words)
Tosh evolves and it's beautiful to watch. Summary: Postcards are not a substitute for a relationship.

How I Met Your Silurian by seriousfic (Doctor Who, PG, 1522 words)
Jenny goes to a rock concert in the 21st century, meets Vastra, and ends up in the Victorian era. Somehow it all works out.

Your History Written In Stars And Time by such_heights (Doctor Who, General, 1462 words)
Donna may have forgotten, but the universe hasn't. Beautiful.

Marriage a Trois by Sorrel (Sherlock 2009, Teen, 33,296 words)
A Holmes/Watson/Mary story in which Mary is the focus and the one to watch. I love her in this.

The Deepest Secret Nobody Knows by sciosophia (Sherlock BBC, PG13, 12,500 words)
The real reason Sally Donovan hates Sherlock so much? They have a child he never sees.

An Avalanche Of Detour Signs by gyzym (Sherlock BBC, Mature, 56,053 words)
One of the best Molly fics ever. Summary: In which Molly Hooper gets a job, gets a degree, breaks a heart, has her heart broken, falls in love, keeps a secret, saves a life, runs a morgue, falls apart, pulls it together, and finds exactly what she didn't know she was looking for--not necessarily in that order.

The Anatomist by rosa_acicularis (Sherlock BBC, Adult)
In which Molly is Jim's twin sister. Be afraid.

you took my hand and danced with me by sciosophia (Sherlock BBC/Doctor Who, PG, 1000 words)
The women of Sherlock as the Doctor's companions.

Hen Party by MinervaFan (Doctor Who, all ages, 5444 words)
A fun fic in which River gets a bunch of companions together.

With All My Crooked Heart by igrockspock (Star Trek XI, PG, 1189 words)
Summary: Uhura makes Gaila take a really boring literature class, and then Gaila tells her about the secret language of the slaves.

Dangerous Jobs for Girls by lazy_neutrino (Harry Potter, PG, 3800 words)
Luna Lovegood, Andromeda Tonks, and Astoria Malfoy are The Quibbler.

The Other Path by laleia (Harry Potter, PG13, short)
When they gossip about Hermione in the streets, she holds her tongue and promises to herself that they will see.

Five Women Who Hate Fleur Delacour by snegurochka_lee (Harry Potter, PG13, 7300 words)
This is THE femgenfic in Harry Potter for me, but I also highly recommend her Five Dead Women and Five Stories about Gwenog Jones.

Vids

Suddenly I See by kuwdora
A Castle vid in which the awesome women in Castle's life are appreciated.

Suddenly I See by purplefringe.
A smiley Firefly vid with Kaylee and Inara.

kaydeefalls with the girl who falls downstairs, a Joss Whedon women reclaiming their identities vid.

It's you, girl, and you should know it! by makeshiftusername and Book of Days by kaydeefalls, showcasing the women of Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Martha from Doctor Who is brilliant in Unwritten by DWDeb and Shut Up And Drive by laurashapiro, Donna in Paloma by delta8cephei, and River in Invincible by humansuperior.

Multifandom women are brilliant vids: 2nd Law by kaydeefalls, Tightrope by such_heights, wild child by calapine, She's A Rebel by kaydeefalls, and One Girl Revolution by arefadedaway.

Picspams and other such wonders

Vaginas on the Enterprise, a picspam of unsung women in Star Trek XI.

10 NON-COSTUMED, NON-POWERED FEMALE HEROINES.

Sites: where_no_woman, for the illumination of women in Star Trek. halfamoon, celebrating female characters in fandom. femgenficathon, also multifandom. womenlovefest, multifandom again.