- 2016 had to get one last jab in, taking away our beloved Carrie Fisher. The Mary Sue pays tribute. The Cut gives us fifteen of her best quotes. The Rolling Stone looks back on how she championed mental health issues. We all miss her.
- You need to listen to 1999 David Bowie talk about the potential of the internet. [io9]
- I’ll be honest, I only discovered Sevdaliza’s music by going down the rabbit hole of YouTube recommended videos. But I’m so glad she’s in my life now, with her videos that spin dark fairytales out of hellbeast femmes fatales and gynoid royalty fantasies.
- “Sex magic: how to cast spells with your orgasms.” [Broadly]
- Afropunk’s compiled a mindblowing list of 10 black cosplayers who killed it last year.
- Go look at Amber Thomas’s amazing interactive breakdown of gender equality in the dialogue of 2016’s highest grossing films.
- I am very excited about XX, the women-created horror film anthology. Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) is just one of the hugely talented directors contributing. [Little White Lies]
- On a similar note, Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure, a film about man-eating, singing mermaids, is out soon. It looks like good fun. [IndieWire]
- “We are in the era of the black geek.” [Afropunk]
- io9 has a nice piece of writing on superheroes, real life heroes, and teaching children bravery.
- Comic Katie Goodman’s song on Alien and inspirational women is very funny.
- “The speculative dread of Black Mirror.” [The New Yorker]
- The complex interplay between gender and AI is a topic that’s gaining ever-increasing popularity (and relevance) as we continue pushing the capabilities of chatbots, androids, and digital assistants. The New Yorker has an excellent piece on the perils of writing gender into chatbots, and a recent episode of Bitch magazine’s podcast charts the gynoid from Metropolis to Westworld, and beyond.
- I CANNOT believe that I forgot to mention that I spoke to Becky Chambers about her novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, for the Mary Sue! It was a great experience, and you can read the interview here.
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