Dania Ramirez as Cinderella on Once Upon A Time

I'll admit that I'm a bit behind on Once Upon A Time -- mainly because my husband felt it jumped the shark a few seasons ago and lost interest, so it's not one of the shows we watch together at night. And, with a 15-month-old toddler running around and my perhaps-naive goal to limit her screen-time/exposure, I don't have a lot of free time to just bingewatch shows these days.

I have kept up with the "big" news though -- like the fact that the main characters aren't returning for this coming season and that there's another time jump, where Henry will apparently be older (grown-up?). They also hired 5 new female actors -- #girlpower -- to join the show, and we learned this weekend that Dania Ramirez (who I know as Maya from Heroes) will, apparently, be Cinderella on the show:

PC: ABC/Disney 2017

I'll admit that I find this a bit confusing since, within the realm of Once Upon A Time, we've already "met" Cinderella: she had a relatively minor role (given her comparative popularity as a fairy tale princess) in the show, but definitely "looked" familiar:

Blonde hair, blue eyes, white. (Even though I firmly maintain that the original 1950 animated Cinderella was not as blonde as she's animated today: she's definitely more of a strawberry blonde/auburn girl.)

So, IDK how that's going to work, because Ramirez is definitely sporting a Cinderella-style dress in the picture above.
But, as a recent Huffpost article points out, Ramirez's casting is a bigger deal than just "we've-already-had-the-Cinderella-storyline":

The article mentions that we'll meet "different versions" of familiar characters -- which, again, IDK how that will play out and doesn't make me feel invested in the show but the fact that Disney is taking it's most iconic Disney princess (and traditionally "most white") and casting an adult Dominican-American actress in the role is a huge deal. After all, both of their previous Latina princesses haven't really made strides in the diversity department: see, for instance, "Princess Sofia Is Not Latina" and "Disney's New Princess Elena Probably Doesn't Count as Latina."

Fingers crossed Ramirez's version of Cinderella will change that. 

D23 Expo Recap

io9 has posted a great recap of all the news from the D23 Expo with links to each individual story. They've also helpfully divided it up into 3 major categories: Marvel, Star Wars, and "Disney" (which I guess is just an umbrella category).

Check out the link to get more information.

You know you teach a popular class when...

Happy First Registration Window Day, Class of 2021!!

I know that I'm not actually the one registering for classes -- although that was, geekily, one of my favorite parts of college -- but I do love following freshman registration. Primarily because people always tell me that my class is popular, in-demand, and hard-to-get, but I never quite believe them.

Until both sections fill up within the first few minutes.

And when the Registrar tweets out this:

Have your heart set on that Disney-themed Writing 101? Always have a back-up­—popular courses fill up fast! #Duke2021 #beprepared pic.twitter.com/hR9yaSqdq9

— Duke Registrar (@DukeRegistrar) June 15, 2017

I'm looking forward to meeting all of my new students in the Fall!!! (No, really. I love the first day of class -- first day jitters and all. 😊)