I misunderstood the point of this ride

So I did a little rehauling of my fanart masterlist recently; I gave bandom and Star Trek expandable sections instead of their own cut tags, and decided I wanted to add dates (well, years) to each piece, since there's such a range (15 years!) and I wanted to preserve the alphabetical organization by fandom

Sadly, a lot of the art is currently covered in Photobucket watermarks, and some of the links are broken (mostly due to the journals where they were posted being locked/deleted), all of which is going to take longer to rectify. I continue to think wistfully about the ever-more-unlikely possibility of local image hosting at the AO3. Ah well.

Doing all that got me thinking about my fannish output by the numbers, though, so I did some VERY self-indulgent messing about.

( A few takeaways, and a personal fannish engagement timeline, 2006-present )

So ... that all happened (and continues to happen).

Appropos of very little: is my writing style kind of ... pompous? I don't necessarily mean fic, just uh. Journaling and such.

Huh. A bit belatedly, I've been reading around through the recent posts people were making about fandom and monetization and "gift economies" etc etc. It's interesting, complicated stuff. ( Herein lies some unedited rambling about personal experiences, and a brief discussion of the differing commercial histories of contemporary fanart and fanfiction. )

The way things have been going lately, I should probably make some kind of nostalgia-inflected icon.

Procrastinating to distract myself from stressful life things, as one does, I created a "series" for all my Yuletide stories going back to 2004 on the AO3, because I've been a little frustrated with the way works are automatically displayed/organized in reverse chronological order. It just looks messy to me, all the fanart (challenge fills) and fic mixed together.

The "series" goes back to 2004 because, back when the old Yuletide archive was all uploaded to the AO3 what, a few years ago now? - I was so mortified by the quality of some of the older stories that I wound up orphaning two of them, including the one from 2003, the very first year of the challenge. Which seems a bit silly now, but you can't undo that. So there are 10 stories in there, meaning I've written 12 total (over the course of 11 years, with a break for a few in between).

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Having gone that far, I finally got around to cleaning up those older, transferred stories; tagging the recipients, the pairings (where applicable), etc. I let myself do a little minor editing here and there. And I went looking for the stories people wrote for me back in 2003, 2004, whose authors didn't go in and tag me, if they're even around anymore. The challenge was so much smaller back then; I probably could recognize more individual names than not, and jeez, nostalgia. It makes me want to go right home and call my best friend, who is probably a bit too busy with my two-year-old niece for "remember when"s.

Enough rambling. I have to make a decision about which of the three chocolateboxcomm fandoms I matched on I'm going to draw for. (I really shouldn't draw for all three. I really, really shouldn't.) One of them is the fandom my first, now-orphaned Yuletide story was written in, in 2003, so I guess not everything has changed.

Gaaaaah. It's ninety-plus degrees out, humid and sunny, and the air conditioning in this old building (the school, where I'm working 'til I find more gainful employment) is kaput. I feel like I've been put on a slow broil, here.

Here are some current fandom-related articles I've been reading lately, since I'm too fried to try and provide much in the way of my own content right now!

The Truth Of Wolves, Or: The Alpha Problem - written with urban fantasy fiction (mostly novels, I think) in mind, but interesting to reflect on with regard to Teen Wolf and TW fic. I was talking about the whole intensely stratified Alpha/Omega 'verse thing with a fannish friend a few weeks ago ... something I haven't exactly been surprised to see proliferating in TW fandom? But I was surprised to hear that she's been seeing it in other places (like hockey RPF, apparently?), and even being used separately from anything related to (were)wolves. IDK. It reminds me of how fascinating I found the concept of Recognition in ElfQuest (if anyone besides were_duck and myself have read that) as a kid, only to grow up and be kind of disturbed by the whole 'biological imperative" thing.

The Mary Sue's Star Trek: Into Darkness review - WARNING: not squeeful. A rather good, articulate analysis of the same problems I was having with the film.

Elementary, My Dear Joan Watson: An Egalitarian Sherlock? - a bit of a love-fest for Elementary and Joan Watson, cosigned 100%. I was trying to convince a non-fannish classmate of the show's amazingness some time back, and he was very dubious, citing less-than-gripping mysteries. Which I would only sometimes argue, but as s.e. smith writes, "On Elementary, the real case study is in human beings, not in criminology." Fantastic (platonic!) relationship dynamics FOR THE WIN.

Watsons, Hudsons, and Invisible Labour - a fantastic post by thingswithwings that does a beautiful job of articulating my thoughts on various Watson portrayals (and the reason why I always, always prefer the active, smart Watsons, and find Joan to be the most rewarding of all) ... and makes some really excellent point about the way Hudsons are and aren't (generally the latter) valued in Holmes adaptations. (I agree: I really hope we see MUCH more of Elementary's fantastic Ms. Hudson next season!) All outlining a point about decentralizing and reversing the worshipful, exceptionalist white dude genius centric narrative that I often find so troubling (even though I love Holmes, and so much of Holmes--canon and adaptation--is all about that).

Oh god, okay. Almost time to go. Tonight I am taking the excuse to go hole up in a movie theater and watch the story of another troubled white dude genius ... and his robotic armor. :p Finally.

Come on, my beloved grad school of choice: post your 2011 application guidelines already! I am slow, I want to get started.

On a vaguely related subject, I've been thinking a lot about race, inclusiveness, and clarity of visual representation in art/comics. I would welcome thoughts from other artists - or anyone else, for that matter (so long as you don't dismiss the importance of the subject, which I take seriously).

I should note from the start that while I'm going to begin with some broad background, this isn't really a comprehensive piece of social commentary - I'm interested in comparing notes from a creative perspective, and have been pondering how best to improve inclusiveness within my own work. (Criticism of my approach, as well as the content of the post, is definitely welcome. This is an area of privilege for me.)

( On portraying characters of color in cartoons and comics. )

Some seriously shitty things have been happening IRL lately (not really to me, but to people I love); thank goodness for the distractions of the internet. There seems to have been a minor flare-up of two bandom-centric wanks (the warnings business and bandflesh). Funtimes! :| I don't really have anything to add, except a great big WORD to wistfuljane's post. (impertinence also has a worthwhile post on Anonymity and Livejournal.)

On the other hand, this has spawned a nifty post from iamtheenemy about fandom experience. A lot of people have been weighing in about their fannish history in the comments, which I find fascinating. *_* Mine's kind of pointlessly overcomplicated, but thinking about it reminded me of a conversation I was having with hermionesviolin awhile back, which was sort of hilarious.

I'd been musing over my ten-year fandom anniversary (I got into my first fandoms, Sailormoon and Labyrinth, during 9th grade; the 1998-99 school year), when something odd occurred to me. I also began the process of coming out (to myself, as well as to others) during that time, and it was also around then that I started drawing 'seriously.'

( LOL NOSTALGIA )

Also tangential to the whole personal fan history thing: Star Trek is reminding me why I have always gotten into fandoms late, when there are already tons of recs and goodfic epics just waiting for me. My life, so hard.

If I can't find enough Kirk/Spock to satisfy the craving right now (I have an unusually strong case of OTP fever, ack), at least there is all kinds of Ray/Ray fic I can go back and read. It's a long story, but I just finally watched "Call Of The Wild" for the first time on Tuesday. (I laughed, I cried; I made noises only dogs could hear; I lol no'd bowling alleys. I am currently rereading brooklinegirl's Long Road (Long Ride Home) and it's even better now. ♥)

Oh, and lol latest, but: I'm really sorry about your band's split, Panic fans. :( I know I'd be devastated if it were MCR. I really hope that you keep enjoying your fic, bbs, and maybe even wind up with two great bands to love. ♥

I'm sincerely sorry, flist, for continuing to rant at you, but I guess I have a few more things to say about the warnings mess. I'll probably be stopping after this, though.

( I just don't understand where some people are coming from. )

Whew, okay, that was much longer than I expected. Briefly, I discussed: "your triggers are not my problem"/community sensibilities, the anger of pro-warning fans, survivors and pro-warning advocates "attacking" ficcers, censorship, and demands for consensus on a list of triggers to warn for. With lots of attempts to explain what I think the pro-warnings camp is attempting to say and to accomplish. (My understanding of the situation ultimately represents nobody's opinions but my own. Obviously.)

I think I'm done now--shit, I have so much to do that is NOT THIS--but here are a few more links. While I think that the analogies being thrown around are inherently problematic (fandom is neither a bookstore nor a supermarket), vassilissa's take on the food allergy analogy is at least better, IMO: "You'll have to find that out for yourself. You can always leave if you smell peanuts. It's your responsibility, not mine." kalpurna has a handy list of ways to make your warnings optional by hiding them. And lastly, the unfunnybusiness write-up has lots more links, including to a lot of the posts where the wank started and was primarily continued.

[ETA:] quettaser does the math. *_*

[ETA 2:] As usual, have not been able to pull myself away from haphazardly reading more posts on this subject. /o\ The more I do (and the calmer I am; I fully admit that my previous post in particular was written in a haze of rage), the more things seem to boil down to one simple issue. People don't like to be told what to do. Duh, I know. (And: a simplification, I know. But significant.) I don't have a lot of respect for that reaction (in this case), but I get it. However, this is not about people telling other people what to do: it's about people asking for help. I wish some people out there would read impertinence's post about triggers (again, if need be), and try to re-focus their perspective a little. In context, that contrary reaction is fucking selfish.