Not Anonymous

Torchwood Fandom,

This is not okay, no matter how you spin it, via torch_wood:

Please Read - TW Fandom Using a photo of my son inappropriately.
[Posted by shamazipan]
I am not usually one to get all up on my high horse about photos I've posted online. It's annoying when something you've posted ends up somewhere else without credit, but at the weekend I heard something that made my stomach churn. A complete stranger told me that she recognised my son from an email attachment that's been floating round. Apparently someone has taken a picture of him and Gareth David-Lloyd and captioned it "Ianto and Lisa's Baby". I can only imagine that someone saw the photo of Gareth and a small mixed race boy and their mind had that random thought. The thing is that most normal people would leave it there and wouldn't then pass that photo around with a silly caption. You have no idea how I felt on hearing that my son was being used as an object of amusement for someone. I share my pictures in very few places - my LJ (photo posts are usually flocked), my private photobucket account and this one photo was shared with friends on a Torchwood forum. What makes this worse is that it is probably someone I know that has done this. While I usually don't worry too much about sharing pictures of my son online this is taking it too far. I want to be able to share pics with my friends but this has seriously made me have to rethink that. Taking a picture of someone's child and knowingly editing it and passing it around is not cool. Not cool at all. I know this is my fault for being trusting but I wanted to post this so that people may think twice about how they use images belonging to others. I feel violated, I feel that my son has been violated and I just can't understand why someone would do that. it was creepy having a stranger approach me and say "I'm sorry to have to tell you this..." and then go on to describe the photo in detail. I just hope that by posting this the person who did this may see it and that they (and anyone reading this really) will have a long think about how they use other people's images without permission in future. There's not much I can do about this now but please, if you get this email, don't pass it on. Seriously fandom, it's creepy stuff like this that gives us a bad name.

Fandom, seriously, invading people's privacy and manipulating the picture of a minor without guardian/parental consent and permission is wrong. Not to mention the skeeviness of objectifying a child in that manner, when it was an innocuous memento.

*sigh* I thought it was too important to not, at the very least, re-post about it.
If I come across that picture there will be Words.

Fandom, the Interwebs carry real life ramifications, I know that it doesn't feel that way, but it really really does.

It may not seem like a big deal, but make no mistake, stuff like this can carry very real and very harsh consequences.

Transformative works should be something creative for our community (because yeah, that's what we are) and not breed distrust.

My two cents.

These many thought came about because of my slowly becoming more involved in fandom, developing ideas of my own for writing fan fiction, talking to other fans about these issues and real life events paralleling fandom events too closely in my mind.

About a year ago I wrote a post about why I'm obsessing with Torchwood.

Now I have some new thoughts.

But I think I need to write a little something that will further contextualize what I'm writing.

( A Bit About Buffy, because it's important )

Buffy and I parted ways a few years ago. It's still the best show to ever be on television; writing wise, thematically and just plain awesomeness. I have seven academic books about Buffy.

It changed my life, I'll always be grateful².

All that was a long way of saying, I take my entertainment seriously. Not only that, it takes me seriously as well.

Torchwood changed my life as well, in a vastly different way.

Not too long ago I wrote: I love Torchwood and generally speaking, Torchwood loves me..

It's obvious to me, but I suppose I should disclaim, that I'm well aware that the people on Torchwood , just like every other show, movie and book that I read, are fictional, I will not be able to go to Wales and meet any of them.
And despite a phenomenon like this, they are not real.

Except, that they are.

( Introspective Personal Thought On Texts That I Love )

When it comes down to it, the past year was hard and I really cannot imagine how I would have gotten through it were it not for my girlfriend and Torchwood (it helps that she enjoys the show as well). I had to deal with a real world that didn't go exactly like I expected.

Wake up call.

As most of you know, during July I was still pretty shook up over what happened in Torchwood: Children of Earth, you just need to browse back to see how deeply affected I was. I don't know how my GF stood me. I don't know how anyone stood me.
Then in August the real life tragedy of a Hate Crime against queer youth struck and I was shook up again.
Living in the country that I do exposes me to violence on a scale that at times is just too much.

I felt so disgusted with myself that I took the death of Ianto Jones as hard as I did.

It's gratifying knowing that I'm not alone. That I am validated and can validate others in their love of text and how it affects them.
How we affect it.

I think I'm going to be writing fic very soon.

( Notes )

During the San Diego Comic Con Torchwood Panel (available in seven parts) lots of things came up.

It was interesting to hear the Panellists' (Russel T. Davies, John Barrowman, Euros Lynn and Julie Gardner) opinions on the characters and the epic itself, it's always nice to hear creator and performer insights into characters. What a lovely touchy-squishy medium.

A few *squeeee* worthy moments were ( This kiss )

In addition, during the panel, one of the questions pertained to John Barrowman's costumes and his clothing in the parts that he plays. In his answer he mentioned that one of his dreams would be to play ( him )

And moving on to some of the more serious content in conjunction of Fandom reaction of the past two weeks.

RTD's response to what would be considered the internet fan response and it really put things in perspective for me.

Personally, I don't care what RTD thinks about the fans, fandom or even his own creation.

He has a vision, as Julie Gardner said, and it their jobs as storytellers to execute those visions to the best of their ability, in the way that matches how they see character, plot and world they built (and consequently destroyed).

As fans, we feel propitiatory towards the characters. We love them, we know them, we read how others love them and think about them.
Those are interpretations.
That is meta.
That is how the characters, story, world relates to us, the readers, the viewers and that is no less important than those who created them, with one big difference.
We do not get a say in how the vision plays out.

We do not get a say in what should have happened.
Nor should we.
Art is not a democracy.
Art is a tricky piece of the modern market.

We are not the Patrons of Yonder Years (or the real Art Patrons and Matrons of today), the majority of us do not have enough money to be that.
We spend our money on the stuff that we like, enjoy and then create a community around that.
It's fun, I dunno who I'd be if it weren't for other obsessive geeks like me.

We are lucky that the creators chose to take more feedback from us than ratings. That kind of closeness should not be taken lightly or derided.

Not too long ago, Neil Gaiman wrote a post in his blog about entitlement issues regarding writer George R.R. Martin's accessibility to his fans:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now.

People are not machines. Writers and artists aren't machines.

You're complaining about George doing other things than writing the books you want to read as if your buying the first book in the series was a contract with him: that you would pay over your ten dollars, and George for his part would spend every waking hour until the series was done, writing the rest of the books for you.

No such contract existed. You were paying your ten dollars for the book you were reading, and I assume that you enjoyed it because you want to know what happens next.

He goes on and this is of course applicable to any writer, musician, actor and any other artist who chooses to interact with the people who consume the work.

We do not get a say. They, the people who provide us with entertainment, are not under any obligation to make feel all squishy inside and make our self-worth issues the centre of their universe.

That's my opinion as a fan who has interacted with the people who created things I love.

I'm feeling very bitter towards fandom who makes the likes of me look bad and actually have this bullshit be a part of the way we are perceived.

That is all.

As most of Torchwood fandom knows, there have been quite a few brouhahas regarding LGBT representation and homophobia in the show.
Especially with ad hominem attacks towards James Moran and Russel T. Davies... seriously, seriously bad form people.
I'd sic Captain Hook on your asses for that.

I have lots to write regarding the queer issues on the show and will very likely write about at a later point.

A Doctor Who/Torchwood fan radio podcast show called Radio Free Skaro (How is it that I never knew about this!?) had a special panel with three LGBT fans and regular listeners who replaced the regular panellists (three straight chaps) to talk about LGBT representation and Homophobia.

It's a very interesting discussion. I agree with much was said and it was much fun to listen to three queers discuss Torchwood.

Here is the direct download to this special called: The Wednesday Cutaway.

The podcast Contains spoilers to Torchwood: Children of Earth and the over all world of New!Who and Torchwood.

No doubt not everyone will agree with what was said. I didn't agree with everything. But the main point of this podcast was to actually discuss, rationally and with respect to the show and the writers, the issues that rose from the this particular mini-series. Because it's very likely that TW:CoE was viewed by many outside the rest of the Torchwood arc, which is something that hadn't actually occurred to me.
I am very self-centred... much like Gwen :P

This isn't going to be a long post.
It is however, some venting over some very silly things I've seen in fandom

( Spoilers for TW:CoE, specifically Day 4 )

Finished watching.

I'm finished.

Coherent thoughts tomorrow.

It was brilliant and epic.

Now I need to read some of what I missed over the past week.

I've just been told by the BFF who downloaded the 3ed Season of Torchwood for me that it is burned onto a DVD and I should be getting it today.

I'm so freakin' nervous.

Torchwood, the show and the fandom, take up about the same kind of emotional and cerebral space that I thought would never be able to be shared with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and to a certain extent Harry Potter.

I've been very good about avoiding spoilers, though I watch various communities and blogs who are TW fandomy, I only got tiny details by osmosis and one big something that I hope doesn't mean what I think it means but I'm keeping my mind open to whatever happens in these five episodes.

I'll talk more at length about "Children of Earth" after I've actually viewed them, I'll even write (a) reaction post(s) before I read any other Meta and/or Fic, though I'm really, really tempted.

I think it's fairly clear that when it comes to which show I prefer, it is Torchwood and not Doctor who that stole my heart - though I love the Doctor and his Companions and will regale to anyone who will (or won't) listen about how fucking awesome New!Who is.

Torchwood however, is something else.

( Spoilers for lots of stuff (not including season 3 of TW as I have not seen it yet) )

I'm really looking forward to "Children on Earth", though I am very scared of what may happen.

The first line of today's Torchwood radio play was Ianto's and he said:
"All right Jack, I'm in position".
My mind immedeatly went to "hehe, sex positions".

Not only do I have Slash goggles, I have Slash earphones.

I haven't written a fandom meta in a while, not just a review or a small comment. But full fledged talking about the affect of media has on us.

I mention my Slash love because yesterday there was a bit of bigotry in fandom: xtricks ( reports )

Now, homophobia is a bad thing. And really, fandom for me, is an escape from that. But of course that isn't really so. Fandom, like everything else, cannot be culturally removed.
I link to her a lot, but she's really brilliant; rm wrote an entry about this little bout of bigotry regarding the fact that Gay people are real, Slash is a genre... the two are connected: ( Quote )

Quite a bit if discussion are in those posts, but I have my own thoughts about.
Personal preference for me is Slash(1) of the male/male kind.
My current fandom favourite has a male homosexual couple as part of the canon.
I prefer to read stories in which sex and violence are explicit.

I've often tried to think about why I, a feminist, a queer woman; I prefer to read stories, get turned on by stories, share sexy man-on-man stories with my dyke GF who also enjoys 'em (I only send her the really good ones!) in which my subjectivity has to be shifted into that of a man.

What's the difference between that and girl-on-girl porn written by men? Or a "Mills and Boon" bodice ripper written by women?

Personally speaking, it just feels difference. That's gut feeling.

There are plenty of PWP (Plot? What Plot?/Porn Without Plot) stories out there, in which the only thing written is sex, explicit and very fun.

The gut feeling difference is that good stories, even PWP, is that the people written still feel like People.
Jack and Ianto remain them even when they're just fucking. They remain who they are, whether they are comforting each other, dominating one another or are hating each other to their marrows and the consent in dubious.

Mainstream porn (both written and visual) is about objectification and fetishism.

Slash... well, good slash, subverts that.
The fucking that we love to read is done by characters who are people. It's what I love about fandom, it uses a world that more often than not is pretty hole-filled and manages to construct an alternative narrative which manages to make a world that actually feels more real than the one originally created... even if it's just a bedroom.

Of course, the main thing I love about Slash is the fact that it is not Straight(2). Through fanfic and Slash in particular, this confused 13 year old girl learned what it is that people of the same sex can do together, because honestly, look around, we are only now seeing characters with desires that match our own that aren't accessories, comical tropes or tragic figures(3).
I like reading characters who revel in their sexuality without the mind numbing crushing shame - or actually see them deal with the shame that may or may not be thrust upon them and not die - or see that sexuality explored without apology.

As a queer woman who reads fiction that is more often than not written by other women (queer and not) about men who are sexual with each other... in a society that tells me that that is not so legitimate, I feel stronger.
It brings me comfort.
It enables me to consider sides of characters (humanity) I did not think about, because slash is a literary Meta on the world and characters written about.

And that's awesome.

However, as stated in the above quotes, queer people are real, homophobia touches us. The stories we read and write are not in a vacuum. The internet is a hot bed of hate and vitriol that surpasses the "real" world.
That some in fandom consider it disconnected from the very real power dynamics that affect us is at best silly and at worst exclusionary and violent.

And that, friends, is awful.

Yeah, I know, I ended it on a bit of a low note. Whatcha' gonna do...

Notes
(1) I love Het, Gen and Femmslash as well. But Slash is what I look for more than any other genre.
(2) Good Het or Gen isn't Straight either, imo.
(3) I hated "Brokeback Mountain".

So much to write about, so little time!
Exam on Monday, which I just can't wait to get over with! On Tuesday there are the Elections, which I haven't decided if I'm going to be live-blogging or not.

On the fandom front (Gosh it's been a while since I written anything fun!) I'm now in possession of Torchwood Series 1 and 2.
My *squees* are un-ending. Yes I've seen all the episodes, but I like owning things, especially when they come free.
Which means I will have the chance at re-watching all the eps before watching series 3:


Who knows when it will come to Israel and who knows when there will be enough people sharing it for download.
Oh, Torchwood, you are my crack!
I think Doctor Who and Torchwood have definitely taken a place in my huge fangrrl heart right there next to Buffy, Sandman and Batman.
Seeing as Jack behaves like a hyped up Batman (sans the secret identity) and Ianto is like a sexy, sexy Welsh combination of Giles, Alfred and Wesley... but with a baby-face and homoeroticism... there is no bad there!

BTW, if it should happen that Ianto dies in this mini-series (this season is built as a five episode arc which will be shown consecutively over the week, in the US and UK - dunno about other places at this point)... I think I may end up being sadder than when Angel got sent to hell at the end of BtVS season two.

*gasp* What if Gwen dies?
*gasp* What is this is Jack's last Hurrah and they plan on cancelling the show after this?!
*gasp* Okay... must remain calm. The likelihood of any of the Mains dying in this mimi is remote.
That's what the series 4 finale will be for!

I now have the episodes for prosperity and I will have this mini-series as well.

Cannot wait for Torchwood: Children of the Earth!