Not Anonymous

Good morning. I've decided to try entering journal posts on the move, considering the fact that I'll be travelling extensively over the next two weeks. And yeah, I'll be taking my tablet Officer Kalakaua with me, I thought it would be fun to try to chronicle the vacation in long form and not just tweet randomly.

I don't know what my connectivity is going to be like, so this may all be for nothing, but it's worth a try.

I'm still laptop deficient, relying on my phone and tablet for most things, but seeing as my work is Internet based and the access to my mother's guest account on her desktop, I am most certainly not offline.

I do, however, miss the reliability of a pc. My tablet isn't capricious as all that, but the amount of DYAC that come from this little touch screen keyboard are too comical, not to mention that my go to websites tend to be a bit borked.

Still, it is a lot, I'm aware.

Here's to being around here more during my holiday!

It feels like these things write themselves, honestly.

I read on twitter that the Livejournal com ontd posted a link to an article about what Famous Authors Have to Say About Fanfiction.

On the subject matter I can only go, oy; on which I will expand.

But the way I got to this article is interesting in it's own right. Fandom uses social media to interact with itself and with creators has made the audience, more than ever before, an active participant in the culture.

I don't think we've ever been passive consumers in any way; the whole "water cooler" concept that has been around for decades is proof of that. However, the fact that we have the option of really communicating with artists on a basic conversational level, thereby eliminating the class distinction between those who have access to creators of culture and those who do not (up to a point, just using a computer and the internet is class indicative) is something new.

Not to mention, the audience being creative and transformative in its own right.

We, as the audience, interact with art. It's a basic part of being human. Having, creating and interpreting culture.

Without an audience, the artists have no one to be bitches at.

When I read quotes from the likes of authors whom feel a kind of ownership over their characters because fanfic authors "steal them" and only the "original" authors have the "right" to abuse their characters (as JRR Martin put it) all I can do is sigh, regroup and remember that without me, as a reader, there would be no point to what they created. In an original fashion of course, because every author is never derivative.

I get that this is part of the whole "50 Shades of Grey" issue that seems to be plaguing the mainstream media.

The mainstream media doesn't know how to talk about active audience participation, transformative art (be if fic, art or vid) and it doesn't know how to talk about the fact that no work exists in a vacuum.

If there's something I've learnt in reading about "50 Shades of Grey", is that fandom is a culture and that being fannish is a way to participate in the world that not everyone gets, even if they are big geek or nerd or a reader of derivative fiction like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" or a watcher of shows like "Sherlock".

To read a book and want more than what the author wrote down is not a sign that we do not respect the author. The author, really, is irrelevant, because what we want is to interact with the words on the page. And it's not "the author is dead". They're not dead, but they are outside the work just like the audience.

What they meant and their intent is as optional as our own fannish head-canon.

Word of God is not canon. It exists outside the text, outside the show, behind the scenes.

As such, when articles like the one above writes:

While some authors support, or at least tolerate, the practice, others vehemently oppose it, citing monetary issues as well as feelings of personal violation and another sentiment that roughly translates to “if you were really creative, you’d make up your own characters.”

All I can say is, you do not own a work of art. You deserve to get paid for the work that you've done and I buy books and dvd's because I whole heartedly believe that creative work deserves to be recognised in a way that both credits and supports the creator, you do not have a say in the way I, my fellow fans or anyone else interprets your work, interacts with it or creates through it.

We are equal to you in our importance to the culture.

We also outnumber you.

[Entry #002]

So, hey, it suddenly feels like I'm on ALL the social networks, but I also feel like I'm missing out on talking to you peeps there!

I figured why not make a list of where you can find me!

eumelia on Livejournal.
eumelia on Dreamwidth.
the_eumelia on Twitter.
eumelia on Pinboard.
Eumelia on AO3.
stillnotanonymous on Tumblr because "eumelia" wasn't available.

Let me know where you are! :D

I'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your DW/LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!

My word is "mire", because I am slow going this morning.

Yep still doing the challenge.

Day 2

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Drop a link to your post in the comments. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

Here are three fics I rec. They're all very different, but they have one thing in common.

The Boy Who Spoke With Ghosts by AvocadoLove.

An Inception/The Sixth Sense crossover. It's a lovely interpretation of the characters and their interaction with each other. The eerie feel of The Sixth Sense blends all too well with the creep factor that was Mal in Inception. There's also a very special ghost there in a a yellow dress and she's the reason I'm rec-ing this fic. In Kid!fic the kid is usually alive but even dead, this little girl is a wonderful presence in the fic and great foil for the characters.

The Quiver and Cry of my Heart by Electric_Apple.

A Hawaii Five-0 fic. It's actually part of a series, but can be easily read alone, I read it before I knew there were other fics in this 'verse. It's a story about Steve being deployed and those he leaves behind. It's quite poignant in places, but I get teary eyes at the drop of a hat so what do I know. But I love the way Danny is a father here to a little girl he loves, because she's Steve's.
A very heart warming Kid!Fic all around.

A Ring in a Black Sea by basingstoke.

A Stargate: Atlantis/Torchwood crossover. I don't read Stargate, I've never actually even seen the show, but I read this when I was on a Captain Jack in alien worlds binge and boy, is Jack far away from Torchwood in this one. There's a slow build and I think if you don't know either fandom that well you can be confused a bit in the beginning (I was), but the world building is lovely, as is the interaction between Jack and Teylas, showcasing how alien they are compared to the Stargate and Torchwood teams.
It's a great depiction of a different kind of family, the kind we chose, and rearranges itself as life changes.
There's a kid in there, somewhere, for a good reason.

It's been... wow... two weeks.

This is also possibly the worst time to actually update because the majority of you, dear readers, are probably getting wasted on mulled wine and eggnog (I myself have been slowly stuffing myself with Sufganiot - that's doughnuts to you gentiles :P)

Much has happened since I wrote last and most of it is quite good, which, considering my last few posts is rather great and it's not so much that I've been AFK (even though that's also happened).

So, what has happened?

Well, uni is still boring and not really that enjoyable. I am loving this living with a roommate in my own apartment - even though my flat tries to periodically kill me with sparking electrical sockets, and flooding toilets and washing machines - but god, being accountable to no one nut myself and my ever decreasing bank account, is awesome.

Other great things is that being free of so called "adult supervision" is that I've been proactive about getting myself a network in my new city. So I've joined an academically inclined LGBT/Queer reading group with a focus on the theoretical prism of Homonationalism. Why yes, we are all Ivory Tower Leftist Gay Intellectuals - only we're poor, working outside of academia (we meet at the Feminist Community Centre "Isha L'Isha" which is Hebrew for "Woman to/for Woman") and are pretty pissed off about having "gay rights" used as a propaganda tool.

The coinor of the term "Homonationalism", Jasbir Puar is coming to Israel next month and yeah, I'm going to hear her speak. BDS is good for this shit, I tell you!

But the best thing about "Isha L'Isha" is that they have a library and archive for which they need a volunteer to catalogue and classify. Guess who's starting volunteering there next month?

Hells yes it's me!

In addition, I went to a volunteer recruitment meet for an organisation that sends LGBT people to schools, military bases, police stations etc. in an Education and Change capacity - where us LGBT's tell our "life stories" and then have a Q&A in order to broaden people's horizons and hopefully have younger or closeted LGBT and queer listeners know that we are out there and in the classroom.

I am slightly cynical, as is possibly evident, by the actual capacity for difference any of this makes, but hey, I'm an also an idealist in the worst possible way and I believe in exposure, truth and education.

I was contacted by the recruitment coordinator and they likes what I had to say at the meet (they're also desperate for volunteers) and would like me to continue on the path to building a "personal story" and volunteer once a month.

I'll let you all know what happens.

And those have been the past two weeks, along with gorging myself on oily foods and cake due to holidays and Nieces birthday parties.

I am an admirer of those who use words. Those who convey a world Next Door as though I can walk by it and know I just need to reach out and be there.

Neil Gaiman is one of those word-smiths.

I don't want to rehash the incident, which you can read about here, as context is important and should be known, but for the benefit of those who haven't been in the conversation: ( See me rehash )

Now, my thoughts.

The biggest problem, beyond the obvious of Gaiman's Tweets (which is just a ghastly thing to do), is the implication of Gaiman's comment on Reese's blog post in which he apologised for his response in 2008 and continued to put his foot in his mouth by flippantly saying sorry to the Vikings and Norwegians who he may have misrepresented in the comment.

It is humour politics done very badly.

It is also a very Euro-centric mode of thought, that until the America's were settled by white people there wasn't anything there.

I myself am guilty of such thought, it's a white privilege thing (and not living in the North American continent thing as well, for some).

"A few dead Indians" is a bad turn of phrase. Very, in fact.
I ponder if Gaiman would ever make a Holocaust joke of a similar ilk, but then the only people I've ever heard make Holocaust jokes are Israeli Jews and not other kinds of Jews.

Sorry, derailing. It is however, the power of the joke. The notion that the issue is not important enough for anything other than a laugh. Historical narrative is complicated in what it includes, more so in what it excludes.

When I hear talk of America, my automatic knee-jerk thought is Discovery and not Invasion. This is because I am indoctrinated, period.

When I think of Gaiman and his treatment of America, I think of American Gods, in which he had a PoC (who I always thought was mixed race black/white, but later realised was native/white) protagonist who uses a name that is descriptive and not literal, in which the bloody history of American "immigration" (From the First Nations who cross the Bering Straight to the kidnapped Tribes from Western Africa to the Impoverished Farmers of Eastern Europe. And of course, his beloved Vikings) is detailed in the "interval" chapters found throughout the book between moments of the main plot.
The book is conceptually problematic in the way Spirit of America (The Buffalo Man IIRC) is framed, but I would argue that it's about the defeat of that spirit by the invading colonialist religions than anything else.
Sorta, a large point of the book is that the land itself is no good for the colonising gods, hence... the whole plot of the book.

It is Eurocentric, it's also self-indulgent in a way that managed to speak to a great many people who like the philosophy that Gaiman presents in his work overall.

Problematic yes, bad in and of itself, I don't think so.

Still, Gaiman uses his privilege as a famous author, as someone known to have a dry sense of humour and as a writer who has been known to write the Other to deflect this necessary criticism.

This is not about his knee-jerk reaction to the aforementioned posts regarding what he said in interviews, but regarding what he said about American history.

Writing this is difficult for me, you see I'm a fan. A huge fan. A fan who *squeed* quite a lot when I met him four years ago and I still admire his writing. Even when I heard about the premise of The Graveyard Book which is conceptually based on Kipling's The Jungle Book, I ate up the critique because I love being informed and thought that what Gaiman did in The Graveyard Book was truly brilliant - intertextuality is a kink of mine.

I also think it's important to know where authors and creators fall short. And it this instance, it is Gaiman.

It's disappointing and still... I feel a loyalty towards him. His work has inspired me, changed my way of thinking and is one of the reasons I managed to think about religion and faith more critically and in a way that satisfied me both intellectually and emotionally.
Meeting Neil was one of the best moments of my short life.

I always considered Neil Gaiman to be one of those authors who got things right, who wrote the world with a certain Truth. It is a talent that has garnered him great acclaim and fame. It helps that he himself is a pretty funny guy, self-deprecating but arrogant at the same time, a dry sense if humour that belies the notions of superiority he has about himself.

I always liked that kind of humour, it's uniquely British and makes me nostalgic about Black Adder, French and Saunders and P.G Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster (just to name a few, I could go on).
(Dear god, yes I know of the problematic dynamics in these programmes... I'm an Anglophile and everything that suggests. *sigh*).

But this is a fail and as a loyal and adoring fan I have to take this into account. I have to look at the works of this author, his words on and off the page and wonder, how is it that mainstream historical narrative (i.e. racist and elite oriented) is so pervasive that a the notion of genocide that continues to this day is viewed as nothing more than a cavalier utterance? That those deaths continue to haunt America and that the death of a Nation is an absence felt all the time, not only by those who survived the killings but by the cultural and narrative vacuum of that death.

Genocide lingers, either as an traumatic imprint or as the absence that I mention. There is more to this than "a few dead Indians" and European tombstones.

Oh, Neil...

I'll be paying attention to this. I may write some more.

When I think about various discussions I've had with my parents regarding my political alignment (re: The Loony Left), I think about the fact that a former uni classmate of mine (who studied Psychology) said that they're probably sublimating their hostility regarding my queer factor onto my politics.

It's an interesting thought, one I wouldn't disregard, as it makes sense. Seeing as both my political alignment and me being not strictly straight are viewed by my parents as a rebellious phase.

Though honestly, having been "officially" out to my immediate family for nearly five years now¹, you'd think the whole "phase" thing would be taken as, you know, my life.
Alas.

Seeing that I'm now on Semester break and my first exam is only this coming Sunday (as in, not today, yays) I had time.
I had time to watch a twenty seven minute video about Coming Out With Mom from a YouTube channel called The Beaver Bunch, which are a bunch of American LGBTQ peeps talking about what it's like to be LGBTQ and disseminating information.
Things I generally find none too shabby.
I've watched a few of the shorter videos... it's all very American, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the issues do not really correspond with my experiences.

In any event, that video I watched irritated me throughout. Because constantly, constantly there was this emphasis on time.
When you come out give your parents time.
Time to realise you're the same person you always were.
Time to realise what they hoped for you (that fantasy of who you are in their head) is not what they thought.
Time to learn mourn the life they thought you were going to have.

In the video one of "Beaver's" - Michel(le?) - is sitting with her mother and they're answering questions from viewers about coming out.

I was irritated by the closeness that I saw between them. Obviously, I was completely and utterly jealous.
Not because Michel(le?)'s mother had reached an acceptance with the fact that her daughter is gay, but the fact that they even shared that closeness. ( Read Moar F-List... Read Moar! )

I'm hoping this doesn't get me flamed or that I lose friends from my f-list. *sigh*.

A little anecdote if you please.

My BFF and I are very intimate with each other. We hug, we snuggle with each other. Our body differences make it easy for me to lie on top of hir without me being too heavy and hir softness make it extremely comfy for me to cuddle.

We are completely platonic. Zie's married and monogamous, we've known each other since we were in Elementary school (we're both in our twenties now) and a few years ago we sported a shaved head together.

Yes people thought we were a couple and we both acknowledge the fact that if we were on teevee we'd probably be Slashed (we'd make awesome characters, btw). Well, it helps that we're "canonically" queer I suppose.

Slash, as I've often said, is an interpretation of the text.

The whole debate regarding slash and m/m is coming off as a huge turf war. It really isn't who has the right to write what because honestly, people will and should write what they want.
The policing of identities (straight women writing gay men), while erasing identities (queer women, straight men) is irritating.

I haven't read every single post on metafandom and linkspam because, dude, there are many.
Quite likely mine will get lost in the shuffle; after all I'm just another reader with an opinion.

A few issues rise from this debate;
#1 That these women misrepresent men, because they're in fact writing women (albeit with the men's bodies).
#2 That these women are appropriating an identity that isn't theirs by writing slash and pro m/m and don't take into account the history of that identity.
#3 That these gay men are policing women's expression of sexuality by demanding that they stop fetishising them.

I'd like to tackle these points one by one, I hope I manage: ( Click to expand )

There is no clear answer. Ignoring that there is hurt doesn't do any good. Ignoring the fact that this hurt is going in all directions is not good either.
The notion that m/m stories (gay or not, slash or not) are being marketed as a "women's genre" is what's problematic and identity erasing – so let's stop jumping on the fact that "straight" "women" are writing "gay" "men".

People and our quaint little categories.

Vampires have taken over our lives. They suck out time via books, television and film like no other supernatural beast ever could.

Why?

Because they look like people, like you and me, they can walk among us unknown and seduce us with their glamour, mystique and plain ole' attractiveness.
Vampires are always beautiful, those that ugly, do not need to be. We are attracted to the fact that they are excluded from daylight, that they are reflected only in the eyes of human (their prey) and to the fact that they are immortal.

They do not die.

We pass away and they pass on.

Vampires have reached a kind of peak of pop-culture popularity. Ten years ago when I was fourteen and obsessed with Buffy, I read Dracula, Interview with a Vampire and thought Bella Lugosi was the shit.
Vampires were awesome.

Now... they're poster boys for Abstinence.
Where have we gone wrong.
( This glamour will make you click on the cut )