sundries: WTC weather, the dying season, and fandom fuckups

My Dragon*Con schedule is here -- this may go at the top of "sundries" until the con starts, since people keep asking.

The petitions to get an apology for Turing are gaining steam. There is now also an international petition in addition to one for British citizens. Info and links. Go read xtricks being eloquent about it.

Dear fan_landers. BRILLIANT.

Today the World Trade Center weather started. It's the weather between hurricanes, the day after storms and if you lived here then, you will always know what I mean. I should have expected it this morning when Patty asked me to fetch down the extra blankets for her.

I don't like summer. It's not my season. The heat limits me and is not kind to my looks, but it still feels a bit like freedom, and this year, particularly, I am sad to see it end. Even if fall is kindest to me, this year the passing of summer feels like an acute kind of loss. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm made that way, simply by virtue of having been born in October and my first knowledge of the world thus being that of dying things.

It's been a terrible week on the friendslist. We got back from the beach, and so many people lost their fathers or got terrible news from the doctor, the sort of terrible when even the adequate news fits that description. This morning there was an email from a church I don't attend (the churches the appeal to me in form, lose me in belief; the churches that I could muddle along with in belief lack any ritual of interest for me), an update on one of their clergy and his cancer. He's dying now. Or about to be. I had to stop myself from bursting into tears in my bed for a man I've never met. Who knows what that was about. As I remarked to bodlon the other day, my ability to deal well with death in general or, for that matter, any sort of peril directed at my loved ones has gone to shit post CoE.

Yesterday I managed to talk to my mother, informing her we did not die in Asbury Park. She told me about walking into Ocean Grove when I was a baby and sitting on the curbs drawing houses. She's asked Patty and I to come over so she can show us the drawings when we get back from Atlanta. As a peace offering, I'll take it. Also, her work is rather charming, and I realize Patty hasn't really seen her art before.

The incredible amounts of fail that is the shoddy research that ogi_ogas is attempting to do on fanfiction communities for his upcoming book porn on the Internet and how it highlights gender differences (that's as kind of a description as I am capable of mustering) continues to gnaw at me.

First, yes, I early on posted a link to the survey, before I had even finished taking it and had hit all the layers of problems in it. I then changed that post as things became clear. I made a mistake and I tried to fix it. I know there was some degree of "Aha, gotcha, look at rm fuckup" on at least one forum about it, and you know what folks? Sometimes, I fuck up! Be less excited.

Moving along, as I don't think I even merit a footnote in this particular saga as other people were on this much faster and with much more volume than I -- I can't stop dwelling on this mess. I hate the study of women as if slightly more than 50% of the world population is exotic.

I'll talk about that more in a minute, but first you might want to pause and read shaggirl's perspective on the mess, since she's part of fandom and helped the researchers with the egregious survey; I don't feel her statements mitigate any of what has happened and I think her error in judgment was pretty significant. Additionally, I don't think that fandom actually tends to close ranks against responsible researchers -- there's a lot of them who have done good or at least promising work.

I hate that I never know how to talk about how these sorts of studies make me feel, because I'm atypical in being genderqueer or a masculine-identified woman or whatever the fuck I am today (seriously, I'm wearing a cute little dress); my own internalized-misogyny risks coming into play in reacting to these things and that's no fun either. And I fucking hate to see fandom maligned as wacky and trivial and somehow second-rate even as pornography (when it's about 800 other things too) because it can contain emotions or is most often textually based. I loathe being condescended to in the manner that happened when the "researchers" basically patted someone on the head for explaining the existence of novel-length fanfiction -- thanks, I know where fanfiction lives in the legal marketplace, I know just how proud I should be of finishing a 200,000 word epic with my cowriter, and, oh yeah, btw? Me? Published author who's been signing contracts on stuff ALL WEEK.

So I suppose "blow me" is really not an appropriate or mature response to this whole thing (On the other hand this response qualifies as "one reason RPF is useful as a critical and narrative tool"), but it just makes me vibrate with rage and sorrow. Also, exclamation points and false enthusiasm as you try to fix your mistakes? Very transparent to a community with many members who have been on the Internet for decades (yup, it'll be 20 years for me soon).

It feels like (and this is what oppression does, this is what hate does, this is what it gets like in our heads sometimes if you've never experienced it -- we can hate each other and we can hate our selves and we have to spend every fucking day trying to untangle it because biased and bigoted opinions heard so often start to hear and feel and sound like the truth) most of the world (yup, men and women alike) will always assume anything I do as a woman, anything the predominantly female parts of fandom do will always be little more than worthless, quaint or desperate. If you're told something often enough, you have to fight not to believe it, and the misogyny FROM WOMEN in fandom can be terrible, and gut-wrenching and I hate how complicated this battle is in my head, because I am saying this as someone wearing a dress because she feels like, and someone who also says, quite jovially, "just because I have a cunt doesn't make me less of a man" and I don't feel like a big ol' mess until surveys come around and ask me if I liked "boy things" or "girl things" when I was little and make a point that I'm abnormal and wrong (atypical, sure, but that's different) if I can't easily categorize things as such (or recall the first time I had shame over a sexual feeling, which really, is more than a bit like asking "when did you stop beating your wife?").

But ogi_ogas? Irresponsible. And blithely so. And that, in my book, adds up to maliciously so.

I can't wait to see how hard the IRB at his institution comes down on his head. Oh yeah. People have written. On the other hand, it has also been pointed out by rivkat over on Dreamwidth (thanks to jonquil for the link) that the IRB may not be the right instrument for the problem and raises important thoughtfood on fannish visibility and how we can, or should, respond as individuals and as a community to the medicalized tone of research that makes anyone who is gender deviant, anyone who is kinky, and, in fact, any woman that enjoys sex, into little more than a curio for study and dismissal.

Note to random people who don't get it: Not only is fandom smart, not only is fandom filled with scholars, not only is fandom full of people of all genders and orientations and worldviews who are very, very good at advocating for themselves, not only is fandom inclined to stick together in the face of asshattery from outside our community -- fandom is wrathful, and we make sure bad actions against us have consequences. And it's not because we're ashamed or bitter or fearful, but because we're proud and clever and everything people like ogi_ogas think we're not.

In other news of appalling bias: ginmar reports on a girl getting suspended from school for harassing a Muslim student and lying about it and then adds her own commentary, to which I can only say, "yes."

I have no patience at all for people directing hostility at Edward James Olmos for canceling his Dragon*Con appearance, especially not with the phrase "do your job." Odds are, he is doing his job and has shooting on a project, as guests usually only cancel because of other professional engagements (making stuff fans love) or unfortunate personal circumstances that you wouldn't wish on anyone (see: the curse of Torchsong). So people? I get the disappointment, have at. Anger at the universe, even. But lay off EJO, who is incredibly gracious to fans and has done a great deal to bring overdue mainstream respect to SF/F storytelling.

Patty & I at the Dreamland Gala

Patty and I at the Dreamland Gala.

The way these polaroids work is two images are produced, one sort of a negative of the other, but not really. Anyway, this is an uncorrected scan of that secondary image. We have the proper photo and home and I need to frame and hang it, as well as some other art we have, ASAP.

http://tsirkus.org/tsirkusgallery/main.php?g2_itemId=652

more epic fail on that survey thing

My temper? LOST.

http://shaggirl.livejournal.com/186106.html?thread=3048698#t3048698

ETA: I missed, until just now, the part where good ol' Ogi says it's okay for him to use the word "tranny" because that's what people who love trans individuals call said individuals in the adult entertainment industry.

So I just had to write a rant about sex work.

http://shaggirl.livejournal.com/186106.html?thread=3047418#t3047418