So, here's my "About Me" page for those of you playing along at home.


( About MeCollapse )

I was going to post something quick saying that I was going to take an official break from LJ for a while (for realsies this time), but then I found out about this:


Fandom Then/Fandom Now


In the words of the chief investigator, Katherine Morrissey (a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaulkee):


For many people, fan fiction is as much a part of their reading as commercial literature. Fan fiction websites and archives provide readers with novels, serials, romantic and erotic stories, non-romantic stories, experimental literature, video and visual art, etc. While fan writers and readers are certainly not exclusively interested in romance, fan writing frequently explores the romantic potential between two characters and fan fiction is often built on romantic foundations. The shift to digital publishing and reading is having a dramatic impact on commercial romance literature. However, what about the kinds of romantic and erotic stories fans produce? How is fan work being affected by the rise in digital publishing? The Fandom Then/Now project presents research conducted in 2008 and uses it to facilitate conversations about fan fiction's past and future.

What do you notice in the data from 2008? What do you think about the intersections between fan fiction and romantic storytelling? Now, in 2014, what has and hasn't changed about fans' reading and writing practices?


If you dig deeper into the website, Morrissey points out that 2008, when the original survey was conducted, was right before Archive of Our Own and Dreamwidth were launched. Twitter begain in 2006, but it wasn't until the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive Festival that it began getting mainstream attention. In 2007, there were 400,000 tweets posted per quarter, but by 2008 the number had jumped to 100 million per quarter. Tumblr started in 2007, and while I couldn't find a cool statistic, fandom only began using it in 2009-2010. The technology has changed since 2008, and the investigator would really like people who have seen fandom evolve over various technologies to help participate in the new study.

So yeah. Before I leave for my break, I give you something about fan studies rather than a long essay complaining about comic book adaptations, the failure of Arrow, and why grad school applications were invented by the devil. It should be a nice change of pace.

And here's a read I just found - Henry Jenkins using a Thelma and Louise vampire AU to discuss audience theory. I figure red_satin_doll would appreciate this, and so would many others.

Oh, and this is a public post so a few non-LJ people can see it, and maybe it can be spread around somehow so more people see it? Is pimping still a thing? Do we still pimp stuff?

I had a new idea for my grad school writing sample.

MANPAIN.

It's a fan-coined term for "when a main character in a story (always male, generally white) is written with a particular kind of psychologically painful history that causes him to behave in specific ways."

Fanlore lists some of the criteria for describing a male character's history as manpain:

• It's marked by excess. The tragedies of the character's history are extreme: his reaction to them is melodramatic: his pain is tacitly or explicitly acknowledged by the story and/or other characters to be worse than anyone else's.


• It is self-centered and inner-directed; events, especially traumatic events, in the narrative are typically viewed through the lens of how they emotionally impact the bearer of the manpain, who is often a figure of isolation.


• The character's painful history is frequently (although not universally) created by exploiting the death/suffering/loss of a woman, or children, or both. These women and children are often not characterized as having any importance in the narrative other than as plot devices to create manpain.

pocochina has some of my favorite thoughts on manpain.

So here's my problem: I can't just write an essay saying "LOOK AT ANGEL/TEN/MULDER/DEAN/BATMAN'S MANPAIN!" I need to ground this thing in some sort of theory, so I'm positing that manpain is a trope that allows "real" men to show vulnerability. If they're crying over a dead woman, it's totally legit. And I want to talk about masculinity from a gender studies point of view,but I'm having trouble trying to figure out what sources I need/can use. So basically I need some scholarly essays on masculinity in speculative (sci fi/fantasy/horror) shows/movies. I don't know if I want manpain to be the subject or if I should dissect the video to show the manpain in the shows. Any ideas for a direction I could go in are welcome.

This is so much cooler than a short story about Harry Potter going gray.

About a month ago I promised to make red_satin_doll a proper Buffy fanmix with art and everything, and here it is. It turns out I had twice as many songs as I needed, so there might be a second volume of this coming out. I could have separated the songs with one album being angsty and one being empowering, but instead I mixed it up (mostly because I'm too lazy to differentiate between the mood of the songs). Expect a lot of Florence + the Machine, a lot of Coldplay, and some interesting covers by YouTubers I found scouring the Internet.

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Excellent piece by Vanity Fair about how Orphan Black is Buffy's heir, and that the world is ready for more strong women in geek media properties.

"Because Maslany’s performance and the show’s writing contain multitudes and run the gamut of archetypal feminine strength. We have Sarah (who covers wiliness, brawn, and a mothering instinct), Cosima (sheer brain power), Alison (cunning, heightened femininity, and another kind of mothering instinct), Rachel (ruthless ambition), and, best of all, Helena (relentless, feral strength). Helena is the show’s true gift to women, ( OB Season 2 Spoilers (OMG RSD IS GOING TO LOVE THIS!)Collapse )

This is my thesis in a nutshell. Geeks are ready for strong women. Bring 'em on.

Also worth sharing is The Daily Show's report on sexual assault on college campuses:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

The List is Here, but I'll break it down for you:

( Top 15 Whedon Characters, With Commentary!Collapse )

1. I GOT THE SALLY CASANOVA PRE-DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIP! This is the one I was working on in March, and I seriously thought I wouldn't get it because I talked about using fan fiction in education. That's $3000 towards visiting graduate schools next fall!

2. HULU IS IN TALKS WITH SONY TO REVIVE COMMUNITY! Yes, this gets me as excited as a $3000 scholarship.