#foz rants

[pii-nitc]

AM UMM Gelar Workshop Kepemimpinan Untuk Cetak Calon Kader IPM Berkualitas

Tim AM Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang kelompok 07 Mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Agama Islam menyelanggarakan pelatihan kepemimpinan yang diselenggarakan oleh mahasiswa-mahasiswi AM UMM Kelompok 07 tahun 2022.

Kegiatan ini diselenggarakan untuk membentuk jiwa kepemimpinan (leadership) terhadap calon pimpinan Ikatan Pelajar Muhammadiyah Ranting SMK Muhammadiyah 02 Malang. Kegiatan yang berlangsung di aula lantai 3 SMK Muhammadiyah 02 ini mengusung tema ‘Improve Your Skill to be Better of Self’.

Kegiatan workshop ini dihadiri oleh kepala sekolah SMK Muhammadiyah 02 Malang Lukman Hakim dan narasumber yang berkompeten dibidangnya yaitu Fandi Bakhtiar, S.Pd selaku direktur lembaga zakat YDSF Malang dan Ketua Umum Forum Organisasi Zakat (FOZ) Malang Raya. Dan kegiatan ini juga dihadiri oleh seluruh peserta Ikatan Pelajar Muhammadiyah Ranting SMK Muhammadiyah 02 Malang.

Materi yang disampaikan pada kegiatan tersebut adalah memperkuat semangat ber-organisasi dengan penguatan skill ruh kepemimpinan para peserta didik IPM Ranting SMK Muhammadiyah 02 Malang dan melatih ibadah, belajar, berorganisasi IPM yang berkarakter islami dalam rangka memperkuat ukhuwah pimpinan ranting.

Lukman Hakim, selaku kepala sekolah SMK Muhammadiyah 02 Malang mengatakan sekaligus mendukung acara ini, “Kegiatan ini adalah awal untuk membangun sebuah persyarikatan yang baik. Anda-anda semua disini terpilih karena anda bisa dan mampu, dan kami berharap anda bisa ikut kegiatan ini dengan baik’. Ujar Lukman Hakim selaku kepala sekolah.

Workshop ini diselenggarakan untuk memberikan edukasi dan motivasi kepada para kader Ikatan Pelajar Muhammadiyah (IPM) Ranting SMK Muhammadiyah 02, baik secara individu maupun kelompok dan yang terlibat dalam organisasi IPM ini, mengenai pentingnya memiliki jiwa semangat kepemimpinan sebagai manifestasi pelajar berkemajuan.

“Kegiatan ini adalah untuk memafisilitasi teman-teman semua untuk mempunyai sifat kepemimpinan sebagai modal utama dalam ber-organisasi. Kami disini berharap teman-teman bisa mengambil ilmu serta manfaat dari kegiatan yang diselenggarakan ini.” Lanjut Ketua AM Kelompok 07 Muhammad Rafliyanto

[redshoesnblueskies]

from my 2020 Faves & Saves update page:  Fanfic culture, AO3 origins going right back to strikethrough, fandom history.....

SO. MANY. LINKS.

so many goodies under the cut!

these are all links to my tumblr - i did not write very many of them, but i know my links will remain the same and not be lost :)

The master post of upholding and celebrating fanfic, by @inkandcayenne :

‘I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/621654927974055936/inkandcayenne-tywinning-asked-you-2012-08-09

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HISTORY OF FANDOM CULTURE FROM LJ TO AO3

'What you are doing when you say “If you don’t want crit, don’t post your story” is gatekeeping, and in a REALLY harmful way. Without fans creating work (fanfiction or art or meta), there is no fandom. You’re not only saying “you can’t be in fandom if you don’t want to be hurt” you’re actively calling for fandom to be cut down. That’s a bad thing. Fandom needs creator content in order to exist and grow.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186058432379/so-if-youve-watched-my-general-meltdown-about

Foz: straight dudes of the world…read fanfic:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230785234/fozmeadows-totallyevillisa

foz: on depression and hurt/comfort

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230730609/on-depression-and-hurtcomfort

fantastic Foz posts from a while ago, addressing the ‘well just censor content and then you’re not godless heathens’ fallacy…

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230530849/fantastic-foz-posts-from-a-while-ago-addressing

Fanfiction & Capitalism, and Why I Think They Are Related [TW for homophobia, mentions of sexual violence, capitalism]

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230748619/fanfiction-capitalism-and-why-i-think-they-are

Fair use is authorized by law

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230721574/fyeahcopyright-heidi8-fair-use-is-wholly

fantastic breakdown of the sociology that led from LJ community culture to tumblr anonymous disconnected culture:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/611096897406615552/kanna-ophelia-taraljc-kanna-ophelia

'The Places Fandom Dwells: A cautionary Tale’ - EXCELLENT, LOTS OF LINKS

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179355549419/the-places-fandom-dwells-a-cautionary-tale

'It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/173587593934/bonehandledknife-feynites-theskaldspeaks

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BIG AO3 POSTS - HISTORY OF FANDOM

great breakdown of stats on how HUGE AO3 actually is…

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230519234/why-are-people-still-up-in-arms-about-ao3-needing

another breakdown of how huge AO3 is & intricate skills required to run it

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179336300829/hey-ao3-can-you-like-give-the-extra-38k-you-made

AO3 is in the top 300 biggest websites in the WORLD/how a huge site like this works

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230400619/hey-ao3-can-you-like-give-the-extra-38k-you-made

origin story of AO3 - very sweet  (10th anniversary of AO3)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230398054/on-the-ao3-all-these-years-later

this blogger remembers when we didn’t have AO3

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179391607249/this-blog-is-unrepentantly-pro-ao3

adults built fandom - who runs cons? who runs AO3 & the legal team at OTW? codes the servers?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179430883009/naryaflame-vanimore-askragtatter-rsasai

“AO3 IS OUR SITE.  It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags.”

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/188239677029/purge-of-2002-of-2012-what-are-those

'Certain people are screaming that AO3 is bad because it’s not a “safe space.” The real problem they have, though, is that AO3 was created to be a safe space - for writers.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/165199049719/rapacityinblue-kaciart-rocket-sith

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FANDOM HISTORY & CULTURE

copperbadge - fandom dad explains concrit & why it’s not welcome without specific request

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186983936704/question-as-an-oldster-and-fandom-lurker-since

fanfic/fanart is a gift - respect it in the way you respect something freely given

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/187512037844/trickztr-friendly-reminder-that-fan-made

'Toxic Fandom: Chen Criticism and Entitlement Go Too Far’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179392060549/toxic-fandom-when-criticism-and-entitlement-go

an explanation of the anti’s as very damaged authoritarianism

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230513414/freedom-of-fanfic-freedom-of-fanfic

why do fangirls always make them gay?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/162428018414/why-do-fangirls-always-make-them-gay

fandom history through the ages and across continents

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/129594965539/teashoesandhair-ogress-jhameia

one of several versions of a HUGE history post educating people on why we need a non-censored AO3 & why this is vital (and how misinformed many fans are)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230393414/theothersarshi-redshoesnblueskies

another version: https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/173741270214/grison-in-space-veronica-rich

conversation on AO3 tagging (plus being screwed by censorship

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179391926284/except-that-no-one-uses-tags-like-fetishized

how AO3 is run by volunteer & how to volunteer yourself

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230390519/in-kind

Ao3 fund drive post that goes into why they don’t censor

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230054009/anarfea-anarfea-people-keep-asking-how-can

what 'Archive of Our Own’ refers to

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179136825394/what-archive-of-our-own-refers-to

AO3’s transparent financial reporting & a good rant

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179136341494/ao3-donation-drive

a short explanation of LJ strikethrough

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179124456874/telarna-meeedeee-bomberqueen17-i-just

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LIGHTER FARE

origin of the ! - the “bang path’ in fandom pairings :D

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/118991314994/hey-whats-up-with-the-in-fandoms-ie-fat

can we PLEASE have an AO3 rating system for books & media?? pleeeeease???  here’s some thoughts on how:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/119377580254/crowd-sourced-content-warnings-at-book-stores

LJ was my initial experience of examining how fic fits into these huge gaps left by conventional writing, media and daily IRL conversation/education - the kind of healing that fic can bring to both individuals and a collective body of both knowledge and healthy questioning of assumptions about sexuality as a whole.  I mean, the kind of absolutely common place knowledge about consent, power dynamics, experimentation to determine what one’s own sexuality looks like, and the the options available is extraordinary.  To have that breadth and depth of knowledge presented in an often beautifully creative format; where you could discuss with the author and other readers anything included in the fic and what it meant to both literature and real life, as well as all things fannish that one’s wild imagination could come up with…. good god what I would have given for that information as a teen.  

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/122835116349/bonehandledknife-redshoesnblueskies

Fandom Is…. (poem)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/124514359704/fandom-is-focus-fandom-is-obsession-fandom-is

Can fandom bring back the concept of a squick? Pleeeease?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/126342903959/can-fandom-bring-back-the-concept-of-a-squick

'so don’t pretend it can’t be done, author dudes, because there’s a million fangirls who can write lyric filthy devastating character-revealing plot-advancing poetic tender wall-slamming trope-inverting panting sweaty trope-embracing aching crying sex…..and can do it far far better than you.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/124171180589/sex-is-hard-to-write-about-because-you-lose-the

'It’s just fanfic…’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/126188502159/its-just-fan-fic

“Ship means something you want to see happen.” Bitch, no it don’t.

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179234734799/pyrebomb-ship-means-something-you-want-to-see

why can you sell fanart, but not fanfic??

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/128782763684/legal-side-of-tumblr-can-you-answer-me-a

humor: different types of fanfic - in graphics:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/129402064267/justanotherfmablog-yougothenigo

THE SUFFERING ARTIST CONCEPT IS BULLSHIT AND SHOULD BE BLOWTORCHED:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186461152949/zendarkwalkerx-magicianmew-katiecrenshaw

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/166161827744/if-one-more-person-says-what-if-theyd-medicated

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IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, YOU DESERVE STARSHIPS (SCROLL DOWN):

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/138038043884/samati-saathi1013-tygermama-zillah975

[meeedeee]

Shin Godzilla: Disasters, Tropes & Cultural Memory RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Warning: spoilers for Shin Godzilla.

I’ve been wanting to see Shin Godzilla since it came out last year, and now that it’s available on iTunes, I’ve finally had the chance. Aside from the obvious draw inherent to any Godzilla movie, I’d been keen to see a new Japanese interpretation of an originally Japanese concept, given the fact that every other recent take has been American. As I loaded up the film, I acknowledged the irony in watching a disaster flick as a break from dealing with real-world disasters, but even so, I didn’t expect the film itself to be quite so bitingly apropos.

While Shin Godzilla pokes some fun at the foibles of Japanese bureaucracy, it also reads as an unsubtle fuck you to American disaster films in general and their Godzilla films in particular. From the opening scenes where the creature appears, the contrast with American tropes is pronounced. In so many natural disaster films – 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Armageddon, San Andreas – the Western narrative style centres by default on a small, usually ragtag band of outsiders collaborating to survive and, on occasion, figure things out, all while being thwarted by or acting beyond the government. There’s frequently a capitalist element where rich survivors try to edge out the poor, sequestering themselves in their own elite shelters: chaos and looting are depicted up close, as are their consequences. While you’ll occasionally see a helpful local authority figure, like a random policeman, trying to do good (however misguidedly), it’s always at a remove from any higher, more coordinated relief effort, and particularly in more SFFnal films, a belligerent army command is shown to pose nearly as much of a threat as the danger itself.

To an extent, this latter trope appears in Shin Godzilla, but to a much more moderated effect. When Japanese command initially tries to use force, the strike is aborted because of a handful of civilians in range of the blast, and even when a new attempt is made, there’s still an emphasis on chain of command, on minimising collateral damage and keeping the public safe. At the same time, there’s almost no on-the-ground civilian elements to the story: we see the public in flashes, their online commentary and mass evacuations, a few glimpses of individual suffering, but otherwise, the story stays with the people in charge of managing the disaster. Yes, the team brought together to work out a solution – which is ultimately scientific rather than military – are described as “pains-in-the-bureaucracy,” but they’re never in the position of having to hammer, bloody-fisted, on the doors of power in order to rate an audience. Rather, their assemblage is expedited and authorised the minute the established experts are proven inadequate.

When the Japanese troops mobilise to attack, we view them largely at a distance: as a group being addressed and following orders, not as individuals liable to jump the chain of command on a whim. As such, the contrast with American films is stark: there’s no hotshot awesome commander and his crack marine team to save the day, no sneering at the red tape that gets in the way of shooting stuff, no casual acceptance of casualties as a necessary evil, no yahooing about how the Big Bad is going to get its ass kicked, no casual discussion of nuking from the army. There’s just a lot of people working tirelessly in difficult conditions to save as many people as possible – and, once America and the UN sign a resolution to drop a nuclear bomb on Godzilla, and therefore Tokyo, if the Japanese can’t defeat it within a set timeframe, a bleak and furious terror at their country once more being subject to the evils of radiation.

In real life, Japan is a nation with extensive and well-practised disaster protocols; America is not. In real life, Japan has a wrenchingly personal history with nuclear warfare; America, despite being the cause of that history, does not.

Perhaps my take on Shin Godzilla would be different if I’d managed to watch it last year, but in the immediate wake of Hurricane Harvey, with Hurricane Irma already wreaking unprecedented damage in the Caribbean, and huge tracts of Washington, Portland and Las Angeles now on fire, I find myself unable to detach my viewing from the current political context. Because what the film hit home to me – what I couldn’t help but notice by comparison – is the deep American conviction that, when disaster strikes, the people are on their own. The rich will be prioritised, local services will be overwhelmed, and even when there’s ample scientific evidence to support an imminent threat, the political right will try to suppress it as dangerous, partisan nonsense.

In The Day After Tomorrow, which came out in 2004, an early plea to announce what’s happening and evacuate those in danger is summarily waved off by the Vice President, who’s more concerned about what might happen to the economy, and who thinks the scientists are being unnecessarily alarmist. This week, in the real America of 2017, Republican Rush Limbaugh told reporters that the threat of Hurricane Irma, now the largest storm ever recorded over the Atlantic Ocean, was being exaggerated by the “corrupted and politicised” media so that they and other businesses could profit from the “panic”.

In my latest Foz Rants piece for the Geek Girl Riot podcast, which I recorded weeks ago, I talk about how we’re so acclimated to certain political threats and plotlines appearing in blockbuster movies that, when they start to happen in real life, we’re conditioned to think of them as being fictional first, which leads us to view the truth as hyperbolic. Now that I’ve watched Shin Godzilla, which flash-cuts to a famous black-and-white photo of the aftermath of Hiroshima when the spectre of a nuclear strike is raised, I’m more convinced than ever of the vital, two-way link between narrative on the one hand and our collective cultural, historical consciousness on the other. I can’t imagine any Japanese equivalent to the moment in Independence Day when cheering American soldiers nuke the alien ship over Las Angeles, the consequences never discussed again despite the strike’s failure, because the pain of that legacy is too fully, too personally understood to be taken lightly.

At a cultural level, Japan is a nation that knows how to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Right now, a frightening number of Americans – and an even more frightening number of American politicians – are still convinced that climate change is a hoax, that scientists are biased, and that only God is responsible for the weather. How can a nation prepare for a threat it won’t admit exists? How can it rebuild from the aftermath if it doubts there’ll be a next time?

Watching Shin Godzilla, I was most strongly reminded, not of any of the recent American versions, but The Martian. While the science in Shin Godzilla is clearly more handwavium than hard, it’s nonetheless a film in which scientific collaboration, teamwork and international cooperation save the day. The last, despite a denouement that pits Japan against an internationally imposed deadline, is of particular importance, as global networking still takes place across scientific and diplomatic back-channels. It’s a rare American disaster movie that acknowledges the existence or utility of other countries, especially non-Western ones, beyond shots of collapsing monuments, and even then, it’s usually in the context of the US naturally taking the global lead once they figure out a plan. The fact that the US routinely receives international aid in the wake of its own disasters is seemingly little-known in the country itself; that Texas’s Secretary of State recently appeared to turn down Canadian aid in the wake of Harvey, while now being called a misunderstanding, is nonetheless suggestive of confusion over this point.

As a film, Shin Godzilla isn’t without its weaknesses: the monster design is a clear homage to the original Japanese films, which means it occasionally looks more stop-motion comical than is ideal; there’s a bit too much cutting dramatically between office scenes at times; and the few sections of English-language dialogue are hilariously awkward in the mouths of American actors, because the word-choice and use of idiom remains purely Japanese. Even so, these are ultimately small complaints: there’s a dry, understated sense of humour evident throughout, even during some of the heavier moments, and while it’s not an action film in the American sense, I still found it both engaging and satisfying.

But above all, at this point in time – as I spend each morning worriedly checking the safety of various friends endangered by hurricane and flood and fire; as my mother calls to worry about the lack of rain as our own useless government dithers on climate science – what I found most refreshing was a film in which the authorities, despite their faults and foibles, were assumed and proven competent, even in the throes of crisis, and in which scientists were trusted rather than dismissed. Earlier this year, in response to an article we both read, my mother bought me a newly-released collection of the works of children’s poet Misuzu Kaneko, whose poem “Are You An Echo?” was used to buoy the Japanese public in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami . Watching Shin Godzilla, it came back to me, and so I feel moved to end with it here.

May we all build better futures; may we all write better stories.

Are You An Echo?

If I say, “Let’s play?” you say, “Let’s play!”

If I say, “Stupid!” you say, “Stupid!”

If I say, “I don’t want to play anymore,” you say, “I don’t want to play anymore.”

And then, after a while, becoming lonely

I say, “Sorry.” You say, “Sorry.”

Are you just an echo? No, you are everyone.

      from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2wJXCVQ via IFTTT

[jackal24actual]

Rant/vent ahead. But here's some Foz pictures.

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I got invited to a car meetup next week but so did my ex who I had to file an order of protection against and I really wanna go but I don't know if I should. She's been stalking me for three years since we broke up and has been vandalising mine, my parents, and my friends cars and I don't know if I want to deal with more of that...

[elodieunderglass]

can u pls direct me to the mola mola rant i rlly need to see it? for science. pls.

(In reference to my hyperbolic frustration with ocean sunfish, which stems from their problematic shape, which is Impure)

I did not write the Viral Sunfish Rant, and I do not necessarily endorse it. My feelings for sunfish are pure and refined, and completely unaffected by trends. The prevailing winds of the zeitgeist affect me not. Sunfish and I know each other of old: they are my white whale. When Foz-in-their-infinite-wisdom placed the Rant before my eyes, I was pleased that my vigil was not solitary, but my heart remained unchanged.

Here is the Viral Sunfish Rant and its accompanying Discourse, summarised by Buzzfeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/i-hate-sunfish

Do I truly hate the Ocean Sunfish? I suspect that in my deepest heart, I do not, for my hatred of them completes me and makes me pleasingly symmetrical. Ocean Sunfish may, in fact, be the anti-Swan, and we must both exist, balanced and irreconcilable, for the math to check out.

[fozmeadows]

revenge of others finale

this is an extremely niche complaint but the final episode of revenge of others was so goddamn rushed and underwhelming and I’m PISSED about it. I mean, look: this is very much a show with melodrama vibes played straight, and it succeeded so admirably at that for eleven out of twelve episodes that I’m not even really mad about the last minute jaebum/jaejoon is-it-a-split-personality-or-is-it-a-ghost reveal despite the fact that it is objectively dumb and bad. what I am mad about is how jaebum’s arrest somehow magically nixes all the investigations into the shit sooheon actually did, even though jaebum can confirm sooheon’s guilt - like, I could potentially buy that he took the rap for it out of shame and loyalty, but goddamn, if you’re going to imply something that emotionally meaty, you need to show it to me! and especially when sojung’s whole deal has been Good Anti-Corruption Cop, even with her sympathy for sooheon, the fact that the whole school covers up for him when it comes to a clear-cut instance of self-defense is like... noble, or whatever, and gives us a good callback to an earlier plotline, but it also doesn’t jibe with her as a character to accept it, or make sense that THIS was the thing he needed to be shielded from (fighting for his fucking life) as opposed to the things he actually did (beating up sexually violent dudes). we don’t even get an explanation about how taeyeon was able to safely come back, even though the whole point of her leaving was so that she didn’t get pressured by the police, who I guess just... gave up? on her? as a witness?

we don’t get a solid confirmation on whether osung is dead or just badly hurt, let alone see how that all plays out at the police station with his dad and sister; and even more importantly, we don’t get to see a proper reveal of everything he did and why, especially re: setting chanmi and jihyun up to be enemies with the fake nude plotline! both those girls deserve catharsis with each other over the ways they were manipulated and used, and I wouldn’t say no to a callback explaining what actually went down with that really early flashback about the fake pregnancy thing osung was involved in, too, now that we know what his whole deal was! we don’t even get to see what happened with him and jihyun! the implication is that he forced a kiss on her and recorded it, but we don’t get to see or hear her side of things, which feels like a major elision! 

the fact that sejin waited until the very last minute to tell chanmi that he and wonseok were dating also felt cheap - like, yeah, even though he told her about his dads and she was cool with it and he helped with literally everything else, I can still see him having been nervous to bring it up, but I want more details, especially when osung claimed that jaebum had dated wonseok and jaebum thought it was true. like, what was going on there? at the very least, you’re suggesting jaebum is potentially enough into dudes that when osung told him, ‘hey, you dated this guy,’ he thought it was plausible, instead of being all ‘what the fuck, I’m straight’ - like, it’s kind of a massive lie for osung to try and tell if he’s got no pre-existing deets on jaebum’s sexuality, but no, we’re just gonna gloss over that because Reasons.

and then, most annoyingly of all, the chanmi/sooheon situation ends with him dropping out of school and her going into the marines, and they’re just... together, but also we’re not going to revisit the brain tumor thing? we’re not going to have even a single scene where they talk about how he could potentially drop dead at a moment’s notice but she’s going to go off into the army? really? we’re just going to paste over it with an attempt at happily ever after, as though all the previous emotional tension doesn’t exist? we’re not even going to have chanmi question her career choice, or at least view it in a new light, after all the trauma and violence she’s just been through and the fact of sooheon’s diagnosis? 

just, goddamn. I would like to think there was originally another episode’s worth of material fleshing out the ending that was forcibly cut for shitty network/production reasons while the writers got angrily drunk about it, because it really does feel like there’s a whole bunch of missing scenes in play, and the alternative is that everyone involved was like ‘yeah, this seems fine’ about a final episode that completely ignores all the stakes and consequences, emotional and otherwise, which fueled the plot to that point, in favor of ‘the cute straight couple are fine, so everything is Good.’ AUGH.        

[fozmeadows]

1) I was binge-reading your Wordpress blog a few days back and came upon a post you made where you talked about the ubiquity of really bad/rapey/abusive relationships in SFF and how early exposure to those stories changed how you looked at real-life and fictional romances, and it got me thinking: how can we talk about the real challenges and troubles of Problematic Fiction without, like, giving everything over to the antis? because as somebody who cares about the messages in media but who also

It’s a hugely important issue, I think - and my short answer is, it hinges on context, circulation, criticism and conversation. When you look at a fanfic on AO3, the tagging system means that you, the reader, are either forewarned about the presence of any dark or squicky themes at the outset, or are made aware via the ‘author chooses to use no archive warnings’ tag that you’re venturing into the unknown. I’ve said this before, but to me, knowing the author knows a particular theme or relationship is badwrong, dubcon or otherwise fucked up allows me to enjoy the story in a way I otherwise couldn’t, because it changes how I receive the narrative - letting me know if I’m meant to accept the characters and their narration as correct, or if I’m meant to be reading critically. Some stories achieve this function with narrative framing - as in, something within the story itself lets us know that particular actions or characters are Bad, or at very least morally grey - but when a story is depicting dark themes without internal commentary, authorial intent becomes vital to interpretation. This is, for instance, why so many fuckboys think Tyler Durden is a hero in Fight Club instead of a terrifying asshole: they missed the fact that Chuck Palahniuk was writing ironically, and so took away the exact opposite message to the one intended.

Likewise in the case of Fight Club, the context and the circulation matter hugely to the impact. The film was a mainstream product with widespread distribution, and it came out in 1999, three years after the book was written. The idea of the protagonist lamenting belonging to a disenfranchised generation without a war to define them - aside from being inaccurate in the first place - was obliterated by the political landscape of the early noughties in the wake of 9/11, which in turn changed how the film was perceived in our cultural memory. All that being so, I’d argue that it had a much more toxic effect than was ever intended, in large part because the idea that the characters should be critiqued rather than lauded was missed in the mainstream dialogue around it for a long time. In the same vein, I’ve never held to the idea that fanwriters should be free to write whatever because stories don’t impact readers or reality - manifestly, stories *do* matter, and they can certainly impact their audiences in ways their creators don’t necessarily intended. Rather, I’ve held that fanwriters should be free to write whatever because, firstly, there’s no sensible, foolproof way to censor fanworks anymore than there’s one to censor other forms of art; and secondly, because fanwriting in particular is currently far ahead of the mainstream in its use of tagging and criticism, which are the real tools needed to navigate art and our reactions to it in the first place.

When I read fucked-up romances in mainstream SFF as a teen and absorbed the message that those romances were cool and normal and a little bit thrilling, it wasn’t because those stories should never have existed, or even because I shouldn’t have been allowed to read them; it was because they - and I - existed in a critical vacuum about their contents. I didn’t have an IRL or online community where I could go and talk about my favourite books and read enlightening essays about the character dynamics, and I didn’t have access to any older SFF fans who, just by virtue of having more adult experience in the world, could’ve helped me clue in by saying something like, “I love the magic and worldbuilding, but man, X novel is rapey.” We don’t learn how to be critical of media - how to analyse it, how to love a thing while still acknowledging and understand its flaws - as an automatic process: we have to be taught, or actively undertake the task of teaching ourselves. A lack of critical thinking about the narratives we consume and create - just like the cultural and political narratives we consume and create, for that matter - is the real cause of harm to readers; which is a major reason why fandom, for all its flaws, is so hugely important: it makes us think.

So, to answer your question: the problem I have with antis in this context is the idea that one piece of fiction is all things to all people: that there’s only ever one valid reaction to any one work, and if just one person has a bad reaction, then the work - and other works like it - is therefore inherently Bad. Purity wank deliberately elides the distinction between authorial intent and critical reception, arguing that the only way to prevent Bad Reactions To Fiction is censorship, instead of - as is actually the case - self-curating what we read, analysing the contents and thinking about their impact, while accepting that different people might have wildly different, yet still valid, needs and reactions to us. 

[fozmeadows]

an increasingly irksome scenario

an underage person on tumblr, emphatically: IT’S BAD AND WRONG FOR ADULTS TO WRITE SEXUAL CONTENT ABOUT TEENAGERS OR STORIES WHERE DARK THINGS HAPPEN IN ROMANTIC/SEXUAL CONTEXTS OR FICS WHERE THE CHARACTERS ARE ENEMIES IN CANON BECAUSE THINK OF THE CHILDREN, IF YOU DO YOU’RE A PAEDOPHILE WHO CONDONES ABUSE  me, in an imploring whisper: you are literally underage. if all adults were fully committed to the same reductive, simplistic morality you’re using to demonise narrative concepts outside your current emotional framework, you would be banned from this conversation entirely, because you are underage. the idea that only those aged between 14-17 can write romantic or sexual content about characters in that age bracket (because it would be Wrong and paedophilic for anyone older to do so) means you’re effectively arguing that teens aren’t old enough to have any true sexual agency. as you’ve likewise decided that writing about a sexual act is morally equivalent to committing that act, by your own logic, you aren’t old enough or adult enough or sexually mature enough to be writing about sexual anything in the first place - in which case, nobody should be allowed to write such stories. I absolutely want you to be able to set boundaries around your sexual experiences and to engage safely with your developing sexual identity on your own terms while still remaining informed, but you also need to acknowledge that sexual development is part of becoming an adult, not an exciting new facet of childhood; and as such, venturing publicly into this arena via fandom, ficwriting or other narrative/public avenues means you are going to encounter adults. if you are not ready to take this step, that’s fine! go always at your own pace! but please, for the sake of everyone, learn to tell the difference between your immediate personal comfort levels with particular adult concepts and actual moral or criminal transgressions made by adults. your discomfort with a particular concept is valid without the concept itself being Wrong.   

[redshoesnblueskies]

Fanfic culture, AO3 origins going right back to strikethrough, fandom history.....

SO. MANY. LINKS.

for those who don’t want to click through:

these are all links to my tumblr - i did not write very many of them, but i know my links will remain the same and not be lost :)

The master post of upholding and celebrating fanfic, by @inkandcayenne :

‘I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/621654927974055936/inkandcayenne-tywinning-asked-you-2012-08-09

HISTORY OF FANDOM CULTURE FROM LJ TO AO3

'What you are doing when you say “If you don’t want crit, don’t post your story” is gatekeeping, and in a REALLY harmful way. Without fans creating work (fanfiction or art or meta), there is no fandom. You’re not only saying “you can’t be in fandom if you don’t want to be hurt” you’re actively calling for fandom to be cut down. That’s a bad thing. Fandom needs creator content in order to exist and grow.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186058432379/so-if-youve-watched-my-general-meltdown-about

Foz: straight dudes of the world…read fanfic: 

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230785234/fozmeadows-totallyevillisa

foz: on depression and hurt/comfort

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230730609/on-depression-and-hurtcomfort

fantastic Foz posts from a while ago, addressing the ‘well just censor content and then you’re not godless heathens’ fallacy…

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230530849/fantastic-foz-posts-from-a-while-ago-addressing

Fanfiction & Capitalism, and Why I Think They Are Related [TW for homophobia, mentions of sexual violence, capitalism]

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230748619/fanfiction-capitalism-and-why-i-think-they-are

Fair use is authorized by law

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230721574/fyeahcopyright-heidi8-fair-use-is-wholly

fantastic breakdown of the sociology that led from LJ community culture to tumblr anonymous disconnected culture:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/611096897406615552/kanna-ophelia-taraljc-kanna-ophelia

'The Places Fandom Dwells: A cautionary Tale’ - EXCELLENT, LOTS OF LINKS

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179355549419/the-places-fandom-dwells-a-cautionary-tale 

'It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/173587593934/bonehandledknife-feynites-theskaldspeaks

BIG AO3 POSTS - HISTORY OF FANDOM

great breakdown of stats on how HUGE AO3 actually is…

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230519234/why-are-people-still-up-in-arms-about-ao3-needing

another breakdown of how huge AO3 is & intricate skills required to run it

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179336300829/hey-ao3-can-you-like-give-the-extra-38k-you-made

AO3 is in the top 300 biggest websites in the WORLD/how a huge site like this works

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230400619/hey-ao3-can-you-like-give-the-extra-38k-you-made

origin story of AO3 - very sweet  (10th anniversary of AO3)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230398054/on-the-ao3-all-these-years-later

this blogger remembers when we didn’t have AO3

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179391607249/this-blog-is-unrepentantly-pro-ao3

adults built fandom - who runs cons? who runs AO3 & the legal team at OTW? codes the servers?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179430883009/naryaflame-vanimore-askragtatter-rsasai

“AO3 IS OUR SITE.  It is by fans, for fans. Fans do all the coding. All the legal paperwork. All the abuse/tos violation complaints. Fans make all the choices about policies. Fans decide how to run the fundraisers. Fans write the blog posts. All the volunteer staff are fans; all the people who train them are fans. Fans wrangle all the tags.”

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/188239677029/purge-of-2002-of-2012-what-are-those

'Certain people are screaming that AO3 is bad because it’s not a “safe space.” The real problem they have, though, is that AO3 was created to be a safe space - for writers.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/165199049719/rapacityinblue-kaciart-rocket-sith

FANDOM HISTORY & CULTURE

copperbadge - fandom dad explains concrit & why it’s not welcome without specific request

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186983936704/question-as-an-oldster-and-fandom-lurker-since

fanfic/fanart is a gift - respect it in the way you respect something freely given

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/187512037844/trickztr-friendly-reminder-that-fan-made

'Toxic Fandom: Chen Criticism and Entitlement Go Too Far’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179392060549/toxic-fandom-when-criticism-and-entitlement-go

an explanation of the anti’s as very damaged authoritarianism 

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230513414/freedom-of-fanfic-freedom-of-fanfic

why do fangirls always make them gay?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/162428018414/why-do-fangirls-always-make-them-gay

fandom history through the ages and across continents

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/129594965539/teashoesandhair-ogress-jhameia

one of several versions of a HUGE history post educating people on why we need a non-censored AO3 & why this is vital (and how misinformed many fans are)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230393414/theothersarshi-redshoesnblueskies

another version:  https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/173741270214/grison-in-space-veronica-rich

conversation on AO3 tagging (plus being screwed by censorship

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179391926284/except-that-no-one-uses-tags-like-fetishized

how AO3 is run by volunteer & how to volunteer yourself

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230390519/in-kind

Ao3 fund drive post that goes into why they don’t censor

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179230054009/anarfea-anarfea-people-keep-asking-how-can

what 'Archive of Our Own’ refers to

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179136825394/what-archive-of-our-own-refers-to

AO3’s transparent financial reporting & a good rant

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179136341494/ao3-donation-drive

a short explanation of LJ strikethrough

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179124456874/telarna-meeedeee-bomberqueen17-i-just

LIGHTER FARE

origin of the ! - the “bang path’ in fandom pairings :D

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/118991314994/hey-whats-up-with-the-in-fandoms-ie-fat

can we PLEASE have an AO3 rating system for books & media?? pleeeeease???  here’s some thoughts on how:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/119377580254/crowd-sourced-content-warnings-at-book-stores

LJ was my initial experience of examining how fic fits into these huge gaps left by conventional writing, media and daily IRL conversation/education - the kind of healing that fic can bring to both individuals and a collective body of both knowledge and healthy questioning of assumptions about sexuality as a whole.  I mean, the kind of absolutely common place knowledge about consent, power dynamics, experimentation to determine what one’s own sexuality looks like, and the the options available is extraordinary.  To have that breadth and depth of knowledge presented in an often beautifully creative format; where you could discuss with the author and other readers anything included in the fic and what it meant to both literature and real life, as well as all things fannish that one’s wild imagination could come up with…. good god what I would have given for that information as a teen.  

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/122835116349/bonehandledknife-redshoesnblueskies

Fandom Is…. (poem)

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/124514359704/fandom-is-focus-fandom-is-obsession-fandom-is

Can fandom bring back the concept of a squick? Pleeeease?

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/126342903959/can-fandom-bring-back-the-concept-of-a-squick

'so don’t pretend it can’t be done, author dudes, because there’s a million fangirls who can write lyric filthy devastating character-revealing plot-advancing poetic tender wall-slamming trope-inverting panting sweaty trope-embracing aching crying sex…..and can do it far far better than you.’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/124171180589/sex-is-hard-to-write-about-because-you-lose-the

'It’s just fanfic…’

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/126188502159/its-just-fan-fic

“Ship means something you want to see happen.” Bitch, no it don’t. 

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/179234734799/pyrebomb-ship-means-something-you-want-to-see

why can you sell fanart, but not fanfic??

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/128782763684/legal-side-of-tumblr-can-you-answer-me-a

humor: different types of fanfic - in graphics:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/129402064267/justanotherfmablog-yougothenigo

THE SUFFERING ARTIST CONCEPT IS BULLSHIT AND SHOULD BE BLOWTORCHED:

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/186461152949/zendarkwalkerx-magicianmew-katiecrenshaw

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/166161827744/if-one-more-person-says-what-if-theyd-medicated

IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, YOU DESERVE STARSHIPS (SCROLL DOWN):

https://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/post/138038043884/samati-saathi1013-tygermama-zillah975

[meeedeee]

Midyear Writing News! RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

We appear to be halfway through 2017 already, which is surely some sort of cosmic accounting error. To compensate, here is some writing news.

I’m thrilled to have won the 2017 Ditmar Award for Best Fan Writer in my third year of nomination. I didn’t write as much last year as I would’ve liked, all things considered, but I was proud of what I did produce, and especially now that I’m back in Australia, I’m honoured to have something like this to show for it.

As of April this year, I’m now a semi-regular contributor to the awesome Geek Girl Riot podcast. My segment is called Foz Rants, which is fairly self-explanatory, and covers whatever I feel like yelling about at the time. The whole podcast is pretty spectacular, so give it a look!

I have a new essay out in The Book Smugglers’ Quarterly Almanac: Volume 4. It’s on slipfic and the definition of genre, and contains some thinky-thoughts I’ve been trying to pin down for a while.

Finally, I’m extremely excited to have three short stories in Issue 3 of The Fantastist Magazine – ‘Letters Sweet as Honey,’ ‘Mnemosyne’ and ‘The Song of Savi’. Though different in terms of style and genre, they’re loosely thematically linked, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they’re received both individually and as a sort of triptych.

And with that, back to the studio!

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