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[Daily Doodle] + Yuletide musings + Warnings musings + Sexting
Daily Doodle: Random generic skinny chick. Something wrong with her neck/shoulders. Head largish and some (prolly not all) proportion weirdness on purpose -- a little cartoony. I tried on purpose to do with without drawing guidelines underneath like I usually do (outline of head/skull with bisecting lines horizontally and vertically); this started with her eyes and worked outward
Time: 5-10 mins, wasn't counting
Yuletide's "Umbrella Fandoms" Policy
So I was putzing around the Yuletide page when I saw that they no longer allowed any Final Fantasy or a number of other "umbrella" canons, as they put it.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bottle_of_shine was pretty disappointed when I told her, and I've been trying to come up with an analogy to the situation for a while. I think I've found one that illustrates some of the difficulties.
Take a weekly (or monthly) anthology such as Shounen Jump. Shounen Jump serializes twenty-plus series right now, including mega-popular series like Bleach and Naruto, some medium-popular ones, and quite a number I have never even heard of. While all the manga are individual and different, drawn by different mangaka, they have a number of things in common -- like target audience (it's Shounen Jump, after all, meaning targeted to younger males) and various genre similarities. Readers of one Shounen Jump manga have pretty decent odds of also reading another SJ manga -- because they read straight from the anthologies and so read things that come packaged together, or because they're into the genre, or because of SJ branding, or because the manga published in SJ are similar enough that several of them suit one reader's taste. Very like FF and other macrofandoms.
I think Yuletide kicking out macrofandoms like X-Men, Doctor Who, Final Fantasy, etc. is a little like if they decided to kick out all manga published in one such anthology. The... confusion, I guess I'd call it, comes from there being one name under which all these titles are released. But let's take FF as an example, since I'm familiar with it. Each entry in the series shares certain commonalities with the rest, from naming conventions to story structure. Yet they were created by a number of different creative teams operating under the FF aegis; the series has undergone drastic changes; the series is branching out into different territories (see the Tactics games, CC games). And because of these differences, fans of one set of FFs aren't necessarily into the rest. I know a lot of peopkle stick to the earlier games, and those fandoms are Yuletide-small (individually for sure, maybe even together). Some people just got into the series, or only like the newer games, or stick with the Tactics set.
Trust me, after doing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ff_exchange gifter/giftee matching with the fellow mods this past weekend, I've seen a fair sample of fandom distribution among the FFs, and it is far, far from monolithic.
The same goes for comic book fandoms that I know of for sure, since each sub-series of a macroseries has a different creative team, and a lot of people will love one line, like Birds of Prey and abhor the rest. This manga anthology thing isn't a perfect analogy, of course -- I know the macrofandoms mentioned are a little more cohesive than that, but I hope it illustrates some of the problems I have with this policy-- and not just at Yuletide, but every other place that treats such fandoms as monolithic.
Posting Warnings on Fanworks
There's been a bit of debate about this. I'm honestly not seeing the problem very well. I understand not wanting to spoil your own story (trust me, I understand, I have serious fic disclosure issues), I have no idea how one could place that concern above other people's mental health. I'm thinking specifically of warning for rape, sexual violence, and/or consent issues. You'd think it does not need to be said that rape and sexual violence are serious issue, and if you've been a victim of such, it's not something you just get over, but apparently it does?
The arguments I've seen going "if we start warning for rape soon we will be warning for kittens, blue things, and use or left pinkie toe!" don't fly with me. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy to begin with, but it's so seriously out of place here. Look, rape triggers are a very well-known problem, and though the internet is a big bad scary place, I think it is reasonable of rape survivors to expect a certain amount of courtesy -- because rape is such a widespread problem and triggers are such a well-known thing. People with more exotic triggers, I could see arguments about them being responsible for their own internets-safety holding water. If you know you have a strange or unusual trigger, it will probably be a fact of your life that you will just have to watch your step. I don't think it's particularly fair or awesome, but it's also not fair to ask the entire world to shield you. Your friends, sure, ask them to slap those warnings on if they know it's got your trigger in. But we're back at how common a problem rape is -- it's not an unusual or exotic trigger at all. The slippery slope "soon we'll warn for everything!" argument misses the fundamental nature and place of rape in our society.
I am not sure what writers who won't warn can expect people with triggers to do. Have friends vet every fic they read? Go ahead, you try it. Stop reading and click the back button? Sure, but by the time it becomes obvious what's going on a lot of damage is generally already done. Not read fic at all? Do you really want that, guys?
I have a modicum of sympathy for these writers, because dubcon and violence happen to be some of my kinks -- I'm fascinated by completely screwed up dynamics and love writing them. But that's about as far as my sympathy goes. If you're worried about the integrity of your story being spoiled, use a catch-all, very general message on your stories. People with serious trigger issues, being smart, thinking human beings just like you, can usually take the hint. The truth is, if you're writing about rape, violent sex, or consent issues -- most people will want to know in advance what they're getting into, even if it's not because of triggers -- some people look for rape or dubcon fic (the latter one, that would be me), and some people just plain don't enjoy it. Not warning will hurt your reputation as a writer -- either by losing kinky readers who would otherwise be looking for your stuff specifically, or by alienating people who'd prefer not to read rape fic for one reason or another.
But if none of that bothers or interests you, I'm going to repeat: the choice is not spoiling a fanfic on the internets vs. the mental health of someone who has undergone a horrific event. Really guys? Really?
Sexting and Teen Privacy
I heard a piece on the news radio today about "sexting", and have I mentioned that that is one of the stupider neologisms to come out of this decade? But what really bothered me is that the piece was clearly supporting parents stalking their teens' myspace accounts and monitoring their phone use -- basically keeping an eagle eye on their sex lives to make sure there weren't any shenanigans.
Sexting has been in the news a lot recently and I cannot stand it, from the sex-phobic attitude to the endless cases of a girl daring to take pictures of her own naked body and entrust them to her sexual partner and then being publicly shamed for it. A lot of people say parents should talk to their teens about how privacy works these days (hint: not very well), and warn them about keeping their sex lives private and leaving no evidence, as it were. And it's true, there are serious privacy concerns these days, and information your entrust to one person or place pretty much never stays only there.
But that's missing the bigger issues. In my view, there are two of them.
(1) Teens have sex. Get over it and help them do it right.
ETA:shanaqui points out that teen boys suffer, too, when they're brought up on child porn charges for shit like this. I kind of filed that under (1) in my head, but I agree it's worth pointing out as also completely bonkers.
(2) Women own their bodies and can do whatever the hell they want with them. A woman being proud of her body or displaying it to her partner is not a shameful act.
It's the second one that people seem to have more trouble with, because it's always these pictures of girls getting out and then their reputations are ruined for life, pretty much. And in the current social climate -- sad but trufax! -- that kind of thing really does hit your rep pretty hard. So sure, be really careful when you do it. But you shouldn't need to be so worried about -- gasp! -- it being known that you had sex ever. So much stigma with these pictures! I'm waiting for when such a leak of nudie pics brings something along the lines of "Oh whoops, that is probably a little embarrassing, I don't think she meant for us to see those awesome boobies" instead of "Haha, look at that slut! She's not fit for any public position ever!" Especially when the boyfriend or ex leaks these I find it infuriating when the girl is blamed for it -- she shouldn't have taken pictures of herself/let him take pics of her! The girl is socially crippled, the boy is charged with child porn, and pretty much everyone loses. Awesome.
Time: 5-10 mins, wasn't counting
Yuletide's "Umbrella Fandoms" Policy
So I was putzing around the Yuletide page when I saw that they no longer allowed any Final Fantasy or a number of other "umbrella" canons, as they put it.
bottle_of_shine was pretty disappointed when I told her, and I've been trying to come up with an analogy to the situation for a while. I think I've found one that illustrates some of the difficulties.Take a weekly (or monthly) anthology such as Shounen Jump. Shounen Jump serializes twenty-plus series right now, including mega-popular series like Bleach and Naruto, some medium-popular ones, and quite a number I have never even heard of. While all the manga are individual and different, drawn by different mangaka, they have a number of things in common -- like target audience (it's Shounen Jump, after all, meaning targeted to younger males) and various genre similarities. Readers of one Shounen Jump manga have pretty decent odds of also reading another SJ manga -- because they read straight from the anthologies and so read things that come packaged together, or because they're into the genre, or because of SJ branding, or because the manga published in SJ are similar enough that several of them suit one reader's taste. Very like FF and other macrofandoms.
I think Yuletide kicking out macrofandoms like X-Men, Doctor Who, Final Fantasy, etc. is a little like if they decided to kick out all manga published in one such anthology. The... confusion, I guess I'd call it, comes from there being one name under which all these titles are released. But let's take FF as an example, since I'm familiar with it. Each entry in the series shares certain commonalities with the rest, from naming conventions to story structure. Yet they were created by a number of different creative teams operating under the FF aegis; the series has undergone drastic changes; the series is branching out into different territories (see the Tactics games, CC games). And because of these differences, fans of one set of FFs aren't necessarily into the rest. I know a lot of peopkle stick to the earlier games, and those fandoms are Yuletide-small (individually for sure, maybe even together). Some people just got into the series, or only like the newer games, or stick with the Tactics set.
Trust me, after doing
ff_exchange gifter/giftee matching with the fellow mods this past weekend, I've seen a fair sample of fandom distribution among the FFs, and it is far, far from monolithic.The same goes for comic book fandoms that I know of for sure, since each sub-series of a macroseries has a different creative team, and a lot of people will love one line, like Birds of Prey and abhor the rest. This manga anthology thing isn't a perfect analogy, of course -- I know the macrofandoms mentioned are a little more cohesive than that, but I hope it illustrates some of the problems I have with this policy-- and not just at Yuletide, but every other place that treats such fandoms as monolithic.
Posting Warnings on Fanworks
There's been a bit of debate about this. I'm honestly not seeing the problem very well. I understand not wanting to spoil your own story (trust me, I understand, I have serious fic disclosure issues), I have no idea how one could place that concern above other people's mental health. I'm thinking specifically of warning for rape, sexual violence, and/or consent issues. You'd think it does not need to be said that rape and sexual violence are serious issue, and if you've been a victim of such, it's not something you just get over, but apparently it does?
The arguments I've seen going "if we start warning for rape soon we will be warning for kittens, blue things, and use or left pinkie toe!" don't fly with me. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy to begin with, but it's so seriously out of place here. Look, rape triggers are a very well-known problem, and though the internet is a big bad scary place, I think it is reasonable of rape survivors to expect a certain amount of courtesy -- because rape is such a widespread problem and triggers are such a well-known thing. People with more exotic triggers, I could see arguments about them being responsible for their own internets-safety holding water. If you know you have a strange or unusual trigger, it will probably be a fact of your life that you will just have to watch your step. I don't think it's particularly fair or awesome, but it's also not fair to ask the entire world to shield you. Your friends, sure, ask them to slap those warnings on if they know it's got your trigger in. But we're back at how common a problem rape is -- it's not an unusual or exotic trigger at all. The slippery slope "soon we'll warn for everything!" argument misses the fundamental nature and place of rape in our society.
I am not sure what writers who won't warn can expect people with triggers to do. Have friends vet every fic they read? Go ahead, you try it. Stop reading and click the back button? Sure, but by the time it becomes obvious what's going on a lot of damage is generally already done. Not read fic at all? Do you really want that, guys?
I have a modicum of sympathy for these writers, because dubcon and violence happen to be some of my kinks -- I'm fascinated by completely screwed up dynamics and love writing them. But that's about as far as my sympathy goes. If you're worried about the integrity of your story being spoiled, use a catch-all, very general message on your stories. People with serious trigger issues, being smart, thinking human beings just like you, can usually take the hint. The truth is, if you're writing about rape, violent sex, or consent issues -- most people will want to know in advance what they're getting into, even if it's not because of triggers -- some people look for rape or dubcon fic (the latter one, that would be me), and some people just plain don't enjoy it. Not warning will hurt your reputation as a writer -- either by losing kinky readers who would otherwise be looking for your stuff specifically, or by alienating people who'd prefer not to read rape fic for one reason or another.
But if none of that bothers or interests you, I'm going to repeat: the choice is not spoiling a fanfic on the internets vs. the mental health of someone who has undergone a horrific event. Really guys? Really?
Sexting and Teen Privacy
I heard a piece on the news radio today about "sexting", and have I mentioned that that is one of the stupider neologisms to come out of this decade? But what really bothered me is that the piece was clearly supporting parents stalking their teens' myspace accounts and monitoring their phone use -- basically keeping an eagle eye on their sex lives to make sure there weren't any shenanigans.
Sexting has been in the news a lot recently and I cannot stand it, from the sex-phobic attitude to the endless cases of a girl daring to take pictures of her own naked body and entrust them to her sexual partner and then being publicly shamed for it. A lot of people say parents should talk to their teens about how privacy works these days (hint: not very well), and warn them about keeping their sex lives private and leaving no evidence, as it were. And it's true, there are serious privacy concerns these days, and information your entrust to one person or place pretty much never stays only there.
But that's missing the bigger issues. In my view, there are two of them.
(1) Teens have sex. Get over it and help them do it right.
ETA:
shanaqui points out that teen boys suffer, too, when they're brought up on child porn charges for shit like this. I kind of filed that under (1) in my head, but I agree it's worth pointing out as also completely bonkers.(2) Women own their bodies and can do whatever the hell they want with them. A woman being proud of her body or displaying it to her partner is not a shameful act.
It's the second one that people seem to have more trouble with, because it's always these pictures of girls getting out and then their reputations are ruined for life, pretty much. And in the current social climate -- sad but trufax! -- that kind of thing really does hit your rep pretty hard. So sure, be really careful when you do it. But you shouldn't need to be so worried about -- gasp! -- it being known that you had sex ever. So much stigma with these pictures! I'm waiting for when such a leak of nudie pics brings something along the lines of "Oh whoops, that is probably a little embarrassing, I don't think she meant for us to see those awesome boobies" instead of "Haha, look at that slut! She's not fit for any public position ever!" Especially when the boyfriend or ex leaks these I find it infuriating when the girl is blamed for it -- she shouldn't have taken pictures of herself/let him take pics of her! The girl is socially crippled, the boy is charged with child porn, and pretty much everyone loses. Awesome.
no subject
Although it doesn't directly respond to any of the points you raise above, I did want to share a thought I had while chatting with someone the other day. Maybe the best compromise position for all of the various issues around labeling fanfic is for everyone to learn how to write real summaries. One of the common themes in the ongoing debate about warnings is that we don't get warnings as such in the "real world" -- for movies, TV shows, books, etc. Because traditional media tends to come with more detailed summaries of their content: movie trailers, the back of the book, blurbs in TV Guide, and so forth. Would more in-depth summaries provide people with triggers enough information to avoid stories that might be problematic for them? It might be a start, anyway.
no subject
Nay mentioned the thing about summaries to me, too. I think it would definitely help if fandom learned to write summaries, both for the triggers/warnings issue and, uh, everything else.
But I do have a couple of points about this real-world analogy. One is fairly minor: movies, at least, and pretty much everything on TV, does come with a rating at least, and often these are broken down into justifications-- "sexual situations", "violence", "language", etc.
The second point is more important I think. With all real-world media comes marketing. Marketing is one of the key cues we have to determine what's appropriate for which people. You can see how basic an assumption this is anytime it's violated-- look at any of the debates about media being marketed "inappropriately" to younger people when it's totes adults only, jeez, you can't let kids think it's for them!
Anyway. In the real world, marketing provides a huge amount of information -- much of it only tacitly or even subconsciously understood -- about who that media is appropriate for. This is in additional to professionally written summaries and other cues like packaging/covers and location in a store/which channel it's on (all of the latter could, in my opinion, also be subsumed under marketing).
I guess a fandom equivalent would be communities for yaoi fic? Maybe. It's a somewhat loose analogy. Outside those comms, I know some people feel the need to warn for the gay, but inside those communities, which are I guess "marketed" as explicitly FOR the gay, it's assumed that if you're there, gay is what you came to get.
Anyway, like I said -- I do think better summaries would help! But real-world media have a lot more going on than that, and I'm not sure how to break that down and see if any of it is applicable to fandom or other online communities.