Write Every Day: 28 August 02019
Aug. 28th, 2019 06:49 pmGreetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-in post for 28 August 02019.
The Topic Gods decided thy were going to smile on me today, because I got in quick succession, the removal of John W. Campbell's name from at least one of the awards given out at Worldcon, after several of the recipients, most recently Jeannette Ng, pointed out the incongruity of the old white racist and fascist having his name on an award increasingly being given to a community that looks nothing like him and holds very different values than his, Laurie Penny, in WIRED magazine, describing the beats of her life from furtive fanfic reading on the nascent World Wide Web to being in the Writer's Room where it happens, even though a lot of the time along the way for her and her friends was filled with a world trying desperately to shun them and make them feel like they were weirdos, and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fairestcat providing a retrospective of about ten years of Wiscon, building a space where people interested in transformative works could talk about them, could watch vids for a very long time, and eventually where transformative works have become so ingrained in the culture of fandom that they're just part of the conversation, are equally as super well-attended as other panels, and no longer sent off to the late-night or the last-day of any convention that isn't specifically about them. It's also about how AO3 and the OTW were a prominent entity in the change described, and how the Best Related Work Hugo that AO3 won is a capstone of the changed landscape of fandom and how transformative works won the argument for their inclusion.
It's no longer weird to see panels on transformative works at cons. It's no longer weird to hear guests of honor talk about their transformative works at cons, or how being part of the community of transformative works helped them when it came to the original works or licensed property works they're working on now. And it's no longer weird to see panels composed of plenty of people of color talking about the experiences of being a person of color in fandom, or helping people who don't have those experiences to (at least try and) understand those experiences and why reading books by #ownvoices authors is a superior experience. It's way different.
Hell, it's possible for me to be mistaken for a brony because I had My Little Pony fanart in my satchel. (And that it's possible for someone to draw that conclusion says a lot about the available spaces for people to be in, whether they're good spaces or terrible ones.)
Its different out there now, and for as much as there's going to be the reactionary element that insists spaces like games and SF/F aren't for and never should be for anyone who isn't a straight peri white male and will do as much damage as they possibly can while they lash out, that element is losing. Has already lost, to a large degree, and are being loud and throwing highly destructive tantrums as the losers.
As for writing, I didn't do a lot, although I noodled a little bit on the third part to a series whose first part just recently jumped 100 kudos, making it the third work in all the ones I've ever done to reach that platform. It's exciting to see a work hit a century, and for those in cricket-playing countries, I think I have about the same level of excitement as when a partnership or a single batsperson reaches a similar milestone in their innings.
( It's tally time! )
The Topic Gods decided thy were going to smile on me today, because I got in quick succession, the removal of John W. Campbell's name from at least one of the awards given out at Worldcon, after several of the recipients, most recently Jeannette Ng, pointed out the incongruity of the old white racist and fascist having his name on an award increasingly being given to a community that looks nothing like him and holds very different values than his, Laurie Penny, in WIRED magazine, describing the beats of her life from furtive fanfic reading on the nascent World Wide Web to being in the Writer's Room where it happens, even though a lot of the time along the way for her and her friends was filled with a world trying desperately to shun them and make them feel like they were weirdos, and
fairestcat providing a retrospective of about ten years of Wiscon, building a space where people interested in transformative works could talk about them, could watch vids for a very long time, and eventually where transformative works have become so ingrained in the culture of fandom that they're just part of the conversation, are equally as super well-attended as other panels, and no longer sent off to the late-night or the last-day of any convention that isn't specifically about them. It's also about how AO3 and the OTW were a prominent entity in the change described, and how the Best Related Work Hugo that AO3 won is a capstone of the changed landscape of fandom and how transformative works won the argument for their inclusion. It's no longer weird to see panels on transformative works at cons. It's no longer weird to hear guests of honor talk about their transformative works at cons, or how being part of the community of transformative works helped them when it came to the original works or licensed property works they're working on now. And it's no longer weird to see panels composed of plenty of people of color talking about the experiences of being a person of color in fandom, or helping people who don't have those experiences to (at least try and) understand those experiences and why reading books by #ownvoices authors is a superior experience. It's way different.
Hell, it's possible for me to be mistaken for a brony because I had My Little Pony fanart in my satchel. (And that it's possible for someone to draw that conclusion says a lot about the available spaces for people to be in, whether they're good spaces or terrible ones.)
Its different out there now, and for as much as there's going to be the reactionary element that insists spaces like games and SF/F aren't for and never should be for anyone who isn't a straight peri white male and will do as much damage as they possibly can while they lash out, that element is losing. Has already lost, to a large degree, and are being loud and throwing highly destructive tantrums as the losers.
As for writing, I didn't do a lot, although I noodled a little bit on the third part to a series whose first part just recently jumped 100 kudos, making it the third work in all the ones I've ever done to reach that platform. It's exciting to see a work hit a century, and for those in cricket-playing countries, I think I have about the same level of excitement as when a partnership or a single batsperson reaches a similar milestone in their innings.
( It's tally time! )
