fantomas

I'm trying to write up something about the DCM (the German Cosplay championship) for fanlore and I never noticed how inconsistent the coverage on their website is. There is no overview of all the years and winners, the "news" items differ in the way names and pictures are presented. (sometimes there are links to the animexx nick names, sometimes pictures are uploaded on their page...)

And don't get me started on animexx. The last time someone updated their DCM wiki was 2009. 2007 is the only year that has a detailed overview and the announcements of names and winners are buried in their un-navigatable news backlog. It's a mess. I remember why I never liked that site. A lot of shiny, new and no sense of keeping history.

I finally have a little more time on my hands and want to use it to finally get really started on fanlore.

I want to read over the Animexx article, I guess. It is pretty comprehensive already, but I’m not sure all the controversies I’ve come across are up yet.

I’ve made a tentative list of things I want to write about, most of them are conventions or fandom culture stuff:

Animagic
Hanami
DCM
Connichi
Conhon
KaKAO Cards

There are also different show groups that are quite interesting. I’m just not sure how to make fanlore entries for them:

Tsuki no senshi
Ongaku no kara
K!seki

These are a few that spring to mind, but there are more, of course. Many that have disbanded by now, too. I’ll have to check this on convention programs I guess.

There are also many local events and conventions that may be interesting.
I’ll make a more comprehensive list along the way. But I#ll get started with the important stuff I listed above.

I took the OTW Community Survey!

Gabaldon and Martin ask why fanfic writers don’t just develop their own characters, or at least appropriate old characters in the public domain (Jane Eyre, for instance), but I think they’re not accounting for this impulse, a desire to participate actively in the culture. Given the speed of current culture, our mythic figures – from Batman to Buffy Summers – spring up and coalesce into cultural touchstones at a rapid clip. And many people want to engage creatively with these characters and the worlds they inhabit. Some may want to give voice to certain erotic fantasies. Some just want to play around in the sandbox with characters. And some love a fictional world but perhaps don’t recognize themselves in it, or find themselves marginalized in it (as could be the case in the Lt. Uhura example quoted here), so they want to transform the world, if only a little.

Fan Fiction: Moral Rights v. Transformative Use by Brent Bell

I’m sorting my doujinshi at the moment. I’ve bought a new rack and want to shelve them, but I haven’t decided yet, in what way. Probably sorted by fandom and then circle.
I’ve thought about scanning the covers and putting up some information about each doujin I have lying around. :P

Maybe I’ll make a community profile for that project.

I’m just so lazy...

Keep also in mind that you can always even after this protest buy used goods, instead of buying new. There is also NO HARM in SUPPORTING small, local companies, selfpublishing and indie creatives. This is not about hitting small businesses, but about hitting the big ones with their lobbying.

There is this very interesting pdf everyone who loves books should read. It’s not only about an author telling us the truth about copyright and creative process, but also about piracy and the advantage if Creative Commons licensing. It’s called The problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity. Many artists, writers believe copyright was made to protect their income, which it never was to begin with. But the market is changing and it is a good idea to know how to promote yourself. It’s worth a read if you like reading, but I wish even more that writers would read this and at least try to look at copyright from another perspective.

Also, someone did a nice write-up about ebook pricing and the stupidity behind it. I totally agree that as long as there is a used book market, ebook pricing will have to compete with it to a certain extend. After all I don’t even really own a copy when I license an ebook for my kindle. The industry has to learn what their own products are before they try to keep the prices unreasonable.


And sadly romance is still heterosexual romance by default. At least for some people.

 Mostly I’m having fun using sites like goodreads to browse for books that I would never even hear about of I just went shopping for books in stores, on amazon or browse for them at the library. 

It’s the readers who make me check out books that I would never pick up without their reviews their list and shelves. Recently though there were a few discussions of authors flipping out at “bad reviews” - and as far as I can see on goodreads authors seem to think anything less than four stars is bad. Which it really isn’t - depending on how you use the system. And everyone uses it differently anyway, so as a reader I’m not really put off by people who may or may not have different taste in book than me.

But the talk about books - good or bad or just slightly critical - is what makes me want to read a book.

There has been discussion of writers going against reviewers and basically putting their foot in their mouth. In my opinion these writers don’t udnertsand what the writer/reader-relationship is or should be. cleolinda wrote about it here and there is great post about “The reader-author paradigm” here.  

I understand: Everyone can get defensive about their own work, but believing that putting out a work to the public might not create different views about said work is just naive. Everyone who studies literature will agree that there is always more than one reading to a text - and when the text is out, it’s out and it’s not the work of the author to interpret for us when it is. Interpreting and criticizing is done by the readers.

You want people to read you book? Then keep in mind you can’t police what they think or say about it when they have done so.

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

Hm I get: Some of the officers were beginning to look frightened.
Should I be wooried.

(Book is Island in the Sea of Time by the way and has been lying on my work desk for some time...)

I've had a pretty quite start into the New Year and that suited me fine. I'm not one for big parties, noise and crowds. Work is always pretty quite around this time of year, too, so it's even better. :)

My random resolutions for this year:

• Use this journal at least semi-regularly
• Make some friends on dw
• Read at least 100 books!
• Rec books and fanfiction on this blog
• Comment more

One of my cats has been a bit under the weather and I'm watching him like a hawk for signs of illness. But it seemed to be connected to the stress of having too many people visit us between Christmas and New Years Eve and now he is behaving more normally again. Poor kitty isn't getting any younger and like me, he prefers a quite life. :P