While I sit here feeling very very numb - oh look, 20in20 voting! SHINY!!

[red_satin_doll]

Voting for Round 1 of btvsats20in20 is up NOW until June 16th; there are separate posts for the 10 Themes, Category (black/white), and Artist's Choice.

And sign-ups are already being accepted for Round 2 so grab your claim!

Kudos to bangel_4e for all their hard work, for creating this comm and for making it all look great! And I forgot to thank clockwork_hart1 in my entries post for taking the time to explain how to make a collage in ipiccy so I could do the blending icons. I'd never done that before because Photobucket doesn't have that capability.

So go and vote for your favorites, the best of the best if such decisions can be made. What is "best" really? I used to whine and complain when I had 9 - 30 entries to chose from? I had NO IDEA how good I had it. Oh to be so young and innocent again (as I was last week...)

It's a trade off: on the one hand I've LOVED giving and getting feedback beforehand. Showing off more of my work, knowing who made what and learning from y'all how stuff is done is marvelous and energizing. Artists NEED audiences, even an audience of one. And vice versa.

And artists need a community of other artists to learn and grow. I've seen how not having that, how being a lone wolf, has been harmful to my sweetheart's growth as an artist. It stunts her if anything - hence the need to go to NYC last October and attend the Armory Show and expose herself to work she'd never seen before.

OTOH, it makes it a little harder to vote, if anything - I feel that nagging sense of "oh I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings". Which, oddly enough, I don't feel when I vote in or judge fic contests. Perhaps because it feels as if the "fic writing community" is larger than the "visual arts community (icon makers)" in this fandom, although that may just be my perception and limited scope of aquaintance. IDK.

And now I understand why you can't see the voting results in other icontests I've participated in. I thought it would be nifty? I'm re-thinking that stance. I'm feeling nervous all over again. And a little sick. Ok, I was feeling sick before thanks to a life-changing event involving sudden loss of income leading to numbness and depression but also nausea - which makes it sound like I'm fishing for pity votes or somesuch nonsense and really not. (Does that make it sound like I'm fishing for pity votes? Oh god I hope not. Somebody slap me upside the head. Or even better, hug me - hugs are of the good!)

Anyhoo - thank you everyone for your support, encouragement and feedback. Seriously, you folks have kept me from curling up in a very small ball in the corner (because it's impossible to sit at the desk and type in a fetal position.)

As velvetwhip would agree, this is what fandom is all about: not about endless wars and intercene skirmishes, not about "my HBIC/MANPIRE is better than your HBIC/MANPIRE" but about friendship. And sharing. And porn. And fun. And hairporn. And endless creativity. And Winged!Buffy/Vamp!Willow porn (ok that last one might just be me...It doesn't exist yet, but someday!)

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Right now I have an A+ in ASL for realsies, so I'm trying to allow myself to ponder other things on weekends - like making icons and vampires as antiheroes. But I am a bit anxious (which, now that I think about it, may be because I'm going down on the medication we think made me gain weight - I see my doctor next week, and we'll probably start me on a replacement).

Also, have you seen Orange is the New Black? It's on Netflix, and I love it because it uses a white girl as a "trojan horse" to tell the stories of other women of all shapes, sizes and colors. It does have the main character cheating on her partner, but I think it's still worth watching.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Orange yet, although I've been thinking about doing so when I found out there was a female pairing on it. If you think it's worth watching that bumps it up a bit. (I see that it's from the creators of weeds, which we really enjoyed at first and then, oh god, did it become painful. So I'm a little shy.)

it uses a white girl as a "trojan horse" to tell the stories of other women of all shapes, sizes and colors.

I'm not familiar with the use of that term in this context but I've seen movies and tv shows for decades that use a white protagonist to "tell the stories" of POC. That trope has probably been around for centuriesm actually. (Cry Freedom, Mississipi Burning, Dances with Wolves, etc etc etc.) Why don't writers/creators use POC's to tell the stories of POC's?

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

They don't use POC to tell the stories of POC because with as of now it wouldn't fly. Unfortunately, shows with a POC protagonist get pushed aside as being a show just for those POC. The straight white male protagonist still is Hollywood's go-to guy, but shows like Buffy, Orange and Orphan Black challenge gender. There's a sitcom coming out about a Taiwanese family, and it's the first major sitcom about an Asian-American family. Orange was Netflix's first comedy series, and it could only have happened on Netflix (see many POC on HBO?) We're still in an era where the white protagonist is prime, but in Orange what they do is have Piper (the blonde's) story used as a framework to tell the stories of all the other female inmates which inform the main action in the prison. I think you would really, really like it - lots of sexualities are represented, the main character is bisexual and there are lots of lesbians with a range of physical appearances and stories and - what is being seen as the most remarkable - it has a trans woman (Laverne Cox, the actress, was recently on the cover of Time for an article on trans people). And while Piper may be the official "protagonist," it really is more of an ensemble show.

I need to get OiTNB icons now.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

it's the first major sitcom about an Asian-American family.

Actually no, if you mean on US television, it's not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Girl_(1994_TV_series)
All-American Girl is a 1994 ABC situation comedy starring Margaret Cho and featuring Jodi Long, Clyde Kusatsu, Amy Hill, B.D. Wong, and J.B. Quon as her Korean-American family. It is the second American sitcom centered on a person of Asian descent (Korean), namely Cho. (Pat Morita's short-lived 1976 sitcom Mr. T and Tina was the first.)

I'm still a little puzzled by the use of the term "trojan horse" in this context. Is that a slangy way of using it that's current in academia? The trojan horse was a weapon of war and the phrase is still used to mean a dangerous trick that allows infiltration. The greeks used it to decimate Troy - just as whites have decimated peoples around the world for centuries, so maybe not the connection you were trying to evoke.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

I feel stupid for forgetting All-American Girl! I loved that show! I remember the Pulp Fiction episode! I think I was maybe ten and didn't understand the cultural significance, I just thought Margaret Cho was pretty damn cool.

"Trojan Horse" was a term used in a presentation I saw about the use of Piper as a gateway to tell other women's stories - it was a clever conference paper title, basically.