Why yes there are meta & other icontests out there and here be necessary reminders

[red_satin_doll]

Your Madame Ambassador of Meta (according to punch_kicker15) and Patron Saint of Icons (per eilowyn, and when the heck did this happen anyway?) has been remiss in her duties. And is speaking of herself in third person. This cannot stand. So herewith:

** Foz Meadow's essay, Gender, Orphan Black and the Meta of Meta says everything I want to say, beautifully, cogently and eloquently, about our cultural aversion to supposedly "unlikeable" female characters, how we hold them to harsh judgements whether as protagonists/heros or villians, how we protect male characters and tend to forgive all their sins (Buffy gets a mention, of course, but so do Darla and Dru) Required and necessary reading for anyone who cares about the subject. Contains mild spoilers for all of S1 Orphan Black.
.
"And the more I watched, the more I found myself thinking: why is this quality, the idea of likeability, considered so important for women, but so optional for men – not just in real life, but in narrative?"

** Entries for otherworldlyric Challenge #175 are due TONIGHT, Friday the 20th midnight EST US.   dragonydreams says that they could use a couple more entries for this challenge. (My beta-muse-god wickedbish has thankfully NOT been remiss in his duties, quite the opposite, and so I may be able to pull one or two out of the hopper, we shall see. )

** Deadline for slayerstillness Challenge 26 "The Same but Different" is tomorrow night, Saturday the 21st, midnight in your respective time zones. There are four sets so far from three people, which isn't very much. Remember, you can enter two sets in this challenge! However, due to RL stuff and lack of reminders starry_night is willing to extend the deadline a week if folks ask.


And here be some icons, musings, prayers. verbiage and bonus questions for the final round of the home game version after the teaser and the cut:







Speaking of icons, I made some during the same session that produced "...by any other name..." and thank you everyone who stopped by to comment! Also thank you to everyone who responded to my silly Get it Done poster inspired by infinitewhale's infinite wit, and turned my journal into a coffeehouse. Tis great fun!

    01-03

04-05


(Can I get a job in this? Maybe at the Sears Photography Studio? Is Olan Mills still around?)
 4 & 5 are *AHEM* not great, to say the least, *COUGH* but combining that light effect with the "snow" effect in ipiccy as fun and worth giving another try sometime.

Dear Powers that Don't Actually Be or At Least I Don't Believe You Be But How Would I Know, I Could Be Praying to a Bunch of SIngle-Celled Plankton or the Flying Spagetti Monster for All I Know:

Please don't let me look on this two months from now and only see the flaws and feel embarrassed, the way I now do about the Spuffy banner I made for comlodge's birthday that I was so proud of at the time  - and definitely the one I made for velvetwhip's birthday because gee whiz I thought that was decent?- and 98% of the icons I've ever made - but now I want to tear up and start from scratch because I can do better than that.

Please let my VampWillow set for Round 2 of btvsats20in20 be as good as my friends think it will be, and not in a "gee that's nice, you tried honey" kind of way.

And please don't remind me that moaning about how ashamed I am of an artwork whilst simultaneously linking to it and self-pimping is, well, definitely sending a mixed message and hypocritcal at best. Because I already know. And please don't take me too seriously when I pray that my ex-boss' product be half-rotten by the time he gets to the market.  Or do, your choice.  Thanks bunches!

PS: I'm already embarrassed by #4  & 5 above anyway. Do I need to pray harder? Do you want cake?

And now, questions for those of you playing along with the home version:

1) Don't I have the BEST f'listies? I do. My peeps totally rock. (So technically that was a statement disguised as a question. Moving on...)

2) Should there be a law against white, middle-aged, college-educated, working or middle class suburban women using phrases like "my peeps totally rock"? Or at least a stern warning?

3) New LJ feature I LOVE: I start typing in a friend's name and LJ now brings up options for me to chose from NIFTY! Feature I hate: The new friends feed page:  the whole damn thing, basically.  Anyone else agree with me? What are you lovin'/hatin'/mehin' on with the changes?

3) If the world actually had been created by single-celled plankton, do you think it would operate more efficiently?

4) If the Powers that May or May Not Exist actually exist, would they eat cake?

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

2) Should there be a law against white, middle-aged, college-educated, working or middle class suburban women using phrases like "my peeps totally rock"? Or at least a stern warning?

As a white, private school educated woman, I say YES! Also "homies" or "chillin". We need our own catchphrases, though "Chip and Muffy are such sports" lacks punch somehow.

As to 4? EVERYONE eats cake.

Your icons are awesome!

Also, the point about gender... as someone who thought Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer) was AWESOME and wanted to punch everyone in the face who "pitied" Fritz for "putting up with her", may I just say that I like difficult female protagonists.


Gabrielle

[kikimay]

Oh God. These icons are SO DAMN SPARKLY. I love it. So much!
My favorite is 2. Or maybe 3. Or 1. I don't know. They are really beautiful and, you know it, my kind of thing. Can't wait to see the others!

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

#1: I was going to comment on velvetwhip's acceptable language post with this scene from Community, and I realized that you would absolutely love Britta Perry if you ever get around to watching Community (and have a tolerance for Chevy Chase being an asshat). She's atheistic, formerly activist, feminist, and dealing with her white liberal guilt in a realistic and honest way. I tell people I'm an Annie, but I want to grow up to be a Britta.

#2: DAMN THOSE ICONS (and the rose/Buffy picture you posted yesterday - sorry for not commenting)! Snagging #3.

#3: Artistic remorse is something every artist deals with. I'm embarrassed by the stories I wrote when I was fifteen, not only because they're terrible, but because I know I can do so much better now. We grow as artists, and it's natural to think that old stuff sucks because you've learned so much more in the intervening times. There will always be stuff that you remain proud of (my grad school writing sample may be my Buffy Fandom and Feminism paper, because I haven't written anything better in the intervening two years) (have I ever sent you that paper? You'd enjoy it).

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I've heard really good things about Orphan Black, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I hope to correct that soon.

Your icons look very sparkly. :)

I too have been known to say peeps. I don't think there should be shame in that.

I'm a mid-western, college-educated, lower-middle class woman and I don't think there should be a law against what we can say. That's anti-feminist. :P

Finally, always eat cake. Except for the times when the cake is a lie...or when aperture science is involved.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to that meta! Though my experience in the Once Upon a Time fandom has made me less eager for female characters to be treated just like male ones--I want some sort of middle ground where they're treated with more leniency and male ones with less, to stop the usual "there can only be one" mentality with regard to female characters from kicking in--I agree with the general point.

It reminds me of "Not Here to Make Friends: On the Importance of Unlikeable Female Protagonists" by Roxane Gay (http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-unlikable):

When women are unlikable, it becomes a point of obsession in critical conversations by professional and amateur critics alike. Why are these women daring to flaunt convention? Why aren’t they making themselves likable (and therefore acceptable) to polite society? In a Publisher’s Weekly interview with Claire Messud about her recent novel The Woman Upstairs, which features a rather “unlikable” protagonist named Nora who is bitter, bereft, and downright angry about what her life has become, the interviewer said, “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook is almost unbearably grim.” And there we have it. A reader was here to make friends with the characters in a book and she didn’t like what she found.

Messud, for her part, had a sharp response for her interviewer. “For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?’”

Perhaps, then, unlikable characters, the ones who are the most human, are also the ones who are the most alive. Perhaps this intimacy makes us uncomfortable because we don’t dare be so alive.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

ICONS: SUCH PRETTY. SUCH. PRETTY.

1) FLIST PEOPLES DESERVE ALL THEIR DREAMS TO COME TRUE AND BE DELIVERED BY UNICORNS WHO SHIT RAINBOWS. Truth.

2) As someone who uses the phrase "ahoy there" in real life to greet people (and had absolutely nothing to do with childhood dreams of pirate life - have you read the stories about the badass lady pirates? ASPIRATIONS (what rape and pillaging? LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU)) I have no right to judge you or your colloquial choices

3) Yes

4) I would be offended if they didn't. The true master if the universe is cake, and it should be worshipped as such. All that delicious, moist, crumbly tasty goodness...

what? who? huh?

cake. *dreamy sigh*