![[sticky entry]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png){kind=small}
I'm satsuma aka satsu aka đ, your resident chronically ill punk
I mostly post about whatever's caught my interest at the moment, which typically includes: cdramas (especially Guardian), BTS, & other fandom stuff, food (I have a lot of niche food hobbies), cats, native plants & the local flora, asexuality & queer theory (and history), or otherwise general nattering.
In terms of personal details Iâm in my mid-20âs, queer, & chronically illâI have a genetic condition that affects my collagen (most likely EDS but my geneticist has a theory my family's got a new mutation so formally its a "unspecified genetic connective tissue disorder") & also the viral onset flavor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (since 2012, but if you know someone with long covid their story is probably similar to mine just moved forward a decade)
I'm also on mastodon also as satsuma if you'd like to follow me in a shorter but more frequent format.
Notes on Native Ferns
Jul. 8th, 2025 03:43 pmI recently attended a class on Ferns at a local botanical garden. The class was a mix of botanical info, caring for ferns in a garden context, understanding how they function ecologically in the wild, and recognizing any ferns you might come across locally--I was mostly interested in the last two points so that's what these notes reflect.
( Read more... )
Happy New Year!
Jan. 1st, 2025 11:38 pmNot much to say by way of a year in review--my girlfriend and I moved house, which was exciting and exhausting and somehow seemingly managed to take up most of the year.
I read Butterfly Blue's Quanzhi Gaoshou, and then a good chunk of the tag, which I guess counts as fandom news? And I've been groupwatching my way through queer culture movies (the pseudo documentary Watermelon Woman still gets top marks for its delightful skewering of PA, and also everything else). Oh! And I've been volunteering for WisCon in a new role since August :)
I hope y'all's years were good, and that the upcoming one will be as well
I read Butterfly Blue's Quanzhi Gaoshou, and then a good chunk of the tag, which I guess counts as fandom news? And I've been groupwatching my way through queer culture movies (the pseudo documentary Watermelon Woman still gets top marks for its delightful skewering of PA, and also everything else). Oh! And I've been volunteering for WisCon in a new role since August :)
I hope y'all's years were good, and that the upcoming one will be as well
(no subject)
Sep. 17th, 2024 03:32 pmSomeone on fedi linked to this excellent collection of every time Kirk tears or looses his shirt
Which then in turn reminded me of One Hundred Years Of Men Taking Off Their Shirts an article on the semiotics of male shirtlessness as well as Erin HorĂĄkovĂĄ's article Kirk Drift on how Kirk has been continually rewritten in popular memory to uphold a standard of masculinity completely unevidenced in the text.
So, in the context of of larger cultural conversations about masculinity as expressed via shirtlessness, what was Kirk's chest saying? Ex Astris Scientifica describes it as "a continued effort to underline his manliness" but honestly reviewing the caps many of them look more like attempts to underline his vulnerability and/or shared humanity.
Which then in turn reminded me of One Hundred Years Of Men Taking Off Their Shirts an article on the semiotics of male shirtlessness as well as Erin HorĂĄkovĂĄ's article Kirk Drift on how Kirk has been continually rewritten in popular memory to uphold a standard of masculinity completely unevidenced in the text.
So, in the context of of larger cultural conversations about masculinity as expressed via shirtlessness, what was Kirk's chest saying? Ex Astris Scientifica describes it as "a continued effort to underline his manliness" but honestly reviewing the caps many of them look more like attempts to underline his vulnerability and/or shared humanity.
For anyone who hasn't had a chance to sign up yet, Guardian Wishlist signups will close on the 27th!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
guardian_wishlist is a Dreamwidth-based gifting fest along the lines of fandomtrees, fandomgiftbox, etc., but specifically for Guardian (novel, drama, and RPF) and other canons starring the main Guardian actors, with gifts revealed for the Reunion Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival) on 17 September.More info, including the full schedule and signup link
Take the 2024 Ace Community Survey!
Jul. 29th, 2024 05:05 pmIt's that time of year again!
If you haven't gotten a chance already, consider filling out the Ace Community Survey:
You can find more information & take the survey here
If you haven't gotten a chance already, consider filling out the Ace Community Survey:
The Ace Community Survey is run by the Ace Community Survey Teamâa community-based volunteer organizationâin collaboration with Northwestern University. It collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities. Participants also have the option to make data available to external researchers, or only to our team.
The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or still questioning. As long as you are 15 years of age or older, we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other potentially interested individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.
You can find more information & take the survey here
The OTW is doing its annual "[Donate money in order to] become an OTW member by June 30 to vote in the upcoming Board of Directors election!" banner, so I figured it would be a good time to remind everyone that they are not an org you should be giving money to!
Despite vague promises of improvement, the vast majority of issues brought to light last summer (including their possibly illegal mishandling of CSAM & the malicious defamation of a whistleblower by Legal, and their habit of dodging responsibility by way of stonewalling fans about the orgs actions have still not been meaningfully addressed by the org. Indeed, despite their promises in both 2020 and 2023 to do better about racism towards fans and OTW volunteers alike, the organization continues to be actively racist in its actions (2). The only thing we have to show for those promises is a "diversity audit" by an undisclosed entity who's audit results they refuse to share, and which has not resulted in any visible action by the OTW. As such, I cannot ethically justify continuing to support their activities, nor encouraging anyone else to do so. If you are a member, consider cancelling your membership and telling them why. If you are a volunteer...honestly you should probably just quit for your own safety regardless of your opinions on the ethics of volunteering.
However if you have some time or money to spare, here are some smaller fannish orgs who could use your support:
Conventions:
WisCon (accepts donations & volunteers; Feminist SFF convention held on memorial day most years--hybrid with the local aspects based out of Wisconsin, USA. Makes a commendable effort towards both accessibility and COVID safety.)
con.txt (accepts volunteers, online only convention that I missed this year but hope to attend next!)
Several general purpose fannish fedi instances, including:
fandom.ink (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon)
fandom.garden (email admin for invite, has a Liberapay)
retro.pizza (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon, a KoFi, & a Paypal)
blorbo.social (signups open with moderator approval, has an OpenCollective)
federatedfandom.net (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon)
Orgs dedicated towards issues of race & ethnicity in fandom:
The Carl Brandon Society (accepts volunteers and donations)
Con or Bust (accepts donations)
Other SFF orgs:
The Otherwise Award (accepts donations and nominations of specfic which "expand and explore our understanding of gender")
Broad Universe (accepts donations)
Some excellent volunteer run/supported SFF mags:
Strange Horizons
Fiyah
khĹrĂŠĹ
Luna Station Quarterly
Also, many of the fannish archives in post from last year on alternatives to Ao3, though I haven't specifically evaluated those for accepts volunteers/donations/other yet
Despite vague promises of improvement, the vast majority of issues brought to light last summer (including their possibly illegal mishandling of CSAM & the malicious defamation of a whistleblower by Legal, and their habit of dodging responsibility by way of stonewalling fans about the orgs actions have still not been meaningfully addressed by the org. Indeed, despite their promises in both 2020 and 2023 to do better about racism towards fans and OTW volunteers alike, the organization continues to be actively racist in its actions (2). The only thing we have to show for those promises is a "diversity audit" by an undisclosed entity who's audit results they refuse to share, and which has not resulted in any visible action by the OTW. As such, I cannot ethically justify continuing to support their activities, nor encouraging anyone else to do so. If you are a member, consider cancelling your membership and telling them why. If you are a volunteer...honestly you should probably just quit for your own safety regardless of your opinions on the ethics of volunteering.
However if you have some time or money to spare, here are some smaller fannish orgs who could use your support:
Conventions:
WisCon (accepts donations & volunteers; Feminist SFF convention held on memorial day most years--hybrid with the local aspects based out of Wisconsin, USA. Makes a commendable effort towards both accessibility and COVID safety.)
con.txt (accepts volunteers, online only convention that I missed this year but hope to attend next!)
Several general purpose fannish fedi instances, including:
fandom.ink (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon)
fandom.garden (email admin for invite, has a Liberapay)
retro.pizza (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon, a KoFi, & a Paypal)
blorbo.social (signups open with moderator approval, has an OpenCollective)
federatedfandom.net (signups open with moderator approval, has a Patreon)
Orgs dedicated towards issues of race & ethnicity in fandom:
The Carl Brandon Society (accepts volunteers and donations)
Con or Bust (accepts donations)
Other SFF orgs:
The Otherwise Award (accepts donations and nominations of specfic which "expand and explore our understanding of gender")
Broad Universe (accepts donations)
Some excellent volunteer run/supported SFF mags:
Strange Horizons
Fiyah
khĹrĂŠĹ
Luna Station Quarterly
Also, many of the fannish archives in post from last year on alternatives to Ao3, though I haven't specifically evaluated those for accepts volunteers/donations/other yet
An abbreviated-ish recounting
If you have somehow missed the five or six rounds of Hugo's drama -- the short version is that on Jan 20th the Chengdu WorldCon committee finally released the nomination stats for the 2023 Hugos (which they are required to do within 90 days of the Award Ceremony) to the widespread bafflement and ire of all as even a surface level skim reveals:1) several works and people were declared ineligible for award without any stated reason (and which by all available info should be eligible)
2) The math for nominations makes no sense. Several categories somehow have more nominations than there were ballots, to give one very simple example. I recommend camestrosfelapton for attempts to make sense of the "the math shows these votes were OBVIOUSLY fudged" questions (there are a surprising number of different ways in which this true!)
Speculation continued for quite a while, provoked by Hugo awards administrator Dave McCarthy just being a massive condescending asshole to anyone who tried to ask him polite, reasonable, questions about what the hell was going on. As well as people more or less continually finding new and exciting ways in which the published data very clearly did not add up.
There was also a weird side kerfuffle in which some people briefly claimed there was no organization which could enforce the Hugos/Worldcon trademarks? Which the WSFS would like you to know is super not true.
More recently, Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford managed to convince one of the people who'd worked on the Hugo awards process to share some of the behind the scenes details (she seems more embarrassed at being associated with such an embarrassingly mishandled scandal and looking to clear her own name than a brave whistleblower risking her reputation for integrity imo but whatever) which then turned into their article The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion. Key points:
1) there's no evidence right now that anyone from China was involved at all, let alone any kind of formal gov't censorship
The emails Lacey shared are extremely illuminating about the entire controversy. In an email from Dave McCarty dated June 5, 2023, he announced to the Hugo Award administration group that âThis is us, the group of folks that are validating the Hugo finalists.â None of the Chinese members of the administration team were listed as recipients in any of the emails examined for this report, only administrators who were from Western countries.
(relatedly, Mary Robinette Kowal has also offered up some info re: Dave McCarthy's history of blaming things on the Chinese board members that were actually his / Ben Yallow's decision)
2) while the western works which were declared ineligible were still visible in the nominations data, it seems that a number of Chinese works were also censored through a separate process which involved their names being removed from the nominations process entirely:
One interesting aspect of the âvalidationâ spreadsheet is it appears to show a number of Chinese works that may have been removed from the final ballot. For example, in the Best Novel category, four Chinese novels are listed including We Live in Nanjing by Tianrui Shuofu. None of these novels made the final ballot. In both Diane Laceyâs apology letter and an interview, she said some of these Chinese works were removed due to âcollusion in a Chinese publication that had published a nominations list, a slate as it were, and so those ballots were identified and eliminated.â
There is nothing in the Hugo rules which allows for the disqualification of otherwise valid votes for being associated with a slate. The entire point of using EPH voting is to dilute the effect of slates to allow a more varied ballot without throwing out any votes. Also it wasn't a coordinated slate, it was a magazine promoting the Hugos along with a totally normal and legit recommended reading list
Effects of this going forward
WorldCon Glasgow has removed Kat Jones from the organization (one of the people involved in compiling political dossiers to determine whether the Chinese government might "disapprove" of them winning an award) They have also included some basic transparency measures re: nomination, eligibility, and voting.
Samantha Mills has retroactively declined her Hugo award for Rabbit Test
Cheryl Morgan would like everyone to know she had no part in this mess (also, she's quitting so she can continue having no part in this mess)
Several people have come forward to say that McCarthy has harassed them and their accusations against him have been ignored because SMOFs like to have each-other's backs instead of like, actually enforcing the rules
Weirdly few people seem to be asking where Ben Yallow was when this was all going down despite him, you know, being one of the co-chairs and therefore in charge of supervising the Hugo committee
Two reccing recs (???)
Feb. 7th, 2024 09:38 pm1) The Rec Center is still accepting f/f recs for Femslash February. Their submission form is here
2)
Trans & Nonbinary Characters has been stuck in a weird limbo where it's consistently nommed & shortlisted as a theme, only to fail to make it through the monthly "upcoming themes polls." But this February it finally did! Go celebrate by sharing your favorite fics starring trans & nonbinary characters.
2)
Trans & Nonbinary Characters has been stuck in a weird limbo where it's consistently nommed & shortlisted as a theme, only to fail to make it through the monthly "upcoming themes polls." But this February it finally did! Go celebrate by sharing your favorite fics starring trans & nonbinary characters.
I'm going to throw this whole post under a summary tag so folks can read and respond when they're in the right headspace to deal with the OTWs shit
None of it's terribly surprising given their past absolute failures to respond with any degree of sensitivity to issues involving race, just this time it's about the genocide in Gaza instead of all the racism against against fans of color (wistfuljane's linkpost running through many years of incidents) & volunteers (fandomantiracism's A pattern of dismissal and retaliation, synonymous's The OTW's mistreatment of Chinese volunteers, & retaliation against dhobikikutti via a CCAP for calling out OTW racism in internal OTW spaces)
Back in December, the OTW repeatedly shut down discussion by volunteers where they expressed support for Palestine, or recognized what Israel was doing to Palestine as a genocide. In particular, the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" was explicitly cited as something which would be considered "threats or harassment" and therefore banned. (post by dhobikikutti with a summary & screenshots of Ao3 internal communications from one of the volunteers who was sanctioned)
One of their justifications at the time was that the OTW was not a âpolitical orginazitationâ and that making political statements could jepordize their eligibility as a nonprofit. This is, first off, openly ludicrous considering their choices of what to censor or allow was itself political. Further, lots of other charities & nonprofits have in fact made statements about this exact issue, seemingly without risking their non-profit status, which raised some questions about if the OTW's claims were even true. Dhobikikutti subsequently looked into the legal stipulations for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and they do not actually place restrictions on a nonprofit organizations political speechâso long as that speech does not constitute or include an endorsement of a specific political party or candidate by the org (which allowing a volunteer to talk about Palestine is assuredly not). Dhobikikutti also helpfully included a list of examples of types of political speech the OTW has previously engaged in, including things like actively encouraging users to contact their elected representatives which constitute a much stronger involvement in US politics than basically any statement on Palestine I can imagine.
In light of all of this, many people have been calling on the OTW board to release a public statement of their stance on these issues. If you were one of these people, they finally have! by technicality.
Specifically what they actually did was have a mod announce that they would not be taking questions about the issue at during today's board meeting during the meeting and then post a "prepared statement" in their meeting discords #open-chat channel (NOT the official meeting channel which is the one summarized in the meeting minutes) which I've copied below as they don't seem to intend to be releasing this anywhere with any amount of actual visibility:
So, point is the same false statement![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dhobikikutti already looked into.
Point two is bullshit for the same reasons I explained earlier (calling "from the river to the sea" harassment is a political statement and a hurtful one at that!)
Three is literally just "we don't think its worth our time" which is uh, hell of a thing to say about an actual fucking genocide
Four, well. I can't say I the OTW had much credibility left in my book, and their absolute shit responses/responsibility dodging when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity are a big part of that so...ironically they're bringing about the exact thing they fear by putting out this statement instead of an actual one.
Anyway yeah can't believe I had to make an Entire Post about the *checks timestamps* first four minutes of tonight's meeting. Possibly a record for them? If someone else managed to make it to the Q&A, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that (I saw in the open chat that there was a whole bunch of discussion on if the Board could possibly adopt a more efficient method of getting peoples questions answered than forcing us to show up for a specific 45 minute period 3-4 times per year to submit and then them trickling the answers out over the next couple months (if they, you know. Actually put out public updates, or ever answered anyone's emails, we would not have to go through this! but that wouldn't be nearly as efficiently-inefficient as the OTW aspires to be)
None of it's terribly surprising given their past absolute failures to respond with any degree of sensitivity to issues involving race, just this time it's about the genocide in Gaza instead of all the racism against against fans of color (wistfuljane's linkpost running through many years of incidents) & volunteers (fandomantiracism's A pattern of dismissal and retaliation, synonymous's The OTW's mistreatment of Chinese volunteers, & retaliation against dhobikikutti via a CCAP for calling out OTW racism in internal OTW spaces)
the latest awfulness inside
Back in December, the OTW repeatedly shut down discussion by volunteers where they expressed support for Palestine, or recognized what Israel was doing to Palestine as a genocide. In particular, the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" was explicitly cited as something which would be considered "threats or harassment" and therefore banned. (post by dhobikikutti with a summary & screenshots of Ao3 internal communications from one of the volunteers who was sanctioned)
One of their justifications at the time was that the OTW was not a âpolitical orginazitationâ and that making political statements could jepordize their eligibility as a nonprofit. This is, first off, openly ludicrous considering their choices of what to censor or allow was itself political. Further, lots of other charities & nonprofits have in fact made statements about this exact issue, seemingly without risking their non-profit status, which raised some questions about if the OTW's claims were even true. Dhobikikutti subsequently looked into the legal stipulations for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and they do not actually place restrictions on a nonprofit organizations political speechâso long as that speech does not constitute or include an endorsement of a specific political party or candidate by the org (which allowing a volunteer to talk about Palestine is assuredly not). Dhobikikutti also helpfully included a list of examples of types of political speech the OTW has previously engaged in, including things like actively encouraging users to contact their elected representatives which constitute a much stronger involvement in US politics than basically any statement on Palestine I can imagine.
In light of all of this, many people have been calling on the OTW board to release a public statement of their stance on these issues. If you were one of these people, they finally have! by technicality.
Specifically what they actually did was have a mod announce that they would not be taking questions about the issue at during today's board meeting during the meeting and then post a "prepared statement" in their meeting discords #open-chat channel (NOT the official meeting channel which is the one summarized in the meeting minutes) which I've copied below as they don't seem to intend to be releasing this anywhere with any amount of actual visibility:
Dear Meeting Attendees:
We understand that many attending are planning to ask for the Board to make an official statement on the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is the policy of the OTW to not make official statements on anything that falls outside of the purview of the OTW as a nonprofit organization: fans, fandom, and Internet policy.
This is primarily for the following reasons:
⢠Engaging in advocacy beyond the organization's purview could risk revocation of our 501(c)(3) status.
⢠The OTW community is enormous and diverse, and is impacted by a huge variety of political issues. Making a statement on some issues would make our silence on others more significant - and more hurtful to those impacted.
⢠Researching and crafting official statements on complex political issues takes a significant amount of time and effort, and the Board has limited time and needs to focus on the elected mandate of running and improving the OTW.
⢠The OTW is respected as an advocate for fans and fandom, and our statements in this regard are therefore taken seriously and have an impact. Public stances made by the OTW regarding topics outside of the organization's scope are far less likely to be taken seriously, and could even reduce the impact of future statements made within our purview.
We know that this is disappointing to many of you, and we are sorry. However, as the people responsible for the current and future wellbeing of the OTW, we are not going to break or change this policy.
Respectfully,
The OTW Board
So, point is the same false statement
dhobikikutti already looked into. Point two is bullshit for the same reasons I explained earlier (calling "from the river to the sea" harassment is a political statement and a hurtful one at that!)
Three is literally just "we don't think its worth our time" which is uh, hell of a thing to say about an actual fucking genocide
Four, well. I can't say I the OTW had much credibility left in my book, and their absolute shit responses/responsibility dodging when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity are a big part of that so...ironically they're bringing about the exact thing they fear by putting out this statement instead of an actual one.
Anyway yeah can't believe I had to make an Entire Post about the *checks timestamps* first four minutes of tonight's meeting. Possibly a record for them? If someone else managed to make it to the Q&A, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that (I saw in the open chat that there was a whole bunch of discussion on if the Board could possibly adopt a more efficient method of getting peoples questions answered than forcing us to show up for a specific 45 minute period 3-4 times per year to submit and then them trickling the answers out over the next couple months (if they, you know. Actually put out public updates, or ever answered anyone's emails, we would not have to go through this! but that wouldn't be nearly as efficiently-inefficient as the OTW aspires to be)
Snowflake Challenge #7
Jan. 21st, 2024 10:29 pmIt's time to divulge your deepest secrets, snowflakes! What's in the special sauce, how do you know what you know, and how can we know it too? Let's all copy off each other's homework. :D
Challenge #7: Make a list of fannish and/or creative resources.
Soooo I'm one of those old school fandom-through-bookmarking-tools fen. In honor of this challenge I scrolled through my general fandom bookmarks folder for all the sharable resourcey ones and pulled together a new public "fannish resources" raindrop collection. Everything about a specific fandom (eg. episode recaps, meta about a scenes cultural context, other peoples resource collections...) is tagged with the fandom and everything about a specific place is tagged with the place. After that, things are a little randomly organized. The fault of years of overlapping link saving systems getting imported atop one another I'm afraid đ
Snowflake Challenge #6
Jan. 20th, 2024 09:50 pmIn your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
In Snowflake #2 (Wishlists) I mentioned wanting to see more fic for Sungkyunkwan Scandal, so maybe I should try to convince you to watch it?
Skks is a Korean historical drama, set in the Joseon Dynasty. The lead, Kim Yoon-hee, is a young woman who--in an effort to provide for her mother and chronically ill brother--disguises herself as a man in order to find work. She ends up meeting Lee Sun-joon, who convinces her to take the national entrance exam to Sungkyunkwan under her "own" (read: her brothers') name after he catches her working as a substitute test taker. Once enrolled, she befriends Lee Seon-joon along with two other students Moon Jae-shin and Gu Yong-ha. At which point the four of them form a delightful quartet who's shenanigans range from competing in the students athletic tournament to solving a mystery for the king of Korea.
You might like skks if you like: historical dramas, light comedy, found family vibes, intelligent & determined female leads, projecting your weird gender feelings onto people cross-dressing for Totally Just Plot Reasons (no? just me?), just an incredible amount of earnestness from start to finish, people getting themselves into Situations (relatively lighthearted ver)
Snowflake #5 -- Scavenger Hunt
Jan. 19th, 2024 02:14 pm1. Something your favorite character would like
*ponders the concept of favorite character*
Honestly I think for most of the characters / stories I'm interested in "an uninterrupted nap" is pretty high up on their wishlists. Alternatively, tea.
2. Something that makes you laugh
Cat mischief:
3. A fandom place you would like to visit
If I ever go to china (unlikely for a variety of reasons) I'd love to see how many sets/shots I could recognize at Hengdian World Studios.
4. A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet
Mostly I find meeting people as like, A Fan Of Their Work to be excruciatingly awkward. I have met up with a few friends from fandom now though, and that's always a blast, so if we talk regularly I probably do secretly hope we can hang at some point hahaha
5. Something you find comforting
I'm currently curled up on the couch in a quilt with a warm mug of tea while snow falls softly outside <3
6. Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood
*points to icon* there's a reason why I have so many Ghibli icons
7. A piece of clothing you love
I'm not sure I've ever mentioned I'm a scarf person? I have a whole Collection but here's a top 3:
In the current weather the all black one is definitely my favorite, but the other two are both very lovely and fun to wear when its a bit warmer out, and probably my two most complemented items of clothing.
8. A book or song with a color in the title
From my tbr: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
9. Something only someone in your fandom would understand
I feel like I'm really out of the loop on fandom-in jokes these days? I have been entertained by the debates around nemainofthewater's cdrama "best of" polls which probably takes a fair amount of fandom specific knowledge to parse
*ponders the concept of favorite character*
Honestly I think for most of the characters / stories I'm interested in "an uninterrupted nap" is pretty high up on their wishlists. Alternatively, tea.
2. Something that makes you laugh
Cat mischief:
3. A fandom place you would like to visit
If I ever go to china (unlikely for a variety of reasons) I'd love to see how many sets/shots I could recognize at Hengdian World Studios.
4. A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet
Mostly I find meeting people as like, A Fan Of Their Work to be excruciatingly awkward. I have met up with a few friends from fandom now though, and that's always a blast, so if we talk regularly I probably do secretly hope we can hang at some point hahaha
5. Something you find comforting
I'm currently curled up on the couch in a quilt with a warm mug of tea while snow falls softly outside <3
6. Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood
*points to icon* there's a reason why I have so many Ghibli icons
7. A piece of clothing you love
I'm not sure I've ever mentioned I'm a scarf person? I have a whole Collection but here's a top 3:
In the current weather the all black one is definitely my favorite, but the other two are both very lovely and fun to wear when its a bit warmer out, and probably my two most complemented items of clothing.
8. A book or song with a color in the title
From my tbr: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
9. Something only someone in your fandom would understand
I feel like I'm really out of the loop on fandom-in jokes these days? I have been entertained by the debates around nemainofthewater's cdrama "best of" polls which probably takes a fair amount of fandom specific knowledge to parse
Snowflake #4 AMA?????
Jan. 10th, 2024 11:46 pmChallenge #4: IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself.
I feel like just about any about me info I'd generate spontaneously right now would look more or less exactly like the new sticky post I just wrote for challenge #1, so this is a skip!
However, in the spirit of the 'getting to know you' thing I am giving an open license to ask any questions (about me, my hobbies, that old post you felt awkward commenting on two months late, whatever) you happen to have, in lieu of the actual post (if you don't have any, that's fine too please do not feel any pressure to entertain me with questions)
Mutuals and people who've just met me both equally included :)
Snowflake #3 -- Fandom Wishlisting
Jan. 9th, 2024 05:42 pmHave been procrastinating a bit because I feel like all my asks are too niche, too difficult, or both and it feels weird to enumerate requests one has zero expectations of actually receiving?? But maybe hearing about my fandom interests/priorities will be interesting to some folks despite all that, or something.
Anyway! Some stuff I would like:
Anyway! Some stuff I would like:
- More fic for my niche fandoms! Chiefly Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, & Imperial Coroner
- more fanworks that aren't not on ao3
- and prerequisite to that happening, more ways to subscribe to/find out about fanworks that aren't on ao3 (bonus points: without making a million accounts)
- more scifi that does weird & fun shit with gender
- more volunteers for Wiscon which is a great queer, feminist, & accessible SFF convention but is struggling to get the volunteering staff necessary to actually Do The Thing in a sustainable way
Snowflake Challenge #2
Jan. 4th, 2024 09:51 pmFor Snowflake #1, I have a new stickied intro post! This was, frankly, slightly overdue so thanks to the mods for prodding me into actually rewriting it
Challenge #2 is:
I have 3 major life events planned for 2024 (graduation, job hunting (and hopefully getting), and moving, which seems like more than sufficient on the personal front tbh. If I can maintain the habits I currently have that make my life better throughout all the transitions we'll call it good.
On the fandom side no metrics (see above) but:
Challenge #2 is:
In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I have 3 major life events planned for 2024 (graduation, job hunting (and hopefully getting), and moving, which seems like more than sufficient on the personal front tbh. If I can maintain the habits I currently have that make my life better throughout all the transitions we'll call it good.
On the fandom side no metrics (see above) but:
- I want to get better about attending my cdrama watchgroup regularly, which I was pretty good at up until this fall (when a different major life event and also some scheduling mismatches messed things up).
- Hopefully I keep up with my D&D guild...and maybe branch out into trying some short/single session non 5e tabletop at some point?
- I'd also like to get better at reccing good fanworks when I find them either here/on fedi or in any of the many rec communities I subscribe to
New Years Traditions Free to a Good Home
Dec. 31st, 2023 05:01 pm1) purchased new socks for the new year (though they won't arrive until the 5th)
2) I now get annually reminded to make Dream Wafers when my friend L texts me photos of her finished ones (she's six hours ahead of me timezonewise, and also somewhat more punctual than my 'eh if I get the dough rolled out around dinner they'll be ready in plenty of time')
If you search "cream wafers" on the internet you'll find any number of near-identical recipes, all attributed to a grandmother or aunt or suchlike so I assume these at one point came off the back of the powdered sugar bag or something? Not sure how ours turned themselves into Dream Wafters, nor how they were connected to New Years but both shifts predate my grandmothers recipe card which is what I use to make them.
Dream Wafers for New Year's Eve
1 c soft butter
1/3 c whipping cream
2 c AP flour
Blend butter, flour, & cream to make soft dough. Chill 1 hour. Heat oven to 375â. Roll dough to 1/8â thickness & cut @ round cutters. Dredge both sides in granulated sugar & prick for times @ fork on each wafer, placed on ungreased sheet
Bake for 7-9 min â chill on rack + put two together @ filling
Filling:
1/4 c soft butter
3/4 c 10x sugar
1 ttp vanilla + 1/2 tsp almond extract
food color if desired
very fragile Makes 5 doz rounds
She doesn't specify the size, but I believe we usually aim for about 1-1.5 inches. One to two bites per cookie, ideally.
2) I now get annually reminded to make Dream Wafers when my friend L texts me photos of her finished ones (she's six hours ahead of me timezonewise, and also somewhat more punctual than my 'eh if I get the dough rolled out around dinner they'll be ready in plenty of time')
If you search "cream wafers" on the internet you'll find any number of near-identical recipes, all attributed to a grandmother or aunt or suchlike so I assume these at one point came off the back of the powdered sugar bag or something? Not sure how ours turned themselves into Dream Wafters, nor how they were connected to New Years but both shifts predate my grandmothers recipe card which is what I use to make them.
recipe card and transcription inside
Dream Wafers for New Year's Eve
1 c soft butter
1/3 c whipping cream
2 c AP flour
Blend butter, flour, & cream to make soft dough. Chill 1 hour. Heat oven to 375â. Roll dough to 1/8â thickness & cut @ round cutters. Dredge both sides in granulated sugar & prick for times @ fork on each wafer, placed on ungreased sheet
Bake for 7-9 min â chill on rack + put two together @ filling
Filling:
1/4 c soft butter
3/4 c 10x sugar
1 ttp vanilla + 1/2 tsp almond extract
food color if desired
very fragile Makes 5 doz rounds
She doesn't specify the size, but I believe we usually aim for about 1-1.5 inches. One to two bites per cookie, ideally.
The OTW Board has announced they are holding its next public meeting on November 12 from 1:00-2:00 AM UTC (aka 8 PM EST for my own reference)
Typically the bulk of the time is taken up on procedural votes where it's very clear 100% of the actual discussion and decision making took place ahead of timeâwhich is to say, I have never seen a vote which was not unanimous, and the votes are not discussed or explained pastâtypically quite vague 'we will introduce a motion to approve x' statements (eg. last meeting the full introduction was "Our next agenda item is about the Strategic Plan. Our Strategic Plan has been finalized, and is ready to be put into practice." with the clear expectation they would proceed directly into a vote without any further explanations. Unfortunately for their expectations, a number of attendees found this insufficient and requested they clarify). As the board has also indicated that many of their votes are done asynchronously and off the public record, I've always been a bit confused about the point of these, though historically you could ask clarificatory questions so it wasn't entirely just the board playacting a meeting with the vague idea it'd make them seem more transparent.
And then, after they get through those there's usually a bit of time at the end where you can ask questions, which seems to be what most people (including me) attend for as many people find their questions just disappear into the void when asked by email/etcâegrunpunkrun attended every meeting for a long while to ask for an update into their process of hiring a Diversity Consultant and this was like...literally the only reason we ever got any info about that at all.
This meeting they have announced that, in response to last meetings chaos, they're redesigning the meeting process! To that end there is now a set of conduct rules for meeting attendees (whom they slightly confusingly call participants even though we are typically not allowed to participate in anything except the asking of questions) and a separate channel for the asking of questions siloed off from the actual board chat which we are no longer allowed in it seems. They have indicated questions will only be answered at the end of the meeting. Which makes asking questions about the actual agenda items fairly pointless? There's also a limit of one question per attendee (no clarification as to whether or not this includes followups) so if you ask any sort of "sorry could you please clarify x?" you're wasting your chance to ask about whatever thing you find most important. So...basically you should just pre-prep your "reasonable and polite", link free, 50 word q and completely ignore the rest of the actual meeting contents.
From #rules
If you've never been to an OTW board meeting...
Typically the bulk of the time is taken up on procedural votes where it's very clear 100% of the actual discussion and decision making took place ahead of timeâwhich is to say, I have never seen a vote which was not unanimous, and the votes are not discussed or explained pastâtypically quite vague 'we will introduce a motion to approve x' statements (eg. last meeting the full introduction was "Our next agenda item is about the Strategic Plan. Our Strategic Plan has been finalized, and is ready to be put into practice." with the clear expectation they would proceed directly into a vote without any further explanations. Unfortunately for their expectations, a number of attendees found this insufficient and requested they clarify). As the board has also indicated that many of their votes are done asynchronously and off the public record, I've always been a bit confused about the point of these, though historically you could ask clarificatory questions so it wasn't entirely just the board playacting a meeting with the vague idea it'd make them seem more transparent.
And then, after they get through those there's usually a bit of time at the end where you can ask questions, which seems to be what most people (including me) attend for as many people find their questions just disappear into the void when asked by email/etcâeg
runpunkrun attended every meeting for a long while to ask for an update into their process of hiring a Diversity Consultant and this was like...literally the only reason we ever got any info about that at all.This meeting they have announced that, in response to last meetings chaos, they're redesigning the meeting process! To that end there is now a set of conduct rules for meeting attendees (whom they slightly confusingly call participants even though we are typically not allowed to participate in anything except the asking of questions) and a separate channel for the asking of questions siloed off from the actual board chat which we are no longer allowed in it seems. They have indicated questions will only be answered at the end of the meeting. Which makes asking questions about the actual agenda items fairly pointless? There's also a limit of one question per attendee (no clarification as to whether or not this includes followups) so if you ask any sort of "sorry could you please clarify x?" you're wasting your chance to ask about whatever thing you find most important. So...basically you should just pre-prep your "reasonable and polite", link free, 50 word q and completely ignore the rest of the actual meeting contents.
Copy of the discord rules/procedural info (as they currently stand, they've been edited twice since the 23rd) under the cut for future reference/anyone who isn't in the server
From #rules
1. This server is for official meetings and business of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) Board of Directors. Respectful discussion is required of all participants. In order to ensure a positive experience for everyone, disruptive behaviour or harassment will result in a warning, temporary muting, or a permanent ban from the server. The appropriate form of disciplinary action is up to moderator discretion.
2. The OTW is a nonprofit organisation behind several projects, including but not limited to AO3, Fanlore, etc; however, any inquiry relating to the work of specific projects and/or OTW committees should go through the official channels.
3. Similarly, any participation in the discussions in this server by OTW volunteers is done as your fellow meeting attendees, and as such should not be viewed as representative of the views of the organisation, unless specifically stated otherwise.
The following is our Community Guidelines
Questions may be asked of the Board by using o/. Moderators will add the question to the queue in the â questions-voting channel.
Please keep questions reasonable and polite, as well as under 50 words. Please note that we will not accept questions that require Board members to read and respond to any linked posts.
If the question is a follow-up to one currently being discussed, please use o// to get our attention.
All questions asked will be added to the â #questions-voting channel by a Moderator in the order they are posted in the â #open-chat channel.
In the â #questions-voting channel, all attendees can emoji vote for the questions they want answered. Questions will be asked in order of descending emoji count. Please use the âŹď¸ to emoji vote. No other emojis will be counted.
Board will answer a minimum of 10 questions in this chat. To be considerate of everyone attending, please submit only one question each. Time allowing, moderators will open the floor for additional questions from participants who previously submitted a question.
Questions asked by meeting attendees will be answered once regular business has been concluded. You can ask a question at any time and moderators will add it to the â #questions-voting channel for voting but Board members will not respond until all items on the planned meeting agenda have been addressed.
Leftover questions will be combined and posted as weekly Q&A threads in the â #questions-answers channel, starting two weeks after the most recent public meeting.
3 things make a post
Sep. 11th, 2023 03:24 pmStill working through all the tabs I opened while catching up on my reading list after my tripâI'm sure most of my flist has seen it but dhobikikutti has resigned from the OTW
Still adjusting to the rhythm of the new semester, an issue compounded by lingering exhaustion / timezone disorientation from my trip, the heatwave (which seems to be ending finally) which took early September out of 'ugh why is summer so long' territory into being genuinely miserable, and adjusting to having a new housemate. Also, new class schedule conflicts with my Friday guardian watch :((((
Discovered to my dismay that an ebook I'd purchased directly off the authors site was, actually, not an actual ebook but one of those "download our app to view your book" DRM scams. However the ebook company in questions gives you a fifteen day online "preview" of the book without downloading the app so I uh, spite read the entire 320k in like 24 hours? And am now hooked on the series (Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds), which is a delightfully iddy cross between a political fantasy and an adventure novel, with a side of some sort of ambiguous and semi-repressed queerplatonic thing (the leads are still pretty explicitly queer and there are also other queer relationships that explicitly involve sex/romance, to be clear. Wherever these two end up by the end of the series it won't be queerbaiting)
Still adjusting to the rhythm of the new semester, an issue compounded by lingering exhaustion / timezone disorientation from my trip, the heatwave (which seems to be ending finally) which took early September out of 'ugh why is summer so long' territory into being genuinely miserable, and adjusting to having a new housemate. Also, new class schedule conflicts with my Friday guardian watch :((((
Discovered to my dismay that an ebook I'd purchased directly off the authors site was, actually, not an actual ebook but one of those "download our app to view your book" DRM scams. However the ebook company in questions gives you a fifteen day online "preview" of the book without downloading the app so I uh, spite read the entire 320k in like 24 hours? And am now hooked on the series (Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds), which is a delightfully iddy cross between a political fantasy and an adventure novel, with a side of some sort of ambiguous and semi-repressed queerplatonic thing (the leads are still pretty explicitly queer and there are also other queer relationships that explicitly involve sex/romance, to be clear. Wherever these two end up by the end of the series it won't be queerbaiting)
Two pieces of important news on the "can the OTW please stop being blatantly horrible all over the place" front and a third that's mostly just completely baffling?
Audrey R. has withdrawn her candidacy for the 2023 OTW Board election
Her stated reason for doing so (which I can't source as she's now locked her twitter) was blaming "witch hunters" a statement I don't usually associate with actual bad behavior, and I also did not witness any myself.
Which leaves me with some mixed feelings about Elections Committee Statement on Harassment, which went up around the same time as her withdrawal. I'm in favor of the principle but if anyone deserved that kind of response it was Tiffany G, who faced unrelenting badmouthing from pretty much the moment they announced their candidacy until long after the election was finished. The fact that a white woman who got told associating with known fascist transphobes was a bad look in fandoms book deserved protection while Tiffany evidently never did is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
ETA: the OTW Elections committee has clarified on twitter:
Additionally, this means we're now down to 5 candidates from the initial 7, with 4 seats available, meaning that it is highly likely all but one of the candidates will be seated (the exceptions being if 2 or more candidates fail to achieve a majority through IRV--technically possible as Ao3 allows you to leave candidates unranked--or if another candidate withdraws)
Eta: We now have five open seats, as Antonius Melisse and Natalia Gruber have resigned
dhobikikutti has published a copy of the CCAP letter (Constructive Corrective Action Procedure) they received for attempting to advocate against the OTW's racist culture from the inside. The accusation seems to be, broadly speaking, that calling out racism in internal OTW spaces creates a "hostile" environment while calling those actions out off platform breaks the OTW's confidentiality policy.
I hope I don't need to explain what egregiously disingenuous bullshit that is, but in case it wasn't completely clear, current board member Alex Tischer has taken the opportunity to clarify that actually they aren't sorry for all the racisms they did and let the board apologize on their behalf for. you can read Tischer's statement here. muccamukk and Tari have both posted copies of letters they drafted to the OTW board & DevMem committee asking for Tischer's removal. Considering the usual outcome of letters to the OTW (absolutely no response) my hopes are low but we're running low on options if for people who are still invested in the OTW/Ao3's continued existence. If you'd prefer to put your time/money somewhere thats maybe a little more productive, maybe try one of the fantastic fannish orgs mentioned in the comments of this post?
The OTW apparently maintains an official OTW linkedin account. This makes some vague amount of sense in a "yeah its good that volunteers who put the OTW on their resume can get an official signoff for that"
What makes quite a bit less sense but is still vaguely comprehensible is the fact that the OTW comms team has apparently been crossposting all their posts there (wasn't dreamwidth allegedly too much work for how few fans it reached? who the hell wants to get their fannish news on linkedin??)
The part where I completely lost the plot was when I discovered that the OTW Legal Committee has announced, for some reason only on linkedin, that they are writing a series of posts describing the OTW legal teams work. The one person in the comments asking why this was posted to linkedin of all places has gotten no response so I suppose we must all be left sitting in our continued bafflement.
Elections meta
Audrey R. has withdrawn her candidacy for the 2023 OTW Board election
Her stated reason for doing so (which I can't source as she's now locked her twitter) was blaming "witch hunters" a statement I don't usually associate with actual bad behavior, and I also did not witness any myself.
Which leaves me with some mixed feelings about Elections Committee Statement on Harassment, which went up around the same time as her withdrawal. I'm in favor of the principle but if anyone deserved that kind of response it was Tiffany G, who faced unrelenting badmouthing from pretty much the moment they announced their candidacy until long after the election was finished. The fact that a white woman who got told associating with known fascist transphobes was a bad look in fandoms book deserved protection while Tiffany evidently never did is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
ETA: the OTW Elections committee has clarified on twitter:
In light of the recent harassment campaign and the racist harassment during the 2022 election, we are carefully considering how to better address situations like these in the future and are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused by our failure to respond promptly.(source) I'm still kinda bitter about the fact that it seemingly took them a whole year to come up with a "harassment is bad" policy but.
Neither of the former candidates are currently OTW volunteers, and we ask that the public continues to respect their privacy.
Additionally, this means we're now down to 5 candidates from the initial 7, with 4 seats available, meaning that it is highly likely all but one of the candidates will be seated (the exceptions being if 2 or more candidates fail to achieve a majority through IRV--technically possible as Ao3 allows you to leave candidates unranked--or if another candidate withdraws)
Eta: We now have five open seats, as Antonius Melisse and Natalia Gruber have resigned
the OTW's continuing racist treatment of volunteers
dhobikikutti has published a copy of the CCAP letter (Constructive Corrective Action Procedure) they received for attempting to advocate against the OTW's racist culture from the inside. The accusation seems to be, broadly speaking, that calling out racism in internal OTW spaces creates a "hostile" environment while calling those actions out off platform breaks the OTW's confidentiality policy. I hope I don't need to explain what egregiously disingenuous bullshit that is, but in case it wasn't completely clear, current board member Alex Tischer has taken the opportunity to clarify that actually they aren't sorry for all the racisms they did and let the board apologize on their behalf for. you can read Tischer's statement here. muccamukk and Tari have both posted copies of letters they drafted to the OTW board & DevMem committee asking for Tischer's removal. Considering the usual outcome of letters to the OTW (absolutely no response) my hopes are low but we're running low on options if for people who are still invested in the OTW/Ao3's continued existence. If you'd prefer to put your time/money somewhere thats maybe a little more productive, maybe try one of the fantastic fannish orgs mentioned in the comments of this post?
Wait, linkedin????
The OTW apparently maintains an official OTW linkedin account. This makes some vague amount of sense in a "yeah its good that volunteers who put the OTW on their resume can get an official signoff for that"
What makes quite a bit less sense but is still vaguely comprehensible is the fact that the OTW comms team has apparently been crossposting all their posts there (wasn't dreamwidth allegedly too much work for how few fans it reached? who the hell wants to get their fannish news on linkedin??)
The part where I completely lost the plot was when I discovered that the OTW Legal Committee has announced, for some reason only on linkedin, that they are writing a series of posts describing the OTW legal teams work. The one person in the comments asking why this was posted to linkedin of all places has gotten no response so I suppose we must all be left sitting in our continued bafflement.
