I’ve returned to Sherlocking; or at least, I think maybe I have. After over a year of neglecting the fandom at a depth that requires an alias, I suddenly rediscovered everything I left behind and remembered instantly how much I enjoy it.
I want to write down why I took a break, what fic I read in that time, what brought me back and what I’ve done in the week or so since being back, but I realize that’s really only interesting to me and my brain organizing. So thats below the cut.
Otherwise: fandom is really so fantastic. I am having a great glowing warmth of a return honeymoon. There are people I have followed and met in fandom, consumed every work, and admired as humans for 17 years. 17 years!!! I don’t think its really possible for me to leave.
Why did I break
Some combination of:
Possibly I wasn’t excited after S4?? I dunno. I was pretty apathetic to it at the time.
Anxiety over becoming too involved and needing to run and hide
I got married and had a wedding?? so that was some work combined with I nixed a whole lot out of my life after the wedding, just to see what would end up sticking / how it would feel to shed all responsibilities and former personalities and aliases. (It felt fine but not really like me)
I got a new job. More testing of new personalities, meeting a whole lot of new people, assessing if previous people in my life were good for me or not. Turns out I think I’m mostly the same all around.
Wanting more quiet and thinkey time. Yeah that lasted for like two weeks. I started writing a book though?? aka I ended up writing an extremely long outline that parts of were book-like. Maybe I will still work on this book. In retrospect, attempting to write a book while not being active in fandom sounds NUTSO.
What did I do
I really find it funny that I literally never stopped reading fic. me telling myself I left the fandom for some amount of time and then read fic almost the whole time....baahahahaha.
I took a casual stroll through the Pride & Prejudice fandom! It was a very wholesome stroll. The P&P fandom is pretty quirky because of how old the fandom is; there are lots of self-published authors on Amazon, they community on old blog platforms, and they go on Jane Austin location tours together. Majority is not slashy smut, so a change of pace for me from other fandoms. I don’t know why I make an exception for P&P in this area. I’m sure there is absolutely kinky-af slash in Austin but I just haven’t been interested???
My favorites are continuation fics, because I am fascinated by Rebecca-meets-P&P, where suddenly becoming a mistress of a huge estate is Hard, and getting married and having children with someone you never kissed before getting married is Risky and Probably Not a Good Idea. I think there are lots more feminist explorations to do in continuation P&P, where Elizabeth is basically becomes co-owner of this agriculture, human labor and investment company her husband inherited while still being a Perfect Mom, and wtf society. I surprisingly haven’t found this yet. P&P fic is real spotty, or, I haven’t uncovered the right community niche. I also am constantly disappointed by how Darcy is written, or under-developed. I want a Sherlock-y Darcy.
Impressive trait in the Austin fandom: works get completed with some serious dedication and consistency. Maybe its because they can get paid on Amazon for their work??
Recs:
Sophie Turner’s A Constant Love series (two books so far, more coming)
Sophie Turner is living the dream btw
Jodi L Covey’s Progression series
Other than that, I mostly cooked.
What brought me back now
I think it was mostly......I really needed to read PiaLR again. I got the itch to reread the moment when Sherlock drops the jar of capers. I can’t explain it. I gotta check back in on Lori every once in a while, it’s like a comfort blanket.
And then once I got through PiaLR I thought, well what about that one where John is a mountain man in Canada....and then I was binging all the favorites again. I re-downloaded the 3 patch podcast and caught up on some post-season-4 coping, and I’m slowly playing internet stalking catchup on everyone where I left off internet stalking them. I got all my logins to work again and my second browser always open. All of which means....I think I have returned.
Wow, I love so many of these fics and humans. I am surprised by how little has changed.
Okay, I don’t have time to respond to all the awesome/thinky/interesting reblogs on my post about fanfic + advertising right now. (Hopefully later.) But I’ll include some of folks’ shorter replies here for those who want to read them.
And I have a few general responses/clarifications…
How do these ads work?
While it is possible to just advertise to anyone who visits a particular website, that’s not the type of ad I was thinking of (though I wasn’t very clear). I was thinking of keyword-based advertising, where, e.g., an author could pay Google money to show a small text ad (labeled as an ad) for their fanfic every time someone searches on Google specifically for “sherlock fanfic” — or “slash fanfiction” or what have you.
So, for instance, if I type “belstaff” into Google, I get ads at the top and along the side (labeled as ads) from advertisers who paid to show ads to people who are specifically interested in Belstaff coats:
And BTW, if there’s an ad that’s out of place/that people interested in Belstaffs don’t find useful, Google will quickly stop showing that ad. So the scenario that some respondents worried about — where a fanfic author is forcing ads for their work on an uninterested and alarmed public — is not one I had in mind.
Why would someone do this if they are not making money from their fanfic??
I like this noodling! I have lots to add to the noodles, so this got lengthy. Two points brought up that I want to explore more:
1. Google/Facebook as the wrong medium / community for fandom promotions.
2. The framework of ads / paying via Google/Facebook is a masculine (or gendered at all!) pattern of acquiring power.
And then - what would work? Of course I want to make product. :)
1. Google/Facebook as the wrong medium / community.
In my education on how to make a physical feminist space, I learned that one of the most important design aspects is to have multiple layers of security (e.g. multiple locked door points to get through). I believe this is applicable to our virtual fandom space as well (and articulated in the anxiety of the "advertising would bring outsiders in" comment).
In a fandom world we have an important barrier we maintain: our anonymous identities. (While there are a few that I know of who connect their real life identities to their virtual identities, most that I've talked to about this (in physical conversations) immediately push against the idea of doing it. I have never gotten a positive reaction from the person on the other side of the conversation - I have about 8 examples of this, a small sample size, but I am making the assumption now that the anonymous identity wall is something that people want to have stick around).
Google and Facebook ads imply that you are using a technology that is tied to your physical identity. Two sides of this: one is the identity of the person searching, and the other is the identity of the person setting up the ad.
The identity of the person searching in your examples is most very likely searching logged in with their real life account (absolutely if facebook, likely if google), so right off the bat you've got a Fandom Anon Violation with the searcher.
The identity of the person posting can can more or less create a solid virtual identity on Google, but this is more difficult/impossible with Facebook. Either way, beyond the technical details: these products are pushing for users to use their real life identity, and we in turn associate those products with our real life identities. FB/Google are both trying to own the real life identity of users because that's how the profit model of ads works: collect the data/behavior of the user, and then target with ads. Tap into their physical identity (e.g. address, family members, salary, race) and target even better ads, in more relevant locations, and then make more $$.
So the structure of the products themselves violate a security barrier we've put up for ourselves. I think instinctively we've stayed away from them for this reason.
2. The framework of ads / paying via Google/Facebook is a masculine (or gendered at all!) pattern of acquiring power. This is a heavy one, and I'm going to run into a lot of minefields in this next bit, and take some leaps.
Leap #1, women organizations:
Yep, fandom respects modesty and people behaving “politely.” I wonder how much of that has to do with the gender make-up of fandom…
Absolutely, yes, women are constantly being taught that being modest and polite is feminine and "correct". (In running an organization of women / feminists I've had to learn to get really loud about talking about this, because people are so polite, to a point where it prevents the organization from functioning! It's an issue that I'm just beginning to take on and will probably take me a many years to sort out (with lots of false starts on how to approach / talk about it)).
Leap #1: organizations that are primarily made up of women face challenges in building in structures of self-promotion. Relevant reading: The Tyranny of Structurelessness.
Leap #2, gender in advertising:
In particular to this issue, I would have to defer to someone who has more education on the history of advertising. The adwords concept came from the advertising pattern in the yellow pages, and I would guess that before that it was in newspapers, and then probably something predated that (involving the greeks I bet). The pattern is: "You are searching for a generic solution to a problem in a listing of services, and we will adjacently promote a solution based on who pays us, not by who may be more relevant or better".
Maybe this is a universally effective pattern which is a rational approach to promote goods and services, and doesn't matter if it came out of a man- or woman- led business culture. But - and here's my bias - it was most likely created by an organization of men to target other organizations of men. I don't think the origin matters much to a fandom application - at this point, if you want to promote something online, one uses ad targeting, whose technology is pioneered by Google. FB then copies Google, Yelp copies Google, Amazon copies Google, etc etc, everyone copies Google for their particular related ads in products, whether it be a gendered product or not.
If this method is effective on women is the other question. Here's a paper which found that their hypothesis "The sales effect of search engine marketing such as Google AdWords is greater for women than it is for men" was disproven in their study - men were more likely to produce revenue from adwords.
(Citation: Grassmann, Johannes, and Malte Brettel. "DO WOMEN STILL GATHER AND MEN STILL HUNT? MEASURING GENDER RELATED ADVERTISING PRODUCTIVITY IN AN INTERNET COMPANY." Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing (2009): 338.)
Interesting! However, we'd need to look deeper into this - what happens when it's different types of products? Products people aren't familiar with? Do men do more research and less ad clicking when they're new to something? Etc. So,
Leap #2: The pattern of in-context ads is a pattern with a male bias, that is more effective with men. I'm not sold on this yet, and it feels flimsy to me.
* * *
What I would love as an alternative to Google/Facebook is a promotional product built into ao3 or ff.net. I know that this may sound alarming or gross (like how inline ads show up in instagram or tumblr) but self-promotion does not have to be gross! It can be done awesomely! Examples:
Search something random in Ao3. Get search results as per usual. Also get a column on the right of promoted, relevant fic (e.g. "people who searched for that tag often read:"). Promotion can happen socially - authors post their fic in a promotions feed and popularity/kudos/activity cause the fic to gain promotional karma to rise to the top of the promoted search list.
Community targeting. If you could tag yourself with the same tags you tag your fics with on ao3, users can get matched to fics. Authors could then say "promote my Omegaverse, Alpha John fic to the users who have tagged themselves with Omegaverse, Alpha John tags".
I think things like this would make our fic-finding journeys much more effective, give authors the ability to reach new/"correct" audiences, and wouldn't push on our security boundaries.
Drawing finally done! Started 3 months ago, It took a way longer than I expected. I thought that drawing in white on black would be easier but not at all. The thing is, to have white really really white, I had to draw so many times that I’ve lost count (I killed 3 entire pencils to achieve it.)
The process was so long also because of the large size of the drawing; the principal difficulty was to do all these different lightings and shadows. My favourite part was to draw Sherlock climbing the stairs; I loved to draw the shadow on his coat and the staircase. But I didn’t enjoy so much drawing the hair of the profile, it drove me crazy! I was really happy when I put my signature at the end.
Credit to Ian Derry for the 2 wonderful reference photos I’ve used:
Sherlock’s profile
Sherlock going up the staircase
He also inspired me the idea for the composition of the drawing with this post.
See here, the work in progress:
wip1
wip2
wip3
wip4
wip5 (or the death of my pencil!)
White and light grey pencils on black paper - size 65x50cm (26”x20”)
Sherlock… fidgeted. His fingers swept restlessly over the few items on Mycroft’s desk (Mycroft pocketed the device) and Mycroft knew that whatever his outward body was doing, internally his brother was pacing wildly. Finally he gave that arrogant jerk to his chin that meant he was extremely nervous and pinned Mycroft’s gaze with his own. “You owe John a new suit.” Mycroft carefully did not retort that he’d bought the man the first>/em> one. “His was spoilt in the rain during your ridiculous errand.”
They both knew rain did not ruin a well made suit. That wasn’t what was happening here.
Mycroft almost pushed it. He almost said John’s trousers would have been truly ruined only if they’d been dropped on the street of that revolting alleyway as they’d been well on their way to being. He almost said it, because he had to know. It was critical he discover how vulnerable his brother was about this, how deeply a blow to that spot could strike. He almost did.
But he didn’t. He didn’t because Sherlock had gained nearly four pounds and had lost the frightening grey undertone to his skin and the ketones on his breath. He slept, sometimes—still not nearly enough, but he did sometimes sleep instead of falling into an exhausted stupor, and Mycroft knew with absolute certainty that there were no needle marks on him even in the hidden places. He would keep his mouth shut and buy John Watson a new suit every damned day of his life for the nightmares he was no longer having about getting The Call, the one that stopped his heart: not the one that said, “A pinpoint nuclear bomb has been detonated at Whitehall” but the one that said, “Sir, we need you to identify a bo—”
So instead he said mildly, “Ashton has his measurements.”
Sherlock snorted inelegantly. “Ashton. I suppose that amused you.”
"It did, actually."
A haughty sniff, and his brother turned away to leave. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Examining the brass minutely, he said, “He doesn’t…like suits. He likes jumpers.”
Mycroft blinked and was very glad Sherlock could not see his expression.
As if it physically pained him to say the words, Sherlock choked out, “Cabled ones.” They both winced.
"Oh, Sherlock. Instead of Ashton?”
Now Sherlock did turn around, and he dragged his eyes across the floor, up the line of the desk, to Mycroft’s face. “Sometimes he wears cardigans.”
from The Thing Is by TSylvestris (56,743 words)
Johnlock. So far, so delightful. I can’t help but picture the scene from Addams Family Values when Granmama is telling a distraught Morticia about the disturbing fate of Pubert: “He could become… a lawyer… an orthodontist… president.” This makes me ridiculously happy. Plus a really delicious sibling relationship for Sherlock and Mycroft. Off you pop and read.
Related: Next up for me to read is everything in The Foresmutters Project, under the category of "Adult Slash": http://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/foresmutters/fspadult.html
Not to mention all of the meta!
Leslie Fish was probably the most articulate advocate for the K/S premise of anyone in fandom at the time. She persuaded not only through her stories, but through a steady stream of well-reasoned argument in panel discussions, LoCs and articles in genzines. In every fannish forum of the day, she laid out the conceptual groundwork for K/S. Her basic argument was that bisexuality is natural, that 20th century gender roles and sexual preferences are learned and can be unlearned, and that a sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock was a natural progression of the love and affection they plainly shared.
Her logic of slash was not so much erotic as it was intellectual and scientific. It spoke powerfully to an audience of thirty-something middle-class women in the 1970s who'd grown up in a society where heterosexuality was regarded as "natural" and homosexuality was not. Leslie outlined an alternate framework for understanding sexuality. It was one that many fans shared instinctively, but Leslie articulated the reasoning behind it.
Originally published in 1986, read this to appreciate the early medium of fanfiction as we know it but also because it's an awesome fic. The fanlore site about it: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Kista
Jane Land is the kind of fanfic author I would love to hear speak and/or be interviewed. What was the process of writing fanfic as a zine? How did you receive feedback? Has there been any shifts in feminist tropes since writing Kista? etc etc.
Real life?
What’s that? *aggressively drawing Sherlock*
A scribble. Took me 1 hour and a bit of Photoshop.
Size: A4
Medium: 0,3 mechanical pencil
Mood: *forever sobbing about pining Sherlock and not working Deviantart*
EVERYONE is welcome to post BBC Sherlock meta to the collection. If you have a master post, recs, or even a Sherlock meta tag on your blog, feel free to add the link to the Bookmarks section of the collection.
TUTORIAL: How to Import a Tumblr Post into the AO3 Collection
'The only John I’d ever known—quiet, lost, beautiful John—died the moment he recognised you. You, Sherlock, of all people, must know how… luminous he was. Of course I wanted to know who that John, my John, died for.’
She doesn’t say: I watched you, at the restaurant. You died, too. When you realised what you’d done.
He doesn’t say: As John did at Leinster Gardens. When he realised what you’d done.
Or: As you did, here, in Baker Street. When you realised what you’d done.
from Evergreen by wiggleofjudas [ AO3 | tumblr ] (1638 words)
