It's a magical world

The OTW is hosting a meetup next Sunday, November 3, at 2631 Fulton Street in Berkeley! More details at the link, including an Eventbrite RSVP.

I'll be there, and I hope you can come too!

Fandom is love. It's also, in the form of the OTW, a tremendous amount of work, and a rather impressive set of costs associated with doing that work. The OTW is run by fans, for fans, and we need the support of our fellow fans to keep doing what we've done.

And we've done a lot: Transformative Works and Cultures, Fanlore, Open Doors, and of course the Archive of Our Own, to say nothing of the OTW's legal advocacy, which has secured fair use exemptions for vidding under the DMCA before the U.S. Copyright Office for two cycles running, are all supported exclusively by donations from our supporters. A donation of US$10 or more will allow you to become an OTW member for the next calendar year, giving you voting (and bragging) rights and giving us the financial support we need to keep doing what we've been doing, and to become better at it.

Over the past four years I've continually been impressed by the dedication and commitment of OTW staff and volunteers. But we wouldn't be anywhere without our supporters who donate, so thank you.

It's the 2011 OTW Membership Drive! if you care about the direction and sustainability of the OTW and its projects (such as the AO3, Fanlore, TWC, etc), join the Org now. $10 USD gets you full voting rights for a year. If you join by 17 October 2011, you'll be eligible to vote in this year's Board election. Voting in the Board election, particularly this one, makes a very real difference. With four open seats, the 2011 Board election is particularly important, and potentially transformative.

In addition to granting voting privileges in the Board election, pledges to the OTW also go to support the Org's projects, including its flagship, the Archive of Our Own. The AO3 is a pan-fandom archive that welcomes all users and is working on supporting all types of fanworks, but to keep the lights on and the servers running we need money, plain and simple, and money won't come without your support.

And you can also get cool swag. I have to say, my OTW mug is pretty darn awesome.

ETA: Board member Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has a post on donating to the OTW before Sukkot.

For those interested in the AO3, the Tag Wrangling Committee is having an open house on Saturday 15 October!

Dept. of Oh Snap
New Delicious has killed old Delicious.
bookshop, reaction post
epershand, Pinboard elving exchange brainstorm post (soon to be a reality)
facetofcathy, rundown part 2
unjapanologist, fannish bookmarking service = want, also, Diigo censors bookmarks
somnolentblue, linkspam

Other people have had a lot of good things to say about this; I've been very happy with Pinboard since I joined six months ago (I'm starlady on Pinboard; also, I highly recommend adding the Pinboard buttons to your browser bar), and the owner pinboard has been nothing but welcoming and responsive to fannish users. Yes, it costs money, and I know it is therefore beyond the reach of some people, which I find incredibly frustrating and obviously makes it not the best long-term solution as things stand. But I'm by no means wild about Diigo's silent censorship, TOS, deciding its users are spammers, and account deletion. I don't think AO3 bookmarks will ever be a replacement for Delicious, either, but I'm not averse to seeing them gain more functionality.

anatsuno has a link to a public Google document listing requested Pinboard features
and via copracat, the Great Delicious Migration spreadsheet

---

Dept. of Transformative Works
Speaking of the OTW, the Board Election chats have been scheduled.

---

Dept. of Miscellany
Alex Ross is just a fantastic writer in general.

I'm going to Minneapolis tomorrow and am basically completely unprepared. I'll see you when I see you.

The news out of Fukushima Daiichi is mixed but possibly looking very slightly up for the time being--radiation levels 500m away have decreased slightly, as has the temperature detected in the No. 5 fuel pool, and they hope to have power to the cooling systems on Nos. 1 and 2 by sometime on the 20th Japan time. The NHK has been broadcasting some handheld video taken by one of the JSDF personnel (?) inside the plant yesterday that's rather disconcerting--there's rubble all over the ground and the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors are clearly heavily damaged, but the sun is shining and the sky is perfectly blue. In the meantime, increased levels of Cesium-137 and Iodine-135 have been detected in spinach and milk from near the plant, and the number of people confirmed missing or dead has risen above 19,000.

---

But I started this post to talk about two awesome OTW things, yes, that's right.

The Archive of Our Own is gearing up to host fanart on its servers! *throws confetti*

The OTW is hosting an open ballot on naming the seven new AO3 servers until 22 March!

And on a related note, the Ada Initiative has a survey about women in open technology and culture (i.e. projects like the OTW, the AO3, DW, Wikipedia, etc…).

We've owned the servers, and run the Archive of Our Own on them, for one year today. Happy Birthday, servers! 

In celebration of which, I have one invitation to the AO3 to give away--it's yours if you want it! First come, first served. (Otherwise you can add your name to the invitation queue.)

See you at the party!

We just broke 100,000 fanfics on the Archive of Our Own.

100,000 was apparently a Smallville/Batman crossover, and 100,001 is a consensual tentacle fic.

Yup, I ♥ fandom.

Transformative Works & Cultures: Nationbending
Avatar: The Last Airbender
September 2012

Avatar: The Last Airbender is that rare animal: American-produced anime faithful to both its Japanese cinematic influences and its pervasive Chinese iconography. A vast amount of research was invested in bringing a fantasy Asian environment to life: martial arts master Sifu Kisu choreographed each fight and assigned specific fighting forms to each character; a Chinese calligraphy consultant wrote the signage that appeared in each episode, and the series’ creators visited China to study its traditional architecture. These elements create an enticing mash-up of genuine Asian signifiers within a fictional environment. The series’ popularity encouraged a live-action film adaptation from director M. Night Shyamalan. Fan controversy erupted when white actors were cast in roles previously “played” by characters with dark skin. Protests against this act of “racebending” included T-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan Aang Ain’t White!, the founding of Racebending.com, and a renewed discussion among online fans about the long cinematic history of whitewashing and yellowface

This issue aims to investigate the cultural significance of A:tLA as a transforming and transformative text. Like the Avatar, A:tLA and its settings and characters have many incarnations online, on television, on film, and in print. Likewise, the definitions of anime, cartoons, Asia, and race have been bent by fans and producers alike. A:tLA is part of the ongoing transformation of American media in a global context. We welcome contributions focusing on Asian studies; media theory and film studies; religious studies and anthropology; postcolonial and queer readings of the series, the films, and the fan works they have inspired; reviews of both canon and fanon texts; interviews with both canon and fanon producers; and reviews of relevant texts, whatever form they might take.

TWC accommodates academic articles of varying scope as well as other forms that embrace the technical possibilities of the Web and test the limits of the genre of academic writing. Contributors are encouraged to include embedded links, images, and videos or to propose submissions in alternative formats: interviews, collaborations, podcasts, comics, drawings, video, multimedia works.

Theory: Often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame that offer expansive interventions in the field. Peer review. Length: 5,000–8,000 words plus a 100–250-word abstract.

Praxis: Analyses of particular cases that may apply a specific theory or framework to an artifact; explicate fan practice or formations; or perform a detailed reading of a text. Peer review. Length: 4,000–7,000 words plus a 100–250-word abstract.

Symposium: Short pieces that provide insight into current developments and debates. Editorial review. Length: 1,500–2,500 words.

Due dates

October 1, 2011, for contributions for blind peer review (Theory, Praxis). November 1, 2011, for contributions for editorial review (Symposium, Interview, Review).

Guest editor
Madeline Ashby, Ontario College of Art & Design

Contact her via the form at: http://fandomresearch.org/?page_id=36.

There will be more about this from me before the end, but I wanted to post this now. Donations make the OTW and its projects like the Archive of Our Own possible (that's right, fan contributions paid for the servers that the fans own). So please do consider donating, if you can!