icarus | Entries tagged with strikethrough

Why I don't like Insanejournal.

It's nothing personal, nor do I care about political correctness. I thought the name was funny (and suitable for fandom)... until I actually checked it out.

Don't take this as a plea not to use Insanejournal. I'm cross-posting to it for my HP friends. I think Squeaky has said all the right things and should be rewarded for being nicer to fandom than Livejournal. But whenever I go to Insanejournal, I twitch. It makes me uncomfortable. I edge away.

Why?

In 1988, my brother was a sharp musician, had good scores on his SATs, played basketball even though he was only 5' 9", and was starting to get noticed by the girls for his scruffy-version-of-Ferris-Bueller looks -- complete with the puppy eyes that could talk me out of my milkshake. He was my little brother, but the age difference between us was so slim we learned how to drive at the same time, bought a car together, then fought over it for work. I didn't have to buy tapes because his collection was better than mine, and we gossiped about the same people because we were in many of the same classes. He was friendlier than me, I was tougher than him, and we got along great despite the fact he called me his "bossy big sister" and compared me to Lucy in Charlie Brown. The silent communication between the Winchesters reminds me of us (he's Sam in that equation).

By 1989 the construction job he was working for the summer started to go a little wonky. His foreman, a family friend, said my brother's work was "for shit. He's spacing out." We got him a shrink who didn't understand my brother's tendency for understatement, how he slid out of unpleasant chores by not volunteering key info like "we're out of laundry detergent." In other words, the shrink sucked. Finally, my stepdad (well used to my brother's habits) heard something in my brother's phrasing that gave it away.

"Are you hearing voices?" he asked my brother, point-blank.

My brother never lies. Hedges, but he'll never lie.

The State of Maryland was far more effective in diagnosing my brother. He had paranoid schizophrenia, they said, and it was severe.

Insanejournal has cute little "asylums" instead of "communities." Instead of an info page you're given a "diagnosis." After my brother's diagnosis I learned what asylums are like. The locked ward in Sikesville, Maryland (I'm not kidding about the name) looks like a rather run-down college campus. There are fruit trees and curving lanes. My brother was considered to be a danger to himself when he kept breaking into churches to pray. The voices told him WWIII was imminent and only he could save the world, though they never quite said what he was supposed to do. The T.V. talked to him, and it never said anything nice. He would walk so far that he wore his shoes flat. Before he was locked up, my parents would call me at 10pm and ask me to help find him. I was a Buddhist nun at the time, and through a quirk in his illness that made me qualified on the subject of "saving the world."

My brother told me once that, "You don't understand how humiliating it was. I thought God talked to me, and I was given a wish, anything I wanted. I wished for world peace, the end of war. Later I learned that not only was I not going to get my wishes -- I was making a fool of myself the whole time."

At the ward, they buzzed me in. The halls look like a school, too, only with less windows and no decoration. The door was about four inches thick and made a loud noise when it closed behind you, like it was never going to open again. People scuffed around in a daze and the whole place had a strange smell of fear that made my skin crawl. They had him drugged so far to the hilt that he rocked. He mumbled and stared at the floor, and looked at me with desperate hope when he talked about getting out.

The "asylum" names at Insanejournal give me the creeps. I remember tree-lined lanes and state nurses the size of trucks that my brother was afraid of. I don't like checking my info page -- and finding I get to receive my "diagnosis." It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

He was a model patient and was first-run draft choice to be transferred to a halfway house. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got to visit him in a normal neighborhood. The institution made me feel like I wanted a shower immediately afterward.

So if I don't reply to your comments or join your IJ community, it's nothing personal. I just opened IJ and cringed, that's all. I don't want to go back to an asylum.

Current Mood: cringing

wildebeth asked me yesterday, so I thought I'd better make an official statement:

The Official Statement

I'm sticking with my original plan outlined in Fifty Ways To Leave LJ (without unduly inconveniencing yourself).

- First, I'm crossposting to JournalFen, GreatestJournal, and Livejournal (icarusancalion on all).
Everything will be available in all three journals (unless I screw up and forget to use Semagic). I'm not posting on InsaneJournal (despite the fact that I like Squeaky) because I don't want to invest in a paid account when I've always been free here. Sorry. I'm cheap. *g* ETA: a friend wondered "what if someone bought it for you?" Oh, please don't. There are more worthy causes than giving me a toy, especially when I have three others that are free.

- I'm taking the time to find my friends in all of these places, rebuilding my infinitely valuable f-list.
I'm not choosing which journal to use based on the size of the flist, however, but on comments. This is because people are leaving LJ but not deleting their accounts.

- I'm linking to stories off-site.
This is to get people into the habit of linking to my website and not my journal for stories in case of deletion, plus it allows me to track hit counts. The exception is of Out Of Bounds which I'll post to all three journals. On the journal it's in chapters, while the main file on my site is just one long story.

- I've not gone back to link my old stories off-site.
I did two. I learned that it's a real pain in the tushie.

- Once everyone's in the habit of linking to stories on my site or on archives like Wraithbait, I'll look into moving.
I'll move at my convenience, on my schedule, and not LJ's. I'll decide based on which journal people seem to be reading, based on where they comment.

- I'll be just as random about reading my flist anywhere as I've always been here.
Since I'm still on dialup, I'll still mostly lurk too, just as I always have.

Backing up my journal has been a nuisance, though probably good and wise and I should have been doing this all along. I'm angry with Livejournal, I really am. They've treated us badly and this week has been a pain in the ass.

This has been a public service announcement.

Current Mood: irritated

Allow me to make your life a little easier, courtesy of

electricandroid.

There is a reasonably quick way to find your friends on Journalfen, Greatestjournal, and Insanejournal.

http://www.journalfen.net/admin/console
http://www.greatestjournal.com/admin/console

- Copy/paste your flist from your LJ user page into Word
- Do edit/replace of the commas with ^pfriend add so the list ends up looking like this:

friend add icarusancalion
friend add amothea
friend add ...

- Copy/paste this list into the admin/console
-Then to find those who didn't turn up, save the resulting HTML file (use View / Source and save that) which will give you a list of all those you need to hunt for
-Check the people you've friended to make sure they're the same ones. Most people are using the same names, but sometimes names are taken. For example, the

ncp on greatestjournal is not the same one as LJ.

Voila!

ETA: I'm keeping my LJ here as two of my current fandoms are not moving. I go where the readers go. I no longer trust Livejournal and -- what's the phrase? -- I'm tying up my camel.

Current Mood: helpful

Germany's Spiegel Online* has an article about the furor and ponderosa's artwork and they've included a copy of the picture. If you don't read German (I only understand every 10th word) you can run it through Babelfish for a rough translation.

C|Net has weighed in as well.

* Sorry about that. It's been 22 years since I was last in Germany and I flat-out forgot Spiegel was a major monthly, sort of like Time. Thank you to Mona and

trobadora for the corrections.

ETA: >And here's a rough translation of the article, thank you

jackoweskla.

When I suggested LJ might dig itself to China, I was kidding. But Six Apart's VP

anildash's response to the ValleyWag article (I take it the gossip hit an all-too-accurate nerve?) suggests China, and possible lift-off once LJ hits the other side.

Quote: 'Thanks and good luck to Brad -- can't wait to see what you do next. And a big hearty fuck-you to rumormongers who stir shit up just to demoralize people who do good work. If you don't have enough drama in your life, go make something that millions of people think is valuable.'

Because giving the gossipmongers more to gossip about is always a good idea. I've got to talk to my friends in PR. This is one for the textbooks.

P.S. The rumormongers in question are ValleyWag: Six Apart Fails To Spin and Valley Wag: Six Apart Funnels Donations to Backer's Pet Charities.

ETA: Oh yeah. Really bad idea to piss off the rumormongers.

Son of ETA: Aha. Apparently this is corporate politics (vagueness alert) aimed at screwing

brad over. And reading through the comments on ValleyWag makes the motives of the commenters pretty damned clear.

anildash's post is very stupid, but I don't like being manipulated by ax-grinders.

Current Mood: floored and amused

I checked out a copy of ponderosa's artwork (I haven't seen elaboration's) which has recently sparked a controversy and caused her to be banned from Livejournal.

Art Review: Why this one?

I like it. I'm a former artist with over eight years of art training, my father is a professional art director, mom's an interior designer, my aunt's a set designer for London theatre and professional artist in her own right -- you get the idea.

It's gorgeous work with the candlelit chiaroscuro lighting, striking a balance between cartoon and photo realism. The backgrounds are photo realistic while the main figures have accurate proportions but a comic book quality to the buttery smooth shading and certain details: the length of Snape's hands are deliberately exaggerated, for example.

It's a good choice of style to emphasize the fantasy cartoonish quality of the Harry Potter series (Severus Snape? Rita Skeeter? Muggles?) that have become so real to many people and J. K. Rowling's tongue-in-cheek commentary on many real world issues.

There's an emotional maturity to the piece in how ponderosa's chosen to emphasize gesture and line over objectifying body parts. Too many explicit pieces are all about the sexual position, with overdrawn red cocks aimed at the appropriate orifice and little or no emotional content. Ponderosa's piece is erotic and sensual. The balance of power in the relationship -- and ponderosa somehow manages to convey a relationship rather than a one-time encounter via their linked hands and the obviously pre-planned setting – is shifted to Harry, Snape's face shadowed. Harry is exposed as the central figure, through the light highlighting his chest, despite the fact that compositionally Snape is at center.

Interestingly, she chooses to show Harry only half-hard, which is very unusual in explicitly sexual art which tends to glory in the "great big cock." Sexuality is more effectively conveyed here through Snape's position, stretched out and intent, and Harry's posture. Through her use of light and dark your attention is drawn up Harry's chest to his face which is blurred (emphasizing physical experience over emotion), his head tipped to the side, his posture exposed, open and receptive.

There is an unsettling undercurrent of the "older man" teaching the "younger man" about sex, and a greedy possessiveness to Snape's arms as they coil about Harry – made more greedy by the deliberately elongated fingers. This is underlined by the fact that the viewer knows Snape is Harry's professor. You do not get the impression that Snape is a nice man, though this is offset by the setting, which indicates Snape's gone to some effort, and the gentle line of his hands.

The piece does not look like a depiction of a first time. Harry's legs are relaxed and he seems familiar with sex, though he lacks the easy sexual confidence of someone in their twenties or older.

He's young, but I would guess late teens. This is not kiddie porn.

Those who are calling it child pornography have clearly not seen the image (we all like to have opinions on things we haven't seen or researched), or else they blur "child" and "teenager" together into one category -- which I don't. I know what I was doing when I was in my late teens, and it was not rated PG.

Generally on the subject of sexually explicit writing and art, I consider it problematic in our culture we're comfortable with images and depictions of violence yet so many are deeply disturbed by sex. I don't agree with that stance at all. I'll add that everyone in my family feels the same way. I was allowed to watch films that featured nudity when I was young, but violence was prohibited. Many of my father's paintings of my mom were nudes (mom was overweight and as mom put it, "he made fat and the way it hangs beautiful"). I've painted plenty of nudes myself in art classes.

wildernessguru is also sex positive.

For fans of Snape/Harry, ponderosa hits all the right notes. She does not soft-pedal Snape's cantankerous personality. She leaves in that teacher/student edge, playing with the balance of power that for fans of the pairing is its most fascinating aspect. Meanwhile, for those who don't like the pairing, that balance of power is the very reason they find Harry/Snape disturbing.

The piece is erotic yet not flagrant. It seems to me it was reported precisely because it is emotionally powerful rather than just graphically sexual art. It is the best art that causes the strongest reaction.

*smiles* If I posted a Harry/Snape stick figure it wouldn't stir so much as a ripple.

***

( The problem with Livejournal's reaction is not what's been posted but that their policies are vague and inconsistent. I have no idea what the range is myself, and I've tried to figure it out. If it were clear that graphically sexual artwork weren't allowed here, then whether I liked ponderosa's piece or not, I would agree that it was against policy. But no one can make heads or tails of the rules -- including Six Apart. They admit the law is confusing and they seem to have no idea how to apply it. )

Summing this up: Child porn clearly has nothing to do with the banning. Ponderosa's art does not depict a child. Someone seemingly objected to the teenager/adult pairing -- whether Harry is of age or not would be irrelevant to that objection; he's definitely younger than Snape. The issue also has nothing to do with artistic merit -- ponderosa's artwork is artistically superior, and more subtle than most NC-17 art.

The real issue here is Six Apart's policies. They are so vague and confused and erratic in their enforcement that no one knows what can posted or not. Ponderosa cannot be blamed and should not be punished for Six Apart's unclear policy.

ETA: Germany's Der Spiegel (is more or less like Time magazine) has an article about this piece, and they've included a copy of the picture. If you don't read German (I only understand every 10th word) you can run it through Babelfish for a rough translation.

Current Mood: calm

Two links that were immensely helpful in my packing, tidying up the house, getting prepared so that I'm ready to go if I so choose:

- Snapetoy teaches us how to set-up Semagic to update multiple journals at once. (thanks to

scarah2 and

lauramcewan for the link)

- All you ever wanted to know about backing up your LJ. (thanks to

wyomingnot for the link)

Learned from

copperbadge's LJ:

Brad Fitzpatrick, the founder of LJ, is leaving for Google.

Good move, Brad. Best of luck to you.

I'd say we'll miss you but that's been true for two years. And really true the last couple months. Do you think Six Apart will stop digging once they hit China?