elanya

So, tonight, I am going to be watching a video of my BiL, wererogue play through the first part of Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, while three of us (I, my sister, and he) talk about it. We're making a Let's Play! And I'm super excited!

Video Game Let's Play's are a big part of online videogame culture, which is a very heavily male-weighted (but certainly not exclusive) thing. I've never been comfortable with the idea that men don't do fanworks, or not transformative ones, or that if they do they're a minority. My general observation tends to be, as we discussed in the last ficthropology episode, that this production is still gendered, in that men and women who do fanworks on the whole are approaching them very differently. Of course you get crossover, and I would definitely not go as far to say that men have a monopoly on more technological expressions, because vidding is a largely female section of fandom and it involves a lot of technological skills, and of course podficcing is a largely female enterprise as well. I don't think the pattern translates to a huge divide, but I do think it is there and it is something I am curious about, in the general way I am curious about fandom from an anthropological perspective. Fandom is so just broad, and fascinating!

So, I'm really curious to see... a number of things as regards this project. Both me and my sister will be commenting, but as neither of us have played the game - how will our comments be received? I'm mostly on board because of the pirates. I've never been much of a video game *player*, but I have a long history of watching people play them that goes back to the days of my youth when my dad and sister would fight over the Nintendo (Dragon Warrior 1!). I'm curious to see how we get on with this project overall, really - what will we have to say, do any of us really have the time required to pull this together technically? My podcasting experience, such as it is, has shown me how tricky it can be to get a good audio track, let along tossing video in the mix there. I'm certainly very hopeful that we do, and as state, I'm super excited to give it a shot :D

So it seems like, despite my intentions and my greater flexibility of time lately, I haven't been able to get myself organized to post regularly during the week. This is a shame, as I have been thinking about a lot of things lately!

( Dissertation things, Ficthropology things, Ramblings about gender issues )

Well, I technically *did* post yesterday - the new episode of ficthropology is up! For those of you who don't know that this is, it is a podcast whereing lukoni, naryrising, earis, and I discuss various academic articles and such that have been written about fandom. This episode looks at two articles talking about different aspects of the economics of fandom. And we all give recs at the end, because <3 fandom.

In other news, this has been a very strange week so far, though I'm hoping for a more subdued Friday.

Tuesday I was babysitting in the evening for tethys123, which was cool - I got fed homemade stew and breads, got to see the baby a bit (such a cutie :3 ) and then basically hung out at her place doing all the things I would usually do on a Tuesday. By which I mean hanging out on the internet. I actually did some random things, like setting up my OTW wiki user page, wooh! I also fixed my knitting.

Wednesday was my naryrising night, which is usually tuesday, but see above. it is also the day I came home and found that my roomate was just about to take a pumpkin pie out of the oven. So after I walked Jola, I made dinner, so that we could have pie "guilt free". I was not concerned about the guilt, but it was his pie.... Anyway, diner was eggs with stuff in, and delicious. Stuff = mushroom, green pepper, green onion, chicken, bacon, and smoked gruyere.

Still chugging along with Person of Interest - we're now into season three. I love all of the characters, but it is going to take a lot of work for anyone to unseat Finch as my favourite. He checks many of my boxes, in terms of hings I find interesting. I have come to better appreciate Root as well, after the end of Season Two.

Last night I also went to go play pool for a few hours with some local friends, which was a nice break - but still a break in the routine of what was already a strange week. Because of the babysitting my Jola-playdate schedule was all thrown off, so I had to leave early to pick her up (though I'm a terrible pet owner and almost forgot this was one of the reasons I did have to cut out early :p)

And all of these little deviations are not counting the weirdness of work - which I should be getting on with - which I will see about elaborating on later :) I have started on the Tiffany Favrile glass though! Woohoo! Also to maybe talk about later - weird dreams @_@

I think I mentioned the first episode when I released it into the wild, but I have just (finally) posted the second episode of ficthropology! Four of us discuss Henry Jenkins's Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture for about and hour... Something to listen to while you're puttering about with your Christmas baking, perhaps?

If people have any advice on how to promote this kind of thing, I will happily take it, as well :)

Well, crap, it is almost eleven! I swear I'm not just procrastinating though, I need to figure out what all I am doing today.

-shower
-stores for: sugar, cat litter (mostly cat litter though, sugar can wait)
-laundry (esp goblin fabirc!)
-write
-get money for Renfaire
-social stuff with folks tonight?

Tomorrow I am going to fair with some school peeps. It think there will just be the three of us, but it should be fun :)

In other news, at the prompting of lukoni_idein, she, earis, naryrising and I have started a podcast! We have recorded two episodes so far (over Skype), and the first one is up and posted at ficthropology and ficthropology. The general idea is to look at and discuss academic works on fandom and fanfic (and possibly other fanmedia, though we are all primarily fic writers), and also to look at the same subjects from an academic (mostly anthropological, but other cultural studies approaches as well) perspective. We were inspired by the discussion groups and seminars we used to have when we were in gradschool, where we would all read the same papers and then discuss and debate!

The first episode is just an introduction, but the second (recorded and being edited now) is on Henry Jenkins's Textual Poachers: television Fans and Participatory Culture.

So, I'm just putting this out there in case there is any interest from folkd and also in case anyone out there has any experience with podcasting and can maybe suggest some other ways/places we can disseminate! I think we are hoping to do maybe one or two a month,but that is all sort of nebulous at the moment!