Month: December 2015

2015 In Review

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So much happened in 2015. Here’s a quick rundown of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Also included: some of what I’m thankful for in 2015, what I’m looking forward to in 2016, and a list of New Year’s Resolutions!

The Good

  • I was published for the first time! I sold a piece of flash fiction (“Accidental Queen of the Spiders“) to Fireside Fiction and it was published in their August 3rd I may never stop talking about this because this is such a huge deal.
  • I spent from April to September of this year writing about James Bond for The Mary Sue. I got a lot of exposure from it and made many new friends as a result.
  • I’m actually currently doing reviews for Word of the Nerd!
  • I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens and cried forever.
  • I (eventually) got accepted into the Master’s Program for Literature at my alma mater in Miami.
  • I got a car at the beginning of the year. It’s a milestone.
  • I’ve been making inroads in writing and I’ve learned so much from fellow writers throughout the year.
  • I’ve found a community of really cool people thanks to twitter and publishing. Sure, publishing has a lot in common with media fandom in that there are some really powerful and terrible people out there, but I’ve actually met a ton of really amazing and wonderful diverse people, some of whom have taken me under their wings a bit.
  • As of 11:23pm on December 30, 2015, I have written at least 198,175 words in at least 75 different finished files. This number only includes most of what I’ve written between September and December of this year because I wasn’t keeping track of what I was writing until September.

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Five things that I learned during the “Year of the Spy”

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Sometimes, when it’s very quiet and I close my eyes, I swear that I can hear the brazen, brassy tones of the James Bond theme song playing in the silence. At first, it was a bit worrying. But now, I’m kind of used to it. It’s all part and parcel of what comes with diving headfirst into “The Year of the Spy”.

I’m not sure how this happened, but 2015 officially became “The Year of the Spy” thanks to several major blockbusters, comics, and shows that centered around international espionage. If there were spies in it, chances are that I watched it, read it, and generally was obnoxious about it on twitter. I couldn’t help myself.

It’s been a long year of spies and immersing myself in almost everything to do with this genre of fiction. I’ve learned and noticed a lot. Much of it was… kind of negative, but there were a few standouts.

So instead of giving y’all a twenty thousand word recap of my year of the spy, I’ve written up five things I’ve learned or had reaffirmed over my year being ridiculously invested in all things spy-related!

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Maggie Stiefvater’s Got An Issue With the Star Wars’ fandom’s focus on Poe & Finn

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Obviously, this post has spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And some of them might be above the cut.

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Earlier yesterday, The Raven Cycle author Maggie Stiefvater took to tumblr (in a response to a message sent from one of her fans) to announce that she had beef with the Star Wars fandom in the wake of Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

Why does she have an issue with the fandom?

Could it be because fandom insists on shipping Rey with Kylo Ren despite everything he did to her?

Could it be because of racist AUs like the ‘segregation’ AU someone saw floating around?

Or could it be because clueless and offensive people fandom have decided that Finn is the ultimate misogynist for – wait for it – daring to hold Rey’s hand at some point in the film?

No.

Not even close.

Maggie has beef with the Star Wars fandom because they’re focusing too much on Poe Dameron and Finn.

You know, the first men of color to ever be main characters in a Star Wars film.

Instead of basking in that beautiful POC rep (or, if she must complain, point out that we still haven’t had a woman of color with a significant presence in the film series on that same level), she’s steamed because fandom isn’t focusing as much on Rey as they are on Finn and Poe.Read More »

Help Zina H make it to grad school!

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Help me make it to grad school!

I’ve wanted to go to grad school since the moment that I graduated from FIU (Florida International University) in 2012. Unfortunately, life didn’t go as planned and I spent the next few years trying to make things work for me in the workforce.

In September, I decided to apply at my alma mater for grad school. I didn’t go with the history department again I decided to go with the English department for an MA in Literature because much of what I’ve been doing in my spare time has revolved around media analysis and looking at things like race and gender.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get in the way I had planned. Instead of being admitted immediately, I was at first told that I would have to defer my enrollment to the Fall 2016 semester while I took two classes (which would’ve come up to over $2000 for the semester) in the Spring. Thanks to the director of the program really going to bat for me, things changed for the better.

Earlier this month, I was given late (and conditional) acceptance to grad school in the English Department’s Literature program. I’m officially in the program and registered for three classes starting next month and I currently have a place to stay with one of my darling professors from undergrad!

Here’s the thing though, while I am 99% sure that I’ll be getting loans to cover classes and bills (and I’ll be looking for work in the area and on campus, as well), there’s still a gap period before any of that will go through and I have no income to cover things like food and transportation (because my car is currently not with me).

I’ve wanted to continue on to higher education from day one and now that I’m so close to getting where I need to be, I really don’t want to have to turn around and give up. I’ve been accepted into a great program at the college and I’ve got a place to stay for the meanwhile.

All I need is a little help to make sure that I can survive until loans disburse and I can get a job in Miami!

Thank you for any help and money that you can give!

[To read more about what the money will go towards, visit my YouCaring page!]

Obligatory X-Mas Post

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I like saying that I’m in it for the presents, but let’s be real:

I don’t get up at 5:30 in the morning for stuff. We’re celebrating the fact that almost everyone in our family is together and able to share gifts, positivity, and love. I enjoy watching my niecelings tear into gifts and scream when they see something they wanted all year.

This is the second year that our mom has missed Christmas because she’s still in the Virgin Islands and her absence is missed. We still have her wrapped gift from last year and we’re hoping that she can come back soon.

Don’t get me wrong, the stuff is nice. It’s great. I got some good stuff and I always feel like my family notices me and what I’m into. (The Cassandra Clare book made me ugly laugh for figurative hours because she’s such a huge guilty pleasure for me.)

But I’m also invested in watching J howl when she opens a new type of make up, M mean mugging for the camera, and Tiny T cackling with delight when she gets a new doll. My nieces are getting bigger and bigger every year and I love seeing the way that their interests and reactions change. These are my babies and they’re getting so big. I’ve got to bask in it while I can.

Today wouldn’t be half as fun without my family.

Even if they did wake me up at five thirty in the freaking morning…

So happy Xmas if you’re into that sort of thing (and happy Friday if you’re not). I hope you all get to spend time with the people that you love!

On Grayson, fandom, problematic media, and the drive to “defend” popular male characters

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Content notes: This post mentions and/or links to descriptions of sexual assault and harassment as well as racism.

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If you were to listen to a certain group of Dick Grayson fans on the internet, you’d probably come to the conclusion that comic book fans are frighteningly intense and that the Grayson series (written by Tom King and Tim Seeley with pencils by Mikel Janin and colors by Jeromy Cox) is rife with orgies and plagued with issues of consent on every single page as Dick is forcibly separated from his friends and family to fight in the war against SPYRAL.

If you were to listen to that weirdly vocal group of fans, you’d also be just as wrong as they are.Read More »

[Review] Six-Gun Gorilla: Long Days of Vengeance

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Six Gun Gorilla Cover

Writer: Brian Christgau

Artist: Adrián Sibar

Letters: Bram Meehan and Dave Sharpe

Support the creators and get the comic on: COMIXOLOGY | AMAZON (Link to the first issue only) | KICKSTARTER

Note: Brian Christgau provided me with this review comic. The thoughts expressed in this post are entirely my own (obviously because who else would write an intense ode to a fictional gorilla?) and are honest representations of my opinions.

There’s something cathartic about watching a gorilla shoot the hell out of bad guys.

When I was trying to describe Six Gun Gorilla‘s premise to one of my friends, I wound up saying that it was something close to what you’d get if the long dead Edgar Rice Burroughs and Quentin Tarantino had a baby and if that baby was cooler than its parents while also being a gorilla.

As far as descriptions go, it’s a bit nonsensical, but it’s also what makes Six Gun Gorilla my kind of comic book. It’s a comic set in the American West during the times of cowboys and cattle rustlers and there’s also a gorilla running around blowing people’s heads off.

I’m sorry, was I supposed to refrain from falling in love with this ridiculously awesome comic?Read More »

Fandom’s Huge Race Problem Essay #2: Co-Opted Experiences and Identities in Fandom

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Essay 2 Word Cloud

AKA How to appropriate cultures and lose respect in the process

Content notes: Aside from discussing racism in different forms across different cultures, this post also will talk briefly about the Holocaust and Transatlantic slavery. Note that I am AfroCaribbean and my lens is vaguely Western tinted as is much of the racism that I speak of. This doesn’t render my thoughts on racism (especially anti-black racism) invalid, but tends to kind of keep it narrow.

If you want to share your experiences with cultural or historical appropriation in fandom as a fan who is from somewhere else in the world or that has a different cultural background, feel free to message me and we’ll work something out in terms of posting here or on my tumblr.

If you’re arriving to this party a little bit later, head on over to the introduction post for this hybrid essay series so you can get a feel for how things are done here.

Last month, we talked about the techniques of erasure that fandom uses to decentralize people of color in popular media and prop up white (and often male) characters. We covered techniques from rewriting the relationships between characters to distancing characters of color from white characters they’re often shipped with.

It’s been a long month full of conversations about shipping and race. Many of these comments have been insightful and almost all of the responses that I have received so far have been positive.

This month, we’re looking at aspects of cultural appropriation in fandom and the ways that fandom frequently takes the culture and history of real and marginalized people and applies them to white characters.

In addition to defining cultural/historical appropriation and discussing why they’re not cool, we’ll also be looking at specifics like the use of horrific events in history (the Holocaust and the Transatlantic Slave Trade) as background/scenery for ship within fandom, and the Alpha/Beta/Omega trope and how fans tend to coopt and mutate actual history in order to manufacture gender/race –based oppression for cis white male characters.

We’re covering some heavy stuff both in terms of content and density. When talking about this aspect of how fandom gets it horribly wrong when creating fanworks, we’re going to look at:

  1. Defining cultural appropriation in fandom and why cultural appropriation seems small but is a big deal
  2. Defining historical appropriation in fandom
  3. Why certain kinds of Alternate Universe (AU) ideas are and should always be a BAD IDEA in fandom
  4. Manufactured oppression in fandom spaces & fanworks
  5. The way that cultural and historical appropriation in fandom doesn’t necessarily respect or honor anyone.

I know this seems like a lot of text content, it’s all for a good cause. So let’s get started!

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Update 12/17/2015

Stitch

I just put the finishing touches on my own Grayson post’s first draft and am working on commission work for the rest of the night but I have a few things that y’all can look forward to coming up in the next week or so:

  • A Wizardverse Yule story (if you don’t know what my Wizardverse is, I’d be happy to explain and share links to the stories)
  • A wintery temptation valley story because lesbian westerns are the best kind
  • A “Year of the Spy” post with the top things I learned/had reaffirmed about the spy genre in 2015 (goes up on Patreon tonight and everywhere else on the 31st)
  • The second fandom & race essay
  • The Grayson post (currently 7000 words of snark, frustration, and cussing, this is not a scholarly post)
  • Problematic Fave – Orson Welles. Because I love him.

There’s other stuff of course, but I wrote this list on the fly while not looking at my actual to-do list so prepare to be pleasantly surprised over the next two weeks!

Urban Fantasy 101 – Issues of Immortal Morality-

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Welcome to Urban Fantasy 101, where we look at Dos and Donts along with discussions about good and tropes when writing Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance stories. Later on there’ll be themed book reclists (AKA – Required Reading) and eventually we’ll even include guest posts from/interviews with published authors writing diversity into these genres.

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It’s been a couple of years since I read the last Southern Vampire Mysteries book from Charlaine Harris or watched the show, but one thing that really made the series difficult to consume (aside from well… a lot of other stuff with regard to sexual content) was how the vampire Bill Compton was originally a soldier in the side of the Confederate Army.

I don’t know about you, but I find it extremely difficult to sympathize with or even like a character that fought on the side of the Confederacy. It doesn’t matter what he does in the present day story or even if they’re a current crusader for justice. They were a part of something horrible in history and chances are, that they weren’t forced into it.

I still remember watching those first few episodes of True Blood and just frowning at the way that the townspeople in Bon Temps were fawning all over Bill. I felt so uncomfortable. It wasn’t only the fact that he was a vampire in their tiny town that had them losing their minds, but that he was old enough to have fought in the Civil War – on the side of the Confederacy.Read More »

The Kelpie in the Canal – Now Up On Patreon

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At first, when Danae sees the horse in the canal, she thinks that she’s dreaming.

This is one of the stories that is going to show up in my fantasy collection sometime in the early parts of next year. Set in South Florida, along the same stretch of road that I would walk along when coming home from student teaching, this story is set to be humorous with an edge of intensity.

Hope you all enjoy reading the story!

 

This story is available only to monthly Patreon subscribers at the $5 level for anyone interested in reading the story and supporting me in my endeavors as a writer. It comes in .PDF, .MOBI, and .EPUB formats so that you can read on whatever device you want!

Wish me luck!

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Today I’m going down to Miami in order to make the sort of academic decision that’ll move me forward on my goals. I’m being vague now because I’m terrified but please wish me all the luck in making a good choice!

Problematic Fave – The Authority: Human On The Inside

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This is the first post of what’s going to be a regular feature on the blog. “Problematic Fave” is going to look at what else – my problematic faves from all over the place. From comics to the romance novels I have loved to things I’ve watched that were just plain weird, I’m giving a critical look at stuff that I genuinely love, even when I probably could dial things back a notch.

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Want to buy The Authority: Human on the Inside before you read every single spoiler I’m about to unleash? Head on over to Amazon via this handy affiliate link!

To be absolutely honest, the Authority, Stormwatch, and their characters make up approximately 60% of my ultimate problematic favorites.

Sometimes, some issues or characters stand out more to me because they’re messed up or because they messed me up and then despite that, I continued to overflow with love for them.  So it makes sense to start with one of the books from Wildstorm’s best series for this new article series I’m doing.

The Authority: Human on the Inside is one of those books. Written in September of 2004 by novelist John Ridley (Spoils of War) and artist Ben Oliver (that first amazing run on Batwing), the standalone comic centers on our favorite aggressive superpowered misanthropes going up against a villain that comes at them from an angle that they least expect, trying to take them out from the inside.Read More »