secondlina | Oddities...

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Oddities...

Well damn.

I made this face a lot this week. And it's a face I keep for special occasions. First off, i'm annoyed with aspects of my job, mainly idiots calling. Second, I seem to be in a bit of a rut this week. I can't write a comic or an LJ post worth a damn. Third, holy flying macaroni Batman, what is the internet up to?

For starters, Namesake showed up on fandomsecrets. Of all the elements I was expecting readers to nitpick about (such as genders, Lewis Carroll's reputation as a pedophile, sexual orientations of characters, comparing to Disney, etc), someone seemed to have been bothered by the ethnicity of the Wendy character. Huh. That's... a little odd. From what I gathered, she had a very clear vision of what the Wendy of Peter Pan should be. and our version... din't really cover that. It's unfortunate for the reader that feels this way. I still think she should have given the story a bit more of a chance (since Wendy has yet to actually show up).

To continue.... Oh, Deviant art. More deviant art issues. For some, anyways. Deviant art technicians have eliminated the "Other" choice in their "gender" categories. As a person who works with software, I suspect that the technical team did it because the marketing team wishes to add gender-defined campaigns to the site (jewelry stores for isntance would be show on "girly" galleries). However, this has offended many people (including some of my friends). Basically, this has offended people who do not feel attached to a gender or another. Such as Transgendered or Queer folks.

I admit, myself, I didn't get the issue right away. I'm pretty naive. So I still though LGBT people identified to a specific gender. My friends have explained to me that that wasn't the case. so I see more where this issue comes from.

Also, To me, the change in itself is not insulting. As I said, it's probably marketing based. But the Deviant art tech support was very rude to many who complained. and I find that is the bad point. Not understanding there's an issue? That's an honest mistake. Being rude to people who report said issue and refusing to fix anything? That's bad public relations and just doesn't cut it.

I won't quit deviant art (since I use it for work, among other things).

However, yesterday, me and

dqbunny were considering advertising namesake on deviant art. Now? Not anymore. Not if we can avoid it.

So, if anyone knows good sites to advertise Namesake (either through project wonderful or not), please let us know! We appreciate all guidance and suggestions.

Also, have cool namesake drawings I designed for the banners to make you feel better.

Sorry for not drawing comics this week guys. I am really void of joke ideas.

- Isa

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My friend told me this joke. It's really stupid but let's see what you think of it.

"What do you do in a bathroom?"
"European."

Haha. It's stupid, really. But, just thought I'd share.

..Man I don't get it at ALL. *is stupid or stupidly french*

(I didn't either. I was hoping you would)
XD

I'll try to explain it...

European="you're 'a peein'"

Make sense now?

*makes "guh" face again*

YAY! New art! ^_^

The fandom secret would have made a little more sense if s/he was talking about the original book. But s/he was talking about the Disney version (for all we know, Book-Wendy looked nothing like Disney-Wendy)!

**sigh** Yet another reason to add to my list of "why I haven't signed up for Deviant Art yet". :P
In addition to being convenient for transgender folks, the "other" gender specification is also useful for artists who simply don't want their gender to color the viewers' perception of their work (just like how most female fantasy/sci-fi authors use their first initials instead of their names). Not to mention the desire to avoid unwanted male attention without having to outright lie about being female.

Yeah, the whole security thing is also an issue. The whole thing was dumb and probably marketing based. It's pretty stupid to destroy all the code and then be stuck putting it back. Big wave for nothing.

I read that fandom secret. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion, but I wouldn't think seeing a different version of Wendy would be that big of a deal. @_@

Anyway, the banners look great. I think Jack and Alice's are my favorites. ^_^

Thanks! I feel it's characters that attract people a lot, so i'm using them for marketing!

It was really stupid on their part, first because of Spirit Day and then because deviantart has always claimed to be a "non-conformist" place. I honestly have had issues with the website since the whole 'Yellow Alien' issue (one of the co-creators left and they basically rewrote the whole site history so it would seem he never took any part in creating the site). Then the "erect penis = porn / photo of your open vagina = art!!" hyprocrisy and "underage characters drawn as adult in adult situations = bad / nude cosplayers wearing a wig of same underage character = good!" crap, I guess this was just the last straw. I don't think the whole uproar is because of the change itself (because honestly, it would have been quickly and easily changed if they noticed what a stupid move it was) but the whole PR response to the person who e-mailed them politely, that was really rude! I'm English as Second Language and even I know the difference between the terms and what words to use.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant on your LJ :P I've been discussing this topic to my boyfriend on Skype all day and it just amazes me how sometimes people fail to treat their customers right o.o (plus all the other issues) And honestly? I'm female/straight/dating a straight guy/cis-female (or whatever the term is, sorry I don't know) and I **HATE** with a passion when they put "girly ads" for me. Sorry, I really DON'T care about your "baby maker software" at aaaaaaall. :P

(And Project Wonderful is your best option for webcomic advertising. Find websites that are in the same literary genre as yours, advertise there and see which sites they are on.)

I enjoyed reading this rant. I think DA is a site I could easily give up, but it's like LJ - it's where most people I know are and I don't want to give up those relationships or seeing certain material. Now, Dreamwidth has enough people to where I keep both a DW and a LJ account, but far more people I know participate here.

The thing that sucks about DA is that a good bit of their users don't realize all the asshatery that's going on there. In a lot of ways, it's worse than LJ because LJ did eventually turn a blind eye to the adult stuff again once concrete rules were in place and the publicity backed off.

I think everyone who wants to run a major business should be required to take PR classes from both a professional reporter and a lawyer. It would eliminate so much of this, I think.

It is indeed like LJ! I've used it for 'art networking' for years, but for the past... two or so, it's just been dying in my small niche. I'm not gonna delete my account cause I store a lot of information in there, but truth is, I haven't been very active in general. Also it's cool that everyone is posting links to new art communities, I've been looking for new ones for a while! :P

Oh, gosh, the erect penis versus vagina debate. It would bother me more to see Deviant art do it if it wasn't the case for every single online/offline gallery out there. The eye of the viewer is still considered so male, all over the place. It's annoying and sickening. Everytime I see teenage boobs on deviant art I want to bore a hole in my skull. Them banning this stuff isn't deviant art's fault per say. The viewers are often the ones that judge what gets banned or not, and they are the ones that go "PENIS!"

Don't worry about the debate stuff. I love it! I'm sorry I didn't get to reply to comments before now.

The problem I have with it is that if you do report vaginas (and I'm talking camera between the legs using fingers to 'get a better view'), they reply back saying that "it's allowed by the Terms of Use". It's not only the users but they enforce it too. If you specifically have a gallery called "Nude Art/Erotica" and I don't know if they still have the "Fetish" one, I'd say that it should have everyone's likings, shouldn't it? :P

...okay, if nobody reacts to the reports, then this is officially no longer in "people are silly" territory. What the heck?

When you say "good sites to advertise", are you thinking about webcomic sites to advertise on? I could dig through my webcomic list and see which ones have spots for project wonderful advertising, and have a similar audience to Namesake.

You guys might also try putting up a mirror upload on free webcomic hosting sites like DrunkDuck and Smackjeeves. Even if you already have an official website for Namesake, it could still draw in more people to the comic.

If either of you are willing to do it, you could always do voting incentives for places like Top Webcomics...

As an aside, I know I'll definitely be linking to it once I have my official site for Timothy Green up. I'm very eager to see where it goes!

That would be fantastic, thank you!

When doing research, I saw the voting incentives stuff and it kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I clicked through to see some of the sites that participate. I've never been a fan of, "if you don't vote for me/review my fic(art), I'll kill your favorite puppy" sort of tactic. I think I've been in fandom too long.

When you get your site for Timothy Green up, please let us know so I can grab a banner and link to it as well!

Thanks for digging for us!!

Also, yes, when your webcomic is up, we must exchange links! It's imperative! Imperative I say!

Like someone above me pointed out, this isn't just a move that's bad for the LGBT community, but for all the artists who just don't want their work categorized by a gender. Sometimes, gender isn't the story, so even if the subject is male or female, why categorize it?

I think the "guh" comic says it all. I've been feeling that way for a while about stupid things.

Yeah, I still get a lot of weird comments for being a girl in a male workplace. My art doesn't get that (my style is "girly" it seems) but I feel for artists that get that attitude.

These are so strong, great expressions and sort of strength in the poses. Also I like how you used the rectangular banner shape, especially with the sword!

Thanks! I,m glad they turned out so great!

(deleted comment)

I wish I could poke and fondle my drawings myself. *is glared at by characters*

Hee, that F!S was only good for the publicity. And seriously, of all the things to be bothered by...

I heard about the dA wank too. Oi. Like, yeah...not okay. They really could have handled that better. D:

Also, love the Namesake sketches. And I can't wait for the update, srsly. I love it. *A*

Yeah, the FS secret was weird--almost trolly. But more traffic is good.

---
And here is where I get myself in trouble.

I've got... mixed feelings about the DA kerfluffle yesterday. I hang out in the women-and-LGBT-dominated corners of the US comics fandom, so I am uncomfortably well-informed about many things like the non-gender issue. I respect the opinions, but I think sometimes folk take it ~~too far~~ to extremes as well. There are mutually respectful ways to get things done, and then there is trollery, willful ignorance, screaming matches, dismissing someone's entire opinion on grounds of assuming they are racist/ablist/sexist/etc regardless of if that is true, and etc.

DA shouldn't have removed the non-gender option to begin with, but I think people deeply involved in the LGBT community forget that to people not so involved, it just didn't occur to them as an issue. It's not malice, it's ignorance, and polite discourse and information is the best way to fix things. Internet mobs is not.

As a code monkey, I get why they took out the "unspecified" that used to be there. It didn't matter to DA before. When they retooled the site for v7, they started incorporating the gender setting into how the information pages generated sentences (his/her). They also started using it to target the advertising. Sure, I'm a paid member, but the site lives based on ad revenue. Not enough of us pay to make up for the number that don't. Advertisers will pay more for targeted ads. It's worth it for DA to do that. Whomever coded the site probably honestly did not even know there are people that don't have a gender identity, and coded as they understand the world, as the marketers want and need the site to operate. For the sake of allowing customer/user privacy, they set it so that you could choose to hide your selected gender. Due diligence in their minds and level of information. Now, they overlooked that the info pages would still display he/she, but when you're re-coding a site that large things like that are not a priority. Making sure complex things like the gallery systems, layouts with various ad sizes, search options and etc are functioning properly, etc are the priority. Again, no one meant to offend, and they had a lot of problems with the galleries and image auto-resizing when v7 initially rolled out months ago. No one in the site admin even thought of this as a problem. A polite contact to the admin (I mean an email, not a public call-out on news and DA journals they may not even see) giving information and clearly explaining what the extent of the issue would have done loads more than two sentences demanding 'where is my third option'.

Regarding the asshat/uninformed behavior by the staff. For one, the reaction to RS's uninformed and impolite reply was not well articulated to explain to an uniformed person why what they said was being rude and inconsiderate. It was rudeness right back, immediately calling RS a bigot rather than linking him to informative sites. I get that you're angry, but it won't help matters to immediately sink to slinging insults; it also just put RS on the defensive. For two, as a long-time DA member, I know RealitySquared is notorious on DA for being an asshat to the members, paid and not, so when he acts as an asshat, your best bet is to go further up the chain of command, not through the regular support ticket means unless you can articulate what was wrong extremely well. Because the support people usually answer to RS, and you might as well just be asking him the same question a second time.

As much as DA staff like RS frequently cheese me off, I will give a ton of credit to Spyed (devArt's CEO) for calmly listening, asking questions, and trying to find the right solution when he woke up to find an internet mob at his virtual door yesterday. He read a bit, talked to staff, and within hours, had "gender" changed to "sex" hoping that was an acceptable solution that still allowed catering to the advertisers that pay for the site to run. That didn't work for people. He listened gain, engaged in discourse, got informed, and at 4:15pm had his coders working to put "Other" back into the options--as he had been informed that "Unspecified" could be insulting. He also said that further mods would be done as he became aware of the need. That is an extremely quick turn around and reaction. [link]

Of course, people are still pissed because RS is still an asshat ~~and has been for ages~~. What baffles me is the people that are pissed and screaming that DA has no business knowing at all. Because hey, DA is a business giving you unlimited space for a gallery and a community setup with tons of bells and whistles for free. The site is paid for by advertisers. If they can do better ads and make more money in order to pay for the equipment and staff that keep DA running and free, yes it is their "business" to know. They allow you to hide your choice from everyone else, they're cooperating and trying to fix the system once you get the concern far enough up the chain of command to someone that gives a shit about the user base as individuals. So I'm not leaving DA. Not over this. I'll keep ignoring admin like Hex and RS, and keep listening to Spyed, because he's reasonable and willing to compromise when stuff goes bad.

[End my $0.02]

This is the best reaction to this entire kerfuffle I've read. Nice job!

I'm surprised no one has brought up the safety aspects of such things. A lot of folks don't declare gender or will pretend to be a different gender to prevent being stalked/harassed.

Thanks! (I still like saying "kerFLUFFle" better than "kerfuffle", even though I know it's wrong. ;D )

I think a lot of people missed the point that DA has (and never stopped) allowing you to hide your chosen gender on your profile regardless of what you picked. There were still gender-specific-pronouns on your stats pages as a part of the v7 upgrade (an overlooked aspect of the upgrades) which has since been rectified.

I appreciate your 2 cents. Thanks a ton, hon!

Thanks. Sorry for going off here. I'm so freaking opinionated about these things.

Mostly I agree until a fix is made and then the reaction isn't thanks, but OMG NOT GOOD ENOUGH, YOU AREN'T CATERING TO MY EXACT VIEW OF HOW THINGS SHOULD WORK. At which I facepalm and get angry at the unpleasable wanker.

P.S. Stop making me want to cosplay Alice. Or make that sword. Pretty art renders this NOT FAIR.

....if you cosplay Alice, I WANT PHOTOS!

Honestly, once she appears and speaks lines, i'm fairly certain she's going to be you're absolute favorite, knowing you... so I apologize in advance.

It won't be soon, maybe late next year, because I have to wait to see all the costume details and so much on my plate, GAH. But yes, if it happens, photos. I've been kind of silently fangirling her since the first sketches you posted. And it may not mean much, but me lovinga sword design is kind of a big deal ~~in my universe~~. I grew up around swords (my Dad collected 'em) and I am thusly very picky about them.

...So blaming you for me earning my queen of the obscure cosplay award again. ;)

WOO-HOO!

Yeah, I think the problem came from both sides. Both sides didn't explain much, both probably had some rude and some non-rude people. There's definitely a big communication gap there.

ugh, internet drama...

I try to stay away from it, but sometimes I forget :\

My personal opinion on taking internet stuff too seriously, and making a drama out of it is: There are more important things in life than whatever might or migh tnot be going on behind that screen (and I mean this regarding ALL kinds of internet drama).

Yeah, the thing may have gotten a bit overblown. I think miscommunications and quick access makes people get a little crazy. It's so easy to get angry, on both sides of the conflict, that a lot of people forget to pause and reflect.

Ethnicity? Really? 0o That is rather... odd :/ (I noticed I hadn't received an update email since I posted last, and I was wondering what was up with that! Now I have it saved on my tabs to check manually ;)

DA is making you choose gender for ad sake? That IS insulting! *growl* I despise gender specific crap like toys for girls being stuff like barbies, baby go wets, kitchen playsets etc and boys toys being hot rods and tool sets >(

I hated most 'girly' things growing up, and it always pissed me off how 'role driven' all that stuff is. Like if you are a certain gender than 'this (insert whatever)' is what you are 'supposed' to like.

I agree with the gender guided ads to suck. I personaly hate those. And it's the fasdhion right now. Urgh. I prefer ads that seek keywords on the pages. That way I get cool animation ads.

It would make more sense especially in such diverse times where people don't really fit your typical 'molds' anymore

Wow, why are people freaking out about a different take on Wendy? After all, there are so many different takes on Alice in Wonderland characters etc.

As for the deviantart thing, the decision may have just been clueless tech stuff, but the letter the staff sent to the person was highly unprofessional and rude.

I,m not sure. To be honest, I was expecting people to flip out over other things.

I agree about the rudeness Though i,m told that staff member is rude no matter what. Which is even worse. Awful, awful pr.

I would be uber-sad if you ever left deviantART. ;.;

Still there :D

I think you can try with them:
http://www.pixietrixcomix.com/

That's an interesting suggestion! thanks!

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