{look upon my works, ye mighty}

You know what the world needs?

More art of chars of colors and more publicity for the art that's already out there!

There's been plenty of discussion about chars of color/non-white chars in fiction, so let's start promoting artwork. There have already been some gorgeous collections of artwork done via links in journals, but I think something that updates on a more regular basis and is easy to find would be fantastic.

My idea is to create a dA club that'll favourite the works of chars of color/non-white chars. Members can join and submit pieces, and every month, we can have a journal update that'll feature two or three especially talented artists. Why dA? Collecting artwork on dA means that the artists will always be credited and art theft can't take place, and that the artists will know that their work is appreciated when they see that it's been fav'd. It's also tidy, used by a lot of people and therefore has a lot of art to choose from. delicious would be easier if we wanted to collect artwork from all over the web but unfortunately, delicious doesn't have the same awesome thumbnails for viewers and notifications for the artists that their work is being collected.

Current names up for consideration: charsofcolor, chars-of-color, multicolorful -- the last is the idea of skywardprodigal, who pointed out that not everyone is okay with the term "chars of color" because they prefer to ID themselves as "non-white". If you've got ideas as to what other good names would be, please toss them my way! deepad has now suggested chromaticart and kialo would like the word 'reflections' to be in somehow.

Current categories to sort artwork into: fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, modern, mythological, fanart: anime, fanart: literature, fanart: movies, fanart: tv, het couple, gay couple, lesbian couple, group pic, horror, urban fantasy. The last two were suggested by takishia. Again, if you've got ideas for other ways to categorize art, drop a comment!

Only rule I have so far is that if we fav a piece for the club, we will comment telling the person about the club and offering feedback on it at the same time, just to encourage the artist to draw more chars of color/non-white chars. I don't want to mod it on my own, and have already asked skywardprodigal to co-mod with me, but am thinking that more mods might be necessary because the more people who have access to the club account, the more people that can favorite work they find on dA that's club-appropriate. The other option is to tell people to note the club if they find something suitable but honestly, that's enough work that I doubt most people would bother doing that. Clearly, I need help with ideas for that as well!

This idea is just percolating in my brain still, so any and all feedback or ideas will be appreciated. Especially if you've had any experience modding clubs on dA before.

Edit: Added in two more name suggestions, and two category suggestions, all taken from comments.

YAY ICONS! I woke up one morning with inspiration for an icon set floating about in my head, then spent most of a day working on them. Cue a set of 85 '[name] is my hero' icons. XD The icons are of various characters/groups from DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek and Misc. Characters featured included members of the Batfamily, the Supes, X-Men, Teen Titans, Outsiders, Green Lanterns, Spidey-world and many more.

Samples:

001

002

003

004

Choose your hero/ine here at icon_d! And if you can think of a hero/ine that'd icon well (as in, has a very recognizable symbol), then go ahead and suggest it via comments. I'm thinking of making an Avatar set and maybe a Naruto set, with the village and element signs, though that'd obviously be more for groups than for individual chars, alas.

See the icons above? I'm willing to make similar icons for anyone that's either taking part in International Blog Against Racism Week or on my flist.

All I need is a comment asking for one, a photo of you or a doll of you (I'd prefer a doll, which you can easily make by going to Dollz Mania where they have a variety of skin colors and hairstyles), and information about what country flag you want and what [insert here] pride.

For example, to make my icon, I would have needed someone to comment with a doll and "Sri Lanka flag, Asian Pride". For the Trinidad icon, I would have needed a comment with the doll and "The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago flag, Trini pride".

First come, first served unless you have the double-plus of being on my flist and taking part in IBARW! Please note that I can only do one flag on the icons -- if you have multiple nationalities, like me, pick whichever one you think you're most proud of being or want to represent you the most.

No charges pressed!

I have to admit, I really love the idea of a guy defending his ex-girlfriend's privacy by throwing a can of baked beans at a reporter.

Of course, I'm also one of those people who think that celebrities and their lives aren't interesting in the least and the paparazzi should just back off already, but still, Hugh Grant managed to both amuse me and make me feel vaguely proud of him for standing up for his ex.

...Please note, throwing a baked bean can at a reporter for trying to spy on your ex-girlfriend is different to spitting on one for trying to take a photograph of you. I'm still disgusted with Avril Lavgine for the latter, but I have to admit, Hugh Grant's coming off as pretty chivalrous in my eyes right now.

I'm always weirdly pleased when people stand up for each other. If nothing else, lj strikethrough '07 was awesome because of how quickly the el-jay users banded together to coordinate things like keeping track of deleted journals/comms, spreading the word, starting up protest memes, switching userpics, etc. Newsies has a special place in my heart because it taps into the 'people really can do good together!' idea that I not-so-secretly love, especially because I think it's so unrealistic.

Oh, and a note on userpics -- I didn't change mine for the strikethrough protests, and I rarely do change mine to jump on bandwagons, but I do think that userpics are an effective way of getting a message across. Meaning that if people want to make/use icons about strikethrough '07, I think they should go right ahead.

On el-jay, they're the equivalent of someone's t-shirt to me. If I see a political icon, I react to it the same way I would if they were wearing a political t-shirt, either with a mental sigh or by making a casual comment like 'nice t-shirt' or 'icon love!', depending on the situaton.

If I had more of an interest in how societies work (or, alternatively, more time!), I'd probably spin off onto a tangent about how my flist is like a microsm of el-jay. There are the people who are still wary of Six Apart, the people who are backlashing into being anti-fandom, the people who think they're safe now and it's over, and the people who are completely indifferent to it.

I probably fall in the category of 'still wary', just because as long as I have a paid account, livejournal remains a product to me. If I buy a book, I expect it to still have all its pages, not have some ripped out for having inappropriate material. If I'm given a new book by a friend, fresh from the bookshop, and it's missing pages, then I'd complain to the bookshop or the company that printed the book (obviously not the friend's fault). If I'm given a second-hand book by someone, then fine, it's a freebie and I know it's going to be used already so no complaining about its quality.

Please note, I'm not saying that free users don't have the right to complain about changes they dislike to livejournal, but my point is that if Six Apart wants to run livejournal like a business, then they need to listen to their customers.

In this case, they're doing that a little late, but they are listening, so I'm pleased with them for that but still definitely wary. Especially because of the rumors that they're thinking about becoming an IPO.

...And wow, this entry rambled. In conclusion, have some bullet points!

1. Hugh Grant is awesome for defending his ex-girlfriend.
   
2. People are awesome when they look out for each other.
   
3. Userpics do matter.
   
4. My flist is very diverse.
   
5. Six Apart needs a better PR department, if nothing else.
   
6. Passion is ♥.
   
7. Apathy doesn't just kill. Apathy kills excruciatingly slowly.

Welcome to the Yu-Gi-Oh Anti-Hate Fest! Let's keep the fandom alive and kicking through writing drabbles or making icons, because let's face it, celebrating the reasons you love a fandom is way more productive than griping about it or the other people in it. Drabbles and icons last, and you can show them off proudly -- anon comments don't, and negativity is toxic anyway.

The rules of participation are simple!

If you're signing up to create, then just drop your username along with a line or two about if you do fic or icons or both, and which chars or pairings you like especially. If you're making a request, either comment in response to someone that you know can write what you want, or drop a comment of your own, stating what you're asking for, and whoever comes across it can fill out your request. Multiple responses to one request are awesome, so feel free to reply to a request even if someone else already has.

All ratings, all pairings, and all characters welcome, as long as it has to do to with Yu-Gi-Oh. Any author or graphic maker who wants to play is more than welcome to jump in!

Also, if you've been recently been friended by someone you don't want to have anything to do with, the ban_set command is your friend since it'll stop them displaying on your 'Friend Of' list.

Link of the Day: Book Art.

So, Willow linked me to the above during an IM convo and it totally took my breath away. I love books in general and usually hate to see them mutilated but in this case, I think that it was very much worth it.

Apart from that, the Mai journal for ygo_sci_fi is driving me nuts. I worked through some tutorials on black-whiting pics, and ended up making a new banner and default icon, but I can't get the header image to line up with the top of the page. The journal is Swan Song and if anyone can figure out what I'm doing wrong, I'll be much obliged. The layout style is flexible squares, and it's my first time using it.

It shames me it took over an hour to do that.

Anyway, if you snag, please credit text fuzzybluelogic icon fickle_goddess. I'll post it on bad_rpers_suck later if fuzzybluelogic gives me permission, along with a sad woeful installment of MORE Dryad-hate. *cannot figure out why they attract so much trouble*