And bam, second review, less than a week, AWESOME.
Since there was a four-way tie on votes (how does that even happen?), I had to choose one; and since books tied games last time and I went with games, books it is. On to a new and exciting self-published experience. I know you guys will love it.
In the meantime, here's that shiny poll again. Books are harder than games, so it'll probably be here for longer this time.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Are you guys ready?
...because BOOM, REVIEW.
I could apologize some more for the long hiatus or tell you about my arm falling apart and not being able to type and stuff, but you guys don't care about hearing that again. Instead, read a review, marvel at the wackiness, have a good day!
The voting (here and on another platform where the Project is hosted) came in at a tie between Book and Game next. Since I just did a book and games are usually pretty quick, I'm going to go for game first... but look, new votes! It's a party!
See you all sooner rather than later this time!
...because BOOM, REVIEW.
I could apologize some more for the long hiatus or tell you about my arm falling apart and not being able to type and stuff, but you guys don't care about hearing that again. Instead, read a review, marvel at the wackiness, have a good day!
The voting (here and on another platform where the Project is hosted) came in at a tie between Book and Game next. Since I just did a book and games are usually pretty quick, I'm going to go for game first... but look, new votes! It's a party!
See you all sooner rather than later this time!
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
So, as I trudge onward toward the end of another review, I'm ruminating on how long this past hiatus has been. It really got away from me. There are a lot of reasons for that - new job responsibilities at the dreaded Day Job, major health complications from crippling tendonitis that made typing difficult, general laziness - but regardless of how it happened, it sucked. Let's not do that anymore.
The Phantom Project's been around for a long time now, and has kind of outgrown its original mission statement; it's not part of an academic project anymore, and a lot of the old strictures on it, including reviewing everything strictly in order of publication, really don't need to apply anymore. So, in the spirit of mixing things up and not slavishly following my own made-up rules (so rebellious!), I think we're going to start jumping around a little bit. It'll be like a fun adventure where you have no idea what I'm doing until I do it, and then you question your decisions to follow me in the first place.
But hey, let's all get involved! I'm retaining final decision, but since you guys are the ones reading this claptrap, I figure now's a good time for you to have some input into this semi-organized mess.
Go nuts. Vote all the votes. If there's a particular material you're dying to see a review of, feel free to tell me in the comments.
And now, it's back to the salt mines for me.
The Phantom Project's been around for a long time now, and has kind of outgrown its original mission statement; it's not part of an academic project anymore, and a lot of the old strictures on it, including reviewing everything strictly in order of publication, really don't need to apply anymore. So, in the spirit of mixing things up and not slavishly following my own made-up rules (so rebellious!), I think we're going to start jumping around a little bit. It'll be like a fun adventure where you have no idea what I'm doing until I do it, and then you question your decisions to follow me in the first place.
But hey, let's all get involved! I'm retaining final decision, but since you guys are the ones reading this claptrap, I figure now's a good time for you to have some input into this semi-organized mess.
Go nuts. Vote all the votes. If there's a particular material you're dying to see a review of, feel free to tell me in the comments.
And now, it's back to the salt mines for me.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Some quick thoughts on being a responsible reviewer:
It is kind of bananas how old the Phantom Project is. I started it in 2007 and could have had toddlers twice between then and now. (I didn't, though, because I'm crochety and I don't have enough love in my entire body to deal with more than one other human being and some cats in my life.) I've reviewed 140 Phantom-related pieces of media since then, and have at least that many more still waiting on my shelf/Kindle/secret porn folder for the future. And I like to think that I've gotten better at it in all that time. In fact, I know I have - there are some old reviews that make me actively cringe at my own writing these days, and a few I downright disagree with now. (Not that I'm taking them down, because darn it, I am my own little slice of academic history in action now.)
But there's "I was not as good a writer then" cringing, and there's "oh, shit, I have grown as a person and realize that was actually offensive" cringing, and while I can rest assured that most of the internet will ignore or quietly grumble to themselves about the first, the second matters a lot more. So today, a little older and wiser, I went through my archives and edited any references to "gypsies" to use the term "Romani" instead.
We talk about "gypsies", a group of people consistently demonized and fabulized in European myth and history right up to the present day, in Phantom-related lit all the time. They, like the Persians, were present in order to provide an element of exotic occultism and mystery in Leroux's novel, and the motif has been repeated through countless descendents of that novel in various ways, most often in connection with a carnival and/or the origin of the Phantom himself. Leroux's book especially is a period piece from a time of staggeringly rampant racism against Romani people, and it along with all the other materials using the word that I run into in this project are still quoted faithfully where applicable. The word is widely considered an ethnic slur now, but it's one that a lot of these materials use.
However, I was also using it as a casual word to describe Romani people in my reviews, without realizing that it was offensive to people of those ethnic groups, and only recently realized how totally not okay that was. So, I won't be doing that anymore, and have removed old places where I did. If any Romani person read those reviews and was hurt or offended, I hope you'll accept my sincere apologies and promise to never do that again.
And now, I will head off to work on a review and hope to do better in the future. I can't time travel to whack my dumbass younger self upside the head with awareness of major social issues, but I can at least take responsibility for fixing her mistakes and hope to not repeat them.
(Of course, another part of being a responsible reviewer would be actually, you know, reviewing things on motherfucking time, but let me try to improve one step at a time here.)
It is kind of bananas how old the Phantom Project is. I started it in 2007 and could have had toddlers twice between then and now. (I didn't, though, because I'm crochety and I don't have enough love in my entire body to deal with more than one other human being and some cats in my life.) I've reviewed 140 Phantom-related pieces of media since then, and have at least that many more still waiting on my shelf/Kindle/secret porn folder for the future. And I like to think that I've gotten better at it in all that time. In fact, I know I have - there are some old reviews that make me actively cringe at my own writing these days, and a few I downright disagree with now. (Not that I'm taking them down, because darn it, I am my own little slice of academic history in action now.)
But there's "I was not as good a writer then" cringing, and there's "oh, shit, I have grown as a person and realize that was actually offensive" cringing, and while I can rest assured that most of the internet will ignore or quietly grumble to themselves about the first, the second matters a lot more. So today, a little older and wiser, I went through my archives and edited any references to "gypsies" to use the term "Romani" instead.
We talk about "gypsies", a group of people consistently demonized and fabulized in European myth and history right up to the present day, in Phantom-related lit all the time. They, like the Persians, were present in order to provide an element of exotic occultism and mystery in Leroux's novel, and the motif has been repeated through countless descendents of that novel in various ways, most often in connection with a carnival and/or the origin of the Phantom himself. Leroux's book especially is a period piece from a time of staggeringly rampant racism against Romani people, and it along with all the other materials using the word that I run into in this project are still quoted faithfully where applicable. The word is widely considered an ethnic slur now, but it's one that a lot of these materials use.
However, I was also using it as a casual word to describe Romani people in my reviews, without realizing that it was offensive to people of those ethnic groups, and only recently realized how totally not okay that was. So, I won't be doing that anymore, and have removed old places where I did. If any Romani person read those reviews and was hurt or offended, I hope you'll accept my sincere apologies and promise to never do that again.
And now, I will head off to work on a review and hope to do better in the future. I can't time travel to whack my dumbass younger self upside the head with awareness of major social issues, but I can at least take responsibility for fixing her mistakes and hope to not repeat them.
(Of course, another part of being a responsible reviewer would be actually, you know, reviewing things on motherfucking time, but let me try to improve one step at a time here.)
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Soooo... I am not dead, but I did have a lot of things that made this project grind to a shrieking halt for the past several months, including an arm that stopped working almost completely and the ensuing no-work financial crash. However, new reviews are on the way. Really. I am a real person saying real things.
In the meantime, have you guys seen this Kickstarter for the phenomenal-looking new proposed Leroux-faithful animated Phantom movie? Because if not, you should! It's right up my alley, of course, but even if you're not into the Leroux-style hijinks, you might want to take a peek at the fun and games.
And now, back to the world of self-pubs, from whence I will soon return with prizes.
In the meantime, have you guys seen this Kickstarter for the phenomenal-looking new proposed Leroux-faithful animated Phantom movie? Because if not, you should! It's right up my alley, of course, but even if you're not into the Leroux-style hijinks, you might want to take a peek at the fun and games.
And now, back to the world of self-pubs, from whence I will soon return with prizes.
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