Life in shuffle mode

For those that asked…

Since y’all asked. Well, those of you that asked.

The baby Barbie Batman of song and legend.

Sleep, what is that?

Getting excited about CONvergence. Looking forward to seeing all my friends again! Come to our Chicks Dig Time Lords panel. It’s important and stuff!

Also…

My next comic is actually slowly becoming a reality, and that is kinda scary. We’ll probably have a domain by the end of the week. I have two comics to letter and prettify with titles and headers and such so they can go online. Then we shall see how much the universe loves or hates me.

I need a rant. May I have a rant?

I wasn’t entirely sure I should jump in on this conversation over at the LJ in question, but here’s my rant

The whole entry really does remind me of how guy-oriented of a world we live in.

I think it comes back to women buying into the idea that anything we like or do, or any way we choose to express ourselves is inferior, because it’s not how guys express themselves, or how guys like things. Guys perpetuate this, and women buy in. I used to hide the girlier ways that I enjoyed fandom (fanfic, emphasis on relationships, crack, etc) because boys would take me less seriously, since I wasn’t engaging in fandom in exactly the same way they did. Obviously, since I wasn’t like them, my tastes and opinions weren’t serious, I wasn’t a real fan.

Whenever I went to conventions, I used to really nerd-up the wardrobe with the geek-wear to make it clear that I was a fan, and not the arm-candy of a fan. This started after I went to a comic convention with a friend who came just to spend time with me (he had no interest in comics) and I went to talk to a dealer about selling a few #1s and the guy talked to my friend the whole time, and when he found out I had a comic he wanted, suddenly he stared bending over backward to pal up to me. I felt, after that, like I had to prove myself to the guys and make myself worthy to be in their fandom. Now I have enough notoriety that I can wear whatever I like (including *gasp* dresses! and heels!) and my epic love for Bumblebee/Bessie automotive slash is still taken seriously (sort of–most people are just horrified that Bumblebee would DO that to Bessie’s crankshaft). The point is, they know I’m there as a fan, and not a tag-along.

I think it’s great that girls feel comfortable and safe enough to dress as guy characters that they admire. but 1) there should be more strong, heroic female characters that they want to dress like. And 2) it should be just as OK, accepted and applauded when a guy dresses up as a female character he admires in cross-play. Dudes should not have to prove the masculinity of their fannishness just as I should not have to prove the masculine nature of my love for Doctor Who or Firefly or whatever.

Yes, girls write themselves and their stories out of fandom, and when they DO experience fandom in a “girly” way, they do it in their own secret little communities that basically shout “no boys allowed!” due to their focus and/or the way they present themselves (I loves me some Doctor/Rose as much as the next person, but I think Time and Chips is a little girly lookin’ on the first page, and its content–then guys think the only thing that happens there is smutfic with the Doctor and Rose bumpin’ uglies, which isn’t always the case). And part of it is a defense mechanism–we don’t want to be picked on or mocked, or judged for enjoying the things we do. We want the safety of an insular little community, but it just perpetuates this idea in guys’ minds that girls’ fandom is soooo much different.

It’s taken me god knows how long to find a niche of friends in fandom who like the things that I like–cuteness and explosions and running and space battles and the occasional bits of smut and loooove and the rest. Tech specs and statistics aren’t my thing, but if they’re your thing, go for it! Just don’t say that I’m such a fangirl for being into what I’m into. There are not only three types of women: 1) sexy women who are there for you to look at either as booth babes or characters in your fandom, 2) ugly fangirls whom you wouldn’t want to screw and 3) normal, pretty girls that you don’t have a prayer with who don’t like the same things you like. We come in all varieties and shades in between. I can dress like a girl without feeling compelled to dress sexy FOR YOU at a con to make some point about how I can be sexy AND smart. I can dress however the hell it pleases me. I’m not obligated to be pretty or sexy or nerdy or dowdy or anything else. I’m just me.

And if I’m a fangirl, don’t use it as a derisive term. Being a fanboy, and engaging fandom as you do is not automatically better, or more desirable just because you have a penis. No, women wouldn’t be better if we were just more like men. That’s putting us in a box.

We get to be true to ourselves and enjoy the things we enjoy in whatever capacity we enjoy them. Don’t fear the explosions, and if you want to spend your time calculating how many stalls would have to be in the Enterprise D bathroom to accommodate only having one bathroom on the entire ship, go for it. Do it because statistics and math make your feet tingle, not because it proves to a guy that your fannish love is just as worthy as his fannish love.

I’m personally not a fan of smut or slash, but I’m glad that its there for the people who like it. Everybody should have their niche in fandom, the place where they fit in, and get what they want/need. Crackfic is my personal fetish. The crackier the better (I ship One/Rose exclusively). Just remember, no one is making you read my Wesley Crusher/Lwaxana Troi smutfic, and you can’t make me read your technical manual on how the TARDIS’ transdimentionalness works, just be glad we both get to do exactly what we want in fandom without judgment that either of our efforts is stupid, or not what a “real” fan would do.

I also don’t buy into the opinion that there’s one type of “real” fan, or that there’s some test to prove how “real” you are. Do you have all the Star Trek novels? Is that the cutoff? Or that you’ve seen every episode of Doctor Who ten times each? Can I make a confession? I contributed to a book of Doctor Who essays having only seen SOME of Classic Who, without listening to most of the Big Finish audios, and without ever having successfully completed reading a DW novel. Am I not fan enough to be in that anthology? Oh wait, it was just an anthology of GIRL fan experiences, and we’re not even real fans anyways.

And hate-fandom. Don’t even get me started on that.Like somehow, you’ll prove how much of a *real* fan you are by hating that which you love, or picking on it before an outsider does.I think there’re plenty of things that’re open for criticism in Doctor Who. There’re plenty of times to say this was effective, it wasn’t effective. Or i think they were going for x but it really just left me feeling y. We can talk about how it made us feel. We can even joke about it (TINKERBELL JESUS DOCTOR, ZOMG WEEEE!) , but hating on it, and calling it names (that was total shit, and I don’t know what x writer thought he was doing, thinking he could write doctor who, and what idiot producer made this thing? My cat has coughed up better hair balls!) is not only NOT PRODUCTIVE but it just spreads the negative energy.

If we’re coming together to participate in fandom because of our positive love for the same thing, spreading the negativity is going to just poison the room, slowly. Love what you love, criticize it intelligently, think about your own feelings. But calling people (or objects) horrible names, threatening them, etc are just not acceptable or cool. Sure you can do all of those things, it’s a free f-cking country, and you have the right to free speech, but I don’t think it’s productive, I don’t think it’s nice, and I think youre just making yourself miserable and spreading misery and anger by doing it.

If fandom’s not fun any more, move on. If it’s all drama and no wonder or excitement, step away fro a while (or forever–there’re fandoms I’ve completely left behind because of drammaz). Have FUN. Real, true fun. I don’t think fluffing up your own battered ego through hating on a thing or a person is real fun, but wtf do I know? I haven’t finished a Doctor Who novel I’ve started reading. And I’m a girl. WTF do my opinions matter?

So, yeah, I’m a hypocrite, whatever. I hate hate. Fourteen year old squee girls are just as entitled to be in your fandom as the guy who builds Daleks. Liking Twilight in addition to Doctor Who does not automatically mean they’re somehow sub-human (my own feelings on Twilight aside), and they’re bringing your fandom down just by being here. I personally think when fandom isn’t a safe place for everyone, no matter what they like (costuming, building things, fanfic, con-running, etc), fandom is bringing itself down. And every group within fandom has its points of arrogance. Hey, we may be cosplayers, but at least we’re not those weirdos who sit in the video room! Or I make fanvids, but at least I don’t sculpt My LIttle Ponies to look like members of the ST:TNG cast! I like comic books, but at least I don’t like all the stupid superhero books! Or I like comics, but at least I don’t read those stupid web comics! Bottom line: whatever it is, your particular fannish joy is no better or worse than anyone elses, no matter how lame you think some other group is being.

Like what you like, and be proud of liking it. you don’t need to answer to a guy, or anyone else to show that you are serious, or that your tastes are “worthy” somehow. Don’t write yourself out of fandom, don’t shortchange yourself, your story, or your tastes. Cos, like, can you imagine the beautiful babies that would be had if a Stargate mated with a TARDIS?

Chicks and Babiez and more!

..All can be yours! If you keep reading this note!

1) Where is more Babiez? Unfortunately, the conclusion of Torchwood Babiez is on hold for just a bit while we deal with some RealLifeStuff. Katy is moving to a new city and starting a new job and I am starting up my own new adventure that hopefully I can share more about later.

WE PROMISE WE WILL FINISH IT. Not only have we invested too much of ourselves in this to leave it hanging, but you all have been too wonderful and supportive to just forget the whole thing. It may take us a little longer than we had hoped, but it won’t be like… say… a certain Kevin Smith Black Cat comic. In fact, the last panel is drawn! It’s just all those pesky pages before that which need done.

2) Gallifrey One was AMAZING! It was Katy’s first Gally, and I think she liked it She spent breakfast AND lunch in the hotel restaurant because she was gabbing with people I’ve been to Gally before, but this one was extra-special. It was the first time I’ve done panels at Gally and I had a blast. More importantly, it was the Chicks Dig Time Lords launch! We kicked things off with a CDTL panel, where we talked about our experiences with fandom and the book, and we had a lot of great questions from the audience. Also, the book sold out just as the panel started! All the copies at Gally were gone before we even had a chance to promote it

3) Consequently, Chicks Dig Time Lords is released to the rest of the world on Monday (March 15th). If you haven’t picked up a copy, feel free to order from the publisher (http://www.madnorwegian.com/product.php?item=chicks) or from your favorite online retailer, or fine local book store. One word of warning: if you look on Amazon, it may say it’s currently out of stock. Technically, it is. Amazon sold out of their initial order of the book, but more are currently in-transit to them. If you do order from Amazon, you *will* see the book now-ish, as opposed to some mythical period of time down the road.

And totally…. order it. Not just because we have an astounding 7 pages in the book (ok, we have less words than everyone else, but we have PICTURES!) but because there are a lot of essays and interviews with a lot of amazing women who love Doctor Who and fandom just as much as we do.

4) Lastly, order a copy of Doctor Who #9 from IDW from your local comic shop. Not only is our intrepid CDTL co-editor, Tara O’Shea seen as a character, but BABIEZ IS MADE COMIC CANON. And the book’s already been printed, so THEY CANNOT TAKE IT BACK. MOO HA HA, MOO HA HA, MOO HA HA.

5) That said, we’d like to take a moment to love on Gary Russell and Tony Lee, and the editor from IDW for totally letting that one slip through

We got a lot of love for Babiez and the book at Gally, and online as well. We’re so glad we have everyone’s love and support To those we know in person, we’re glad to have met you! To those we haven’t met yet, if you’re ever at a convention, stop and say hello! And lastly, to those we’ve become friends with because of this silly little comic, we’re so grateful for your friendship.

Love, Tammy & Katy

Con report

(this is a copy-paste from my Facebook entry. Haven’t changed real names to LJ names, sorry! I may go back and do it later, but it’s very late and I”m running out of battery power on hubby’s computer–mine is DOA)

Ok. I was typing this up late last week and Aggie decided to “help” me by deleting it and hitting the back button and closing the browser, and…. STUFF.

Ok.

Thursday… Went to work, hadta take Jimbo to the eye doctor cos his one good eye (which is really his BAD eye, OH GOD WE ARE SO DOOMED) was having trouble. They’re going to regrind his glasses and we’ll see if that helps. Picked up my inhalers. Breathing while out of town is good. Left for LA. Between sitting at KCI and then our layover in SLC, I managed to get MOST of my grading done. Unlike Hurricane Who where I was, quite literally, submitting final grades during closing ceremonies. I suck.

Anyways. Got into LAX at like 11 or something, waited around to get off the plane until I thought I couldn’t stand the back pain or claustrophobia any more, waited around the luggage return for ages and ages because the stupid thing was broke… FIIIIINALLLLLYYYY got our luggage, made it to the hotel. Lobbycon in FULL swing. Like… breaking fire codes sorta swing. Dumped stuff in the room, changed into jammies, and went down to the lobby for a booze of some kind or other. Made many hellos and stayed up just as long as I could stand. Oh yes, cried in jealousy that Tony Lee got to meet Chuck while I was… being crunched up in a plane. Twice. He obviously had the better Thursday.

Sleep… then FRIDAY!

Paid six billion dollars for some bagels and cream cheese, picked up badges, handed out some ribbons, loved on Michael and Lynne when they arrived, loved on Katy and others… Managed to not die of ZOMGOODNESS when I got my copies of Chicks Dig Time Lords. About 20 seconds later, after getting my copies of CDTL, Mr Tony Lee showed me Doctor Who #9 and The Panel In Question. The one that cannot be taken back. Because the book is already printed. SO, my head had this like, massive explosion, and I almost died from it.

I dressed up spiffily for Casino NIght even though I don’t know how to play cards. I wore heels and everything. You could say that I cosplayed a girl. I sang karaoke. Badly. Which is I suppose the only way to do that. But I wasn’t expecting to be as hoarse as I ended up being on Friday night (and the whole weekend for that matter). However, I’m still sorry to the people I subjected to that. I swear, I do actually take lessons and stuff.

There was much amuck running, people greeting and fun-having until my late-nite panel about sssssslash! And that was very lovely. We shipped Captain Jack and Everyone in Every Fandom Ever, Bessy and Bumblebee (yes, you heard it here) and I shared my One/Rose love.

I let Tony Lee persuade me to go off to the Titanic room party. As always it was a roaring time. I think I was just Epic Fail at being social.

There was more lobbycon, and I held out till about 2a local. Which is like… 4a my time, which is about when Lucy wakes me up for attention and cuddles.

Saturday was crazy funness.

We stared off with the Fan Reactions to Character Deaths panel. I think there was a lot of smart discussion, despite shouty beardy man being both shouty and beardy (I really did feel bad for him, and how worked up the discussion was making him) and some crying. Others have rehashed the panel in detail elsewhere so I’m not really going to dwell on it now.

Though I will say… every time I have been at a con with Paul Cornell, he’s treated me like Creepy Fan. Which is ok, I mean, if I’m Creepy Fan I will own it. I was sitting right next to him, and I hope I didn’t make him feel uncomfortable, and I hope he wasn’t thinking OMG, WHY AM I ON A PANEL WITH CREEPY FAN(r)?!? Oh Well LOL. He friended me on facebook later that night, or sunday morning, so I guess I wasn’t THAT creepy (or maybe I proved I was Creepy-Harmless instead of Creepy-Creepy).

I think I actually went to panels at one point LOL. I developed a migraine, and tried to address that, and it turned into some kind of insane allergy thing where my face puffed up and I got insanely nauseous and stuff. I missed Rob Shearman’s reading (Which I deeply regret!) and Tony Lee’s movie (but I sent a proxy! And one capable of running AV equipment at that!). I really didn’t start feeling better until like 8 or so. Then we went to Sizzler with a group of folks, and I did a crap job of eating $10 worth of buffet–I had some salad I didn’t finish, some soup I only had the broth of, and some ice cream. And I threw half the ice cream away. Because I’m shit at a buffet. Came back feeling even worse than when I left somehow. Like, the bottom dropped out of my bowels at some point (OverShare(r))

Then came the smut/research panel. Look, I like research. I’m a librarian. I grok it real hard. And I like… researching the history of sewage and waste disposal. Especially toilets. I don’t know why. Don’t judge me. Also, I continued to ship 1/Rose.

I hung around in the lobby for a bit after that, and we had some nice discussions about various things (as one does at lobbycon)… everything from religion and sexuality to fan insanity. Eventually I schluffed it off to bed cos I am a loser who goes to bed early (2:30!) and I am weak!

Sunday, Sunday Sunday.

Sunday was MADNESS. Some totally new level therein.

I dressed again like a girl. I even straightened my hair I did not realize just how big my dress was in the chest region when I was getting dressed though. We grabbed some Subway with Lynne, Michael, Katy and others, and I didn’t eat much of it. I tried. But once again, I’m a bit shit. I hung out with hubby (and visited the IDW panel where I totally got namechecked) until the Chicks Dig Time Lords panel.

That was madness! There were more participants than room on the stage. We all shared our involvement and our experiences with fandom. I got stupid and sniffly over Human Target, which I always get sniffly over because my grandmother would have loved it. I have weird nerd women in my family. Also, I’m still kinda working through how I was treated in comics fandom, so excuse me for that too

We had some good questions… the book sold out in the dealer’s room during the panel and after we had an impromptu signing in the hall. I had to think up clever things to write, but I just stole Michael Thomas’ idea and signed everyone’s like a year book. Including the one for A Special Someone. And my inscription was a totally lame “Stay awesome!” So, um, yeah.

After that we waited to be interviewed by Podshock, and I snuck into the vampires panel, which I totally wanted to stay for, but I hadta go. Oh yeah, and I also met Matthew Dow Smith (who is awesome) and I was even brave enough to talk to him. Believe it or not, I’m really shy around people I don’t know and really can’t talk to people I haven’t been introduced to because, once again, I’m shit).

Ok. Then Podshock. Which I totally took pics of (they’re in the mobile gallery I believe). Everything was going alone fine until at one point I intimated that John Barrowman had blown up and exploded babies all over his trailer. Yeah. Thanks to Tara for rescuing me from myself with that one.

Stuff, stuff and more stuff happened… I went back to the room and changed, then snuck into the end of closing ceremonies. I hope that the videos from that make it to youtube and stuff, they were awesome.

Next came tons and tons of lobbycon. I actually managed to eat real food and stuff, it was a bit awesome LOL. More good conversations and friends old and new and love and cookies (OMG GIRLSCOUT COOKIES!!).. and these Trader Joe dehydrated strawberries. Expensive as hell, I hear, but oh-so-good.

I stayed up just as late as I could manage, which was about the time I usually get up for work (OUCH) and then shlepped it off to bed.

Monday we mostly just sat around and BS’d with Tony Lee and others. I finally got to spend some real time with Tara, which I always enjoy. This was, of course, after she, Paul Cornell, Liz and Katy spent TWO MEALS in one of the hotel restaurants. After being friended by Paul Cornell early Sunday morning, I think I proceeded to freak him out by being overly excitable about something (SORRY! I really try very hard not to be Creepy Fan, because I know I probably have a tendency to come off that way, probably because of my inability to read social queues). I’m sure he’s since un-friended me.

Tommy Knight was hanging out in the lobby. His mom is a lovely lady :). Tommy is so cute and I want to adopt him and make him my little brother. No offense to my RL little brother–he’s wonderful and cute in his own mid-20’s kind of way. This is a special teenage “pinch his cheeks and feed him cookies” kind of way. A bunch of folks left for the airport… eventually I followed Jarrod up to Platform 9 and 3/4, where we had a nice chat with Claire and Rhonda, et al. Then I was in the lobby with my tea and the lid popped off and i dumped it allll over me. I had some lovely second-degree burns. Hotel security came to the room and slathered something on my arm, which felt funny but it did help.

We stayed up chatting with Rhonda, Jenny, Ed and many others until it was time to leave at 4am for the airport.

The airport was really dead, I managed to bash my bare foot off of the xray machine (it still hurts, thanks for asking! Thanks, security theater!), and then on the second flight of the morning, I was sleeping in my seat and the flight attendant dumped ice cold water down my side (yaay me! and NO it wasn’t the side I burned with the hot water!). We schlepped it home and stopped at Applebees when we got into town, and that was the first chance I had to even LOOK at my copy of Chicks Dig Time Lords. James and I both sat at the table reading while we ate. It’s a good book, if I do say so myself!

Then we got home and the cats were very bad to show us how mean we were for leaving. Later in the evening Aggie got sick (THAT was fun), we went to bed super-early, and that was the end of our con

I am sure I missed plenty of stuff and maybe mixed up my days at some point, but that’s my con! I’d like to thank everyone for Babiez love, and CDTL love, and me love, and all kinds of love. I’m glad I got to spend time with those I got to spend time with, I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with the people I didn’t spend enough time with, and I met so many wonderful new people!

Where’s my countdown clock to Hurricane Who?

Sorry. So sorry.

By the way, I’ve done a guest-strip for my friend’s webcomic! When it’s actually online, I’ll post a link.

I’ve been places!

visited 26 states (52%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or another interesting project

See you at Hurricane Who :)

Look who’s on the homepage now for Hurricane Who I’ll be a guest this fall at this fine, upstanding convention, so if you attend, say hello, I do not bite (unless you ask me to).

The Babiez pic is right below Rob Shearman’s…it makes me feel important. Like I’m holding him up (lol).

See you there!

Sunrise

#Amazonfail - Another reason why it’s such a big deal.

So, I’m sure the entire internet has heard about #Amazonfail. In case you haven’t…here’s a very brief recap.  This weekend, it became very public knowledge that Amazon had removed sales rankings for many items it considered to have “adult” themes.  This meant that no one knew how many copies of…Madam Bovary or Heather Has Two Mommies were sold on the site, or where those items fell in with other sales. The major outcry came from GLBT supporters because, regardless of graphicness, ALL GLBT themed materials seemed to have mysteriously tripped and had fallen into this new and vague category of “adult” materials.

Amazon rushed to claim it was a glitch with their new tagging system.  On the one hand, being able to tag and filter materials is always helpful when dealing with the enormous catalog Amazon posesses. If I am ALWAYS looking for childrens stories, I certainly don’t need adult materials popping up. Or if I’m ONLY looking for adult materials, it would certainly cut down on my searching if I could elimiate all chicken-like references to “breasts.” I always support more ways to filter information (which is different than censoring–but that’s another blog post), so that I can find like information more quickly.

But on the other hand… isn’t that an awful convenient glitch? Sometimes, whenever websites do things that users don’t like, they cry “glitch!” awful fast.

Regardless of the unfair shake a lot of materials are getting when being labled “adult” when they may or may not have actually been, and the opinion that it may be intentional (and not to mention potentially discriminatory), I think a “glitch” like that is very serious. If you cannot see the sales ranking of ALL materials, it lessens the impact of the ranking of those you DO see. Especially if the items you DO see are unfairly being inflated in the ratings because other items are not present.

It’s sort of the problem I have with the New York Times Best Seller List.  Granted, the way it determines the best sellers and practices related therein are rather shady. But what happened when “real” writers got sick of Harry-freakin-Potter being at the top of the list for ages and ages? They created a childrens category, because a childrens book was beating out “adult” writers in sales. So Harry Potter gets bumped to its own special list, and the number 11 adult guy gets his book on the top ten list… FINALLY. They got sick of seeing Watchmen on the list, so they suddenly created a graphic novel best seller list. Basically, because “serious” titles didn’t want to be compared to, or competing with things that it saw as lesser works (which were kicking their butts in sales). Ok this is an overly simplified view of the NYT Best Seller List situation, but it’s not that far off.

Granted there’re now more titles on the list, because there’re now sales categories for everything from children’s titles to self-help books. But what means more–being one of 100 top-ten sellers, or being one of TEN top-ten sellers?

If you’re a…romance book on Amazon, and your rating got bumped up only because the seven better-selling boy-on-boy romance novels ahead of you got “filtered” from the list, regardless of your opinion of boy-on-boy romance, is that a true and accurate depiction of your popularity?

For some people, including librarians, this is actually important data.  When we’re thinking of purchasing books, we look not only at what looks interesting and pertinant to our collection, but we also look at what has high-visibility and high-demand, but we also keep an eye on what is popular locally and nationally as we try to identify trends. If there is a local or national trend toward a certain type of book, or a certain book in particular, we have to take a look at that trend and determine why, and if that material should be represented in our collection. If we can’t see the sales rankings of “adult” material (and I think a lot of us would disagree with what Amazon feels is adult in a lot of cases), we have have  lost a very valuable means of seeking out important trends.

Missing out on trends means we’re missing out on potential high-checkout items. That doesn’t just make us and our numbers look good, it serves patrons.

It’s not just a matter of Amazon climbing aboard the Fail Boat (which they completely did with this one both with the actual problem and the epic fail PR interraction where they claimed it was a ‘glitch’ that changed thousands of items to ‘adult’ status).  They really did manage to give a misrepresented view of sales and thereby popularity and interest.  Not fixing it in a timely manner would have been very bad in the long term for casual users of the site all the way up to bulk purchasers and librarians (who often rely on the site very heavily–whether they’ll admit it in public or not). Not being clear about the problem and blaming it on a “glitch” as opposed to what it turned out to be–a human error made a lot of people angry unnecessarily and made them feel like Amazon was trying to pull a fast one.

Amazon corrected and clarified–yaay! But one thing I don’t understand is–if a bunch of items were “accidently” marked as adult, and thereby were removed from  the sales ranking–doesn’t that mean that the problem still exists, just on a smaller scale? Doesn’t that mean their sales ranking information is still missing sets of information, and is compromised (even if to a smaller degree) not to mention unreliable and slanted toward a particular type of item?