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Posts Tagged: 'gender'

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Issue #134

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In Slash vs het vs gen, [info]helkamaria asks: "Do you know if anyone has ever tried to estimate what percentage of fanfiction is slash? And what is het and gen?"

[Supernatural] [info]nostariel: SPN 5.17, AKA "How the bleep does this show keep getting past the censors?": "Several people who smarter than I am have already pointed out all the ways in which this episode is offensive, so I'm going to skip that and go straight to the other thing that's pissing me off, and that is the utter bullshit that certain portions of SPN fandom spew forth in the face of astonishingly blatant misogyny on the part of their show."
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Issue #129

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[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Too Much for (Hurt/)Comfort: The most Topic-Hopping Post EVER!: "Most people who read Hurt/Comfort fics want to see their favorite characters hurt and subsequently comforted, and it's really not my fault that my favorite characters Just So Happen to be female." (Warning copied from author's note: "The topic of this here piece of ranty meta (and possibly the comments as well) will deal with potentially triggering subjects.")

[info]elfwreck: So-called self-identified bi women: "Plz to ignore the huge swarms of bi women writing & reading slash--because hey, they're maybe fake!"

LiveJournal:

[info]stewardess: Your Journal - Your Money? My Ass. (explains how LiveJournal's new Google AdSense program called Your Journal - Your Money actually works, has links to related articles/blog posts e.g. LJ's ads serving malware)
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Issue #128

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General Meta:

[info]the_shoshanna: A handy guide to media fan convention art shows: "So just as fans shared fanfic and art in the zines that were and are displayed, shared, bought, and sold in convention dealers' rooms, one of the places that fans shared, admired, and bought and sold fan art was in convention art shows."

[info]elfwreck: Ethics of commenting: "Is it proper to comment (squeefully) on the fic of people you know don't like you? How about people who you suspect don't like you and might rather just forget you exist?"

[info]beccastareyes has some short thoughts on Flash Fiction.

Fandom-specific:

[Supernatural] [info]yourlibrarian: SPN 5.11- Where have I seen this before?: "One of the issues I have with all the Kripkeing that goes on in this fandom is that more often than not the fan version is better. And as we head through S5, I have often read/seen the fan version first, so the show really needs to do something special with its take." (With quite detailed episode discussion starting after the first three paragraphs, is therefore spoiler-heavy)

[Queer as Folk] [info]xie_xie_xie: I love my big gay show... (commenting on InsaneJournal QaF fandom): "We all have our favorites, and our least-favorites, but true character hate is just not something we see a lot of here."

General Meta related to the debates about a) m/m slash and b) misogyny in fandom:

[info]tigresslilly: A Few Questions I Haven't Seen Asked or Answered: "... it occurred to me that I haven't seen anything about threesomes. It all seems focused on m/m or f/f pairing and I wondered if it had a place that had been excluded here too."

[info]magpyr: Half-baked thoughts on the male slash debate: "Can't we ditch the m/m debate everybody's so sick of, and talk about the serious lack of femslash in any fandom but The L Word? Why is it so easy for people to see "queer subtext" in a work concerning straight male characters, but not females?"

[info]musesfool: it's all how you use it: "It never fails to amaze me that we place female characters in such an awful catch-22." (One example given in the text: "They can't be interested in (ew!) traditionally feminine pursuits or they're setting back the cause, but they can't be too tomboyish, 'cause then they're just men with boobs!")

[info]havocthecat: Misogyny is wrong. Who knew?: "You know, just because I can generally structure my fandom experience to avoid misogynistic jerks - by avoiding adding them to my friendslist or circle - doesn't mean I can avoid misogyny in fandom altogether."
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Issue #127

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[info]spacelogic: tossing my two cents into the slash debate: "The point is, to me, slash has always been a queer narrative: I, the queer reader, am seeing someone like me, and it is making me happy."

[info]das_dingsi: Why the current m/m slash/appropriation debate is making me feel exhausted: "... as a gay trans man without ties to a gay community, who also is a slash reader, ... I feel like I'm being erased or shouted at from [nearly] all sides for Doing It Wrong."

[info]telesilla: Write ONLY what you know and an unpopular fannish opinion.: "This latest round of gay men having fits about women daring to write about gay sex? Feels a lot more like "hey! Keep out of our fort! Didn't you see the big NO GIRLS ALLOWED!!!! sign?" than anything else."
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Issue #126

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InsaneJournal's daily backups have been moved from 1:30PM (EST) to 5:00AM (EST).

[info]xie_xie_xie: Where on the fail spectrum am I?: "What is a lesbian who doesn't "write slash" generally but does have this strange fascination for one male/male couple and writes about them constantly, for years? Am I on the side of the outraged disenfranchised queers, or the women squeeing softly at the buttsex?"

[info]spacelogic: what is a gamer?: "The reason girls/women don't play games, Serious Gamers? It's because you've defined "games" as the sort that (mostly men) play on consoles, and written us out of the history books for good measure." (Also about the definition of "serious" gamer.)

[info]morgandawn: I'm Gonna Wash That Fandom Right Outta My Hair....or Dive! Dive! Dive! or Marketing Speak?: "What do we call it when a fan starts selectively 'scrubbing' her online presence (systematically removing some content from both online as well as archived blog/websites/mailing lists/forums) without actually leaving fandom?"
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Issue #125

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[comics, DC/Marvel] [info]caithyra: By ANY other name?: "I know that the companies are there to make money, but the fact that the Big 2 manages to consistently choose negative words for their female-centred labels feel like deliberate sabotage."

Two posts by [info]tigresslilly:

Isms in Fandom and the On Going Meta-Fandom Inspired Debate (Couldn't pick a suitable quote as the post touches on so many aspects of the discussion and finishes with some questions to people on either 'side')

[Dollhouse] Who/How is Echo and Other "Dolls" Whom Have Displayed Personality Throughout Dollhouse (Spoiler warning for the series, esp. second season)

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: On Fic Lengths: "TL;DR Version: I don't think that fic length makes fic quality."
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Issue #121

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Help & writing resources

In an untitled post, [info]bridgetmkennit explains the tags system and the four different types of warnings at the Archive Of Our Own, and how to use them.

[info]lore: BloMo18: Tis the season of saving stories....: tips on saving fanfic stories "in a format that can be easily transferred to most reading devices without losing the author's intended passages of emphasis".

There have been a few posts on BDSM, community rules and terminology, intended as resources for writers and to clear up some common misunderstandings. In Hi! My name is Minxie…, [info]florida_minxie talks about general rules and some stereotypes. [info]irana wrote On BDSM, Part I to explain the abbreviations SCC and RACK, and to talk about consent. On BDSM, Part II covers negotiation (both Scene and Relationship negotiation).

InsaneJournal

An InsaneJournal Holiday Sale just started. Self-Committed (i.e. paid) accounts and Extra Userpics will be available at reduced prices until November 27th. Friday the 27th will also have a short sale on Permanently Insane accounts.

[info]das_dingsi: Updating habits: "The interesting part is how it made me view the update page more closely than usual and I consciously noticed all the things I don't use [on InsaneJournal]."

Other

[info]bitterfig: where do they make subtext?: "I always wonder where stuff like (i.e. homoerotic and/or incestuous subtext) this comes from, is it intentional or just a quirk of chemistry?"

[info]lilithilien: Why do we do it?, a short commentary on an AfterElton.com article titled "Why are Women Interested in Gay Men? It's Not Because They Want to Sleep With Them!", with discussion in comments.

[info]novembermond: has a question about friending meme[s]: "[W]hat are the dos and don'ts ... ?"

[Supernatural] ep. 5x10 meta-ish reaction posts - SPOILERS galore!
[info]the_shoshanna: Supernatural 5.10, "Abandon All Hope...": "Thanks SO MUCH for making women just the underbrush to be cleared away before the real stuff happens."
[info]musesfool: lacrimae volvuntur inanes: "I would like to be able to talk about the episode on its own merits, because I thought it was a fantastic episode emotionally and a great way to go into hiatus, but I am SO FUCKING SICK of the way this show treats female characters."
[info]yourlibrarian (in [info]mind_over_meta): SPN 5.10 - A sign of hope: "There's nothing there right now for an audience to cling to, any more than a clear plot direction for Sam and Dean."

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Issue #115

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General Meta

[info]lastscorpion suggests in an untitled entry: "Part of the reason why SG-1 and SGA and AtS were cancelled, even though they still had strong overall ratings, was that there were too many women watching -- we messed up their desired demographics."

[info]yourlibrarian: Invisible women: "I thought it surprising that in the [Newsarama.com] series on "The Fangirl Invasion" they don't discuss how involved women have been in fandoms for decades."

Also by [info]yourlibrarian, Targeting the fans: "But what the article reveals is the death of ComicCon as anything resembling a fan event, as opposed to a marketing trade-show for the entertainment industry."


The Fan Fiction Survey by Ogi Ogas ("The Cognitive Neuroscience of Fan Fiction")

Note: these are all InsaneJournal posts about this topic that I am aware of at the moment. Some of these mainly just copy from or redirect to entries on DW or LJ, but I've included them because there is (or still might be) discussion happening in comments. [info]metafandom covers non-IJ links, as does the Linkspam community on DW, which you can follow via [info]linkspam_dw_rss (created today).

1. Link posts / signal boosting, mostly short, but some with quotes and/or a bit of commentary:

[info]alchemia: That fandom survery going around... DONT TAKE IT

[info]yohjideranged: Fanfiction Survey = Failboat

[info]shadowvalkyrie: Important Fannish PSA

[info]oconel: About the fandom survey

[info]keieeeye: lol guys

[info]the_shoshanna: signal boost: do not take the "neurobiological" fan fiction survey.

[info]aerynvala: Signal Boost: Why NOT to take the "Neurobiological" Fandom Survey

2. More in-depth posts, dealing with specific survey questions, background information, underlying theory and assumptions made, that sort of thing:

[info]slashpine: Some scientists sure have nerve, or, How Not To Study Fandom

and a follow-up, How many kinds of fail in this question? Or, Are You Smarter Than A Neuroscientist?

[info]zellieh: Another "survey" of fans by outsiders who FAIL rather spectacularly.
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Issue #107

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First, the cause for comment rot on the site seems to have been found and fixed by [info]squeaky. You can take a look at the bit of code that gave us all so much trouble in the news post.
However, the issue as such might still persist a few days because when the code sets some comments to disappear they aren't gone immediately, they are still in the memory cache for a while. So we might have a few remaining instances from back when the code was still there but after those are gone it should finally be over for good. (source)
To celebrate all this, there's a week-long Permanent Account sale (50$ each).

Changes have been made to the message/notification center - items in your inbox can now be marked as read and deleted, and the maximum number of subscriptions ("notices") has been increased.

Tangentially related: [info]squeaky said he's working on a multiple icon uploader next, and via the comments I found an old resource post by [info]sherlock with a third-party tool you can use in the meantime.

~

With the issues and discussion surrounding exporting LJ comments to Dreamwidth, [info]stewardess wrote a post on content syndication/aggregation and LiveJournal, titled Exporting comments from LJ to DW: is there a money?

[info]bridgetmkennit: counters and me (and maybe you): "Every time I see a meta post about comments, whether lack thereof or not, I just want to create a meta post about how people should learn to love counters."

[info]the_rck posted "a list of thoughts inspired by reading (mostly bad) fics" -- "A few of the items in here are mini rants about genuinely offensive stuff regarding race and transsexuality. The rest mainly complain about sillier stuff."

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: WTF?: "And not only do people think that it isn't complete bullshit to say that one writes yaoi only because het is icky or that girls are icky, people actually state this as a point of pride."

~

[info]brownbetty: re: Thirteenth Child, and a million other things: "But you have, actually, a higher responsibility than being a writer, and that is your responsibility as a human being."

[info]magpyr: Growing pains: "You see, I used to be ignorant and happy. I read books, watched films, and listened to songs, never once pausing to think about their attitude toward race and gender."

[info]telesilla: No, we aren't the freakin' Thought Police: "Because honestly, I am so sick of people yelling "censorship!" as if professional writers somehow had an inalienable right to show their asses and not get called on it."
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Issue #104

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[info]slashpine created two polls on recs: part one is about general reading habits (so to speak) and definitions, part two asks more specific questions about what you like to see in recs. (If you're confused about the term "hot rec", that's answered in this comment thread.)

[info]celandineb's Friday Poll is about pairings, and how important they are to you when choosing to consume or create fanworks.

[info]duskpeterson wrote Daily life: Slashers rule OK, which deals with the events called "Amazonfail", and how many of the early posts about it were apparently written by slashers.

[info]rood: How To Archive Your Fics On LJ/IJ/DW/JF: "And that, of course, reminded me of how ill equipped journals are for fic archiving."

[info]slashpine: Meta with recs: There's "slash" & there's *slash*. I want *that* one: "I think the 'tough-guys' atmosphere that Judith Warner discusses illustrates one reason for so much m/m slash. Slash is the opposite of boys mocking each other as 'gay'. [...] But why are we rewriting the *mens* script, not the womens?"

Also by [info]slashpine: Environment & HP. Or really - envt & all of fandom, an entry "on the whole theme of environmental awareness in HP, HP fanfics, and HP fans" (including thoughts on tree!fics).

Dreamwidth-related / Fandom migration:

[info]branchandroot: Demystifying Dreamwidth some more: "Since I've seen a number of odd notions running around lately, I figured I'd post some quick explanations." (Adresses, among other things, the invite codes, the fandom factor, or accusations that DW wants to sink LJ.)

[info]elfwreck: Coming soon on Dreamwidth: Patience.: "Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. It fades. That shiny feeling, that rush of activity and spark of delight, that gleeful manic commenting on random journals, it doesn't last."

[info]skuf posted a question (and got answers) regarding DW's TOS, namely about Content and the rights to remove / adapt / modify ... it.

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Issue #101

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Posts about race and cultural appropriation:

[info]brownbetty: Dear racefail apologists: "Please stop making the argument from capitalism." She also wrote a post on the 'tone' argument and how "for a lot of people 'polite' means not upsetting the status-quo".

[info]branchandroot: One more try: when it’s not about you: "In any discussion of privilege, stereotypes, oppression, agency, if you are on the plus side of the particular issue, do not try to join in with comments about your experience. It may seem like a gesture of sympathy and solidarity, but it isn’t. It’s you taking the focus away from the injured party."

[info]spacelogic: two separate thoughts on Racefail '09: "In brief, I believe that the correct action if you are an ally and your actions or words are deemed racist/representative of cultural racism is to apologize and try to not do it again, and that everyone should have a right to decide whether to disclose their real name, but that the emphasis on pseudonyms may be excessive."

[info]amilliondays posted a summary titled fifteen simple steps to poison your own well: "Elizabeth Bear did it, and now you can, too!"

[info]ms_treesap: A question: "Would you say that Avatar (the original cartoon, not the fail!film in production) was appropriative of Asian cultures? My first thought was 'no', but the (white, male) creators took influences from many aspects of Chinese, Japanese, Tao etc. cultures which I'm not particularly familiar with."

Other:

[Supernatural] [info]yourlibrarian: It's About Power - Hospitalization in SPN: "So even though realistically speaking Sam and Dean should both be ending up in a hospital on a regular basis, why is it Dean that's always lying there near death?"

[Queer as Folk] [info]xie_xie_xie: Justin Taylor is not a "girl" -- and neither are you: "I put 'girl' in quotes because I don't mean, Justin isn't female, although of course, he's not. But being a 'girl' isn't about being a young woman; it's about that stereotypical dependent stand-by-your-man 'girl' of the old-fashioned romance novel, the one for whom love is the rock on which her life is built, and everything else comes second."

[Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer] [info]zombieallomorph: Buffy, Gilmore Girls und Transamerica. Massive Spoiler. (vergleicht die beiden Serien in Bezug auf deren Darstellung von Frauen, Sexualität und sexueller Gewalt, sowie im Hinblick auf Idenitifikationspotential.)

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Issue #91

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[info]caithyra ponders redeemed villains, and uses examples from Final Fantasy VII and W.I.T.C.H. (Spoilers!), however the arguments and conclusions are not fandom-specific.

[info]branchandroot wrote about villains in Katekyou Hitman Reborn, categorising them as either the Interesting or the Disgusting villain type. (Again, spoilers!)

[info]brownbetty has thoughts on strong women and feminist (or unfeminist) aspects in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, comparing Sarah and Cameron.

I want to use this opportunity to thank the people who sent in links, and say that sending emails or suggesting your own posts is indeed fine. See also #3 in the FAQ.
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Issue #79

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Privacy / Legal Issues

For Gmail users (in case you haven't heard the news yet), a hacking tool has been introduced that automatically steals IDs of non-encrypted sessions and uses them to break into the accounts. The developer is planning to release it in a few days. You can protect your accounts by switching to SSL permanently. If you're unfamiliar with the procedure, [info]blue_rose posted a step-by-step guide and also linked to a patch that would ensure that Gmail Notifier is still working afterwards. I'd like to include two off-site links, an article on HungryHackers.com which explains how Gmail and the hacking tool work, and for Firefox users there's the extension Customize Google, which can also help remove or block unwanted content, including ads and Google Analytics cookies.

[info]skuf wrote a quick tutorial on how to block LJToys from tracking you on LJ/IJ/clones (Firefox only).

[info]morgandawn mentions the RIAA’s Anti-Piracy Trade Agreement Wishlist.

Meta (posts are from the 15th and 23rd, but I don't want to pass them up -- my apologies for not including them earlier. I'm trying to change that, as stated in the previous entry.)

[info]spacelogic: How Star Trek Made Me A Feminist, and Why I Don't Think STXI Is Going To Be Worth It: "I remember being freaked out by the first episode, being wary of the next several, and gradually being won over. And at some point during the entire process, I came to a shocking realization: Star Trek was more feminist than a lot of more modern TV/film productions."

[info]the_willow: Watching The Show In Your Head (Pt 2): When You Can't: "I guess I feel like there probably needs to be respect for the fact that when you can't watch anymore, it means there's too much weighed on the side of dislike and disappointment. And those weights can be aspects of racism, sexism, classcism, national isolationism or just not enough plot ..." (talks about "Monk" and SGA as examples)
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Issue #78

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[RPF / bandom] [info]stele3: Thinky thoughts about the Wall Of Some Kind: "We might not be able to get those real people to stop reading our fanfiction (and the characters we write); but we can and should squarely define those two as separate and distinct."

[info]caithyra (in [info]fanficrants): Sex without consent is rape...: "I can't get over the non-consensual wave that's being written (not the one when the writer knows and is aiming for writing non-con, but rather, those who thinks it's a perfectly normal and healthy relationship), because it scares me. Are there really so many fans out there who believes that it is healthy?"

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Informal writing survey! :D: "What do you like to write when it comes to fanfiction?"

[Harry Potter] [info]ravenna_c_tan asks whether there's any interest in a Snape/Draco/Harry Smut Fest, and for thoughts on format & participation.

IJ Note: The stats (http://www.insanejournal.com/stats/) hadn't updated in a while, but are now live again. Raw txt data: http://www.insanejournal.com/stats/stat s.txt.
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Issue #77

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[info]the_willow: More On Nice vs Mean (Fannish): "Do only one set of feelings matter? Or only one set of feelings from one group of people?"

[Harry Potter] [info]iamisaac (in [info]metametameta): Severus/Remus in canon: "3000 words or so of meta about moments in canon where a relationship between Severus and Remus looks like a real possibility."

[Queer-as-Folk-centric, but also general discussion] [info]xie_xie_xie: Wherein I am intolerant in the extreme: "If you ever wanted proof that I do not in fact rule the universe nor even this tiny little molecule of it that is the Queer as Folk fandom, the existence of QAF mpreg is it. [...] I think there's something really, truly scary and strange about serious "real world" mpreg fic."

[Dr. Horrible] [info]andreth_47: Dr. Horrible Meta: The Goggles of Disguise: "I was thinking about that in regard to Dr. Horrible, 'cause supervillains wear costumes too of course, and I suddenly realized that disguises/costumes/illusions are a pervasive theme in Joss's latest work of genius."

Refresher course: [info]branchandroot explains how to use OpenID when you don't have an IJ account.

[allgemeine Diskussion, plus Eindrücke über Generation Kill] [info]mllesatine: Heut mach ich mir kein Abendbrot, heut mach ich mir Gedanken!: "Jedenfalls geht mir in letzter Zeit so einiges zum Thema Slash, Feminismus und meinen Fandoms im Kopf rum. Warum sind zum Beispiel die Fandoms, die ich am meisten liebe, nur von Männern bevölkert?"
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Issue #76 b - General Meta

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I decided to split the issue, not just because the list of meta links is unusually long (sorry), but also so that the people who are either thoroughly up-to-date on the whole FanHistory.com/partly_bouncy debate, or just fed up with it, can just skip part a (which appears below this one).

[Queer as Folk] Two posts by [info]xie_xie_xie:
The Dreaded B/J FF Syndrome: "I don't believe it's possible to understand any of the characters, pairings, or storylines in isolation. I think that nearly all of the arcs are interwoven, and issues in one pairing -- say, Drew and Emmett -- are reflected in and reflect issues in another -- say, Brian and Justin."
and A Writerly Reflection on Post-Series Fic: "I watch 513 now and every bit of what happens after in my own fic feels foreshadowed and certain to me. It permeates my viewing of the series finale. [...] Do other writers feel this way, if you write post-series fic?"

[The X-Files] [info]musesfool: mulder, it's me: "And while in some ways the entire show was about how we all lack agency, that larger forces are always working against us, one of the things I always loved about Scully was that she was her own woman - she evaluated the evidence and came to her own conclusions."

[info]versaphile: Fandom FTW: "No matter how good you are, there is always someone who does it better, or can write snappier dialogue or more amazing plots or vivid descriptions. And whatever they're amazing at, there's something they're not amazing at that someone else is better at. It can't be a competition."

[info]the_willow: My Fandom: "... when at the end my constructive thoughts and analysis result in utter frustration because nothing changes in the source and I feel personally hurt by the exclusion of people of colour, or the inclusion of stereotypes and just plain foolishness - I walk away."

[info]elfwreck (in [info]metametameta): OTW discussions: "... I don't think any kind of agreement will be reached if only the pro-OTW posts are allowing unlimited discussions. And that's disappointing--because I don't want those who want privacy, or who fear legal reprisals, to be entirely sidelined."

[info]telesilla: Sit down, suck it up and STFU: "Since it's apparently perfectly all right to tell other people how they should and should not participate in fandom, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon."

[info]xie_xie_xie: On opinions: "What it really is, is this: I'm an editor and all day long, I get articles sent to me by amateur writers -- experts in their fields, but not professional writers. And I can usually tell which were written by women, and which by men, because only the women qualify every fucking thing they say with "I feel," "it seems," "I believe," and "in my view."

[info]brownbetty: Cheater's guide to Conlang in fiction: "Okay, so, you want your work of fiction to have a language in it that isn't an Earth language. Unfortunately, all the languages you speak are Earth-languages! (Except if you speak Klingon or Quenya, I'll grant.) How to get around this?"

[info]elfwreck (in [info]metametameta: Back to Basics: Slash Thoughts (a list of slash-related questions to spark conversation)

[info]andreth_47: A Tongue-in-Cheek Plea to Slash Writers: "I'm here to beg, oh writers of smut, you people who bring me porn and whom I adore, that you stop and think really, really hard before writing any of the following things into your hot manlovin' sex scenes. Because they make Ianto cry."
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Issue #74

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[Harry Potter] [info]helkamaria: Voldemort and the Ministry: "Anonymous commented on DTCL that villains are scarier when we don't see them, personally, but rather their sinister influence, which got me to think about the two main villains in Harry Potter: Voldemort and the Ministry."

[Stargate] [info]justhuman has a theory and poll on gender bias in genre writing, mainly SF&F, and how (if) that relates to SG1/SG:A.

[info]branchandroot wrote a follow-up post on the previous entry about ratings, and the comments received: Let’s get the requirements issue out in the open, then.

[info]skuf has a poll on the spelling and definition of fic-kink/fic!kink.

IJ news: In [info]announcements, there's a poll on the available siteschemes and which one should be the official default look of the site. Additionally, a new alternate sitescheme has been uploaded: "a black and white theme (sans-tweak and tweak-says for those that don't like him)", called Monodramatic.
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Issue #69

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[info]shadowvalkyrie: Feedback thoughts: "Somehow, when you write a fic for someone, you expect getting a reaction -- any reaction -- from them."

[info]yonmei: Class on TV: "Just out of interest, what's your impression, imaginary Internet people, of the difference between class representation on British TV and American TV?"

[info]kabal42: US laws that fandom, no, heck that everyone! needs to be aware of: "Yesterday it was brought to my attention that security personnel at US airports now can search, copy and keep (a copy of) any data you carry with you into the States. [...] The staff are not necessarily educated in knowing the difference between lawful and unlawful use and transport of copyrighted material, nor in the difference between fiction and reality with regards to certain laws."

[info]elfwreck (in [info]metametameta): Warnings for "chan;" archive content policies: 'So... while I'm pondering, I'll open it up to the f'list: what do you consider "chan" is? Or "underage sex" in fanfic? [...] For a rating system of "chan/not-chan," where do/would you draw the lines, epecially when normal human biology isn't involved?'

[info]the_willow: How Slash Changed My Feminism: "The best thing about reading slash and slashy coming out stories was watching male character after male character do this questioning of self and this questioning of what they'd learned from society. And I realized that I'd never questioned what I'd learned from society about men."

[Supernatural] [info]chal created a wishlist of "Things I Would Love to See ..." in Season 4. (Discusses some events from S1-3.)

Polls:

[info]aristoboule asks how you find new communities/asylums, and what factors influence your participation (or lack thereof).

[info]celandineb on the use of sensory description in fic, particularly smutty fic, and reading preferences.

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Issue #68

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First, there have been issues with e-mail notifications. A few of the comments to one's own journal can be seen at this page, which shows up to 50 of the most recent comments.

Second, I apologize for making you wait so long for a new update. At first it was due to issues with the site resulting from the move to different servers, meaning I couldn't access it, nor the part of my journal that stores the link roundups. But the rest of the delay is entirely my own fault, and I'm truly sorry for that.
So, because of this, there are a few entries that are (by newsletter standards) practically ancient by now. But I'd feel bad for not including them. Those are:


More Recent Meta

[info]elwing_alcyone: But of course: "Like I said, I like Joss Whedon's work, and I consider myself a fan. But I think he's coasting by on the perception that he's a feminist, without really thinking things through carefully."

[info]vain: Musings on concrit and the nature and necessity of wank: "You have to either stand by what you said and agree to disagree or concede the point. In either case, there's no need to ram your opinion down anyone's throat. Doing so leads back to step four of this cycle: Wank."

[Supernatural] [info]brownbetty: The way to insult a demon is to call it a woman: "People have argued that this is a difference merely of degree, and Dean's lack of respect for women has been apparent from season one. This is true, but the difference between lack of respect and contempt is one of degree, and I can tolerate the first, but not the second in my entertainment."

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Issue #62

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First, let me direct you once more to the master list of meta posts at [info]metametameta, which collects all contributions to the Meta Friday event. Also, it's been such a success that it's going to be a weekly feature with prompts; you can read the rules in this post. As the asylum is open for posts all week round, not just on Fridays, there've been more meta entries, such as [info]purplepopple's FanLib: One Year Later, or [info]elfwreck's Slashfic: because women can't recognize their sexuality.* For the rest of this roundup, to avoid double posts I'm going to list the links that haven't been a part of the Meta Friday or haven't been posted to [info]metametameta.

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* [info]yourlibrarian has written more on the subject of "slash as anti-feminist", dissecting the blog post that started it in detail.

[info]roz_morgan: Meta! Meta! Lovely Meta!: "Writers, producers and advertisers like to pidgin hole their demographics. When they get a group they can’t explain for example a large amount of women watching a show about space-ships or monsters they don’t look at it as an indication of having tapped a new market. They seem actually baffled by it."

[info]musesfool: dancing gets her higher than anything else she knows: "But aside from the big huge things that make me click or not click (or click out when they appear), there are smaller, mostly throwaway details, that can cause me to have kneejerk reaction of the bad sort, where I am just completely jarred out of the story and end up clicking out."

IJ, LJ, journaling/archiving in general, Tutorials

[info]brimac13 wonders if people would be interested in an index for friending asylums on IJ. (poll)

[info]schattenstern: untitled post: "I think that IJ is a temporary solution for Fandom at best. [...] Fandom as a whole, and forgive the blantant simplification for a moment, has always wandered from one kind of platform to the next when there was some kind of technological advancement, when the new platform offered more than the old one did."

[info]tabakat: untitled post: "The thing is I feel as though I am being forced to keep a presence [on LJ] because there is nowhere else for me to go to be involved in my other fandoms. With the popularity of journal communities rising the availability of actual website archives and the like for fandoms has gone down."

[info]elance: Decentralize me!: "I don't think I'm alone when I say that the amount of fanfiction which is *solely* posted to LiveJournal communities and not archived anywhere else worries me. I believe strongly that fandom should never be centralized, never be dependent on one site alone to carry it."

Also, [info]maureenlycaon did a post on data backups to store your stories and/or artwork off of your computer, and [info]elke_tanzer wrote a step-by-step tutorial on moving LJ memories into del.icio.us.