[Archive] Meta Roundup: Fannish Stuff of Interest

May 2010

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Posts Tagged: 'writing'

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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 #124

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Note: I'm away for two days (family visit), so if there's a post you don't want me to miss, you can leave a (screened) reply here.

[info]scratchingpost1: Thoughts on writing: "Those of you that write, how do you approach it? How long do you take to write? How do you know when to post?"

In House/Wilson: First Shot, [info]yonmei explains the difference between canon and cannon.

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Also I Am A Horrible, Horrible Person (And That's Okay).: "Fandom should be fun, but it's not when I am basically told I don't know myself and should be offended by things that do not offend me personally because everyone else in my minority is, or even could be, offended by that thing."

[info]maureenlycaon's Food for thought deals with, among other things, J.R.R. Tolkien's writing, MMORPGs, creativity vs. marketing, and the otherness of elves.
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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 #100

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This time all fandom-specific posts contain SPOILERS, some more, some less.


[Fruits Basket] [info]branchandroot: Hell in a Fruits Basket: "No, the part that really gets my goat is twofold. One is the whirlwind of heteronormativity ..., foreclosing any possibility of expressing the homoeroticism that is waved in our faces all the way through, or even just continuing to dangle the possibility. Two is the lack of consequences."

[Dollhouse] [info]tigresslilly: Feminst take on The Dollhouse (takes a look at Cast and Creation, and Show Content)

[Dollhouse, but also fandom in general] [info]the_willow: Got Answers?: "I'm wondering at the difference between telling a good story and setting up a series - in television. Is it possible to have both in genre television, barring spin-offs and sequels were a built in audience is already assumed?"

[Gundam 00] [info]caithyra wrote two posts dealing with the most recent episode, comparing Lyle and Anew to Neil and Tieria, and speculating on further events.

Multifandom: this week, [info]celandineb's Fandom Friday Poll is about cross-posting to communities.

One place for discussion of the deletion of the scans_daily LJ community is here in [info]07refugees (started by [info]stewardess).

On the subject of pseudonymity on the internet and race fail '09:

[info]telesilla: That James Tiptree, Jr was one heck of a fella...oh wait....: "Pseudonyms are part of the rich, proud SF/F tradition. For two people--and before them both TNH and PNH--so involved in SF/F as Shetterly and Cramer- to pretend that pseudonyms are A Very Bad Thing is mind-boggling."

[info]darkrose: "I am she as she is me...: "Everyone understands that Mistress Super Domme and Sir Gary of House Stuart are really Mary Sue and Gary Stu when they're not at a playparty or an SCA event, but if you've interacted with them in those contexts, then you use the name that's most familar, the one that they've chosen to use in said context. / And you know what? / Shetterly and Cramer have been around long enough to know that."

[info]musesfool: just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong: "The conflation of pseudonymity with anonymity, the sheer stupidity and hypocrisy of the arguments used to justify outing someone who has chosen to keep her online life and her professional and/or personal life separate, and the insistence that they be apologized to when they were the people who fucked up and were wrong in the first place is such a huge display of ass-baring entitlement and privilege that I don't even have words."
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Issue #98

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[info]spacelogic: fannish distinctions I: the difference between liking a creator and liking their creation: "Basically, what I'm talking about here is the conflation of creator and creation. I know a lot of people do it, either in deciding to consume/not consume someone's creations, or in deciding how they feel about the creator. It makes a certain level of sense -- I'd rather not help to make a bigoted jerk rich, if I can instead help a nice person."

[info]torino10154: Betas: What is their job? What sort of credit do they desire?: "When they rephrase a line, are you still the author? Should you change their changes to make it your own?"

[info]xie_xie_xie:
[Queer as Folk, but also RPF/RPS-related] The actor thing: "When people watch Queer as Folk and see Gale and Randy instead of Brian and Justin, and talk about the scene that way, it makes me feel that they don't care about the characters, their stories, their reality above and beyond the artistry and craft of their creators."
Luring our muses back when they have wandered off: "Now, I know I haven't covered all the ways muses can be enticed to return from whatever safari, cruise, or spa vacation they're spending your hard-earned money on... how have the rest of you -- writers, icon-makers, vidders, artists -- gotten them back when they've gone missing?"

[info]brown_betty uses animal metaphors to describe fandoms. (It's funnier than I make it sound.)

Tangentially fannish topic: A lot of people use bookmarking services such as Del.icio.us, Simpy, or Ma.Gnolia. Apparently Ma.Gnolia.com had an outage that resulted in data loss. [info]elke_tanzer posted a collection of links describing ways to export/backup your Del.icio.us bookmarks, and some places where Ma.Gnolia users discuss data recovery.
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Issue #83

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[info]the_willow: Fairy Tales & Fables: "But this webcomic hit me all over again with the fact that there's never an explanation of why those created worlds DON'T have PoC. Why am I so hung up on providing an explanation for why my Robin Hood Character or Fairy Godmother isn't white?"

[info]stele3 noticed that some people have problems commenting with OpenID because they need to constantly re-login on IJ, and wrote a quick guide ("Permanent login for OpenID").
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Issue #82

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[info]branchandroot: The charge of action scenes and the flexibility of porn: "And this, it comes to me all over again, is why writing sex is just like writing tennis or swordfights or any other kind of action. All action, in print, has to mean something."

[info]musesfool: what you need to get the job done: "Characters are (fictional) people. Generally, they do not think in finely wrought literary phrases, let alone tired cliches like "the lustrous locks of her ravens-wing hair swung gently as she climbed down the stairs to answer the door."
(Also, she's looking for tips for writing a third person omniscient narrator.)

[info]draconic_voices: SGA (yes, "Whispers" I'm looking at you): "... what bothered me the most was the complete lack of realism in the military interactions. For God's Sake, SG-1 did military (sometimes badly, but usually they managed chain of command &respect for superior officers pretty well) for 10 years, shouldn't SGA be able to at least manage that."

[info]babydraco wrote a series of meta posts about The Chronicles of Narnia, comparing the movies with the BBC series (here and here), and general thoughts on the fandom / participation therein.

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Issue #81

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[info]andreth_47: untitled post: "Is that what you mean when you all talk about your "muse"? That person who's doing the writing, because if it's not you, then who the hell is it?"

[Queer as Folk, detailed episode discussion, i.e. spoilers] [info]xie_xie_xie: The great 513 debate: "Nothing I said here may apply to your reasons for loving or hating 513. But I think there ARE reasons why we do either, or even why we're ambivalent about it, and sometimes examining those reasons instead of just reacting emotionally can reveal new perspectives that we'd have otherwise missed."

[info]blktauna: untitled post: "I think I'm missing what the consensus of misogyny is. Is it the dislike of _all_ female characters? Is it dislike solely because they're female? Can you not like them because they are crap characters or do you have to like them just because they're female?"

[info]elfwreck: Bring on the political RPF: "So... anyone know any good RPF/RPS sites for political figures? About pundits? Anything that explores minor character traits, or takes promises to their extremes, or makes a plausible case for how they'd act in weird emergencies?"
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Issue #80

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Meta (with polls)

[info]yourlibrarian: What is RPF anyway? About different strains of Real People Fiction and whether it is actually fanfic. Closes with an RPF opinion poll.

[info]loqia: Porn for the Rest of Us: "People admitting that they "skim sex scenes" in fics is surprisingly common. Hell, I do it too; especially if it's getting in the way of some other type of porn. Identity Porn is one of my favourites, but it's only one of many ..."

[info]carodee: Who you are is how you write: "I can see that my writing has real flaws; I also have strengths that I lean on a lot to cover the flaws. The not so strange thing is that I can see how my writing style is completely shaped by the way I walk through life."

[info]xie_xie_xie: Please close the canon on your way out: "I love taking the whole, closed, completed work and then drawing strands out of it [...] I simply can't imagine feeling that way about a story that's still being written."

[info]celandineb: Writing and reading chaptered fics: "One of the things about fanfic (besides the fact that we're all playing in someone else's sandbox) is that longer stories are frequently posted serially, either as each part is written or after the whole is complete (especially if it's really long). There are pluses and minuses to this, both from the reader's and writer's perspective." Also has a poll on reading/writing preferences.
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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 #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 #71

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InsaneJournal

There've been some discussions on [info]ideas worth mentioning. [info]viridescence asked for a way to better organize and edit userpics, e.g. by implementing a tagging system. [info]15 discusses the need for a paid support staff and if/how this could be managed.

Meta

[info]cluegirl: Oh, now that's just sad...: "I've just figured out something rather awful; fanfic has spoiled me for 'real' books."

[info]tigresslilly: Fanfiction Post: "Question: Does anyone else find that they are reading R, NC-17, X, or whatever adult rating for fanfiction porn reasons and then skipping the porn? [...] And as long as I'm unleashing my fanfiction secrets, anyone else read so much fanfiction that they can't keep the canon straight anymore?"

[info]the_rck wrote three (untitled) entries with thoughts on fic writing: about inspiration (be it taken from canon or the fic of others), narrative kinks, and what you need to get the feeling you can write fic for a specific fandom.

[info]opengoal posted on Mpreg, its appeal and possible precedents (or lack thereof).

[info]torino10154 has questions about threesomes in fic (the given examples are from Harry Potter, but the questions are more general).

[info]stewardess comments on the upcoming Dreamwidth Studios, based on the LiveJournal Open Source codebase, in Dreamwidth: Not The Answer For Me.

[Supernatural] [info]yourlibrarian wrote about supporting characters in SPN and the way they relate(d) to the two main characters.

Polls

A while ago, [info]reijamira created a poll to gather information on how people feel about a Supernatural newsletter on IJ. Follow-up poll and discussion of the options so far.

[info]lilithilien's poll on journalling preferences was linked in the previous issue; in this post she discusses the results.
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Issue #67

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[Battlestar Galactica] [info]amilliondays: thoughts on BSG, short version: "I still love it. I still love the women from it. I'll watch it to the end, because ultimately my problems with it aren't enough to dampen my fondness and adoration for the things I love about it, for the addiction it feeds. -- But it's still got problems."

[Smallville] [info]odditycollector: A hero's best archenemies are a study in opposites. That's why Clark fights *Brainiac*.: "But then I realized that the problem was just that I was working from the wrong mental model. I'd tuned in expecting some sort of superhero drama, when really I was watching a comedy. It's a parody about these characters who've been sucked into the orbit of Our Hero Who Has An Important Destiny Trust Us... only Our Hero has the brains of a guinea pig and the characters spend most of their time making sure he doesn't walk around with his underwear on the outside of his pants or something."

[cartoon animation in general / Avatar: The Last Airbender] [info]branchandroot: Avatar pick up, VA musings: "The other thing that trips me up, unfortunately, seems to be endemic to US cartoons, and that’s the voice acting. [...] You know. That problem. The one where you listen and think “s/he’s not acting; s/he’s just reading”.

[info]firefly124: Neat bit of meta, found via [info]a_bees_buzz, and some of my related thoughts on AU's: "As with the examples I gave, sometimes you choose to go with the unrealistic option that most people will buy anyway because that's what will work without bogging things down."

[info]rood: Why I think the FanFictionNetBot is a Bad Idea: "Some of you may have heard of it, some may not. The Fan History Wiki now uses a bot to integrate ff.net user data into their database."

[info]lenija: Retrospektion. Spirale geht nicht zu. ;): "2003 habe ich angefangen, Fanfic zu lesen, doch ich wußte damals noch nicht, daß es eine große Internetgemeinde gibt, die auf allen möglichen Niveaus über ihre geliebten Texte diskutiert und deren Mitglieder sich zu einem großen Teil auch darüber definieren, Teil des Fandoms zu sein."

This week's prompts on [info]metametameta are disability-related (inspired by the Blog Against Disablism Day).

Userpics were temporarily switched off because IJ's slowly getting moved to the new server, but should be back up now. Some icons might have gotten lost in the process, but after the move is completed, it shouldn't happen again, ever. [info]squeaky's cleaning up the ads, too. Busy week.

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Issue #60

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Fannish Meta

[info]nosselinfea: Plagiarism in fandom: "We are on the whole, writers of fanfiction, which in itself stands on shaky ground from a copyright point of view. It takes a brave person to point fingers when you fear that the same fingers can be pointed right back at you for writing stories that rightly belong to JRR Tolkien or JK Rowling etc. We can argue Fair Use til we're blue in the face, but the truth is no-one knows where that line is drawn."

[info]celandineb: Writing Plausible Rare Pairs: "So the question is, then, how does an author make a pairing plausible? I'm going to try to talk in non-fandom-specific terms here, because I think that the two basic aspects I see as necessary, proximity and cause, apply across fandoms when it comes to writing rare pairs."

[Torchwood] [info]andreth_47: TW: Better or Worse When Subtext Becomes Text?: "What happens to slash when, suddenly, it's canon? Where's my delicious subtext gone?"

[Death Note] [info]branchandroot: Death Note: Duology: "You know, I quite liked the first half of the Death Note manga. And I might well have liked the second half if it hadn’t followed the first. My problem with DN is that it’s two stories in very different styles, and those styles don’t go very well together–certainly not in the order they fall."

[SG1 / Stargate: Atlantis] [info]mirabile_dictu: Do not read this post; guaranteed to harsh your SGA squee: "I have a friend who has gently pointed out that SGA is television, and that, as such, I'm expecting too much from it. I say no, I'm not. I'm not wrong to demand more than the shit-flavored pabulum that we're fed each Friday night."

General: [info]mercurychaos wrote a tutorial: OpenID Explained (with screenshots!).

LiveJournal-related

(Note: because there's been so many posts about this, I tried to include mainly the ones that summarise issues and/or collect a lot of links for further reading.)

[info]diachrony: that really wasn't a good move, SUP. (rant on LJ failboating)

Two posts by [info]stewardess: Nostalgia: 6A/SUP's Greatest Fuck-Ups (a timeline) and Six Apart/SUP Erases Porn, Sex... and Fandom (on the change/removal of interests).

[info]rood has a déjà-vu: It's LJ-drama again, surprise, surprise: "Every time I read sentences like "I just renewed my paid account because I believed you last time" or "You have to work on your communication skills!" I just want to tell the poster to shut up already because LJ proved that they won't do that."

And [info]skuf has a poll on general LJ vs. IJ usage.

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Issue #53

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[info]elfwreck: Meta, Race, and Censorship: "I am not important to these issues. And without a compelling reason, I haven't got the energy to submit to getting my hand slapped, over and over, as I try to figure out the dual issues of "what areas in myself could use improvement" and "what public expressions will get me bitched at."

[info]yonmei: "I can't talk about race because I'm white": "So, I'm white, and I figure that while I might say the wrong thing or miss stuff or just get it wrong because I've got 41 years of white privilege behind me, it is still probably better to speak up rather than shut up. Because racism is everyone's problem."

[info]amilliondays: I like:: "It's an acknowledgement, a concession that in a million fucking years I never would have expected, and yeah, I'm fucking grateful. I imagine every one of us is, and we have a right to be, because so few instances of fan outcry are listened to in comics that fans complaining TPTB don't listen to them is the easiest fucking punchline in the world." (Spoilers for Batman #673.)

[info]ciaan: How to write hot and individual sex scenes: "I believe that the three key elements of a hot sex scene are physicality, emotionality, and intensity."

[info]morgandawn: Meta: Vidders - Understanding Both Halves of Your Audience.: "And it would be a vastly over-simplified panel dividing the vidding audience into two "vastly oversimplified and somewhat random but let's just play along" groups: Kinetic Viewers and Narrative Viewers."

Polls / Journaling / Other

[info]letmypidgeonsgo has a poll on your favourite New Who episodes.

[info]brimac13 asks what content is or isn't acceptable in Harry Potter fic.

I've updated the Master List for index/directory asylums.

[info]xie_xie_xie: Why I hate my friends: "I've read a lot of bloggish commentary over the years about the whole "friend" concept on social networking sites. (...) That word carries so much charge that it's pretty much impossible for any of us to use the feed reader without feeling like we're granting or witholding affection or approval."

[info]ree created a blue userstyle for the IJ portal (needs Stylish or to be added to userContent.css for it to work).

There've been reports about a site called Spokeo.com that is designed to find people's content on social networking sites (using their email adresses to do so) and collects them into one handy feed-like format. 36 sites are trawled for content, including journaling sites like LJ and IJ. According to this post by [info]ships_harry, the situation for journal owners isn't that bad unless you search for their URLs directly. But if you still want to reduce your output for feeds, or know more about the issue, see [info]kabal42's or [info]cluegirl's posts here and here, and I've added the instructions on how to opt out for asylums/communities here. This also makes you less "attractive" for content scrapers.

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Issue #49

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

First, a note on asylums:

When Fandom-with-a-capital-F was still relatively* new on IJ (and so was [info]meta_roundup), I often included friending memes or new asylums. Now I feel that Fandom has gained its own momentum, the number of asylum creations has increased greatly, and at this point it would be difficult for me to decide where to draw the line. At the same time, users have tried to come up with their own solutions by creating index asylums and/or master list posts beyond the [info]fandomdirectory or [info]07refugees. (* I say "relatively" because I don't want to imply that before the Strikethrough et al there were no Fandom people at all on IJ.)

So, what I'd like to do in the future: stop promoting asylums individually in the roundup posts, instead create a fixed post with a reference list for available indexes, promotion asylums, and other relevant lists that can help you get an overview as well as getting the word out. A Meta Index, so to speak. (Probably one for tutorials as well, there's still a demand for that because of the influx of newcomers and the slight but important differences between the LJ and IJ code versions.)

Somewhat related; I'm going to create an editor account for [info]meta_roundup, for two reasons: 1. in case it might become too much work for one person and I need co-editors; 2. in case I might have to give up working on the roundups completely -- I want others to be able to update the index lists et cetera after I'm gone. Starting with the next issue, all entries (regular roundups, not news) will be posted with the new editor account.



On with today's Meta:

[info]liz_marcs: You did not just go there...: "Look, I understand that the Organization for Transformative Works (hereafter referred to as the OTW) is a big deal to some people. I've read the various arguments in support of it, and I'm still not horribly impressed. [...] That said, posts like "fanfiction is like gay marriage" is not going to win me over."

[info]the_willow: Is Fusion Only For Cuisine?: "And I've found myself thinking of the experiences I wanted to have in certain rpgs I was a part of. [...] So, was I trying to have Fannish AU Experiences in the wrong venue?"

[info]diyanni: Fan fiction pet peeve #7: "Every relationship story has to end in sex." (Link removed Feb-1st-2009 as the journal has been deleted)

[info]yourlibrarian (in [info]mind_over_meta): The long-haul girl?: "A conversation with shadowscast about her drabble at the LJ site churchofjoss led me to think about religion, Riley and his relationship with Buffy." (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, deals with character development over the course of several Seasons)

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For the people using Hotmail accounts and having their IJ mails blocked: [info]squeaky contacted Microsoft and the issue should be resolved soon.

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Issue #47

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

[info]watersword: why I Joined the OTW, part II: 'A lot of the comments directed at OTW over the last few weeks and months has been over the language in the mission statement (...) which states that media fandom is a "predominantly female community."'

[info]lilithilien: Fanfic, the WGA, and the OTW: A Good Thing: "But I will never forget that moment, driving down a snow-blown country road, when the muse first struck me and I knew that I had a story worth telling...and the words to tell it. And you know, it's all due to fandom."

[info]xie_xie_xie: What's love got to do with it? Everything.: "The New Fangirl agrees that the open ending, while she perhaps wishes it had been slightly different, left us a legacy of imagination that a tidy, bow-wrapped ending could never have inspired. (...) And so the New Fangirl recants her bitter snarky past, and embraces the not-blind but also not-bitter Season Five love." (Queer As Folk)

[info]mirabile_dictu: PEDTM: day fourteen: Captain Obvious: "I'm re-watching Friday's SGA, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think I expect too much from the show and that's why I'm so often disappointed in it. (...) I especially wish the show would genuinely engage the alien."

[info]brimac13 has a poll on what you take into account when choosing a fic to read.

Yahoo and AOL are currently blocking email from IJ's servers. No messages will be lost, though.

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As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments entry. General questions can be asked on the FAQ post. :)
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Issue #46

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
IJ / Asylums / Community-building

[info]greenwitch: Asylum Usage and Habits (poll and discussion) - "[A]sylums here have... not really taken off, and it seems like even asylum creation has dropped (or maybe just outnumbered by the RPGs that seem to be taking over.) So what's the reason? (...) Let's try and figure out what's going, and how we can work on improving the community here."

[info]squeaky announced the purging of old, inactive accounts.

Misc. Fandom Meta

[info]julia_linnea: "Genderswitch" and "Genderplay": What do you think they mean?"

[info]branchandroot: Distribution of labor: "Writing isn’t just having a neat idea, it’s getting a story to coalesce around the idea, complete with transitions and motivations and all the parts that aren’t neat ideas but rather the bones of narrative (...) Given that, I find it a bit surprising that both professional and amateur writers will carry on in equal measure about writing being stolen and ideas being stolen."

Quuer As Folk:

[info]xie_xie_xie: Why they fuck: "I've been thinking about the issue of sex in Brian and Justin fan fiction lately quite a bit ... Of fics that don't just suck totally, there are three broad categories into which I'd put their use of sex scenes ..."

[info]rebeccama: Michael and Ben: "Ben's and Michael's relationship has some real difference from Brian's and Justin's, but that does not make either of the relationships inferior."

Organization of Transformative Works

[info]alchemia: Why I'm not behind the OTW...: "While OTW claims to be inclusive of all, the emphasis has been on the female fanficcers and female vidders, and I wonder where that leaves fandoms that are not predominantly female, and fans that are men, transmen, queergendered, etc., or that enjoy fandom through other avenues, such as fanfilms, re-enactments, cosplay, etc."

Posts for the "Why I Joined The OTW" Week:

[info]bethbethbeth's entry: "Helping to make things better fannishly - even helping to make a single story better - felt great (...) how could I not want to help?"

[info]mirabile_dictu's entry: "I want those opportunities available to everyone possible: to girls of thirteen and women in their eighties, and I don't want them to have to pay for it except with time and energy and love. The world needs safe places for freaks, and fandom can -- no, fandom should! -- be one."

[info]watersword's entry: "OTW's message of pride -- pride in fannishness, pride in the female space that fandom is, pride in the skill it takes us to be fans (meta is hard, y'all, and fiction is harder, I can't even begin to imagine how hard vidding is) -- is one that resonates deeply with me."

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As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments entry. General questions can be asked on the FAQ post. :)
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Issue #40

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

[info]shadowvalkyrie: Yuletide Countdown: 3 Days - Panic Time!: "Is it just me or does anybody else always get weird when they're almost done writing a story?"

[info]musesfool: with a few red lights and a few old beds: "I've been thinking about porn lately, or, I should say, sex in fiction, and in fanfiction especially, and why it often doesn't work for me."

[info]rebeccama posted a poll: Fandom is...

[info]zulu: Hi fandom I love you.: "... I love it all the time and there are lots of reasons. But today I love fandom for something that has grown with me all my life, and that's simply my love of storytelling."

[info]morgandawn expands on her earlier post about Read Only vs. Read Write culture (fans being members of the latter).

[info]aristoboule wrote a post with notes and comparisons of the "LJ clones" out there.

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As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments entry. General questions can be asked on the FAQ post. :)
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup
[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

Issue #32

[info]das_dingsi
[info]meta_roundup

[info]rubyfruit_pixie: Retconning and Fanfiction: "Is there some rule governing fanfiction that says you can't retcon your fic?"

[info]werewindle: PP rant: "You know one thing I really hate about fandom is people that feel the need to piss on someone else's fantasy. (...) Fiction is not the real world!"

Also, the [info]lupin_snape meta month is drawing to a close. Some of the essays are closely tied to fics or the pairing (e.g. character studies), others are about general fannish things (e.g. the beta-reading process). The link goes to the asylum tag for November 2007 Meta Month.

As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments entry. General questions can be asked on the FAQ post. :)