Meta Roundup

the_willow: Once We Let 'Those People' Into The Neighbhourhood It Was All Downhill: "And it all boils down in my ears to "The Meta In Fandom Is Moving In Directions I Don't Like." And I cannot even say then those people should instigate the meta they do like to see, because the fact is, fandom and fans are changing (slower than molasses in winter, but still). And the old meta was rather one sided and privileged and exclusionary."

das_dingsi: Yup. With all that talk about Isms and Oppression, Fandom has become soooooo toxic nowadays.: (list) "OPINIONS AND HABITS DINGSI DOES NOT APPROVE OF: ... labeling all discussions of racism, sexism, et al (e.g. Racefail '09) in Fandom as "wank" - yes, because faking one's death to get money or screaming at people who don't share your OTP is totes the same as discussing how racism in Fandom hurts you as a non-white person. AMIRITE?"

torino10154: Canon vs. Fanon vs. OMC/OFC: "How far can you take a character from canon before the character is no longer himself or herself but is in fact an OMC or OFC?"

elfwreck: Comm idea: Kid-friendly fanfic (what it says on the tin -- outlining the basic idea, looking for feedback)

rood: Meine Kritik an Fanfiktion.de, von Rodo, einer enttäuschten Nutzerin.

the_rck wrote an untitled post about entering new fandoms through fic, without knowing the canon, and the downsides to it.

elfwreck wrote about the Fanlore wiki: "I love fanlore, the idea of it, the way it does work in some areas. I just haven't figured out how to be involved with it."

celandineb's Fandom Friday Poll is asking the question of fic length, i.e. how do you define a drabble, and a fic novel?

[Pro Wrestling] mllesatine: meta: I will try and analyse one of my "quilty pleasures" today.

[Coraline (movie)] yayforjae describes "a strange phenomenon in the Coraline fandom - Portraying Wybie as white".

[Supernatural] yourlibrarian: Missing the Music: Song Use in SPN: "I'm sure everyone has favorite songs in the series. I definitely have my own, but I wanted to think about what we're losing when we don't have music, which goes beyond just having a kick soundtrack. So, just for fun, I decided to do a little meta on what the 10 most significant uses of music have been so far."

Posts about Dreamwidth:

telesilla: Because I'm just a cock-eyed optimist; or why I'm going to be paying for Dreamwidth (also deals with JournalFen and InsaneJournal for comparison/background)

branchandroot, in a post titled In which Dreamwidth is not Microsoft, explains the difference between open beta and site launch.

skuf: April Posting Pact Meta Post the Firste: Dreamwidth's Subscribe/Grant Access To and You (thoughts on Dreamwidth's filtering/friending system and wondering how to handle it)

InsaneJournal

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

Meta

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

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?"

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.

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

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

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

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

Polls

A while ago, 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.

lilithilien's poll on journalling preferences was linked in the previous issue; in this post she discusses the results.

First things first: InsaneJournal's ads have been reverted back to using Google text ads only. (announcement)

Now, on to the meta ...

[Spoiler] lenija: Y: The Last Man, über Enden. Potentielle Minispoiler ohne Cut. Weil.: "Früher mochte ich keine offenen Enden, weil ich immer wissen wollte, was weiter passiert. Und daß es nicht aufhört."

das_dingsi: Meandering thoughts on the "watch something else" argument: "Inevitably, someone responds with "well, why are you still watching it? can't be that bad, then, huh?!" or "meh, just watch something else / something better". -- And I get where they're coming from, I just think it's not that simple."

yourlibrarian: SPN Writing in S3: "Some months ago I wrote about what I thought were the best written episodes of S1 and S2, and I thought I'd do the same with S3 now that it's ended. Since we have nearly a third fewer episodes this season I'm going to choose the top 2 instead of top 3 – Mystery Spot by Jeremy Carver and Jus in Bello by Sera Gamble."

musesfool: have you come to raise the dead?: "But I was also thinking about season 3 of Supernatural, and a couple of conversations I've had about it recently, specifically, about the structural and pacing issues, and how Kripke really does remind me of a fanfic writer."

In F-List By Stealth, loqia explains how to bulk import someone's entire f-list into GoogleReader, and talks a little about friending/feed lists in general. (Note: I know that it's mirrored from a blog and says that comments are preferred on the original, but as comments on IJ aren't disabled, I'm listing it here.)


On LiveJournal's updated policy quidelines

bethbethbeth posted the guidelines in her journal, the original post on the lj_policy community is here.

elfwreck ponders whether it's worth "switching back" (or what would be needed to reach that point).

In light of LJ's announcement, lilithilien created a poll on journaling preferences and the factors that would possibly influence one's posting habits.

Fannish Meta

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."

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] 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] 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] 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: 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.)

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

Two posts by 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).

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 skuf has a poll on general LJ vs. IJ usage.

yourlibrarian: Hey, you've got your canon in my fanfic!: "So in the rare cases where it actually does happen, I find it disconcerting to see canon following fic. And I'm not entirely sure I like it." (spoilers for the Buffy comic issue #12)

caithyra (in fanficrants): I would like a moment of silence for Canon... Also, childish=/=sexy: "But maybe it's only me that doesn't find it sexy when the man in the relationship is the strong, smart, wise, powerful, domineering, alpha, saviour one and the woman is the weak, protected, whiny, childish, in denial, beta and not knowing her own feelings and wishes one." (spoilers for Naruto & Inuyasha, as the post deals with character development)

madlodger_007 (in fandom_how_to) has a poll on IP-logging and whether it influences commenting.

On InsaneJournal's code update:
squeaky is asking for your input here, mainly on whether the update should be pushed out asap (with major bug fixes done, but there will be some errors and bug fixing work on the live site) or first finish it completely (which would also include notifications).

Fannish Meta

stele3: Why I Believe Writing Slash Is A Healthy Pasttime: "Reimagining straight characters as gay gives us power. It takes the socially-accepted 'norm' and turns it on its ear, puts it in under our control. It affirms us, makes us less alone."

elfwreck: Anti-Fanfic Bingo, Round 2, part 1 (referring to this post and three of the arguments presented therein)

firefly124: Canon compliance musings: "The post I linked above questions whether people stretch the matter of canon compliance because AU is seen as inferior. Honestly, I think it's more a matter of AU not really telling anybody a whole lot." (Harry-Potter-centric)


InsaneJournal

ardath_rekha took a closer look at IJ's age demographics.

In ideas, there's a discussion about the possibility of automatic age verification for adult-oriented asylums.

asylum_promo is now moderated, so it should be safe to re-friend.

Also, squeaky bought two new servers to deal with the new influx of users.

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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. :)

shusu: unsolicited: "The problem with being a niche producer in fandom is that sometimes the big train chugs past your little alley and shakes the rafters, and then out of the half-dozen lovely people who always come around to shop, there's one who wanders in from nowhere and announces that I should perform like a trained monkey because I am the only person who produces a certain product."

aerynvala: OMFG!: "What the hell is up with the Rating NC-17 or R (just to be safe)?!"

lenija: not nano: "Modern drama-series tend to show every character as not "good" or "evil", but as ambivalent, which is great. But they seem to forget that ambivalent is not the same as having a VERY DARK AND TWISTED hidden personality part. Not everybody has a secret agenda."

babydraco: untitled: "Before calling something OOC, shouldn’t we pause to wonder whether it really is or not? Because a lot of the things we consider “in character” are still based on fanon, it’s just very old, very pervasive fanon."

elfwreck has some thoughts on the newly started fanfiction archive Fictionaire.com.

Misc.

Announcement by squeaky: For permanent InsaneJournal accounts, you can purchase 5.000 userpics.

djin7 needs to know who hosted the very first Gift Fic Fest on (livejournal), or similar.

celandineb has a poll about participation in holiday fic/art exchanges.

yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Identification and the elephant in the room: A Spike/Xander manifesto: "I was having a discussion with someone about why some ships were heavily written and read and others such as Sparmony were practically non-existent which begged an exploration about why Spander became the fourth most popular ship in the Buffyverse."

Also by yourlibrarian: The Weight of the World in WIaWSNB: "What Is and What Should Never Be is likely to be one of the most meta'ed episodes in Supernatural if for no other reason than it'll likely be one of the few where we're so in a character's head. [...] In his commentary to the episode Kripke says that it is SPN's version of Normal Again. Yet in rewatching the Buffy S5 episode, Weight of the World, it strikes me that this is a much closer parallel. I hadn't yet heard someone mention an entirely different motivation for Dean's little head trip – guilt."

telesilla: Some "Adrift" meta: Who Makes the Call and What's In a Name?: "For me--and I suspect for a lot of you out there--the squee is about possibilities rather than proof. Rodney calling John by his first name isn't an invitation issued by TPTB, it's an excuse we can use to gate crash. And I don't know about anyone else, but I've been gate crashing for over 12 years now and I still love these parties."

babydraco: untiltled post: "The only way that fans can successfully form groups powerful enough to take on corporations like Livejournal and Fanlib is to quit trying to please everyone and giving everyone a say." (Note: I can only guess this is about the OTW and comment threads like this one.)

morgandawn is testing Stage6, another vid streaming site.

viridescence: More news about LJ suspending and restoring my account: "I have talked more with LJ Account Payments regarding them suspending my account. This information is relevant to anyone else who disputed their permanent account charge through their bank/credit card."

As usual, you can leave links to meta entries by commenting here or on the screened comments post. :)

skuf has a follow-up poll on the Canon / Fandom question.

greenwitch: Thoughts regarding Holiday Wishes project...: "I'm contemplating the ways running holiday_wishes on IJ might be different from LJ. [...] Basically, I'm wondering if the two communities should have the same structure, or a different structure. IE, should one be for fannish items, and the other be for any items?"

xanister (in qaf_cofeeclub): Define "crack!fic" without a drug reference...: "On my own IJ I was pondering what defines "crack!fic" since it's a term that I'm relatively unfamiliar with. I know that horribly outlandish fics are crack!fics but aside from that I'm kinda lost."

fickle: Convo snippet with Savior.: "The weird thing is, I think that I really like that dynamic. [...] it's not the sort of thing I'd RP, because it's a going-nowhere-downwards-spiral-locked-together relationship that's far from cheerful, but I love reading about it. It's not even about the sex, in those relationships, and maybe that's why it works for me as an asexual. It's about the emotion, and the confusion of it."

luzzu: Because I'm not run off my feet...: "I was browsing through fandom secrets over on LJ on one of my rare meanderings over there. [...] So this is my not really secret version of fandom/not fandom secrets, minus the pictures."

ldybastet: Discussion post 1- unresolved issues in HP: "After all, that is why we have theorised, discussed and ranted, and written fic and meta for so long, no? [...] Is there anything from the previous books that you feel was left unresolved, or cleared up in an unsatisfactory manner?"
(For the discussion rules, please read this post.)

LiveJournal-specific

skuf: LJ news - apparently now with screening/deletion of dissentient comments. Several links, also mentions the new Customize Journal area (which apparently does not support overrides) and the DVD/movie advertising in the news community.

Other

gueneiriol is looking for fan-friendly, affordable web hosts.

Also, IJlogin has now been incorporated into LJlogin, so you can use the same program for both journaling types. The bug that made IJ logged you out when you opened a new window has been fixed.

spacelogic: severe geekery ahoy: "It's the sort of thing I've done all my life, take characters and universes that already exist and play around with them. My sister and twelve-year-old brother, on the other hand, have always made up their own characters and universes. [...] Why do some people have fanficcer minds, while others tend towards the original?"

vain: Do people really outgrow fandom?: "I am and always have been a self-described fic snob, but these days it seems more and more like I discard far more fics two or three paragraphs in than I find good stories that I like, regardless of the fandom. [...] But there's also another possibility I've thought about a lot in recent months: Am I getting too old for fandom? I've thought about this a lot and discussed it with a couple people, but I've never been sure of the answer. Do you think it's even possible?"

skuf created a poll, asking if canon is a part of fandom or not.

elfwreck: LJ moves toward censorship: "The source code is being updated to allow journals to be tagged with "Explicit Adult Content" (which places restrictions on under-18s) or "Adult Concepts" (restrictions on under-14s).[...] My suggestion: Don't set ANY journal to either of these, unless LJ 1. Defines them very specifically, and 2. Requires that journals that fit the defs be marked accordingly."