Meta Roundup

anotherslashfan: Mini-Meta-Fest prompt #2: "Mental illness in fandom and/or fanfiction- Are We All Crazy, Or Just A Little Cracked?"

bridgetmkennit started an InsaneJournal-related meme: Follow Wednesday, where you recommend journals and/or asylums on IJ to follow.

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:

• yourlibrarian's In praise of comments, discussing feedback from the perspective of a reader who also likes reading the comments, and with a poll on it
• branchandroot's Machina, pathos and conflict, on disability in anime and the symbolic components of the portrayals
• nekocat's "House, M.D." character meta Amber as a Feminist Icon? (Or: Why Amber is Awesome)
• the_willow's Meta thoughts on usage of the word "pimp" in fandom
• stele3's "Girl" is not an insult

More Recent Meta

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."

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] 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."

[Battlestar Galactica] 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] 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] 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”.

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."

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."

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 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. squeaky's cleaning up the ads, too. Busy week.

brimac13: Random About Fandom: "I'm going to post a list of various things about fandom that I find either annoying or implausible--or both, actually. As a precursor, this list is meant to be funny, not to offend." (Example: "5. Writtn' in accents is annoyin', doncha thahnk?")

entrenous88: the return of fannish glee!: "Maybe we should challenge each other in exchanges -- if this person updates her fic, that person might make a set of icons; if one fan posts thoughts on a show or book she's been vaguely meaning to post for a while, another fan will do a great picspam that will get more people invigorated and excited about a particular aspect of one or more fandoms."

babydraco: untitled post: "I have met some of the darker parts of myself in my fic writing and reading-stuff I’d never have otherwise told people I thought about and found that not only did tons of other people understand, but lots of people thought up stuff that was even darker or scarier or more perverted. And that taught me about my limits too."

dfasgiles (in fandom_love): Bless you.: "I have also noticed that there is absolutely no room in fandom for those of us who have mental disabilities and/or illnesses. We are considered to be the people to ban, rather than the people to put on moderation (even if we ask to be)."

morgandawn: Ode To Vid Shows And Fan-Run Conventions, part one and part two. Deals with con expectations and promises, as well as gender and what is it like to be a woman and a fan of popular culture. Part 2 ends with some general questions: "So why do you all attend fan conventions? What do you want out of your vid shows?"

musesfool: still trying to change this mold: "There's a lot of discussion going on about sisabet and sockkpuppett's SPN vid "Women's Work" (...) In looking at it, I don't think the vid is saying, "This show we love is anti-women," so much as it is saying, "Look at how endemic sexualized violence towards women is in our society - this is our culture, our entertainment - and it's so prevalent that we often don't even notice unless we're hit in the face with it."

yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Becoming a fan: Supernatural: "In fact SPN was hardly ever mentioned in reviews at all. This is where fandom comes in. (...) What did make a difference was the fact that people’s posts about SPN kept reminding me of it, whereas otherwise it would just be another vague name on a TV schedule."

telesilla: art vs child porn and why fandom needs to stand with our artists: "Right now, LJ is home to a pretty vast fannish population. I don't know how the actual fan artists on my flist feel about this, but if I were one of them and LJ/6A said "we're going after art only" I'd fucking bail. (...) And if the fan artists start leaving, fandom is diminished."

diachrony: the latest and greatest: highlights in the "LJ shenanigans show" (a very informative rundown / link roundup on recent events, including the new v-gifts advertising strategy).


If you have a meta post you'd like to see included, leave a comment to this entry, or if you are more comfortable with screened comments, go here.