Meta Roundup

(Note: might contain spoilers, either in the post itself or possibly in comments)

[Gakuen Alice] caithyra: How to groom kids into victim blaming sexists 101 (rant about the recurring themes of victim-blaming and sexual assault as part of 'romance')

[Supernatural] neotoma: What do the Horsemen of Apocalypse drive? and other Supernatural speculations... (what it says on the tin)

[BtVS, SPN] yourlibrarian: The Emotional Bottom (discusses Dean and Spike in terms of characterization and relationships on the show and top/bottom preferences in fic -- might contain spoilers!)

rubyfruit_pixie: An Anti-Redemptionist's Confession: "Or, How I Learned To Give Up The Ghost And Love Getting Our Heroes To Join The Dark Side."

telesilla: It's 5pm somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy!: "Discussion in chat this afternoon about booze and SGA characters led me to think about my personal fanon (which is subject to change depending on the requirements of a fic) about the SGA characters and booze ..." (open for other fandoms in the comments)

brimac13 has a poll on shipping, namely if certain shipping preferences have a negative stigma in fandom.

Older posts I didn't want to leave behind:

The recent prompts on metametameta have been job-related (canon jobs, careers in fanfic, and "going pro") and previously elfwreck discussed in-canon parenting (or the lack thereof), for Trek!verse and Harry Potter in particular.

yourlibrarian: Posting habits and fanfic reading (deals with cross-posting content, IJ as a political choice, and journal readership esp. with meta content)

apotheosis: The place of OEL manga: "I thought this might be of interest to us as American mangaka and the fact that no, I don't see that as a contradiction or taboo to refer to myself as one. [...] I still can't help but see a rather hypocritical double-standard."

Journal News:

InsaneJournal has reached 200,000 accounts in just three months. The site was running slow at times, squeaky adresses the issue here. Also, insanity asks people for their ideas on virtual gifts.

rusty_halo made a turorial: How to migrate from LiveJournal to WordPress (and crosspost to InsaneJournal). (Link in the post goes to WordPress, but I'm using this one so people can leave IJ comments.)

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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. :)

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.

helkamaria: Lj-ing vs. blogging: "A couple of weeks ago I set up a Finnish language blog, with my family and RL friends as the intended audience. Unexpectedly, it has illustrated the differences between LJ-ing and more traditional blogging."

thete1: Talking About Race vs. Playing the Race Card: "But, see, what certain people in fandom don't seem to be able to understand is that there's a *difference* between playing the race card and trying to have a discussion about race. The former is all about *ending* discussion, the latter -- well."

akai_senshi: OMG THOUGHTS ON YAOI: "I am simply going to consider some possibilities as to its popularity [...] Also, I will point out some inconsistencies in American girls’ perceptions of yaoi versus real-life gay men and gay male culture that may be of interest."

Also, morgandawn wonders if there are "Supernatural" fandom newsletters that are also covering IJ and JF posts.

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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. :)

mirabile_dictu: PEDTM: day twenty-four: love and the internet: "Shirky closes his talk with, "We have always loved one another. We're human; it's something we're good at." I think that's true. It doesn't mean we're not at times horrible to each other, and it certainly doesn't mean we don't disagree vehemently with each other. But I think it helps explain the existence of fandom."

happier_bunny: Weighing In: "Not everyone is going to like everything and a critical discussion of someone's work DOES NOT translate into a request that it not be written. It also doesn't translate into: I don't like you."

branchandroot: What is ‘in character’?: "But let me simplify it a little and specify more: should one stick with information presented in the anime/manga, which is frequently contradictory; or information presented in guide/info books, which often provides more background detail but may, again, be contradictory; or information pertaining to real life?"

telesilla: so if your characters wrote fanfic... "...what would they write?"

aristoboule created a poll about writing/RPing original characters and/or fandom characters.

sherlock explains how to tweak the new Worksafe site scheme (sidebar) with Firefox and Stylish.

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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. :)

Eta Jan. 22nd: removed one of the posts because the entry is now friendslocked.

elfwreck: Why fanfic?: "This is hard to explain. It's so obvious to us, that it took a comment from bohemianeditor for me to even notice that the question existed, separate from "why do you think it's legal" and "isn't it sleazy to use someone's creation without their permission" and the whacked "what makes you think you're better than the original author?"

branchandroot: Boys get to keep their power; big surprise: "The thing I particularly notice, though, is the gender division. The story the girls are told is that power brings pain and the answer is to get rid of it or, failing that, die. The story the boys are told is that power brings lack of control and the answer is to understand you are not actually that different from those around you." (Anime/Manga)

[German] das_dingsi (in deutschesfandom): Die Suche nach den eigenen Vorlieben: "Was mir aber diesmal wieder extrem aufgefallen war: ich bin außerstande, meine Vorlieben in griffige Worte zu packen, und schon gar nicht in Genres zu denken."

xie_xie_xie: Why I don't "miss" Queer as Folk: "I never saw it on the air; I got it all as one, completed work. [...] And in addition to having this tiny little comprehension gap when people say they "miss" the show, I also feel slightly protective of the show -- like, don't say anything to make it be less because no more episodes are being made."

rebeccama posted three meta essays as part of the Queer As Folk Emmet Celebration Weekend (not the exact title, but unfortunately I lost the link to the initial post): The Relationship between Emmett and Drew, Emmett: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, and Going beyond stereotypes to become partners. (Possible spoilers for all seasons, as it deals with the growth and change of characters.)

Lists, Polls, and Tutorials

brimac13 posted the second part of the Multifandom Fanfiction Poll ("How to choose a fic, cont'd").

persecution wrote a journaling guide about user icons.

envinyatar15 posted a list of Harry-Potter-centric IJ asylums.

[German] majikkuinki erklärt, wie man OpenID benutzt.

Journaling

nosselinfea checked out Scribbld.net's invite code system.

There's some discussion about LJ's and IJ's user stats: LiveJournal is dying. Literally. (by antiaol in 07refugees), and stewardess's InsaneJournal: Growing Like The Dickens. Also, LJ mentions the "Strikethrough 2007" in their news post, which aristoboule (in 07refugees) calls the understatement of the year.

yonmei: Why I'm unlikely to follow up recs for TV shows compared to recs for books: "Following up a book rec - or an author rec - is relatively cheap, and easy. [...] How do you get into shows?"

qem_chibati: [manga] D: that's a hell of a lot of money: "I just would really kind of prefer that people had a bit of patience, or purchased a legit copy in another language and found translation scripts, or even just looked up the scanlations, since legit copies are not available and waited for a reprint."

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. :)