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21st November 2010

inalasahl7:43pm: Sunday, November 21, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] elf: Yuletide changes - YT is facing a choice: change or die. The mods can't run it the way it used to run; those methods barely worked with 500 participants and would utterly collapse with nearly two thousand. Exactly what needs to change, and what could be done with new shiny code and faster servers, has yet to be figured out. -

  • [info]hollow_echos: Portrayal of gay characters in media and fan response - But I can’t help but be more critical than that and I question whether the fandom should be a little bit more critical too. We have shows that use stock gay characters and reinforce all of the stereotypes instead of waging combat against them. In the fandom there is heavy criticism leveled against fics that endorse gay stereotypes and I think that the shows should be held to the same standard. The writers here cannot use the excuse that they are poor writers, if they are putting out a commercial show that is regularly consumed, they know how to write. I just want them to write more three dimensional gay characters in a way that pays them the respect they deserve. -
    (tags: media glee fandom)

  • [info]dexfarkin: Writer's Block: Speak and spell - Wait, the question is no longer about your willingness to abuse your bureaucratic authority in order to commit sexual assault on potentially underage students? Gosh, but they were getting so many interesting answers from fans who just love the idea of getting to molest unwilling people for their own pleasure. -

  • [info]technophobia: Writer's Block: What's under Snape's cape? - Actually, I find this question really creepy, but moreso the answers from various folks who are saying they'd pat down X character "to cop a feel". Considering the stories coming out of the whole TSA security upgrade in terms of scanners/pat downs, where people are feeling they're being sexually assaulted -

fairestcat12:29pm: Saturday, November 20, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] ranrata: It Should Be Said, Un-Anon: I Smell Bullshit - Forgive me for being a little deeply suspicious of anyone who goes on and on about the need for diversity, but makes excuses to not watch shows that actually are diverse. From looking at their favorite programming, it's very clear they're not interested in anything not centered around white men. -

  • [info]ivanolix: Standards for gender equity in TV shows - I'd like to frame this topic more as what we should have instead of what we don't. And how there isn't one good way to do it, and how there are lots of sneaky ways that gender equity escapes even an observant fan's notice. -

  • [info]lyssie: [in girlwank] I can't decide if this is meta or a rant... - But, basically, there's been comments in fandom_secrets and other places that generally boil down to:No one writes the femslash I want to read.Which is all well and good, but--look. What does that even mean? -
    (tags: femslash)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] anatsuno: More podfic talk - sorry, no cut for this :) - I thought I'd lay out some elements of a strategy to both get more feedback - enabling listeners of yours if you're a podfic artist - note that this is a fumbling start, as most of these ideas will be things I have not yet implemented - and to give more feedback if you are, like me, a podfic listener. :)) -

  • [info]jalendavi_lady: Writer's Block: Speak and spell - Really, LJ. Way to fail. I seem to recall a little incident a few years back that involved me having to get text message updates as to whether or not I still had a fanfiction journal or not because I didn't have Internet the week a little thing called STRIKETHROUGH happened. -

  • [info]deathpixie: Writer's Block: What's under Snape's cape? - Actually, I find this question really creepy, but moreso the answers from various folks who are saying they'd pat down X character "to cop a feel". Considering the stories coming out of the whole TSA security upgrade in terms of scanners/pat downs, where people are feeling they're being sexually assaulted (and, in legal terms, it is assault in many cases where there has been inadequate warning), it's really an inappropriate question, and pretty much trivialises and ignores the legitimate concerns people have with the TSA's new regime. -

18th November 2010

fairestcat11:36pm: Thursday, November 18, 2010
  • [info]alias_sqbr: The difference in attitudes to fanart and fanfic - Some major differences that jump out at me:a) A lot of successful artists openly draw fanart as fanart, but few successful writers will openly share their fanfic unless they call it a "postmodern pastiche" or something.b) It's considered more acceptable to show creators fanart of their work than fanfic. (b) There are many examples of fanartists being hired as commercial artists based on their fanart, but I don't know of anyone getting a writing gig directly via fanfic (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised, I know people have gone from fanfic to official spin off novels) c) Lots of fanartists openly sell fanart and do fanart commissions of copyrighted works, while selling fanfic is usually considered unethical and dangerous. (Opinions on the legality of both differ wildly, I'm not sure of any consensus in either case) -
    (tags: fanfic fanart)

  • [info]hollow_echos: Laying the Line - In the establishment of these niches, you do get an interesting quandary, and that is what a comm organizer permits to be posted to a comm focusing on het, gen, or slash fics (yaoi/yuri for the anime folks. For non-anime folks, yaoi=male/male pairing, yuri=female/female). I actually wanted to get at least some idea of what types of policies were actually out there, so last night I did a few hours of combing through various fandom het, get, and slash communities. In all, I looked at the policies of 30 different communities, about equal parts het and slash and then just a handful of gen communities (I couldn’t find that many). In the analysis I’m about to lay out, many different types of fandoms are represented, from video games to popular TV shows, from bandom to anime series. So I basically started combing through all of these different communities looking for any patterns that I saw, and that’s what I’m bringing to you now. -

15th November 2010

acari11:51pm: Monday, November 15, 2010

  • [info]naraht: Yuletide letters and -isms in fiction - This year a lot of people seem to be adding "racism, sexism, transphobia..." to the list of things that they definitely don't want in their Yuletide story. And yet this can actually mean different things to different people. So here are a few different takes on the issue from DYW letters that I've randomly found here on Dreamwidth. -
    (tags: yuletide)

  • [info]nyxelestia: [in fanficrants] Not Everyone Writes For Reviews - Is it seriously hard to believe that some people don't write for the reviews, or care how many they get? Is it really that difficult to understand that some people genuinely enjoy writing for the sake of it? Really? Is is that hard to get that not everyone will hold their fics hostage for review, or that not everyone is intent on getting x-# of reviews or comments? -

13th November 2010

p_zeitgeist5:07pm: Friday, November 12, 2010
On Yuletide )
Not On Yuletide )

12th November 2010

fairestcat3:02am: Thursday, November 11, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] dancing_moon: [fic/anime meta] Rare fandoms != fandoms that ain't living in your neighbourhood - For some reason that completely elludes me, this year, the Yuletide team has decided to only go after what is archived at Archive of Our Own when determining which fandoms are eligible for Yuletide. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] thingswithwings: some "whimpering," or perhaps this is a "rant" - man, every time I talk myself into signing up for yuletide, despite my hesitations and objections, something else happens to make me really really just want to avoid the challenge completely. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] seperis: unpopular fannish opinion: i feel bad about mocking the snapewives - It's like the formula for funny now is batshit (higher level) + bad behavior for me to like, enjoy it in a group-like setting or batshit (higher level) + destructive behavior (in private, I enjoy many kinds of batshit. I feel that is okay). Which in a weird and uncomfortable way comes back to irony; if you aren't being ironic, you're doing it wrong, and Snapewiving was just not ironic, ick. -
    (tags: wank fandom)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] seperis: genre and warnings in professional literature - In general--again with some exceptoins--genre telegraphs concept.Fanfic for the most part has no concept of genre whatsoever; I'm wondering now if that's a reason it's more complicated in fandom. More or less, if you're used to genre giving you some kind of warning by being genre, then fandom's mix and match would confuse the issue. -
    (tags: genre sf warnings)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] jadelennox: Yuletide and small fandoms - Sure, the rules change means that some people can take advantage of Yuletide to request Teen Titans fic, and somebody else will offer to write it, but really, more fool them. They'll be wasting a perfectly good Yuletide request on something which could have been fulfilled by joining jbbs. -

  • [info]jimhines: Reporting Sexual Harassment in SF/F - Last week, I described a conversation I had with several different people at World Fantasy Con about an editor known for sexually harassing women. This generated a lot of discussion. At one point I remarked that someone should put together resources and contact information for anyone who’s been harassed and wanted to report it.A moment later it occurred to me that, “Hey … I’m someone. I could do that.” -

4th November 2010

lovelokest9:44am: Wednesday, Nov 3, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] bossymarmalade: oh hallelujah our problems are solved, we have banana bread - Inception fandom is really, really good at hipster racism, which is tough to point out at the best of times, because we all know it's a joke, right? Racism is totally hilarious if white people make the jokes and are fully aware they're being racist! -



  • godofwine: I promise this is the last thing I have to say on the matter. Pinky swear even. - ]the_moonmoth said she had thought fandom was a safe place. I want fandom to be a safe place, too. But this means not only sensitivity to your position, but also sensitivity in labeling someone else with a term as strong as "racist". -



  • godofwine: It's a beautiful lie. - I think just there are so many readings of my post and the_moonmoth's post indicates that maybe the issue in halflinen's story isn't so clear cut one-way-or-the-other either. I think everyone is entitled to their own interpretation and feelings on the matter. -



  • the_moonmoth: Notes on a scandal - One question floating around seems to be: why should I be allowed to cast a moral judgement on [info]halflinen just because her perception of what is racist and hurtful does not coincide with mine? Quite frankly, my response is: why should I not be allowed? -

    (tags: fanfic racism)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] ratcreature: fannish etiquette question - With the proliferation of Tumblr, what do you do if another fan just reblogs your pictures? -

    (tags: fanart tumblr)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] hradzka: the Bechdel Test: mechanical approaches - If the test itself has a failure, it's that whether something passes or fails it is as far as the discussion usually goes. On those occasions that a conversation does turn to why a work fails the Bechdel Test, there are basically two ways that conversation can go. It can turn into an activist discussion of sexism and society, or it can turn into a discussion of the mechanics of writing. There have been a lot of the former, but there haven't been all that many of the latter. -

    (tags: writing gender)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] pandarus: Vocabulary PSA - I hate seeing sex scenes in fanfic described as "smut", "smex" or indeed "buttsecks". -



  • [dreamwidth.org profile] marina: Because when I promise I deliver - Some things to keep in mind when writing porn -

    (tags: writing fanfic)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] marina: The more things change - I've heard people say they're not sure any of this "fandom activism" has a point, whether it's really having an impact, or if it's just more visible now, for whatever reason, and doesn't really change anything worth changing. This is puzzling to me, because that isn't at all how I feel, and so I submit several points for your consideration: -



  • [dreamwidth.org profile] silver_spotted: [in writingthewall] not a good guy anymore? - Lately, it seems to be a truism that celebrities, or people in the public eye, will do or say offensive things. I think this is one of the worst parts of being in RPF fandom - being unpleasantly surprised by offensive (or otherwise problematic) comments or actions made by the Real People we read/write about. -

    (tags: rpf)


  • shipperx: Fannishness, Gender, Selfishness, and Depression - Sometimes, I think we need to be careful in the ways in which we exhibit gender bias. Sometimes it's cutting a guy extra slack for being 'the man!' Sometimes it's in our being overly willing to see the woman as passive, lacking control, or as helpless and thus less responsible for the that choices she makes. -

    (tags: fandom gender)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] deborah: authorial intent - It just occurred to me that it would be really easy in this day and age to put together a portfolio of online and offline writings by creators to show students how impossible it is to get at authorial intent as any meaningful way of interpreting the text. -



  • [dreamwidth.org profile] rahirah: I've been trying to decide if I want to - What has been running through my head is a meditation on giving characters what they deserve. In some ways, I am all for this, if one considers it in the light of characters' actions having consequences, and it being good storytelling to play those consequences out. But that's not the sense in which most people mean it. It's usually used to mean that a character gets a meet and proper reward or punishment in response to their actions, or to their innate goodness or badness. Often that reward comes in the shape of another character. -

    (tags: writing fanfic)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] niqaeli: wherein your intreprid heroine has Opinions about Art. - the situation makes me teeth itch, on the whole, and I'm unimpressed by Fiction Alley's conduct and reasoning.I, however, am no more impressed with fanfiction being called entertainment and, by implication, something that cannot change people's lives the way education can. -

    (tags: fanfic)


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] nextian: so ... this happened - It recently came to my attention that FictionAlley had submitted itself for a grant in the Pepsi Refresh program. -



25th October 2010

acari10:31pm: Monday, October 25, 2010

  • [info]hollow_echos: Expectations of Privacy in the Fandom - When a fan pays for an experience to meet a celebrity actor/writer/whatever who has created something in fandom that swells them with so much excitement that they cannot help but share that enthusiasm with others, it’s their own business. They have a right to expect that that transaction will be kept private and not smeared across the internet for all to see and for non-fandom participants to gawk at. -
    (tags: cons photos)

23rd October 2010

lovelokest7:02pm: Saturday, October 23, 2010

22nd October 2010

p_zeitgeist8:13pm: Thursday/Friday, October 21-22, 2010
Not About Wiscon or Elizabeth Moon )

On Wiscon and Elizabeth Moon )
</ul>

21st October 2010

fairestcat1:42am: Wednesday, October 20, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] brimtoast: [in podficmeta] Fear of discovery - My opinion, which seems not to be shared by many people, is that voices are not distinct enough for this to be a genuinely scary prospect [...]. I feel like someone could discover my podfic, listen to it, bring it to me saying "IS THIS YOU?" [...] and I could say, "Nope, definitely not me. -
    (tags: podfic)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] axelrod: From what I'm hearing, the WisCon Troika - From what I'm hearing, the WisCon Troika have fumbled the E. Moon thing and it's all a clusterfuck of well-intentioned white feminist liberalism without any action.Third wave feminism: you're doing it wrong. Not that many people actually get it right anyway. Or maybe third wave feminism is all about saying the right things and getting your ally points and shit? -
    (tags: cons feminism)

  • [info]me_ya_ri: Writng Thoughts: Habits of the Mind (Writing Meta-y Post) - Writing is a craft, in my opinion, not an art. -
    (tags: writing)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] pandarus: Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls... - upon reflection what appeals to me about slash is also what appeals to me about crossovers; taking the details of canon and putting a spin on them that makes perfect sense, even if it's not the lens through which canon is intended to be viewed. -
    (tags: slash fanfic)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] paraka: The Fannish Life of a Podficer - Podfic is still a newly popular(ish) thing. A lot of us are still stumbling around trying to decide how this is going to work. The podfic community is talking it out and deciding how we want things but there certainly isn't universal agreement (is there ever? :P). And the problem is, that the podficers and listeners are only 2/3 of the interested parties. -
    (tags: podfic)

  • [info]nihilistic_kid: Monday Quick Notes - my guess is that this digging in of heels would have happened over something else if not Moon, because old orders never go quietly and because there was some underlying level of intergenerational resentment—not necessarily about age, but about some notion of putting in time—between more recent and more experienced members of the so-called "community." -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] laceblade: Process: It sucks - I get weirded out when people say things like "WisCon thinks" or "WisCon says" - what does that even mean? I consider WisCon to be its entire membership, not just the ConCom. Even if it is the ConCom, who could possibly define what the ConCom thinks? I certainly have no idea. -
    (tags: cons)

  • [info]nojojojo: Wiscon: I'm done. - What this incident has exposed is a serious, and possibly fatal, flaw in WisCon itself. The decision to keep a bigot as Guest of Honor -- and the decision to delay or avoid reconsidering that decision -- means that WisCon isn't actually committed to the principles of intersectionality, social justice for all, equality, or respect, which are all ostensibly part and parcel of the modern feminist movement. -

  • [info]karnythia: On Wiscon - She said it, she stood by it. Itis time to hold her accountable. It is not time to engage in yetanother exercise in white privilege and patriarchy by insisting thatthe people she maligned prove their worth to her. Or pay to supporther presence at this event. -

  • [info]godofwine: (I actually said the other day I'd like to find some LJ people who hate me. Um.) - I generally am not someone who ever engages in this kind of LJ debate because I'm usually pretty private about these things, and ok, mostly because I'm sadly too lazy to type out the whole thing. But I'm posting today because I find [info]the_moonmoth's "I am right, and you are wrong to disagree" language deeply problematic (and actually, personally offensive), and my instinct (or rather my fear) is that it's not going to be pointed out because we're so sympathetic to her feelings of outrage and to the issue she raises (whether it's actually applicable or not). -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] lotesse: meta: convergences (reparative reading/stereotypical female characters - the core assumption the chart makes it that if there's a girl on tv, there's got to be something wrong with her. Which is a tremendously unproductive way to think about lingering problems in the portrayal of girls on tv – because it's too easy to shift from ferreting out the things that are wrong with the shows to exposing all the things that are wrong with the girls. -

  • [info]the_moonmoth: I'm torn between rageful flailing and a defeated sigh - I'm mad because this is a blatant example of hipster racism and I kind of thought fandom was more grown up than that these days.I'm mad because she can walk away unaffected, and "agree to disagree" without it ruining her day or having any kind of material effect on her. -
    (tags: racism fanfic)

17th October 2010

lovelokest4:30pm: Sunday, October 17, 2010

16th October 2010

inalasahl8:39pm: Saturday, October 16, 2010

  • thingswithwings: Festivids: Still Awesome - My question for you, the internet: what are your favourite fannish challenges, in terms of how well they're modded? What specifically says "good modding" to you? What's your Platonic ideal of good modding? -

  • sarasvati: The chart of doom. - I wonder, then, if I pass muster as a "strong female character." Let's see. -

  • acrimonyastraea: Meta about That Chart - I think we need to be able to talk about the limitations in the media for fictional women. We need to be able to talk about how even the most interesting and exciting female characters can still be presented in a context that limits them and puts them in boxes that are safe and unchallenging to the status quo. And we need to be able to do this without implying/stating/suggesting that this means we shouldn't like them or that there is nothing good about them. -

  • rivkat: Long review: I'm here because of Kirk and Spock - The relationship between lolcats and Tea Parties is more complex than lolcats being a mere epiphenomenon of the really significant uses of online tools. Shirky identifies a “spectrum” of forms of creation that range from creating personal value to creating civic value, but his conception seems static: each person’s activity emits light at a certain frequency only. -
    (tags: fandom web2.0)

  • [info]egregiouslypink: breaking news: apparently, women cannot win. - But insulting other women (especially as this chart does, based on the 'kind of woman they are' is not feminist. It just isn't, y'all.) wholesale and simply based on being a woman is not okay. When anyone feels the best way to be a feminist is to drag women through the mud rather than empower, I just... have to go bang my face against a wall. Forever. -

  • tielan: How can we write when our tropes are burning?OVERTHINKINGIT: If your female character fits any trope at all, she's not a "strong female character."
    FANDOM: Let's take her out the back and beat the shit out of her!

  • dagas_isa: How to Be a Nuanced Male Character* - In a sea of white male characters, there needs to be something about each particular one that makes them complex and unique individuals worthy of an entire narrative. After all, if there's one thing we've learned from studying female characters, it's that the merest whiff of a stereotype or archetype on them can condemn a character to the pile of uninteresting paper dolls. -

  • [info]araine: I don't have a good "FANDOM JUSTICE SMASH" icon - I think the thing that annoys me the most, is that lovely and neat little line at the top. That rigid line that says "this way to a strong female character, and if you turn, if you make a detour you've messed up". That intimidating and arbitrary little line. -

  • [info]anivad: screw my vow of no-fandom-wank for now - I understood the chart to be a criticism of the way female characters were written in male-dominated industries, which does have much room for improvement, and I thought this was a generally accepted fact: one which I think the chart was just trying to illustrate. -

  • [info]elapses: apparently i have a lot of feelings - What is fulfilling for me is completely different from what is fulfilling for those people!!! I guess I didn't pay enough attention to after school specials as a kid!! But I am trying, and objectively I get to the point where I can say that if tumblr is really better for some people, maybe they should stay there. -
    (tags: fandom tumblr lj)

  • flourish: META: Fans in the Media &amp; Kathy Selden of Singin' in the Rain - Kathy gets to be a grown-up. Kathy, even though she is a fan, is mature and able to understand and think through her own emotions. And damn, does that ever go against the stereotypes of fannishness that still exist in our culture. -

7th October 2010

fairestcat2:32pm: Wednesday, October 6, 2010
  • [info]niennah: A Fandom Question - We all know that fandom can be an acrimonious place. Wank is always happening somewhere. But even more subtle than fanwank are the various pressures and limits placed on each member of fan communities that are as much part of making us members of those communities as the freedoms they allow us. -

  • [info]yourlibrarian: What's in an AU? - But my bigger issue is with the term "AU" because it's used frequently to mean what I consider to be vastly different things. I find the term always has relevance in indicating that the story is somehow non-canon-compliant. However, the ways in which this lack of compliance occurs may relate to settings, life histories, character development, or timeline changes. And in some cases the term is used mostly to distinguish cloaked original fic from canon-inspired stories. -
    (tags: au btvs spn)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] nestra: Your daily moment of BOFQness - What is this new trend I'm seeing of stories labeled "Gen, or slash if you squint"? -
    (tags: fanfic labels)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] telesilla: Uphill. Both ways. In the snow. - So there's a discussion going on about AO3 and comments and also about AO3 and downloading and I realized that my own reaction to both discussions is based very much on my experience and history and my first encounters with online fandom. -
    (tags: ao3 comments)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] kuwdora: Favorite female geek characters in tv/film? - Who are your favorite female geek characters from television and film? -

  • [info]lobelia321: How the media misrepresent us (slash in the press) - We are a broad church, and this somewhat glib explanation of the fandom phenomenon is purposely designed to make us look bizarre. I found it very interesting reading about these two women's stories in particular. What I object to is taking their unique lives and making them representative of a) everybody in slash, and b) making them look weird in the process. -

  • [info]tzikeh: Slash =! sex - Slash is a genre; sex is an act. "Pre-slash" is now employed to mean "before the characters have sex."This is incorrect. -

1st October 2010

p_zeitgeist11:00pm: Friday, October 1, 2010
[info]metafandom is seeking volunteers to join our team. Compilers locate and save links, and may choose to commit to posting the metafandom update one day a week. We are especially seeking volunteers who are familiar with anime, comics or gaming sections of fandom, but volunteers from all sections of fandom are eagerly welcomed. If you think you might be interested in joining us leave a comment on this post or send an email to metafandom@gmail.com.

29th September 2010

fairestcat11:53pm: Wednesday, September 29, 2010
[info]metafandom is seeking volunteers to join our team. Compilers locate and save links, and may choose to commit to posting the metafandom update one day a week. We are especially seeking volunteers who are familiar with anime, comics or gaming sections of fandom, but volunteers from all sections of fandom are eagerly welcomed. If you think you might be interested in joining us leave a comment on this post or send an email to us at metafandom@gmail.com.

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] fulselden: On fanfiction and silence - my point here is that fanfiction has essentially reminded me of the POWER OF THE UNSPOKEN, which is not something that twentieth-century literature left exactly unexplored. In fact, a lot of high falutin literary novels tend to obsess about how it is totes hard to cross the bridge between us, man, with language. How difficult it is for a middle-aged professor to rekindle a marriage when words crumble from the tongue like leaves in Vallambrosa, dude. (Said professor is, of course, generally male). . . .But I’m interested by the way which, at least at an initial glance, this female-dominated literary world is so predicated on playing with putting the silences in a different place. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] stultiloquentia: Fusions - Three years later, this youtube video about the facial features of anime characters shows up on my network and causes an enormous ZOMG moment. It takes an oft-posed question, "Why do anime creators draw so many white characters? Do they hate themselves or something?" and responds, with evidence, "Dumbass, they are not drawing white characters." -
    (tags: fma anime race)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] amalnahurriyeh: META: Redheads Who Could Kill Me: Obvious Kink is Obvious - The connotations we are supposed to have, at least in North America, when we see a redheaded woman seem to rest around the concept of fiestiness. Redheads have attitude, spunk, a particular type of girlish uppityness. They talk back to authority, they argue, they're in your face and brash, just a little bit. In the end, sweet and well-meaning, most likely, but not without a bite.The problem is that none of the women in this essay are anything like that. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] icarus: Riffing off of Auburn's post: AOOO comments - But at this point in time, stories posted on AOOO first receive markedly fewer comments than those posted in LJ first. If the archive is going to be an important portal for fandom, this problem needs to be resolved. -
    (tags: ao3 comments)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] auburn: AO3 comments - Am I the only one who finds it vaguely awkward and off replying to comments at Archive of Our Own. Or replying to replies? It seems like the wrong venue for it, like it's fine to comment, but then if the author replies, what? Do you then reply there and becomes a conversation the way it would on DW or LJ? What is the etiquette there anyway? -
    (tags: ao3 comments)

25th September 2010

p_zeitgeist3:04pm: Thursday/Friday, September 23-24, 2010
  • shweta_narayan: Dissimilation - I started off as one of Elizabeth Moon's ideal minority people, you guys. Since I think most of you had more sense than me, let me lay out what that was like, cause this is what she's demanding other people do so as not to harsh her mellow with our differences -
    (tags: race culture)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] starlady: xxxHOLiC and youkai manga - Under the influence of Michael Dylan Foster's Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Youkai, I realized that xxxHOLiC and several other prominent anime and manga can be classified as youkai manga, and may well be understood as such by Japanese audiences without ever having to label them thus explicitly. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] kaigou: damsel in transition - So what we get is the apparent warrior-woman, trapped in the position of damsel-in-distress (injured, incapacitated, or just plain outranked and unable to contribute to the overall fight), but also consumed by frustration at her position. She invariably rails helplessly against her, well, helplessness, and we're supposed to see this as a fighting spirit, and ignore that basically she was set up to fail. -

  • irisbleufic: Weird personal writing rituals, let me show you them. - Fact: I can't start a story in earnest until I've both mapped out the emotional landscape of the story[...]and, oddly enough, have a title.What are your tics when it comes to starting/producing fan-work? -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] inlovewithnight: fandom and the logic of collective action - The short version: if behavior X is predicted to give a high COMMUNITY benefit, but INDIVIDUALS will benefit more immediately from behavior Y, individuals will tend to choose Y, and assume that someone else will pick up the slack of X and/or that X wasn't really all that important anyway. -

23rd September 2010

fairestcat1:29am: Back from hiatus! - Wednesday, September 23, 2010
Metafandom is back from our unplanned late-summer hiatus. We compilers are slowly crawling out from under the various stresses and commitments that have been devouring us, and posting should resume as normal shortly. This post is a compilation of some missed links dating back several weeks, so some of these posts are older than we usually link to.

As always, metafandom is actively seeking additional compilers to help gather links and post daily updates. We are especially seeking candidates who read widely in comics, anime, or gaming sections of fandom. If you're interested in helping out, you can leave a comment on this post or email us at metafandom@gmail.com


  • [dreamwidth.org profile] elf [in notfic]: Getting Medieval On Your Ass - What were sex toys—especially subtle sex toys—like, before rubber and steel springs? -
    (tags: kink history)

  • [info]enigel: I've just realised why I sometimes keep - I've just realised why I sometimes keep the browser tabs with fics that sound exactly like The Greatest Idea Ever open for days without reading them, while I read immediately those that merely sound like interesting fic.It's because I hate, hate, hate to see a great idea done bad, or even just done in a mediocre way. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] cimorene: Conservation of Expectations, or: auto-adjustment of reading standards in different fandoms - After reading consistently in just one fandom for a while, we start to adjust our expectations to the body of work. In a large, highly active media fandom, we may reject out-of-hand a story which is exactly as well-written as another story that might, being one of the best-written in a smaller fandom, become one of our favorites. -
    (tags: reading)

  • [info]paraka: Fandom's Unwritten Rules - I want to have a general discussion about the "rules" of fandom. -
    (tags: fandom)

  • [info]mithrigil: THE SPARRING LEADS TO SEX: a Manifest - What I want to do in this post is unpack the trope--"The Sparring Leads to Sex"--as a thing unto itself, and also as it relates to my writing and personal preferences. And I'd like to share recommendations for good past and potential applications of this trope. -
    (tags: tropes fanfic)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] happydork: How I can write more of the stories I say I want to read - So far, what I've done has been based around three principles: challenging my own defaults, widening my scope, and shaping fandom. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] nikkiscarlet: A Tale of Two Internets - There really does seem to be a certain degree of polarization happening on the whole of the internet right now, and the LJ problem is a representation of how the "two internets" don't always necessarily mesh well, and how Web 2.0's current reign, while certainly not a BAD thing, isn't necessarily a wholly GOOD thing, either. -
    (tags: web2.0)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] espreite: Hello Fandom. - We need to discuss your annoying habit of opening posts with things like, "Hey Girls!" and generally assuming that all of the people in your fandom are female. Because you see, they're not. And some of them are mighty irritated with this habit. -
    (tags: fandom gender)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] amalthia: Ebook Conversions - Quality Control - this post is for people who are merging fan fiction into a single file, though it is possible some of the tips may help authors who would prefer their fic to retain as much of the original formatting as possible and not lose whole sections of their stories, or lose section breaks when someone else merges their story. -
    (tags: ebooks reading)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] amalthia: PDF Format on portable devices - I don't recommend PDF for anyone reading on portable devices (unless it's been specifically formatted for the screen size of the device you're using). The single file download options I do prefer are HTML or a Word Document. I appreciate all authors that provide either of these with their long stories that are posted to LJ. -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] happydork: Why am I not writing the stories I say I want to read? - I have been doing better over the last couple of years than I did before -- if we sample the last ten, fifteen stories I posted online, it's less bleakly white-men-fucking-white-men -- but there's still a huge disconnect between what I say I want and what I do.I have a few ideas about why, and I wanted to float them, see what you guys thought. -
    (tags: writing)

  • [info]jane_elliot [in epic_rants]: Merlin AUs (and why I don't like the,) - As it's clear that I'm in the very, very, very tiny minority with this opinion, I've been trying to pinpoint exactly why I don't like Merlin AUs. -
    (tags: merlin au reading)

3rd September 2010

p_zeitgeist8:50pm: Friday, September 3, 2010

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] rivkat: Beta request; more on LJ - We should generally structure our institutions to support behavior we like and discourage behavior we don’t. With respect to comments, I think LJ is not following that rule, at least as many of us have understood commenting. -
    (tags: blogging lj)

  • missyjack: a queer and pleasant danger - peek-a-boo - Fandom has changed. LJ fandom has long held the conceit that we were the centre of fandom, or at the least the centre of creative fandom. That is no longer true (if it ever was). As an example LOST was a show where there was much more creative fannish activity happening in the broader blogosphere than here on LJ. And that’s true of many shows esp those deemed not slash worthy like Mad Men or Sons of Anarchy - both shows where my fandom life is off-LJ on media sites and personal blogs. . . .
    The curtain has been pulled back, we can’t keep just keep pretending we're invisible. We need to be proactive in how we run our activities here -

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] inlovewithnight: this is edging perilously close to meta - Yes. I've seen people remark a lot about how much fandom (meaning LJ-based) has slowed down. Well, of course it has: the picspams have moved to Tumblr, the in-the-moment responses and one-off squee are on Twitter. What's still primarily on the journaling sites themselves is the fic, and with AO3 potentially signaling a return to archives (though who knows), maybe that won't be necessary for much longer, either. -

16th August 2010

lovelokest11:43am: Sunday, August 15, 2010

  • hyarrown: [in fanficrants] It's a HOBBY! - Why is it that writing, and especially fanfic writing, is not acceptable as a hobby? -
    (tags: fandom writing)

  • kassrachel: On generous listening - I know that a lot of people roll their eyes at the notion of fandom as a community. I wouldn't dare to claim that fandom is a single community -- which fandom? whose fandom? by whose definitions? oy! -- but my experience of fandom is very much a communal one. In our various corners of fandom we do the things that communities do . . .And, yes, we misunderstand each other and hurt each other. But my hope is that we can listen generously to each other, and maybe in time we can forgive each other too. -

13th August 2010

p_zeitgeist9:40pm: Friday, August 13, 2010
  • [dreamwidth.org profile] whyareyoulikethis: [in fangasmic] [fandom] That Is The Ugliest Effing Storyfinders Post I've Ever Seen - But this entire episode left a horrible taste in everybody's mouth because this isn't just a case of laughing at a ridiculous storyfinders post -- this is tricking people into participating, people who aren't in on the joke, and leveraging their goodwill (and, let's face it, your relative popularity in that fandom) for your own amusement. -
    (tags: sga fandom)

  • [dreamwidth.org profile] vangirl: anti-acta.com - However you feel about piracy, I do think there's one bit of information that especially relevant to fandom: It will make copyright infringement a criminal offense. -

  • cherrybina: The philosophy of squee - Fandom is my happy place. My escape. The little corner of my life where I come to have lots and lots of ridiculous fun and not deal with anything that makes me unhappy. And look, you guys. I get that life is not always sunshine and fuzzy bunnies all the time, but you know what? FANDOM CAN BE. -
    (tags: fandom merlin)

9th August 2010

lovelokest2:36am: Sunday, August 8, 2010
  • davincis-girl: Making Big Bangs Artist Friendly - I am a big bang addict but they are not all made the same when it comes to artist involvement. The way they handle claims, questions, and posting can be very, very different. Some are artist friendly, and some treat artists as sign-making companies rather than volunteers. This is not the wisest policy since it will make artists less likely to sign up, claim more than one piece, or come back the next year. -

8th August 2010

inalasahl7:53am: Saturday, August 8, 2010

6th August 2010

p_zeitgeist11:09pm: Friday, August 6, 2010
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