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revanchist: Sex & Gender Roles in Modern Video Games [1] - The artists always 'create someone they think is cool' who a 'player can identify with', and that face has always, traditionally, been male. // Not only that, but any attempts to request or advocate for a few, paltry offerings (aka a few screenshots or pieces of concept art) are not met with the open-mindedness one would hope for. -- francescacoppa: [in otw_news] Copyright Office Cites Fan Vids In Recommending New Exemptions - The Register also discussed the timing, characterization, editing, and message of the other vids, concluding that, "frequently when one is engaging in commentary about audiovisual works, it is necessary to use high quality reproductions in order to make one’s point." -
- musesfool: i don't have to fear it - You guys, I don't understand how badfic is bad in exactly the same ways in EVERY SINGLE FANDOM I'VE EVER READ. -
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xtricks: Butt Confidential 2 -- - The butt is actually a pretty cool place. It manages to be both the complicated end of a pretty complicated digestive system and a playground for the human impulse of 'hey, I wonder if that feels good?' -- naraht: Dealing with having caused offense: a poll - It seems to me that I've noticed a difference in how people get advised to deal with having caused offense, depending on whether the offensive work was fiction or non-fiction. -
- petra: Phrases fandom brought to my life - I am working like hell to keep further British invasions from my speech because a silly American girl using "...and all" as an intensifier sounds like a div twonk bloody idiot goofball. Perhaps I should break up with Life on Mars &c., but that seems unlikely...//..I have never done the fully elaborated version, but I have occasionally used "for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture," thank you, Benton Fraser...How about you, reader? -
- seriousfic: [in noscans_daily] Some thoughts on genre - Every so often, someone complains that comic books are dominated by superheroes instead of, say, a comic book about cops or doctors. -
- xtricks: Butt Confidential 1-- - There are some people who can do without lube but they are generally not virgins, either pitching or catching and are also likely to be doing non-lubricated sex as part of a rough sex act, not a tender, string violins and soul-mate love scene. -
metafandom's Journal
Recent Entries
You are viewing 25 entries, 50 into the past.
31st July 2010
25th July 2010
- raven: Red Seas Under Red Skies; and a thought about writing - A little while back gavagai asked me for a bit of fic: Komal/Preeti, from Chak De! India... I opened up a blank document to have a bash at it....and then stopped and thought, huh. The problem - CDI is in Hindi. And for me, fanfiction is about voices - it's about hearing those characters' voices in your head. Sometimes it's about other things, sometimes it's about a plot or a mood or a particular thematic study, but when I sit down to write a fic for someone else at the tip of a hat, it's about seeing if I can evoke the source material for that person.And, well. How to write it? I couldn't write a story about them with them speaking in English. They don't - they're Indian women, they're Hindi speakers. -
- merisunshine36: writing meta: my research process, let me show you it. - research research reeeeeseeearch/Getting It Right. This point delays my writing output to a ridiculous extent. If I'm writing Chekov fic, then I have to know what he eats for breakfast, and what his elementary school looks like, and what kind of pet dog he might have had. If I don't know these things, then I will sit in front of my computer paralyzed by indecision and never write anything, even if those details never actually appear in the story. . . .Am I the only one who thinks about these kind of things? How much research do you do? What sources do you turn to first? If you don't research at all, how do you get your ideas? Do you begin with characters and create a plot around them, or create a plot and squeeze your characters in? Am I doomed forever? -
- crypto: Frameshift - Anon culture in fandom - I've been following the latest anon meme that sprung out of the ViVidCon debates (is there some kind of Fight Club thing where you're not supposed to link to it? or actually name it? I'm going to err on the side of caution here, but let me know if there are standard anon meme rules or norms I should be observing), and it's been pretty fascinating to see the different dynamics of how discussions play out there vs. on LJ/DW. -
19th July 2010
- littlebutfierce: it's okay to ask for what you need* - I think leaving comments for other people on love memes reminds me both that having incredible friends doesn't detract from anything I may do or be, & that it's important to tell the people who are important to you that you appreciate them. -
- kerravonsen: Snape Would Probably Think That Fandom Was Full Of Gryffindors - I would hope that the goal of the OUTRAGE is to prevent FAIL. To change behaviour. Anger is a legitimate reaction to FAIL. When it becomes excessive, however, it not only becomes unreasonable, but it becomes ineffective, indeed counter-productive at the goal of preventing FAIL. -
- elf: Filk vs Fic - Fic is personal, internal; for the most part, you read it alone. You get the zine, click on the link, download the file, and *poof* you have fanfic. Filk is social, or at least external; the words printed on the page (or glowing on the screen) are only the outline--it's not quite filk until it's sung. -
16th July 2010
- busaikko: question for artists and people who like fanart - As an artist, what kind of comments do you appreciate? Do you want commenters to know shading from coloring and the difference between watercolors and oils, for example? Do you mind comments that are all about impact (I.e., "this made me feel chilled and awed"? Something else? -
- gabrielleabelle: I found another OTP (One True Poll)! - 13 questions on this one. Anybody can take it. Even those who don't have an OTP. It's dealing with definitions so answer to the best of your understanding of the term. Also, I use OTP, but OT3s and OT4s are also applicable. :) -
- jaythenerdkid: About Context and Connotation: (yet another) Doctor Who rant. - Within the subset of society that is fandom, these phrases have become sign-systems that denote and connote ideas and concepts that we, as fans, understand. Nobody has to explain that when they say "Doctor", they're referring to the lead character. Everyone knows that, and - and this bit is important - they also know everything that term connotes.Because here's the next big secret: connotation and context are important. And that's how I got into a shipwar. -
- fan_eunice: I keep going over the warnings issue, be - Well, no, I don't want to hurt people but it is neither easy or simple for me. And that undercurrent to the debate, it really does make me feel like something is wrong with me that it isn't. That in saying 'choose not to warn' I'm deliberately and actively telling people (some of whom I care about deeply and/or respect a lot on a personal level, not just a theoretical audience level), well I don't care if you can't watch my vids because I just can't be bothered. -
- amaresu: Not about the current thing in Doctor Who fandom - I started thinking about how I've started using the term monoshipping more and more and why that is. I think a big portion of the reason is that between Doctor Who and Supernatural the term OTP has, to me, come to mean the really extreme shippers. The far end, can't see how you wouldn't ship it, don't want to hear about other ships, shippers. -
- fish_echoAn amazingly long resource post by someone just starting making icons - Okay, icons! Evidently I am making some? . . . So this post is a way for me to collect all that info which I should have methodically gathered and looked through (or at least skimmed before setting parts of it aside for later) before beginning to iconify (which is totally a word because I used it in a sentence . . .) -
12th July 2010
- facetofcathy: And now, I whine about how people just won't do things the way I want them to... - This is likely how a lot of people read fic on LJ (or DW or anywhere else). Lots of them don't have accounts, or don't read logged in and they have the option of format=light or how it comes. How it comes is often really horrible. -
9th July 2010
( General meta )
( On modes of discussion )
( On warnings for fic and for vids, and on accessibility )
( On LJ and adult-content labeling )
( On miscellaneous social justice issues )
8th July 2010
: so morgandawn is way more succinct than i am - Compromise is created on the backs of those who can stand to be the enemies of both sides. They pretty much get screwed, let's not pretend they don't; they do it anyway, God knows why. They're considered traitors to both sides, they're erased from the rhetoric, their feelings and opinions are reviled or patronized or both. They are soundbited, their statements taken from context and used by both sides as proof of x, y, z. They're told to sit down, shut up, they're holding up progress. They're forced to disclose personal information to prove their right to have the conversation. And then they're ignored. - : so the history of warnings 101, i could go for this - Now, we use warnings to make things more inclusive to other fans, but there was a time they were a form of social control, and it could be institutionalized in ways that marginalized. - : Suspension of Disbelief - It’s quite clear to me that there are areas in which writing unrealistically is not only accepted, but the preferred mantra. And there are others where people would like to see more realism. What defines these parameters? When I look in on the stuff, I see a jumbled mess of areas where realism is preferred (character identities, realism in portraying medical conditions/disabilities, etc.) and others where the fantasy dominates and the realism isn’t so important - : Vid warnings: not as easy as it sounds - I generally skip warnings, because I don't want to know what's in vids before I see them. But I spent hours yesterday watching vids specifically with that trigger list in mind, and when I came across Laura's post I wanted to see if it matched my general experience with those vid discs.It didn't, at all, and in fact was so different I sat there blinking, because her warnings also didn't match my memory of her vids. - : An Argument in Favor of Athletics - So you like something weird, right? A TV show you can't stop thinking about, a book that's compelled you to dress like the characters. You obsess a little bit. Maybe you want to be a writer, it's your passion. You want to do it because you need to do it, not for the money, not for the fame. That's one in a million: this is like air. It's what makes you happiest. It's what you wake up for.Meet the female athlete. She's just like you. - : on warning at Vividcon - I keep seeing what seem to me to be assumptions that of course many (or at least several) vids will be marked "no warnings apply," while some vids will have specific warnings and some will have "choose not to warn," and the end result will be that people with triggers will be able to enjoy a large portion of the show. And that just doesn't match my memory of what Premieres is like. - : Loving a phenomenon without loving a text: Twilight - The point is, this is just... well, it's awesome. I've been lucky enough since I hit adulthood to always being geek communities that were close to 50% female. My gaming groups are are usually half women. And yet. And yet we are still consuming our geek cult phenomena written assuming a male audience, and we consume them as geeks do, which is to say with a lot less glitter and girly drinks and slow-motion scenes of jailbait boys taking their shirts off. - : Striptease, Entitlement Kink, and Dominant Narratives - Instead, the question we must ask is: how is the story functioning within the community of its readership? Is it normalizing harmful behaviors, reinforcing damaging stereotypes, &c? The answers to these questions will rely as much on the character(s) of the readership(s) as on the content of the story. - : Adulthood and disability - Don't tell me I am not an adult because my abilities, my priorities, and my life are different to yours. - : data points - Some recent comment threads have me thinking about the intersection of a number of issues: the tone argument, privilege, assumptions of categories, the assumed lines for particular categories and people who don't toe them, and how slippery it all gets when you're talking to pseudonymous and anonymous people on the Internet. -
6th July 2010
4th July 2010
- naraht: On another aspect of making cons welcoming - Older children are definitely not allowed at Vividcon, because of concerns about the adult content of vids, but nursing babies are (or ought to be) rather in a different category. -
- sohotrightnow: Here is the thing about the current and previous year's iterations of the warning debate. - I'm just saying, fandom, there are a lot of times when your solution really does seem to be "get out of fandom altogether and you won't have to worry about it". -
- yasaman: Foreign Territories - The Racebending challenge just reminded that for so long, I didn't even bother to expect or want media with people like me in it. I'm an Afghan girl, born in Germany, naturalized citizen of the United States. There are probably less than 500,000 Afghans in the United States, I barely met any Afghans outside of my family or family friends until college, and I took it for granted that there just aren't many of us. It's sort of a niche identity, y'know? So why should I expect to see people just like me on TV . . . ? But in the past few years, I've realized that any sort of diversity makes me happier with media. That seeing anything other than the white default is a welcome surprise, that if I can't see an Afghan or Middle Eastern girl on the screen/page, at least I can see another immigrant character, another non-European character, another non-white character. It means I can settle into a story more comfortably, because there's room for me in there. -
- pew-pew-pew: Fic No-Nos :( - I thought I'd kindly point a few of these no-nos out for the greater good of humankind because let's face it, most of us are thinking it. -
3rd July 2010
- laurashapiro: On VVC, criticism, and warningsTo return to the subject of the con itself: in order for to make Vividcon accessible and fun for everyone, some things will have to change. Change is upsetting, and it takes work. It's particularly hard for people who have loved VVC for years just the way it is. We feel protective of VVC and of the people who make it happen.
But I want to work for the change, because I believe that my pleasure is not worth more than other people's pain, and because as much as I love Vividcon, I believe that it's possible for it to be better. - astolat: vividcon open policy suggestion - I'm not on the concom myself anymore and this isn't official, so please don't take it as such -- this is just my attempt to create a space to discuss the specific issues facing VVC and anyone who might be attending. -
- gwyn_r: Warning: may contain peanuts - Back in the day, there weren't quite so many fans. There certainly weren't quite so many vids and vidders, and there weren't quite so many cons and places to play vids for a large audience. There was no such thing as online streaming of vids. One of the most well-known and probably the gold standard of vid shows was the Escapade premieres show on Saturday night of the con. That was the setting of the last big warnings brou-ha-ha, the place where the idea of the "overflow" room got started, and the place the whole idea of setting some loose rules of respect got going. -
2nd July 2010
( On stories and writing )
( On warnings, discussion, safety, and who's wrong on the internet )
27th June 2010
- melodiousb: Random RPF thoughts - With a live RPF fandom, there's simultaneously a lot of information, and very little information, and it doesn't come predigested. And that's what I love about it. A live RPF fandom is a constantly changing puzzle. You can figure out what you think someone is like--make the shifting mass of information into a consistent character through fiction--and maybe the picture you've created will make sense, and be workable, but then the real person will do something unexpected. -
- languisity: tattoo it in the clouds above you. - See, I get what you're doing here. You liked the story, you believed in the author's good intentions or you know them personally, and you read it the way that they wanted it to be read. You want to support the author. But you are not the sole voice of the marginalized group you are, however inadvertantly, speaking for. The fact that you're okay with something that some people found hurtful and/or offensive does not trump the fact that other people found that thing hurtful and/or offensive. -
- bookshop: So! RPF. - RPF, just like every other form of fanfiction ever, is not subversive. It is not new. It is not remotely edgy or different or shocking, in and of itself. -
- tinnefoil: thoughts on exotism (in fandom) and white fans of characters of color - I'm not saying that actual exotism as kink is less bad, but it is my impression that it's less frequent or that self-censorship (in fandom) works slightly better there. It seems on a pure number basis the problem of characters of color being excluded or minimalized is actually more frequent than the problem of characters of color being lusted over in a creepy exoticistic way (in fandom I mean, not in rl media). I don't want to minimize the problem of exotism, I really don't, but it seems important to me that while both use upsetting racial stereotypes when describing characters they are still different issues that come from different angle. A write might for example reach into the bag of exotist stereotypes to describe a character they have actual interest in, sexually or characterwise. -
25th June 2010
Compiler's note: The following classifications are by nature imperfect and somewhat imprecise. But, I hope, better than no classification attempt or lj cuts at all.
( General meta )
( On writing, reading, and responsibility )
( Meta on social justice and conflict )
( On Identity )
23rd June 2010
Editors note: I started to split tonight's rather long update into categories, and realized that the current large conversations in fandom are so entertwined, it's impossible to split them easily into tidy groups. The best I can give you is two broad groupings:
( race, disability, privelege, fannish challenges, modes of discourse and related topics - 19 links )
( everything else - 3 links )
20th June 2010
- tejas: Fics and Squicks and the Beauty of Love (Sap Warning Ahead! :-) - I read for a variety of reasons, none of which are dependent on my self-image or my orientation or... or... or... you get the idea. Just because I'm straight, doesn't mean I must enjoy het smut. And by the same token, just because something perfectly harmless in fic squicks me is no reason to expect it to squick me when I stumble on people who enjoy it in real life. -
- princessofgeeks: pondery about H/C - I don't think it's good when these kinds of debates slide over the line into "your kink is wrong and hurtful and maybe even sick". I do NOT want to say that, ever, to a fellow fan. There's a big difference between people's fantasies, especially their sexual fantasies, and what they want to happen in real life, to themselves or to others. -
- reddwarfer: Be thou familar, but by no means vulgar... - The question should not be, why should I say something since I'll offend someone? Or why is everyone so sensitive? Or why bother? It perhaps should be something like: Will this offend someone? Who? Why? Is the potential for offending this particular person/group more or less important than what it is I'm trying to say? Is the risk worth it? Is the offense great or minor? These are all judgment calls. -
- calla: on being silenced - I have trashed story-ideas and deleted un-posted blog-entries because I was scared that they might offend people, yet no matter what I say someone will always be offended just not everyone will voice it. Should I, should we listen to those screaming the loudest? Should I allow my fear of potentially offending someone allow those faceless someones to silence me and force me into some kind of opinionless inner exile? -
- betnoir: You Got Your Kink In My Casefile! - So to read that h/c is less about the h and more about the c? Leaves me at best baffled because I don't see those two things as being on any sort of balance scale. If I have more h, do I get more c? Does less h = less c? At worst, I end up again feeling like my h only serves to fulfill somebody else's c fantasy. -
- ivy-chan: i need a hand to help me lift some kind of hope inside of me - It's because I can't read anything else. It's because every book and every mainstream television show, every movie has been made by this culture, has been soaked in this culture and this time period's flaws: its misogyny, its racism, its heteronormativity and ableism. Its transphobia. Even my favorite shows or stories have it involved. It's because, when I'm finished reading, I get to live in a world in which that poisonous point of view is the norm, is enforced and encouraged. -
- lunabee34: Lorraine's Theory of RPF - I think that most serious RPF writers, especially those in bandom and popslash and sports-related RPF like figure skating, rely really heavily on interviews (both print and televised) and televised appearances. That actually ends up being a lot of "canon" to familiarize oneself with, particularly if you throw in the blogging and Tweeting and other kinds of social networking a lot of these celebrities do. -
19th June 2010
- musesfool: seriously, knock that shit off - when you fuck up that massively, you damn well should get called on it. It's not dogpiling for people to talk about it, and your authorial embarrassment or tears is not more important than the real hurt you've inflicted on people who've been othered or erased by your work. -
- dhobikikutti: Warnings for *isms? - I was thinking about what I would do if people actually did label their fic with "racist tropes" in the same way that they label their fic "dubcon" -
- redsnake05: Difference. Yeah, that. - "Worrying about offending someone" and "Being thoughtful and working to be a better person" - I don't see the difference. If you do the latter, then you'll be a long way on the road to making sure that the former doesn't blow up on you. -
- kaz: the h/c bingo post - Also, seriously? Enough with the "you are saying we're not allowed to write about these things!" I mean, there seems to be a computer issue here - things are turning up on my monitor as "if you write about X, please do your research and try to write it respectfully" and on other people's as "our ninja attack squad is coming for your computer. You will never write about X while we still live!" Funny error, that, I usually just get 404s -
- poisontaster: One Last Rant Before Bedtime - It seems to me that any number of people want to pitch these discussions in legal terms. Looking aside from the glaring logical error that there is no fandom governing body capable of wielding institutional power to stop, prevent or otherwise punish an "offending" person, let's look a little closer at the idea of "law", shall we? -
- wintercreek: everything has changed - "Affirmational fandom is interested in this story; transformative fandom is interested in the meta-story, the ur-story. Affirmational fandom likes Kirk and Spock having gen adventures, likes Holmes and Watson solving gen cases. Transformative fandom says, 'What if Kirk and Spock were Holmes and Watson solving cases?'" -
Also, mostly because I missed my last two days: ( Have some older links. )
18th June 2010
( About hurt/comfort )
( Writing, subject matter, characterization, archiving, et cetera )
( Race, privilege, safety, anger )
- harriet_spy: for my sisters of the Caucasian persuasion - Fandom isn't just those embarrassing people over there who we can quickly separate ourselves from when they make fools of themselves. Fandom. Is. Us. This stuff keeps coming out because it's inside us, it's built into the structures we've been making for years and years: every time we prioritized the love of the pretty white boys over everything else, every time we said we couldn't write a nonwhite character because it was too scary, every time we didn't notice that there weren't nonwhite characters in our shows or nonwhite faces at our gatherings. The ugliness in that J2 story is a reflection of the ugliness in our own hearts. And you know what? Smashing the mirror doesn't make you any prettier -
- medie: I'm sorry, what with the where with the fucking what? - I can't ask myself how someone could do this. We live in a culture where filmmakers can produce racist, misogynistic bullshit and get held up as visionaries. Fandom, surprisingly, is actually a place where racism, homophobia, and misogyny are more visible and more likely to be called out (and generate reaction like this) whereas offline, not so much. It takes more, longer, and is forgotten much more quickly in the 24-hour news cycle. -
- furiosity: idefk - What I do want to comment on is an underlying vibe I have been picking up all over the place in recent months, and particularly during tonight's bout of link-hopping: that frank discussion of various forms of privilege has "ruined fandom". -
- meta_anon_admin: Anonymous Meta - I am interested in discussing how we could create a larger forum for anonymous meta posters. Right now, the people that are posting meta attached to their online personas do so because they are not afraid to put a foot forward and speak their mind. I would argue, though, that this is just a small fraction of our community, and it cannot be representative of everyone who has an opinion on a topic. -
- naraht: Share a public domain book... - From a purely practical point of view I think it would be great if there were more public domain fandoms in Yuletide this year. Being free to remix and retell and transform is a goal that most of us in fandom can get behind. And thanks to sites like Google Books and Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, it's easy to share your beloved fandom with other people. -
- tikiaceae: a little bit more on that subject... - Watch the news. Read about current affairs. You have the internets. Google racism, institutional racism, white privilege and go on from there. Follow metafandom, it's kinda helpful.//And if it seems like the fandom's exploding over something... doesn't that make you curious??? Please indulge your curiosity and click the links. Why not? Who knows, you may learn something. -
- ar: confessions of a frustrated femslasher - Tell me, internets, do you come to a point where you say to yourself, "This woman is really awesome, and I would totally read her kissing other girls! But there is literally only one easily-viable femslash ship, and it doesn't do anything for me! Exclamation points of dismay!" -
- iambickilometer: On participation and the decision not to. - Thing is, I almost always have something to say on the matter, whether it's casting white actors as characters of colour, writing fail stories about trans characters, or people trying once again to revoke the marriage licenses of queer couples in California who got married before Prop 8 passed. All of these things are recent events, all of them piss me off some extent or another, not all of them directly effect me. I don't believe in keeping my mouth shut just because I am not the injured party. But I also give myself permission to keep my opinion to myself sometimes. -
- such_heights: Activism, solidarity, and My Stuff - Here's the thing. Sometimes, there's stuff in fandom that infringes upon My Stuff. My identities, the things that shape my life offline and cause me to experience particular kinds of prejudice and disadvantage. And, you know, having misogyny and ablism and homophobia turn up in the middle of the things I do for fun is less than ideal. So, sometimes I talk about it, in the hope that it makes it less likely to happen again. -
- jazzypom: On Nation Language, Jibberish and Why Both Aren't The Same. - I will also like to expand on an oft overlooked subject when it comes to tropes, racism and fandom on a whole: the concept of nation language and jibberish, and how it is oft overlooked in the wider scheme of things, but just as important. -
- ephemere: Itys - I think what many of these people are missing here is how very vital it is to speak out against racism and other institutions of oppression. And, at the same time, how difficult and painful speaking out can be. I cannot say for certain what other people may have experienced to shape their views thus, but speaking for myself: I have seen first-hand what happens when people remain silent, or when they leash their anger and cannot use it to instigate change, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. -
- bethbethbeth: About Silence... - most of the people I've seen mentioning the silence issue are pointing at themselves. They're not trying to shame anybody. They're saying "I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I don't say something, and so I have to speak," and I get that. But for any of you who are turning that shame outwards in an understandable effort to get more people involved, try to keep in mind that there are a lot of people reading your posts who can't participate, who can't speak out - not this day and not this week and maybe not this year - no matter how much they wish they could. -
16th June 2010
( 19 links behind the cut )
15th June 2010
- noracharles: Two examples of remixes which challenge the original fic - Fellow fan writers: Remixes are wonderful, and having a remix written for one of your fics can be the best, most detailed, most flattering kind of reader interaction ever. But you do not control the way a reader reads your fic with your telepathic mindbeam. You can not control the way a reader reads your fic no matter how carefully chosen your words. No matter how much a reader loves your fic and agrees with its entire premise, you can not stop the reader from living in the world, and therefore seeing your fic in a context. -
- alixtii: Transformative Fandom is My Affirmative Fandom--and Vice Versa. - how often it was put forward that fanficcers were doing what we do out of love, as if that should matter somehow, and how problematic it was, this implication that it'd be right for us to be ashamed of what we do if we did it--when we do it--out of hate or anger or merely mild interest or simply because we can, that it's only because it's being done out of love that what we do is okay. And I really can't begin to describe just how damaging that seems to me, how pernicious I find the notion that really, fanfiction ought to be celebratory. -
- hollow_echos: Our Heritage - When you put something out on the web, it’s not just yours anymore. It’s in the public domain and those words belong to everyone that takes the time to read it. And as far as I am concerned, no one has the right to delete or modify material that has been posted out there for others to read. -
13th June 2010
darthneko: Oh, is it THAT time again? - I don't live in Cardiff, I've never stepped foot in a Tardis and I don't have a cock. I'm all for making things realistic and respectful and I do research until it's coming out my ears, but if we all only wrote exactly what we know the literary world would be a hell of a lot more boring. -damned_colonial: Hurt/comfort and the real world - I worry about people writing these h/c tropes thoughtlessly or without consideration for the real people -- probably people they know -- who have experienced those hurts. A badly-researched, thoughtless, or offensive portrayal of any of those hurts (as inflicted on a fictional character) can actually hurt real life people, perhaps people you care about. -</ul>
11th June 2010
- kaigou: dynamics of fandom, 1 - Meanwhile, of course, reading essays on postmodernism and its clash with feminist theory, and browsing my way through various pseudo-academic (and outright academic) texts on Japanese animation, I kept coming across oblique references to fandom and fan participation. Or, not-so-oblique, if we get into talking about Azuma's arguments. Regardless, this all simmered, and the following illustrated meta-story, or meta-theory, is all that capped off by the discussion on my previous posts over fanfiction and the question of whether fandom has influence on the creative process or whether it's simply a backdrop to what may sometimes be a process independent of any community.
- kaigou: dynamics of fandom, 2 - All that said, the tension remains, because a number of Authors see themselves as displaced, dislodged gods of their created universe, with ungrateful fans busy worshipping false gods. What the Authors don't get is that in the eyes of most fandom members, I'd say, the Authors weren't really much of gods in the first place.
Distance and pre-eminence (and careful cultivation in online/early-Internet Affirmational-style interaction) may have temporarily given that impression, but fans don't worship false gods, because that implies there were ever true gods. If we truly believed there were a 'true' god of any Original Story, would we even be writing fanfiction in the first place? - megwrites: SF and ablism (or: a not-as-such brief thought) - It seems as though when science fiction envisions a better, or at least more advanced, version of humanity it is one without disability, and thus one without disabled people. -
- thingswithwings [in kink_bingo]: The Riches of Embarrassment: Or, Why I Don't Have a Humiliation Squick - Those two types of humiliation, what we might call the intentionally erotic and the unconsciously erotic, or even the consensual and the nonconsensual, get conflated in fandom all the time. And that's a real problem for me, because, see – I have such a squick for nonconsensual embarrassment scenarios that I almost can't deal, but I love to pieces the consensual kink for erotic humiliation. -
- damned_colonial: Affirmational vs Transformational fandom - In the spirit of "I know it when I see it" and Tim O'Reilly's classic What is Web 2.0? post, I offer the following rough guide to some concepts that I associate with the two different approaches to fandom: -
- petra: Redundant vids - Sometimes canon uses a piece of music so well that it would take a heroic effort to do better than it does, and then fans make a vid to that song anyway. -
- dhobikikutti: This also is needed: A Space In Which To Be Angry - Every time I see friends who make locked posts about fic that Others them, that writes appropriatively and ignorantly and dismissively and condescendingly and fetishistically about their identities, I think - there needs to be a space where this can be said. So that, at least, others can learn. -
31st May 2010
- zillah975: Thinking about violence - But it's a fiction that seems to glamorize and romanticize a certain kind of milieu, one I have only an outsider's experience of. [...]I don't know how to reconcile all these things. I don't even know that they need reconciling. -
28th May 2010
- jimhines: Marion Zimmer Bradley vs. Fanfiction - Most writers, both commercial and fanfic, have heard some version of the Marion Zimmer Bradley “cautionary tale” regarding fanfiction. In one version, Bradley was a generous, nurturing author who encouraged fanfiction until a greedy fanfic author tried to sue her, torpedoing a book in the process. In another, Bradley had was preying on helpless fanfic authors, using their ideas to perpetuate her publishing empire.If we’re going to toss this story around every time we talk about fanfiction, it would be nice to have a few facts to go with the fourth-hand accounts, guesswork, and rumors. -
- thefourthvine: [Meta]: The Audience - When I found fan fiction, I realized what I was missing. I missed being part of the audience.I know, I know: you read something, you are obviously part of the audience. But I'm talking about the imaginary audience, the audience in the author's head, the one the book is written for. -