Metafandom

General Fandom Meta

linaerys - Fandom and Jealousy - I get jealous of good writers. I'd say "who doesn't?" but it seems like a lot of people can merrily appreciate the excellent writers in fandom without ever feeling that touch of envy, that hint of self-pity, that "why can't I be that good?" You people who never feel jealous are awesome. I wish I could be one of you. I'm not.

dragonscholar in fanthropology - Fanfic Focus: Further Anime North Deconstruction - Many people stated a growing dissatisfaction with the state of fanfiction. Too short, too many drabbles, too shallow, too cracky . . . the subject went around in circles until one of our audience put things in perspective, summing up a lot of feelings. // He stated, simply, that he felt too many people were writing to meet some condition - to pander, to do a contest, for a specific subgroup, etc. But not writing to write.

marginaliana in fanthropology - [untitled] - So in dragonscholar's post about epics and expectations in fandom, I mentioned that I thought that there was a lot of the "it's been done" factor motivating writers' decisions not to write epics. But is that really true? So I thought I'd take a poll... [Poll]

dragonscholar in fanthropology - RPGs and Fandom - I've wondered if RPs have an appeal of being both accessible and enjoyable as a social activity. You can create AND connect with friends at the same time, and in real-time, with immediate feedback.

kennahijja - Um, ok, kink, rating and stuff - So my question to you - does a certain sexualised kink (in a certain sexual context) make a fic automatically NC-17 or not.

cereta - How to Win Friends and Influence People. Sorta. - Much as I wanted to roll my eyes at declarations that hate memes finally give non-BNFs a voice or a chance to have an opinion (I was sorely tempted to post: "How to Have an Opinion, by Dr. Lucy. Step One: Post), I do sense a very real frustration at not being heard, at feeling like your views aren't out there, like they're just being ignored, etc. And it's easy to feel that way in a situation as vast as even the smallest of fandoms.

ithiliana - What do you use LJ for? - what do *you* use LJ for? Most people outside (and some of us inside) tend to think of it as a more social kind of thing, perhaps, rather than the official sort of "blog" that gets all the media attention. (Let me say, I don't want to tell anybody how to use LJ or imply any use is superior to any other use!). I'm just interested by how people use it, perhaps in ways nobody ever thought of. I thought of a poll, then figured, why restrict people!

thelastgoodname - On appropriation, again. - Are there no more stories?

bethbethbeth - "The Moral High Ground" or "Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face" - Some days, it seems obvious to me that horrible (horrible' being largely subjective, of course) people, artists included, ought not be supported even if (maybe especially if) the things they?re creating are books/songs/paintings and the like that you would otherwise enjoy. On other days, though, it seems a ridiculous to disregard great art (or even decent art) because its creator is a jerk (sort of the way I wouldn?t refuse life-saving surgery because the person who developed the surgical procedure was an ass). Most days? I just sit around being confused.

nindulgence - Rabbits, Ducks, and the Space Between Gen and Slash - See, I like to play in the space between gen and slash--that subtexty area in which readers (depending on how high their slash goggles are set) can interpret for themselves whether the characters are involved in a deeply-felt friendship or something more. [...] // I think of this kind of story as the fanfic equivalent of the classic Rabbit/Duck illusion, in which the picture is ambiguous enough to be interpreted as either a rabbit or a duck depending on the expectations of the observer--and the thing about the Rabbit/Duck illusion is that the ambiguity is very much the point of the picture: to label it either "Rabbit" or "Duck" would be to make it less complex and interactive by suppressing one interpretation in favour of the other.

On Hate Memes

fairestcat - Some disjointed thoughts on hate memes - I'm always baffled by the way these type of bitch-fests always equate a writer and her entire body of work as if they're some sort of monolithic thing. The artist is not the art. Although they do inform upon each other, of course. It is entirely possible to like the one and hate the other. And each story is an individual and distinct conversation between the writer and the text. And it's entirely reasonable and indeed likely that some of those conversations will fail to connect with every reader.

koimistress - sometimes I'm just too tired to hate - I'm not convinced they are old enough to know better. I can't imagine anyone over the age of 25 writing most of that stuff; and I'm being conservative with 25. // At least, I can imagine, say, a 40-year-old woman sitting down to start a hate meme, but I imagine her as living in filth and squalor with 47 cats and 7 raccoons, and shouting profanities at the Health Department when they take her away to the nice hospital.

cereta - ah, fandom - I think anonymous hate memes are pathetic. Not, actually, because of the hate, because hey: you wanna hate, knock yourself out. Not actually any skin of my nose unless I let it be. I think they're pathetic because of the anonymity, and I'll tell you why: because the only reason for saying something anonymously is because you don't want the fallout of that statement to accrue to your identity, and more precisely, because you don't want people to know what you think.

commodorified - I never have to post meta again, I can just keep quoting Stephen Fry - The most ASTONISHING thing about fandom, really, is its wide-eyed willingness to believe that there's not enough verbal brutality in the world, that anonymous loathing and the scribbling of dirty slurs upon walls in the dark of the night is such a rare and fragile thing that it needs regular encouragement and the provision of special new venues lest it die out.

elynross - Hating haters who hate! - That's one of the things that make the hate memes funny to me: the unspoken misconceptions embedded in so much of it. The idea that if these writers that people hate, or the types of stories they hate, or the too short/too long/wrong pairing/too angsty/too cracky/too whatever fiction were to disappear, people would then write more of whatever these addlepated twits do want.

storydivagirl - oh fandom - I'm not saying you have to like everyone you come into contact with in fandom, but jesus, would you behave this way in public? I doubt it. You'd ignore the person in question, go about your life, and write about their evil ways in your emo journal. You wouldn't gather a group of people around a megaphone and shout out, "I hate blah,blah,blah today..."

estrella30 - you know what I hate? - I hate fandom. // No, really. I mean, a place where all people from all over the world can meet up and bond over their favorite tv shows and actors and music and movies? Talking through comments and saying hello to friends of friends and meeting that way? Emailing and chatting online and spending hours talking about canon or fanon or meta or the latest episode of your favorite show or promos or ads? Having people who want to do that WITH you? God. How lame.

On the Creative Process

lierdumoa - instarec, musings - But what I didn't realize at the time, and what I couldn't explain to them, was that when I am writing, with no visuals, pouring my whole self into the dialogue, this is not separate from the way I vid. It's not that I have this vidding side of my brain that's visual and this writing side of my brain that's dialogue centric.

dknightshade - MBTI and Fic Reading and Writing Preferences - I’m curious if most writers are a particular type (are we more S’s or N’s, are we mostly hopeless unorganized and flighty P’s or more regimented J’s). Are those differences in creative style really explained by people’s MBTI preferences? I’m curious if people have had a MBTI done and gone ‘Ah-ha! That explains my writing style.’

ca_tharsis_ - [Untitled] - It’s a paradox. Writing stories are fun, but the fun is a LOT of work, and a lot of work is not fun. If you’re like me and you’re greedy for that fun, you take your stories as seriously as you’d take a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, (whether you’re that good or not, just saying. . .), you’re going to have intervals of extreme exhaustion because you’re pushing to get the best from yourself. You’re unfairly demanding that there be no mistakes. “Now, write!” You crack the whip and expect yourself to hop to it. How long could anyone work under such pressure, let alone your creative muse?

Fandom-Specific Meta

snowgrouse - Women, Whodom, Rusty D and the stupidity of the masses - Don't you find it ironic that there's so much soapy stuff in NewWho, meant to reel in the female viewers, but that the most vicious criticism of the stuff comes from female old-skool Whovians?

bellanut - Mal vs Tenth Doctor - Anyway, back when School Reunion aired I had this moment where the Doctor reminded me of Mal. Something about the way they both fail so miserably at keeping the people in their lives at a safe emotional distance. I've been tinkering with this picspam every since, but I really just need to post the damn thing before it gets so big LJ refuses it.

Miscellany

treetracer - Mpreg Poll - [Poll]

allzugern - Poll On Categorizing/Labelling Fanfic -- Open to all Fandoms - A fic in which two adults in a relationship like to role-play that one of them is a child (under the age of consent), is this story considered: Chan // Adult role-play, not chan [Poll]