Fandom meta:

twinkledru: Missed the kerfuffle by a bit, but meh. — "See. Here's the deal. Slash itself? Not inherently misogynistic. Not inherently empowering, either, to women or to gays. Slash itself? Not inherently much of anything, really. But the fact is... this is something that does lend itself to misogyny."

cherrysher: Go hard or go home — " It's not therapy, you don't need therapy, it's art. Women suffer this more harshly than men cause we already have hard lives, apparently. So we have to represent lest--lest what? Lest something, there's always a wolf at the door Little Red. Well. To that I say stick it up your sad, wounded flower."

glitter_traces: The slash manifesto (or Y I RITES SLASH) — "For bisexuals slash holds a fascination - in a society which largely ignores bisexuality, the slash world brings the concept of bisexuality to the forefront. This is because to make slash a viable concept writers will often have to write their characters as being bisexual, very often as they are given heterosexual relationships (in the instance of TV series) or it is only heterosexual relationships which are known about (in the case of real persons)."

halegirl: How Fandom is Like No Child Left Behind — "The issues of No Child Left Behind seem to have parallels to fannish structures and demands for well-written or enjoyable fan fiction that a reader can enjoy. .... As fans, we hold authors, archives, and fannish communities responsible for quality issues. Additionally as fen, we create support structure to help with the attainment of better, more, more enjoyable, quality fan fiction."

viva_gloria: Skipping the Slash Programme: Discuss — "I was at an SF convention over Easter. There was one slash / fan-fiction event, but I didn't go. It seemed to be a writing workshop, and it was introduced in the programme as: 'A recent survey of fanfiction writers revealed that, while loads of people write slash, hardly anyone reads it. Is that because it's bad writing? Or because it's just more interesting to fantasise for yourself than others?'"

helenish: smoooth — "From this you may surmise that 'realism' isn't exactly at the top of my list of criteria for fiction I like. Well, it isn't, except when it is, as you may surmise from the irritating list below. I tend to be annoyed when people go on about what just doesn't work for them, because there's an implicit value judgement, and that is why I included the above story, because it shows that clearly I have questionable taste at best."

elishavah: BSG and the deleted scenes — "First off, call me a stickler, but if it hasn't aired, it's not canon. So there could be a revelation on par with finding out that Boomer is a Cylon in those deleted scenes, and it wouldn't count. It gets a little more complicated when a deleted scene (or two) makes its way into the previouslies. That does make it canon, because it has aired. But I have a problem with this kind of maneuver."

dragonscholar: Nonfandom, gender, identity — "In short - is fan culture (and I'm focusing on non-sports "media" fandom, including wrestling, etc.) considered "gendered" by the non-fan part of culture? Is it seen as a "womens" area, a "men's" area, is it subdivided somehow? How accurate do you feel these assessments are?"


Specific fandom meta:

angualupin: Finally, the promised Lee/anger post — "Lee is a very angry person. We know this from the mini, and we can see it's getting worse. But he also has iron control, nicely counterpointed by Kara's lack of control (sometimes; she's often quite controled, we just don't notice because she does visible things like punch Tigh, or sleep with Baltar). And the problem with tight control is that when it slips, it really slips."

fleshdress: Lucius Malfoy/Sirius Black (Harry Potter) — "I think it’s fair to say that there are several popular views of the supposed dynamic between the two characters, but I hope to be able to present an exploration of the most common interpretations in this essay."

aycheb: Give me something big and sharp! — "Long and rambling thoughts about Buffy and weapons. With musicals! And cell phones."


On writing & etc.:

jedi_penguin: Meta: In defense of (deliberate) bad!fic — "No one has ever asked me why I periodically write deliberate bad!fics and I assume it's because people think I'm just strange or insane. And yeah, that's a fair cop, but I maintain that there are several positive aspects to deliberate bad!fics."


Other:

hildigunnur: Smut Poll — "...as someone who read some very sexual explicit stuff at the age of eleven .... , I was wondering when people first came across sexually explicit literature."

fabu: Fun with numbers — "After the recent discussion about marriage in 18th c. England, I was thinking about how often people fail to understand statistics, which results in them either blindly accepting very dubious conclusions or refusing to believe any numeric evidence because 'you can't trust numbers.'"

cereta: Characters' Religious Backgrounds — "Can you name some major characters in tv (or comics, I suppose, but I'm mostly thinking TV at the moment) whose religious background or beliefs we know with any certainty where that background/belief is some denomination of Protestant Christian? Or even just specifically Protestant Christian? And in particular, some mainstream form of Protestant."