General Fandom Meta

marag - Why I Like Het and Gen - There were loads of people talking about why they like slash, but nobody ever says why they like gen or het (except in reference to them not being slash). So, I thought I'd give it a shot.

mofic - Identity, Orientation, Behavior and Slash - [In sexual identity] I think there are three distinct concepts that interrelate: sexual orientation, sexual behavior and sexual identity labeling. In writing slash, we're usually dealing with characters who don't have those three modalities lining up so neatly, at least not for all their lives. That's partly because we are working with canon in which our characters are often portrayed in heterosexual relationships. It's partly because what interests a lot of us about slash is exactly that mismatch, the sense that what's seen in public (heterosexual presumption and/or heterosexual behavior) is different from what occurs in the character's head and/or in the character's bed.

ethrosdemon - [Untitled] - We all want to feel superior to others. This gets passed down the line as we feel our perversions are amplified. First we look down on people who write porn. Then we look down on slashers. Then we look down on anime slashers. Then people who write underage fic. Then RPSers. Then furries. So far the worst I got in my bag is Russian pedophile furries (see recent insanity). Until I move to Russia, I won't worry about that one too much.

lizbetann - Intelligent conversation trumps blood boiling any day! - I keep trying to read it but it keeps pissing me off with the implication that if you don't like slash, you are anti-gay and homophobic. [...] I must be homophobic, because I don't like slash. [In response to halegirl's Historical perspective on anti-slash

storydivagirl - can you tell I'm bored - thoughts on RPF penknife wrote up a wonderful breakdown that everyone should read on the whole het/slash debate. And basically, those same sorts of things can apply to the real person fic debate. I don't understand the need for certain writers to put other writers in fandom down for using real people in their stories. Most stories have a summary or a cut-tag and you don't have to click on it if you're not so inclined.

Fandom-Specific Meta

marenfic - [Untitled] - Angel is his team’s Jordan. No matter how he acts, or how his decisions negatively impact other team members, in the end they fall in line and support his right to call the shots. He is your not-quite typical privileged white alpha male—the guy who is the leader because he’s the strongest, and because he has established the most “right” by being destined/supernaturally powerful. [...] Buffy, by contrast, is as equally powerful (more, actually) as Angel and has an equally clear destined calling but her team doesn’t give her the same respect that Angel gets. She is not alpha male—she is female. [Buffy/Angel]

isiscolo - HBP, open vs closed canon, and unforgivable AUs - The good thing about open-canon fandoms is that there is so much unknown about the basic plot arc of those universes - so many obvious questions that call out for fictional exploration. The good thing about closed-canon fandoms is that all the holes that are going to be plugged, have been - the space in between is left for fanfiction writers. The problem is in the transition. A lot of writers build their personal ficverses in their heads with certain elements, and when those elements are contradicted by new canon, the world shifts on its axis, so to speak. [HP]

fabularasa - Now everyone will totally think I copied off the smart girl - What makes Harry Potter the Perfect Storm of Fandom? It’s something I’ve puzzled over for a long time. If you go to a giant fanfiction archive like fanfiction.net, for instance, the sheer amount of HP stuff is staggering: as of this writing, ff.net is at 190,633. Its closest competitor, Lord of the Rings, is at 37,180 – a small fraction of the HP stuff. Star Wars clocks in at 11,977. I mean, good God. Are we suggesting Rowling’s creation is somehow more imaginatively stimulating than Tolkien’s? Doubtful. So what I’ve always wondered is, how come? Why are the best and brightest, the most sophisticated, the cleverest, the most erotic and imaginative online writers clustered around Harry Potter like moths to a porny flame? What happened to create the perfect environment for fanfic to flourish like mildew on the bathroom ceiling of Rowling’s commercial empire? [HP]

__marcelo - Notes For a Comparative Mythology of Bats - The Batman Begins world differs in some interesting (and, in most cases, HOT) ways from comics canon, but nowhere more completely, and in my opinion, more significantly, than in the path that takes the recently orphaned Bruce Wayne into the Bat. While the movie follows canon admirably up to the death of his parents, the story after that becomes different in very interesting, vastly important, ways. [DCU/Batman. Spoilers for Batman Begins]

Reading/Writing/Creating

fairestcat - On Authorial Intent vs. Reader Interpretation - What the reader brings to a story, what the reader sees and interprets and thinks matters and is, in it's own way, part of the story. At the same time, the reader has no supremacy over the author. The reader can happily disagree with the writer's interpretation of their own work or play around with alternate readings of a text, but the reader can no more put words in the author's mouth then the author can put thoughts in the readers' heads. The reader has no supremacy over the author, just as the author has no supremacy over them.

nothingbutfic - Why do we chiefly bother with the obvious (and the trite)? - Often we seem to go for the easy answers; we take canon and we fail to extend it, by preserving certain elements into the future whether that seems strictly realistic or likely. Canon becomes a straight jacket or cage rather than a launching point [...] So while I'm off writing reports and teaching today, please. Do you think we as fandomers (and I don't just mean HP, I've observed it in other fandoms as well) go for the easy answers? Why?

ataniell93 - Bad Fangirls (Bad! Bad!) - Basically, one of the things I don’t get is that assertion that the author has every right to be upset with you, or that you have no business being in a fandom, if you’re a loud critic of that fandom’s canon. [...] Don’t some people understand that if we (by whom I mean Slytherin fans in this particular instance, but also people who get into ship wars and other flamey debates) didn’t love Harry Potter, we wouldn’t care enough to bitch?

daegaer - Writing and reading - I write gen, slash and het. I read gen, slash and het, and am always on the lookout for more that satisfies my reading urges. I want story, lots and lots of story. I want stories in various genres, about friends, about lovers, about history, about war, about politics and cultures, about religion and faith and theology, about women and men and angels and demons and aliens and animals, about the impossible situations life puts on people and the impossible situations people get themselves into, about technology, about personalities and what makes a person tick, about sadness and happiness, about life and death.

Vidding

gwyn_r - Visual vocabularies - In so many cases, in the places we announce vids, we will never hear a peep from the audience that's DLing the vids; some of those folks may simply not care, but a lot of them, I find, don't ever say anything because they're afraid to. That's a very difficult situation to overcome. People can be shy about sending comments to their favorite writers, but it's not because they feel they haven't got the right words to respond with -- it tends to be more of a starstruck thing. In vidding, though, it's not usually shyness, but a sense that by not being a vidder, they are unworthy or incapable of valuable responses. They don't have the right words, they think. They don't know the technical details or the methods used -- but heck, everyone knows what words on paper are.

sdwolfpup - Vid Feedback 101 - This all culminated in my desire to share with you, my flist, what I, as a vidder, think about feedback from the perspective of a non-vidder. And I feel pretty confident that a lot of vidders will agree with me. And will let me know if they don't. ;) [...] My first important point is this: without someone to watch my vids, the value of my vids to fandom ceases to exist. What I mean is, I love vidding. And I'm happy vidding for myself. But I post vids because I want other people to watch them. So those folks in fandom who spend their time "only" watching vids or "only" reading fic, you all are the staple of fandom.

yhlee - Readings + [Vidding] Processing music as structural backbone. (Tried to be nontechnical) - I want to say, after all that, that as with visuals, I don't think you need a huge theoretical/instrumentalist (or vocalist) background to say intelligent stuff about music. Sure, maybe not technical terminology--learning it helps, but the point is communication, I think. I think people generally are really smart about music. [...] It's pervasive; it's something we grow up with. Nursery songs and radios and walkmans and iPods and piano lessons and all.

sisabet - Hate the Song, Like the Vid? - Admittedly, it is... and I am straining to get this across as sensitively as I know how to be, because it isn't as if I do not appreciate every bit of feedback I receive and it isn't as if I am not used to this and already know and accept that I bring most of this upon myself (and I know this as soon as I say "Oh, this song is all about X"). But, yes -- the reaction to something phrased as "I absolutely hate this song but I really liked your vid" can be... it can be off-putting. At first. Then you shake it off and move on with your life because, hey! They liked your vid. But part of you is sad. Yes. Sad.

Miscellany, Polls, etc.

celandineb - Poll on politeness in ficdom/fandom