General Fandom Meta

calapine - The Origins of Science-Fiction... - I found the reference section for sci-fi. It's not very big, but hey, it's fun. Anyway, in lieu of having actual proper Academic Work to do, I went in search of sci-fi origins.

dragonscholar in fanthropology - Fandom, Tolerance, Racism - Watching the on-again/off-again discussions on the actress playing Cho Chang in the next Harry Potter film, which at times includes racist commentary (to the point where it makes news in articles like here), and having seen some of it online, I began wondering how tolerant fandom really is, in people's experiences.

starstealingirl in fanthropology - Prejudice, Ethics, and Fanfiction. (Also known as: first post) - In dragonscholar's post about fandom and tolerance, I noted a type of prejudice in fandom that I only recently discovered and has shocked me thoroughly: the amount of homophobia extant in slash communities. I am, for example, constantly surprised by the number of slash fics I encounter with disclaimers in which the author writes, "I know homosexuality is wrong... but I like to make the boys (or girls) kiss! *giggle*" And it never ceases to offend me.

lemurgrrrl - What I hate about the "they love each other but they are NOT GAY" argument - A man who sleeps with another man is not unmanly. Nor is he unattractive to women! Perhaps it is the fear of both these things that leads these slashers to refuse to define their heroes as gay. After all, no one wants to make Starsky or Hutch any less heroic, masculine, or attractive than they were. But if they are having sex, they are gay. That is the definition of the word, that's the label. It is what we are stuck with, in this less than perfect world. And there isn't anything wrong with it!

linnaerys - On Pairings - So, what makes a pairing work for you, whether in canon or in fic? And what does an OTP mean to you?

halegirl in fanthropology - Real Person Slash: Seven Distinct Communities - I am working on something for some one research wise and one of the things that came up was that fan fiction history and culture is not linear [...] As the topic is Real Person Fic, the model that I've found was that there are probably seven different distinct communities under that umbrella.

reenka - ~~ the myth of the anti-fanfic - I was just thinking earlier that oddly enough, after my initial indignant 'wtf??!' reaction to the idea that many people felt new canon (both HBP & OoTP) was 'just like another fanfic', I find myself fascinated with the idea. Often enough people seem disappointed that it's not somehow qualitatively different enough from fanfic-- that it's not... inherently superior? That it doesn't, as a piece of writing taken on its own merits, re-establish the hierarchy of canon on top, fanon on the bottom. Suddenly, after years of swimming in the fanon sea, canon is just another fish, albeit a much larger, more puffed-out fish.

celisnebula - Poor taste - Can someone explain to me the reasoning behind communities such as GAFF and Deleterius? Is there such a poor amount of common courtesy out there that people have to take another’s work and hold it up for scorn and ridicule?

mistressmarilyn - In Defense of Mpreg - When so many are writing hurt/comfort, bondage and even death fanfics, why is mpreg so much squickier? And if a reader doesn't like the concept, why not just leave it alone (the choice we all have)? Why make such a big deal out of denigrating the stories and the fans who do love them?



Fandom-Specific Meta

celisnebula - Snape innocent? Please! - All book six does is lead me to believe that Severus Snape is a man who cannot get past certain grudges in his life. I’m not saying that he hasn’t a legitimate complaint against the recently deceased Black, but his actions and reactions towards Harry and Lupin border on obsessive compulsive. It paints a picture of a sad little man, so unhappy with who he is and all of the bad choices he mad that he can’t allow himself to grow beyond that point. He may have a strange honor code, he may be striving to do the right thing, but overall, how he presents himself will always drag him down. [HP]

On Reading/Writing/Creating

alyse - Flail!fic, or Zen and the Art of Kermit on Acid - So. You're generally an easy going reader, right? And you sail through life and fandom generally with an attitude that varies between ooooh, shiny and ooooh, porn. And if a fic doesn't do a great deal for you, you tend to back out and go somewhere where you can say ooooh, shiny and whether you back away depends on how big those potholes are and how hard you hit your ass when you get thrown out of the story, because you are so not a masochist. Except for the times when you are. [...] And then comes that story, and it's not so much that it throws you out of the story but that it throws you to the ground and hits you with baseball bats.

lysrouge - Meta: On Personal Tastes, Writing Styles, and Genres - There's been a lot of talk lately about good versus bad fic in terms of writing styles, genres, and well, anything else you can think of in regards to writing. And we can argue as much as we like about these, except no one will ever "win". See, writing, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. How cliché of me - but its true.

crowie - Vid farr - see vids now it's all about how much of a point of view you can put into it. You're constructing an argument. It's hard to explain but I think most people know what Im talking about. It's all about layers. You have the basic juxtaposition of the music vs. the images, then the narrative context or subtext of the images and what that means when it's all put together and viewed as a whole.

nardasarmy - meta about writing and fandom politics - all horribly pretentious and serious - I think the people that ask for honest constructive criticism take it the hardest when they actually get the real stuff. I think people who ask for concrit find it easier to accept when it's something they deep down agree with. You can use work on your grammar or spelling, or maybe that was a poor choice of phrase are easily swallowed by a seasoned writer - fanfic or real, if they already accept that beta readers/editors are needful but not infallible resources and there is probably something missed in their writing. But when a person's entire style or what they perceive as their value in their writing is criticized, it's far harder to take.

lierdumoa - [untitled] - So, I was thinking about the beat thing. Cutting to the beat. I was thinking. because I'm meeting more and more vidders who micromanage beat. I micromanage everything except beat. By which I mean, vidders who carefully analyze time signature and count out beats and it works for them and I watch their vids and I'm like yay! yay beatwhoring! only I totally don't understand their method.

yhlee - Viddery: cutting to beat, metronymy, patterns and heuristics with screenshots - Anyway, marking every beat--when I watch others' vids I am aware of time signature but I don't expect the vid to be cut in measure(d) fashion; I'm more interesting in its flow, in the narrative, in the use of motion and composition and transitions. (I am working on noticing palette.) I'm killingly aware of it in my own vidding because that's the way I work.

Miscellany

tarie - Canon and Authors who may/may not have seen/read everything available to them - A Poll - Inadvertently some discussion came up on my lj today about fanfic writers who have or have not read/seen all of the canon available for their fandom. And now I'm curious as to how other people feel about this. [Poll]

anno_domino - If shippers had been around 200 years ago - Dear Miss Austen: Congratulations on the success of your book Pride and Prejudice. However, I regret to inform you that, like so many of your fans, I will not be reading any more of your work. The ending of the novel was an unfortunate disappointment.

darkly_cute in fanficrants - Ode to Fanbrats - A bishi is a charrie with a piccie that is pretty/
Taken by a fanbrat to be used in her own ficcie...

fanstudy is looking for volunteers for a study into die-Hard HP fan culture.

slash_meetup is a new community to facilitate real-life fannish gatherings.