• ajhalluk: 2005-08-06: When two tribes go to war....: One of the side effects of the recent kerfuffle has been to reignite (or, possibly, to remind some of us that it had never been put out in the first place) the debate on "What is Slash?" and "Why must it be uncanonical?"


• kleenexwoman: 2005-08-05: said the rat-boy to the rat-girl: ...I've started actually keeping a notebook. Because there are things that I can't write on Livejournal, strange as that may seem. It's surprisingly therapeutic, pouring out one's words onto a page where nobody will ever read them or comment on them. It's odd, too, that it helps one to distance oneself from one's own inner feelings, as though one was writing a fiction story instead of a heartfelt confession. I always thought it was the opposite, that writing down something as opposed to keeping it in your head reified it...but not so.


• randomways: 2005-08-04:[untitled]: The debate appears to center on the question of women writing male characterization, especially in the context of slash fiction, though also in more general terms. I won't bother rehashing the two sides ... Instead, I'll take it as a given and proceed on the basic assumption that socialized gender roles are a fact of life regardless of the injustice inherent in them.


• fabu: 2005-08-06: Be excellent to each other. . .: My sense is that fandom is what each of us makes it, although it's larger than any one of us. I can't singlehandledly overhaul a fandom, but my contributions will shape both the content and the tone of participation. Fandoms are constantly growing and evolving based on who's participating at any given moment. For myself, I want to be involved in a fandom that encourages discussion and variety (of participants, of ideas, of stories). I certainly don't want to deliberately or unintentionally encourage a cliquish feel or a dismissive response to some people or stories.


• etrangere: 2005-08-07: Of Fanfics and Roleplaying Games as two sides of the Geek:
  Given how obvious the similarities of the pull for both seem to me, you can imagine I was surprised to see how little the actors of either cross over to the other. ... Why were the two so uninvolved with each others ? Is it a case of 'parallel evolution' ? Are there more truly different than they look to me ? Is it merely a question of male fen vs female fen ?)


• scribbling_elf: 2005-08-06: Fandom and Pairing Domination: But how do you feel when a pairing comes sweeping into fandom and everyone else is writing it, but you just don't get it? Or if *your* ship was THE pairing before, and now it's swept aside, or if you were writing a rare pair that's suddenly mainstream and being deluged with fics that the purists sneer at? Is this trend in all fandoms, or does it require a fandom that is somewhat centralized, not fragmented like HP? And why does hive mind like this happen?


• chazzbanner: 2005-08-06: today.. and meta: I read a discussion on 'yaoi is like blackface, as yaoi is written by women for women and has no intent to describe the lives of gay men.'// The discussion was rather academic and ran in circles. However, I found this in the comments: that rather than comparing yaoi with blackface, it should be compared with drag.


• alchemia: 2005-08-06: Thoughts on the Censoring of Slash: On the most literal level, censoring slash is censoring all that is not part of the hetero-norm. I cannot imagine how I, who am unquestionably queer, could discuss Harry Potter canon, if slash was banned. How can someone who is transsexual/transgender discuss Tonks, who can shape-change at will, or polyjuice potion that can turn the drinker into someone else, without relating to and interpreting the characters and situations from their trans perspective?


• minisinoo: 2005-08-06: Current canon, old canon, non-canon, and fanfic: But it struck me that, really, there are two types of non-canonical stories: those that have been "Jossed" (g) -- put out-of-date by new canon -- and those that were deliberately written outside canon in the first place. I'm curious if: 1) There's any difference in reading habits for most fans between 'old' stories and stories that deliberately ignore canon, and 2) if dissatisfaction has a major impact on the willingness of fans to read old or out-of-date stories (and if there's much difference between fandoms). [POLL]


• dragonscholar: 2005-08-07: Fandom, Popular Culture, Occultism: So I ask you among your pop culture and fandom experiences, where have you seen off-kilter, stereotypical, and just plain wrong ideas about religion, magic, the occult, etc.

Specific Fandom

• pengke_writing: 2005-08-06: Stargate Atlantis's Duet:: Just for the record, people don’t really go around fighting for physical control of the body the way McKay and Cadman did. For one, it kind of makes you look crazy. It’s also not very conducive to getting anything done. Conflict over using the body would be more likely to result in the body standing still as if caught by indecision. They’re new to the sharing the body thing though and it makes for a more visual scene. The same thing applies to them physically talking out loud to each other. [SGA]


• burgundy in eromitlab: 2005-08-06: some musings: I've been reading the Homicide forum at Television Without Pity, and it's gotten me thinking. // Anyone here ever read any Terry Pratchett? In one of his Discworld books, The Fifth Elephant, Sam Vimes, the commander of the city watch, has just had to get rid of a particularly nasty guy (who is, by the way, a werewolf). Vimes does not like killing; he's a policeman, he's supposed to keep the peace, he is not a killer by temperament or training. But some people can only be taken down by being taken out. [Homicide: Life on the Street]


• elspethdixon: 2005-08-06: The Good, The Bad, and the Browncoats: I'm fairly rare among most of my fannish friends in that I'm a longtime fan of both sci-fi and westerns, which gives me a slightly different perspective on Firefly than a viewer who's background is mainly sci-fi. ... You can't truly evaluate the show using the same set of expectations you would for Buffy, or even for the more noir-flavoured Angel, or for most other sci-fi shows. Because at its heart, Firefly isn't truly sci-fi. Firefly is a western [Firefly]


• sidewinder: 2005-07-31: A survey! A survey!: This survey is for any/all RPF readers & writers. It's compelled by some discussions I've seen of late and preparation for a convention panel this fall--where I'd definitely like to have more opinions than my own to draw upon! I have my own answers to these questions which I'll post later, but I'd like to see outside opinions first. [RPF]


• ellen_fremedon: 2005-08-06: A question for new-skool Potterfen.: I know some of you reading this only got into Harry Potter fandom-- in some cases, only read the books-- after OotP. Did reading pre-OotP stories cause you any cognitive dissonance, at first? Did it get easier the more you read? What about WIPs started before OotP? And what about now-- is having to incorporate HBP changing how you feel about pre-OotP stories? [HP]


• inlovewithnight: 2005-08-06: Battlestar Galactica and The RL-Reference Game: Just some pondering on how BSG is topical for current events, but they also throw in so many references from the 1960s.[BSG]

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